The World Today Just Nuts: "Ellen's Latest Lie" and other comics

That comic posted August 20, 2020 and C.I. noted:

Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Ellen's Latest Lie.'' A woman asks Ellen about her claim that she never would have asked that her employees avert their eyes when she walked by, "But Ellen, for 17 years, your employees avoided making eye contact and you didn't notice?" Ellen shrugs and offers, "I just thought I must have a shirt wiener." Isaiah credits Marcia's "Are you believing Ellen's latest lies?" for inspiring the comic. Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.

I stated doing comics at THE COMMON ILLS in 2005. Originally, I'd d one a week. In 2009, I started this site as an archive. That way if someone needed a Bully Boy Bush comic for a post they were doing, they could come here and find it rather quickly. Otherwise, I'd get asked by Mike or whomever, "Do you remember when you did that comic?" And, no, I usually didn't.

So people would ask C.I. who retty uch always does remember.

It also let COMMON ILLS community members find a comic they'd enjoyed fairly easily and fairly quickly.

So ever week or so, I'd come here and repost a comic. I stopped that about two years ago. Why?

I was afraid I was going to run out. 2017 to 2020 had me doing less comics than ever.

It was a scary time.

The Dem primary in 2020 allowed me to get some humor going again but a lot of times while Trump was president there just wasn't a lot I could do.

It's easier for the community newsletters because I can go R-rated there, for example.

But I did a lot less when Trump was in the White House because it was so depressing and so hard to find a laugh.

And apparently that was noticed:

Welcome to the Political Cartoons Thread! This is where we post, discuss, and mock political cartoons and the cartoonists that make them. A new era has begun, as we say goodbye to President Obama and usher in President Trump's unholy reign. Given that Obama was the president throughout the lifespan of this thread (not counting its nascent years as a Tinsley mock thread), there's no better time to hop on board and get ready for more awful cartoons. More than ever edits and parodies are always welcome in this den of hacks, shills, and has-beens, with weekends being a good opportunity to share any older cartoons you've dug up. Check out your local library for older archives and don't be afraid to share. So familiarize yourself with the thread rules, and dive into what's been called "D&D's worst thread" by critics!

[. . .]

Isaiah - Draws the nonsensical "the world today just nuts" comics, which might look like something an eight-year-old exposed to excessive amounts of Freep would draw, but is actually from an adult human being. Overly relishes in calling Obama gay and having him in suggestive positions. Seems to have stopped drawing “cartoons” in favor of rambling retrospectives on his older work.
A Pack of Crayolas and Fierce Desire to Never Grow Up

No, I didn't do comics about Barack being gay. I did comics about Barack being femme and being a starlet. But if you looked at my Barack output and saw "gay," that's honestly some of your own homophobia, not mine.

Equally true, if you're president, it's my job to make fun of you. Among my many 'targets' over the year -- repeated ones? Bully Boy Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Nance Pelosi, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Little Dicky (the man behind DAILY KOS), Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Lindsey Graham (there would be where the joke is that the real life closet case thinks no one knows he's gay), Barack, Michelle, Valerie Jarrett (I loved her -- she saved the Barack years because by the time the humor was going out, I'd discovered her as character I could inject into any Barack comic and give her a line that was funny), Bernie Sanders, Nouri al-Maliki, Moqtada al-Sadr, Qaddafi, Donald Trump, Maddog Mathis, David Petaraeus, Ryan Crocker, Chris Hill, Brett McGurk, Steve Harvey, Eric Prince, Jimmy Carter, Alberto Gonzalez, Harriet Myers, Clarence Thomas, Lauren Boebert, Tulsi Gabbard, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Jill Stein, Rudy G, Rachel Maddow, Eric Holder, Cher, Warren Beatty, Barbra Streisand, the Supremes, Tina Fey, Amy Goodman, Sarah Palin, Andrew Sullivan, Moms For Bigotry, Sam Seder, Naomi Wolf, David Gregory, Lester Holt, Judge Judy, George Clooney, Dianne Feinstein, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Judith Miller, Liz Wahl, Robin Morgan, Alice Walker, Matthew Rothschild, Susan 'Medea' Benjamin, Liz Wahl, Tony Blair, Chris Christie . . .

I have two favorites. I loved the Celibacy in the City multi-paneled comic I did where Condi, Mary Cheney and Harriet were three gals trying to make it in DC.

That ran October 4, 2005 the first time. January 14, 2007 it ran again and that's when we tried to cut it up to make it easier to load.

And I loved when Al Sharpton declared himself the world's last word on what a comic can and cannot do. That led to this:

From March 2, 2009, that's "Making Dennis the Menace." And the others in the series were.

