The Treasury says it will use "extreme discretion" in selecting which banks to rescue. That’s about as reassuring as a cross-my-heart pledge from Bernie Madoff.

The Israeli war in Gaza has been accompanied by an equally powerful PR offensive. Israel has barred reporters from entering the Gaza Strip in defiance of an order issued by their own High Court allowing access. Here in the United States a popular web site run by Ramzy Baroud, Palestinechronicle.com, was hacked into and taken down.

Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report, Danny Schechter the news dissector, and Elinor Tatum Editor in Chief of the New York Amsterdam News on the news of the week.

Luis Carlos Montalvan’s battle as a veteran of the Iraq war is not uncommon. Even so chances are you haven’t heard about it or about the struggles of many vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical care. An estimated 6,000 vets commit suicide very year. 200,000 are homeless. According to the Rand Corporation 300,000 suffer from brain injuries.

The Israeli war in Gaza has been accompanied by an equally powerful PR offensive. Israel has barred reporters from entering the Gaza Strip in defiance of an order issued by their own High Court allowing access. Here in the United States a popular web site run by Ramzy Baroud, Palestinechronicle.com, was hacked into and taken down.

Everyone seems to agree that the United States needs an economic stimulus package. But does it make sense to reboot the same economic thinking that got us into this mess?

As president-elect Barack Obama puts the final touches on his stimulus package and $300 billion tax cut, questions remain as to whether it is the right solution. No one is suggesting a quick fix. Obama himself said recently that the “economy is badly damaged and it is very sick.” Paul Krugman in the New York Times noted that, “this looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second great depression.”

Ramzy Baroud, Editor in Chief of PalestineChronicle.com and the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle and Uri Avnery, a founding member of Gush Shalom and the author of 1948: A Soldier's Tale--The Bloody Road to Jerusalem.

Phyllis Bennis, director of The New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of many books including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.

Haggai Matar, an Israeli refusenik arrested on Friday at a vigil outside of an Israeli air force base from which pilots were leaving to bomb Gaza, says that as a young man he felt he had no choice but to refuse serving in the IDF. He had seen the occupation first hand, the checkpoints, the land seizures, and settlements.