Rounding up Lucy

Domestic Arts Czar

Al Distraction

And . . .

From March 3, 2009, "Shutting Down the Domestic Arts Czar."

An 8-year-old? I'm sure that was intended as an insult. No, a fan of MAD MAGAZINE. And 'freep'? Not sure what that is. Think it's a Republican thing. I know it's a White thing.

I like being a Black comic strip creator. I think it's given me a different view. And comics are for kids -- even grown up kids like adults -- so if you think it looks like an 8-year-old, that's fine with me.

But I've used crayons. Almost every comic I've done -- over 85% (if not more) are Staedtler's Watercolor Pencils.

They did get it right that it appeared I was doing less comics after 2016.

And that was the reason I stopped archiving here. Now I've done over 24 comics this year for THE COMMON ILLS website. Over 24? There are 24 at Trina's flicker page. I found the write up about me because I was trying to find where the other FLICKR page is. I think it's THE COMMON ILLS. I did a GOOGLE image search for "The World Today Just Nuts" and found that write up. But I didn't find the other FLICKR page for this year's comics.

So anyway, I've done about five hundred comics at THE COMMON ILLS in the last 19 years. There are some good ones, there are some lousy ones. But these political cartoons. So lousy's okay. I didn't always get that. And I would fear writers block. But for the last two years, I've been doing joint posts:

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S MEGA DUB & THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS & THE COMMON ILLS -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

So when it's a groaner or just nut funny? I'll always feel the need to try to think a new idea. Wally's attitude is; We're making a political point and we're trying to be funny but sometimes the joke just doesn't pan out and that's okay because it may make someone think about it more -- as in, "Oh, that one bombed. But I get what had them bothered about that policy proposal or that policital move or . . . "

Anyway. The whole point of THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS was to give C.I. and THE COMMON ILLS some visuals. No one was doing comics at the BLOGGER/BLOGSPOT sites. Or at KOS or any of the others, not original comics. So that was the point of it.

Guess what? I didn't plan to write any of that. I started with the Ellen comic -- picking up from where I was when I last posted a comic here two years ago -- and was going to talk about how thin skinned she is, how when the world found out she wasn't the Queen of Nice, she has to have a hissy and announce her retirement. Anyway.

That heading signifies it's a joint-post.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday August 30, 2024. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sit down with CNN, the Convicted Felon and Miss Sassy continues to struggle as fire fighters openly boo JD, Jill Stein in all her Unbearable Whiteness of Being signifies political death for the Green Party, and much more.

Last night, CNN aired their interview (conducted by Dana Bash) with the Democratic Party's presidential ticket of Kamala Harris (presidential nominee) and Tim Walz (vice presidential nominee).

Of the interview, Domenico Montanaro (NPR) notes:

Asked what she would do on Day 1, Harris said she would look for ways to “strengthen” the middle class and start trying to implement her “Opportunity Economy” plan she laid out last week to bring prices down and try to make homes more affordable.

Specifically, Harris talked in this interview about:

Extending a $6,000 child tax credit to families for first year of a child’s life, and her

A $25,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit

She has noted other proposals in the course of this truncated campaign, like wanting to try to pass the John Lewis voting rights bill, which Republicans have blocked, and wanting to revive the border-security bill Biden drafted with conservative Republicans that Trump opposed and the GOP-led House then killed.

CNN's Kevin Liptak adds:

In all, the joint interview in Savannah with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – their first since becoming the Democratic presidential ticket – provided one of the clearest looks into Harris’ positions and her plans for the presidency.

Asked to describe her day-one objectives should she win, Harris did not list any specific steps, like signing executive actions or orders.

Instead, she reiterated her focus on strengthening the economy: “First and foremost, one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class.”

In the post-convention phase of the race, Harris is seeking to address scrutiny of her record and add substance to her pitch to American voters on how she would govern if elected president.

Kathryn Watson (CBS NEWS) notes this section of the interview:

Harris also said she would be open to appointing a Republican member of her Cabinet.

"I've got 68 days to go with this election, so I'm not putting the cart before the horse," Harris said. "But I would, I think. I think it's really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it's important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican."

Jarvis DeBerry (MSNBC) observes:

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, apparently believing Trump’s ticket needed even more misogyny, suggested in a social media post Thursday that Harris would be incapable of holding her own. It is as it has ever been since Trump has been on the political stage: We watch to see if anything Trump says isn’t a lie, and we watch to see if other politicians say anything that’s the least bit false. In an ideal world, nobody would have been sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if Harris would sound knowledgeable or prepared for an interview — if only because she could never sound less knowledgeable or less prepared than her opponent so often does.

Oh, Miss Sassy JD Vance has to inject himself always. If he's not the belle of the ball, you know he's crying in the punch bowl. And it was already a rough week for Miss Sassy. Mike covered some of it in "Oh, Miss Sassy JD Vance, what's gotten into you?" noting that, while the International Association of Fire Fighters in Boston strongly welcomed Tim Walz's appearance this week, they booed JD. Poor Miss Sassy. Then there was JD's insistence that Kamala could "go to hell."

Actually, oddsmakers in Vegas will tell you JD's got a stronger chance of doing that. Mike notes:

The same report tells you that Miss Sassy was boasting of how no teleprompter was needed and Miss Sassy doesn't make mistakes like Kamala Harris. But then he spoke of Arlington Cemetery families who had died in Afghanistan's Abby Gate . . . but Miss Sassy called it Abbey Road.

ABBEY ROAD, for those who don't know, is a Beatles album. (Also the favorite Beatles album of my wife Elaine.)

Oh, Miss Sassy. You are the dumbest drag queen in all the land.

Miss Sassy may also be the bitchiest. Miss Sassy declared Kamala Harris "can go to hell."

Why?

I have no idea. Maybe she wore a dress that Miss Sassy was planning to debut? Maybe Miss Sassy was feeling bloated and Kamala looked like Kamala (she's an attractive woman) and it was too much for Miss Sassy.

Who knows why Miss Sassy ever does what Miss Sassy does?

JD remains an enigma. It's even a big question mark as to how he got on the ticket -- the sinking ticket. As Ruth explains in "As a nation, we have reached our fill with the Convicted Felon," Donald's appearance at Arlington Cemetery involved his staff attacking a worker there as he used the setting for political purposes -- which are prohibited:

That is disgusting as is Mr. Trump. Charges should have been filed over the assault -- that is what it was -- and he needs to take down the videos immediately.

He will not because he has no respect for anyone who served in the military. He continues to spit on those people. He is corrupt and is rotting before our eyes.

It really is outrageous. The Convicted Felon's running mate Miss Sassy insists that it is no big deal, it is "little." I think Miss Sassy may have been looking in his Fruit of the Looms when he found something "little." Or maybe he tapes it down when he gets into his wig and women's clothes?

Tom Boggioni reports:

On Thursday morning the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" was stunned by Donald Trump's faltering presidential campaign which is finding itself spending precious time pushing back on gaffes and scandals as it slips behind in the polls.

With fill-in host Jonathan Lemire pointing to blowback from Trump's controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a photo-op which has resulted a furious backlash from veterans and their families, he also highlighted Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance telling Vice President Kamala Harris to "go to hell."

That led one MSNBC political analyst to claim the Trump campaign is derailing itself.

Noting that a complaint was made about Trump aides engaging an altercation with a cemetery staffer that then allegedly led to Trump's spokesperson attacking that person afterward, Lemire remarked, "In a normal campaign, campaign of years past, if there had been an altercation between a staffer, a campaign staffer and someone who works the cemetery, it'd be the campaign staffer immediately fired or at least suspended."

"Instead, we have the Trump team doubling, tripling down, and defending that staffer and attacking the person at the cemetery," he added. "It does reiterate what the Harris team is saying and others in the political world are saying: the nation is exhausted by Donald Trump."

Yes, I do believe we have all reached our fill.

Yes, Donald's campaign continues to sputter along -- this despite the glowing endorsements from the charisma free Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy Junior. Someone thought those two could pull in voters. The only thing anyone wants to hear from Junior is him answering how guilty he feels for cheating on Cheryl Hines.

Wednesday, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Jill FrankenStein" went up.

It's the gruesome Jill Stein, Green Party presidential nominee. For the third time. Some e-mails to the public account are asking me about the Green Party and the White remark. Isaiah's did the cartoon, you could certainly ask him. Ann has her own community site and she is and was raised a Green so you could ask her that (as well as why she's voting for Kamala Harris -- the first time she's ever voted for a Democratic presidential nominee).

But sure, I'll take a crack at it. The Green Party has never been able to build upon the 2000 momentum -- in part because after Ralph Nader pulled in voters, they wouldn't let him on their ticket again.

Ralph's Arab-American. We all realize, right, that the only other person of color in the party's history to be named their presidential nominee was Cynthia McKinney.

In retrospect, that bold move looks more craven with each day. I'm not insulting Cynthia but I am pointing out that in 2008 the Democrats ran Barack Obama.

So would Cynthia have gotten the nomination if it weren't for Barack?

The Green Party is awfully White for a new party that supposedly wants to lead this country into the future. And who knew that like Donald Trump, they don't support diversity and inclusion?

Or do even Greens ignore their own party at this point?

This week, a press release from the Green Party opened:

The new co-chairs are Cassandra Lems (from New York), Justin Paglino (Connecticut), and Charles Ostdiek (Nebraska). Brief biographies of all three follow below.

How sweet. Three spots open and our 'left' Green Party finds three White people to fill each spot.

National Green Party, your true colors are showing and they scream "Racist!"

They're the GOP, that's all they are now. They committed political suicide by making Jill their nominee for the third time. The party really needs to run one person three times? There's no one else in the party that can run?

As the geriatric nature of our representatives becomes a bigger and bigger issue after the deaths of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Senator Dianne Feinstein, as people say Donald Trump's too old to be running and said the same of Joe Biden before he stepped aside in July, the Green Party wants to pretend to show us an 'alternative' with 74-year-old Jill Stein?

The same Jill Stein who promised before she was officially the nominee that her running mate would be a Palestinian American and that this was important because of the genocide in Gaza. But then that dropped down to an Arab-American. And then, in the end, an African-American man who was Muslim.

You're not seeing the Whitness of that party? They're never going to win a presidential election. So they nominate a White person to get attention and no one pays attention to the running mate.

In 2020, Howie Hawkins had an interesting running mate, Angela Walker. She actually had enough for several human interest features in the press. But the press wasn't interested and the Green Party wasn't interested in selling her to the press or calling out the silence from the press because their v.p. slot is not important to them. It's just a name and they don't promote the people in that slot -- they don't promote them in terms of to the media or, for that matter, in terms of the party itself.

Rosa Clemente, Angela Walker, Ajamu Baraka, Winona LaDuke -- do we want to go down the full list of people of color that the Green Party has repeatedly tokenized?

They're good enough to be v.p. nominees but apparently not to ever graduate above that. No, they can run Jill Stein for president three times but they won't run Rosa even once.

You don't get the racist nature of leadership within the national Green Party?

In the Democratic Party? Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president. And Joe could work up to being the party's nominee. Kamala was Joe's vice president and running mate and could rise to the party's nominee.

But over at the Green Party, where they tokenize the vice presidential nominee, they never let them move up the chain. Instead, it's trot that elderly (and annoying) White woman Jill Stein for a third run while pretending that the Green Party finally has something to offer this presidential election cycle.

B-b-b-but Cornel West!!!!

The People's Party wanted Cornel as their nominee.

Had Cornel run for the Green Party's nomination, there's a chance -- strong -- that he would have gotten it. He is running as an independent candidate instead.

Why? Because he would have been a puppet, because he was lied to, because he was tricked.

White Mama Jill Stein's attacks on Cornel started early on and they are about what she fears he will spill because, while Cornel's called out some of the nonsense Jill pulled, he hasn't called out all of it. She knows it would destroy her.

And the other liar? If you've not noticed, he's not endorsed Jill. He always endorses Jill. But he's afraid endorsing Jill right now would tick Cornel off so much that Cornel would spill all the beans.

So congratulations to Jill Stein for helping the Green Party commit assisted suicide. In 2024, they're running the same White woman for the third time. While pretending to be the voice of the future, the voice of Young America. But in each step that they take, they make sure the country registers that it's eternally 1953 for them. BROWN V BOARD OF EDUCATION comes along in 1954 and that's just change the Green Party can't support or get behind.

Until that party gets its act together, people of color will always be rendered Tituba to Jill Stein's Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams.

Turning to Gaza, Tom Bennett (BBC NEWS) reports, "Israel has agreed to a series of 'humanitarian pauses' in Gaza to allow for the vaccination of children against polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. The campaign will aim to vaccinate around 640,000 children across the Gaza strip and will begin on Sunday, senior WHO official Rik Peeperkorn said."

Polio is a risk in Gaza because the area has been reduced to rubble and public infrastructure is gone leading to desperate living conditions. So isn't it interesting the wording used? "Humanitarian pause." In genocide? They keep up this misreporting and War Criminal Netanyahu is going to end up with a Nobel Peace Prize.

Sara Ruthven (THE NATIONAL) notes:

“The way we discussed and agreed, the campaign will start on September 1, in central Gaza, for three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause during the vaccinations,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the Palestinian territories.

That will be followed by another three-day pause in southern Gaza, then another in the north, but more days may be needed to complete the vaccination programmes, Mr Peeperkorn said.

Mr Peeperkorn said the aim is to vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10 and that the campaign has been co-ordinated with Israeli authorities.

“I’m not going to say this is the ideal way forward but this is a workable way forward,” he said. “It will happen and should happen because we have an agreement.”

The pauses are not the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been seeking, including in talks that are taking place this week.

An Israeli official said a tactical pause is expected to allow for vaccinations. The Israeli army has previously announced pauses in limited areas to allow for international humanitarian operations.

Mr Peeperkorn said the campaigns are being planned in close collaboration with aid agencies, Gaza's Health Ministry and other agencies.

On the non-humanitarian actions of the government of Israel, Sharon Zang (TRUTHOUT) reports:

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is suspending staff movement across Gaza after Israeli forces attacked WFP employees in a vehicle this week, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starve under Israel’s famine campaign.

On Tuesday, an armored WFP vehicle was approaching an Israeli checkpoint in central Gaza when Israeli forces shot the vehicle 10 times, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. None of the staff members were hurt. The workers had been returning from escorting a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to central Gaza.

A picture of the vehicle shared by the group shows that it was clearly marked as a UN car, and WFP noted that the group had received “multiple clearances” from Israeli officials for its route.

The group said on Wednesday that its movement is paused “until further notice.” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain condemned the attack as “totally unacceptable.”

“As last night’s events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer,” said McCain. “I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of all aid workers in Gaza.”

Gaza remains under assault. Day 326 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 40,602, with 93,855 wounded." Early on, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) pointed out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." Months ago, United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of of acute food insecurity or worse." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."

This morning, THE NATIONAL notes:

An Israeli missile hit a convoy bringing supplies to a UAE hospital in Gaza, killing several people from a local transport company, aid officials said on Friday.

Thursday's strike on Salah Al Din Road targeted vehicles bringing medical supplies and fuel to the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza, said the American Near East Refugee Aid non-governmental organisation.

Sandra Rasheed, Anera’s director for the Palestinian territories, said a number of people employed by a Gazan company were killed.

“The convoy, which was co-ordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed,” Ms Rasheed added.

She said the convoy was able to continue and deliver aid to the hospital.

An Israeli army spokesman claimed that troops opened fire after gunmen had seized the convoy. The military did not provide evidence of this.

Anera said it would release more information on Friday.

And we'll wind down with this from yesterday's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR):

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The Biden administration is urging Israel's military to make major changes to its evacuation policies in Gaza. That's according to a U.S. Embassy memo obtained by NPR. It comes after the Israeli military has significantly increased evacuation orders for Palestinians in Gaza over the past month. Those orders are driving tens of thousands of civilians into smaller and smaller areas. The memo, dated yesterday, warned that that pace of evacuation orders could, quote, "debilitate remaining humanitarian operations in Gaza." We're joined now by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Hi, Kat.

KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.

SUMMERS: Kat, tell us more about this memo. Where did it come from, and what else does it say?

LONSDORF: Yeah. So it was a diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem addressed to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. It contained an assessment by officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, on the effects of Israel's evacuation orders on the Palestinian population. And it had some very strong language in it. For example, it said the Israeli military, quote, "has issued evacuation orders under unsafe conditions and in quick succession and with little warning before operations begin," saying that this has led to civilian harm.

It also talked about the so-called humanitarian zones. These are small slices of land that the Israeli military says will be safe for Palestinians to shelter. The memo said they had, quote, "long been problematic." That echoes warnings from aid groups who say that it has become near-impossible to get to these areas, and Palestinians describe them as crowded, with squalid conditions, little access to clean water or bathrooms.

SUMMERS: I mean, given that in this moment evacuation orders are increasingly frequent, the timing of this memo feels really significant.

LONSDORF: Yeah. That's right. There have been at least 16 evacuation orders just this month, according to the U.N. It's a huge increase from what we've seen in the previous 10-plus months of war there. And one thing to note is that these evacuation orders don't get lifted by the Israeli military. So basically, if an evacuation order was issued back in October, when the war began, it's still in effect today. That means that areas deemed safe are steadily shrinking. The U.N. estimates more than 88% of Gaza is under evacuation orders right now.

SUMMERS: Kat, as I understand it, this memo also indicates that the U.S. government has urged the Israeli military to change the way it handles evacuations. Tell us how.

LONSDORF: Yeah. So the memo basically acknowledged that the likelihood of Israel stopping these evacuations was low. So instead, it focused on how the Israeli military could be doing them differently. It said the U.S. government has advocated for three main things - one, for Israel to rescind evacuation orders it no longer deemed necessary to allow for greater freedom of movement for people; two, to wait at least 48 hours to begin military operations after an evacuation order is issued to allow civilians more time to safely leave; and three, to protect humanitarian sites and allow for ongoing accessibility.

The following sites updated: