An Indifferent Media Is Failing to Report the 400,000 Dead in Gaza

Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated.


Palestinian father Ashraf cries as he holds the body of one of his two daughters after they were both killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on April 4, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
(Photo by Mohammed ABED / AFP vai Getty Images)

Ralph Nader
Feb 24, 2025

Common Dreams

Enough already of the media’s lazy indifference to the vast undercount of the Palestinian death toll from Netanyahu’s genocidal daily bombing and shelling of Gaza’s defenseless civilian population. I’m referring to all the media – the corporate media, the public media, and the independent media. They all stick with the Hamas Ministry of Health’s (MOH) count of named victims whose corpses have been identified by hospitals and mortuaries. For months there have been no operating hospitals and mortuaries to send their grisly data to the Health Ministry.

The official Hamas count that all sides like to cite is now over 48,000 deaths. As American doctors back from Gaza before the Rafah closing last year said—just about everybody surviving in Gaza is sick, injured, or dying. They put the death estimate almost a year ago at a minimum of 95,000, not counting tens of thousands of families buried under the rubble when Israeli F-16s blew up entire apartment buildings.

Why would all sides to this one-sided Israeli war of extermination rely on Hamas’ figures? Well, Hamas has an interest in low-balling the number of deaths to limit the rage of its inhabitants and allies abroad for not protecting the people of Gaza and not providing them with shelters. The Israeli super-hawks want to keep the undercount low to dampen down the international rage, boycotts, and demand for more sanctions and ICC prosecutions. The Biden administration and now the Trump regime also benefit from a low number.

Here is the Washington Post’s esteemed foreign affairs editor Karen DeYoung’s reply on September 6, 2024 to my inquiry:
“We use the Gaza MOH [Ministry of Health] figures – as does the United Nations, World Health Organization and virtually every other humanitarian organization – while noting that independent media are not allowed to enter Gaza and the casualty counts are most certainly underreported… The Lancet [British Medical Journal] report notes that based on other ‘recent conflicts…it is not implausible to estimate’ that four times as many have died than those listed by the MOH…The time will come, I believe, when an independent accounting can be done.”


But six months later the time still hasn’t come. The Biden State Department had a much higher estimate of deaths but refused to release their analysis, obstructing our Freedom of Information request filed last May 24, 2024. All kinds of estimates and projections by reputable universities, specialists, global health groups and UN agencies point to a much higher death and overall casualty toll. But the State Department won’t come forward with a reasonably estimated number that can replace Hamas’ statistical immolation.

For example, in late 2023, the chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh—Professor Devi Sridhar—said that if the destruction continues, half a million Palestinians would die in 2024. The devastation has gotten worse—the bombings, the genocidal denial of “food, water, medicine, electricity, fuel” in the omnicidal words of the high Israeli military officials, the spread of diseases, untreated injuries, babies born into the rubble, infants starved, lack of potable water, sick elderly without critical medicines, and more. This is the result of 110 thousand tons of bombs (Israeli admission) daily tank shelling and precise destructions. Yet neither she nor most other experts who have projected continuing mayhem have offered a number.

Interestingly, the media has no trouble estimating the Syrian deaths at the hands of dictator Assad (500,000) nor the deaths in the wars in Sudan or Ukraine. Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated. One team of Gazan undertakers said they buried 17,000 bodies in mass graves by February 2024, including 800 in one day.

Were the shoe on the other foot, Congress would not only have had intense public hearings: it would have declared war against Hamas. With total U.S. co-belligerency – from huge weapons supplies to the veto at the UN, Netanyahu gets away with blocking Israeli and all other reporters from going freely into Gaza, and shuts up those conscience-stricken Israeli soldiers who are sickened by what they were ordered to destroy. One of them said, “I felt like, like, like a Nazi … it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews.”

Some columnists in the U.S. like Charles Lane and Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, Bret Stephens of the New York Times, do not believe the Israeli military consciously targets civilians and civilian infrastructure. Israelis scoff at such naivete; many want more annihilation of all Palestinians whom they regard as “subhuman,” “vermin,” “snakes,” or “animals” (racist words from high Israeli politicians over the decades).

Some 45 years ago, former UN Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban —under then Prime Minister Menachem Begin—wrote that Israel “is wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name.”

In August 2024, based on available historical, empirical, and clinical records, we estimated about 300,000 Palestinians had been killed. (See the August/September 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). By now it is over 400,000. Yet the media still uses the figure by Hamas and ignores the lives blown apart under the killing fields in Gaza.

At 400,000 and growing, far more Palestinians have been killed in Gaza than the combined total of deaths from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden in World War II. This week, Netanyahu dropped leaflets in Arabic signaling a forthcoming violent exclusion of Gaza’s trapped, unsheltered Palestinians from their homeland. More accurately estimated civilian casualties matters morally and for the intensity of the political, diplomatic, and civic resistance when the world learns the truer toll of death and injuries in this tiny enclave the geographical size of Philadelphia.

To remind the world of the daily Israeli violations of settled international law inflicted on Gazans (also in the West Bank and Lebanon), international law practitioner Bruce Fein compiled this concise list:

ISRAEL’S TEN VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL HUMANITARIAN LAW IN GAZAGenocide Count I. Killing Palestinians in Gaza.
Genocide Count II. Deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Genocide Count III. Destroying hospitals and maternal care necessities intended to prevent births by Palestinian women in Gaza.
Crimes against humanity. Extermination and persecution of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza as part of a systematic attack directed at Palestinian civilians.
Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian property for destruction.
Failing to provide for the security and welfare of the inhabitants occupied by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza.
Impeding delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Forcible relocation of civilian population.
Use of military force causing civilian casualties vastly disproportionate to the importance of any legitimate military objective.
War of aggression against Gaza Palestinians.

'Hell No!' Postal Workers Protest Illegal Trump Takeover Scheme

"The 295,000 active and retired members of the National Association of Letter Carriers have a message to deliver to the White House: Hands off the Postal Service."


American Postal Workers Union president Mark Dimondstein is pictured at a protest against President Donald Trump's reported plan to seize control of the Postal Service on February 24, 2025.

(Photo: American Postal Workers Union/X.com)

Jake Johnson
Feb 24, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Postal workers and labor movement allies rallied in Washington, D.C. on Monday to protest U.S. President Donald Trump's reported plan to seize control of the independent and beloved Postal Service, a move that could pave the way for full privatization of the country's mail operations.

Monday's rally was organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), which said last week that Trump's proposal to bring the Postal Service under the purview of the Commerce Department is "unconstitutional and illegal."

"The 295,000 active and retired members of the National Association of Letter Carriers have a message to deliver to the White House: Hands off the Postal Service," the organization said in a statement after The Washington Postrevealed details of the executive order Trump is reportedly preparing to sign.

At Monday's rally, attendees—including letter carriers and union leaders—chanted "Hell no!" and waved signs that read "Fight Like Hell" to display their readiness to oppose any Trump administration takeover of the USPS, which is extremely popular with the American public.

"I want all of my postal worker brothers and sisters to know, this has nothing to do with your performance," Fredrick Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said at the protest. "This has nothing to do with you as workers. You provide the highest level of service to the American people."

"This is about an unmitigated consolidation of power by this administration, power to put more money and more resources in the hands of the billionaires as opposed to spreading the wealth amongst the people who create the wealth every day," Redmond added.

Monday's rally followed protests over the weekend in Portland, Oregon, where postal workers voiced concerns about the future of the USPS under Trump's leadership.

"People in rural areas wouldn't be able to get their medications that they depend on, they might not get mail at all, if it's privatized," Jae Burlingame, a longtime mail carrier, told a local media outlet on Sunday.

According toThe Washington Post, Trump is weighing an executive order that would terminate every member of the Postal Service Board of Governors and absorb the USPS into the Commerce Department, which is led by Trump-appointed billionaire Howard Lutnick.

Trump said Friday that Lutnick was "going to look at" potential USPS changes and touted the billionaire's "great business instinct."

"Your reported plans for the Postal Service would put at risk the timely, affordable delivery of life-saving medications, mail-in ballots, important financial documents, and letters from loved ones."

The Postal Service is currently self-funded, relying on the sale of postal services and products such as stamps rather than tax revenue.

CNNnoted Friday that "other countries have privatized their postal services in the past. But a plan to privatize the 250-year old service that predates the formation of the United States could dramatically change the way Americans receive deliveries, and even who would be able to get service."

"Current law requires the USPS to deliver to all addresses, even rural ones that are too costly for a private business to serve profitably," the outlet added. "Even many online purchases handled by private companies such as United Parcel Service depend upon the Postal Service to handle the 'last mile' of delivery to homes."

Christy Hoffman, president of the UNI Global Union, said last week that "we have seen the perils of privatizing postal services in Europe, which have led to reduced services, increased prices, job losses, and cut off rural communities where it is unprofitable to deliver mail."

"Instead of privatizing USPS," Hoffman added, "Trump should be supporting the Postal Service to seize opportunities in e-commerce, expand services, particularly to marginalized and remote communities, and safeguard a precious, public-owned, communication network that is ultimately irreplaceable."

In a letter to the U.S. president over the weekend, a group of Democratic lawmakers led by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)—who attended Monday's rally—warned that the "unprecedented and reckless plan to dismantle the Postal Service as an independent agency would directly undermine the affordability and reliability of the U.S. postal system."

"Congress prescribed a clear and critical mandate for the Postal Service: to deliver efficient, reliable, and universal service to all Americans," the lawmakers wrote. "Your reported plans for the Postal Service would put at risk the timely, affordable delivery of life-saving medications, mail-in ballots, important financial documents, and letters from loved ones, especially in rural or less-profitable areas that the private sector refuses to service."

"We urge you to immediately withdraw all plans to dismantle one of our nation's most cherished public institutions and uphold the Postal Service's independent status as required by law," they added.

People Get Ready: Trump's Reichstag Fire Is Coming

An attack on America—real, orchestrated, enabled, or imagined—that would enable him to play the role Bush did after 9/11 would be very politically useful.


Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Hermann Goering inspect the damage caused by a fire at the Reichstag in Berlin on February 27, 1933.
(Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Thom Hartmann
Feb 24, 2025

Common Dreams

Get ready.

The resistance to billionaires running our government is growing. Bernie Sanders is touring the Red State Midwest and drawing massive crowds. Federal workers are pissed. Republican politicians are in hiding, refusing to do town halls even when their constituents demand them or try to set them up.

Comrade Krasnov’s…er, Trump’s polling numbers are collapsing as fast as his embrace of Comrade Putin is growing. Fascism expert and On Tyranny author Professor Timothy Snyder notes over at BlueSky:
“Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.”


James Carville told Dan Abrams:
“This whole thing is collapsing. … I believe that this administration, in less than 30 days, is in the midst of a massive collapse and particularly a collapse in public opinion.”

At the same time, four Republicans have now thrown Nazi salutes, three over this past weekend at CPAC. They think they can overcome their fear of the people by intimidating us.

These fascists are getting panicky, and panicky would-be tyrants are dangerous.

This is a moment of maximum peril for our nation and our freedoms because if, as Rachel Bitecofer documents, Trump and his followers really are following Hitler’s script to seize total power and turn America into an authoritarian dictatorship, the next step may well be to exploit an attack on America.

There’s a long history of leaders using national emergencies to raise their popularity, expand their own power, overwhelm opposition politicians, scapegoat minorities, suspend constitutions and elections, and provide a legal façade for ending or weakening democracy.

Germans remember well that fateful day ninety-two years ago this week: February 27, 1933. It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack.

A Dutch communist named Marius van der Lubbe had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The German intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians still argue whether rogue elements in Hitler’s intelligence service helped him; the most recent research implies they did not, but simply watched him proceed.)

And then van der Lubbe took down the prize of Germany, the Parliament building (the Reichstagsgebäude), setting it ablaze on that February day.

Hitler knew the strike was coming (although he apparently didn’t know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation’s most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was van der Lubbe who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion — “a sign from God,” he called it — to declare an all-out “war on terrorism” and the groups he said were its ideological sponsors, the socialists and Jews.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for “terrorists” was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected “allies” of the infamous terrorist. Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, Hitler had pushed through legislation — in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the “liberal” philosophy he said spawned it — that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus.

His Decree on the Protection of People and State allowed police to intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; and police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

It was the beginning of the end of a democratic Germany.

Similarly, in 2002, the new Russian President Putin was engaged in a war with Chechnya, trying to subdue and subsume a nation that has been both under Russian rule and independent over the past several centuries, very much like Ukraine.

A theater in Moscow was seized that year by “Chechen rebels” who began executing theater-goers: Putin ordered poisonous gas apparently made of something like fentanyl poured into the theater, and it let his police take back the theater (although many of the hostages, along with their tormentors, died from the gas).

Putin used the attack as an excuse to escalate his years-long conflict with the parts of Chechnya that still were fighting for their independence from Russia; he launched a major WWII-style land invasion and bombing campaign. Tens of thousands died, entire cities were destroyed, and Chechnya was largely subdued within the year.

In the aftermath of that 2002 theater attack and subsequent war there was speculation from multiple sources and countries that Putin knew the attack was coming and welcomed it, believing he could use it as an excuse to escalate his low-level conflict with Chechnya to elevate his own profile while finally seizing full control of the region.

It was an echo of the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999 that then-Prime Minister Putin used to leverage himself into the presidency the following year. He’d used those terror attacks to consolidate his power, and repeated the trick in 2003 beginning with the 2003 arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Yukos Oil. By the following year most serious voices of dissent or opposition in Russia were either dead, in prison, or fleeing for their lives.

There’s a long history of leaders using national emergencies to raise their popularity, expand their own power, overwhelm opposition politicians, scapegoat minorities, suspend constitutions and elections, and provide a legal façade for ending or weakening democracy.

Both George W. Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu — at a time when their popularity was in the toilet and charges of impropriety were swirling (in Netanyahu’s case, actual criminal charges) — ignored multiple warnings of attacks coming.

The 9/11 and October 7 attacks — predicted by agencies and nations warning American and Israeli intelligence services respectively — were then successfully used by both to consolidate their own popularity and power.

Which is why this is such a dangerous moment that requires vigilance and preparation.

Trump’s popularity is now collapsing as his largest campaign donor takes a chainsaw to the American government, threatening virtually every aspect of federal and state functions from Social Security to Medicaid to medical research and foreign aid. An attack on America that would enable him to play the role Bush did after 9/11 would be very politically useful.

In an extreme case, which he has publicly mused about, an attack could justify his declaring a national state of emergency, suspending elections, and putting the Constitution on ice. He could then shut down media he doesn’t like, imprison people who speak out, and suspend the 2026 and 2028 elections.

All legally.

At the same time he’s contemplating this, the FBI — America’s premiere counterterrorism organization — is being scattered with as many as 1500 agents leaving Washington, DC. An open apologist for Putin has been put in charge of our intelligence services. And the senior leadership of our military was just purged, replaced with toadies who’ll praise Trump as if this were North Korea at every opportunity.

And the JAG officers of each branch of the military along with their senior commanders — the people who would determine the legality of presidential orders to, say, shoot at protestors or open detention camps for journalists and dissidents — have been fired and replaced by loyalists who’ll do whatever Trump demands.

Brett Holmgren was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center until a few weeks ago; he recently warned that the threat levels right now are at unprecedented highs.

Muslims around the world are incensed by Israel’s slaughter in Gaza; Ukrainian expats and refugees are furious about Trump’s embrace of Putin; and the Afghanistan-based Islamic State-Khorasan has already carried out attacks killing 13 Americans along with a recent slaughter in Moscow.

And, pointing to the deadly New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans last month, Holmgren added:
“I think it illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and across administrations at disrupting plotting overseas and going after terrorist leaders, we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home…”

Anybody remember the bombs left at the RNC and DNC on January 6th? The bomber is still at large, not to mention groups across the political spectrum — and recently fired federal workers — who may have grievances against our government. And people from nations around the world where USAID was keeping friends and relatives alive but isn’t any longer.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong in my concern that we’re facing the very real possibility of an imminent attack that will be exploited by Trump to put a final nail in the coffin of American democracy, but we all — and Democrats, in particular — need to be ready. The Reichstag Fire scenario could be closer than any of us expect.

As the saying goes: “Stand back and stand by.”

Trump’s Second Coming Is Worse Than the First

The most significant difference between Trump 2017 and Trump 2025 is that he now has a more clearly defined agenda and is more prepared to impose it.


U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press after signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America aboard Air Force One, as it flies over the Gulf enroute to New Orleans, Louisiana on Febrary 9, 2025.
(Photo; Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

James Zogby
Feb 24, 2025

Common Dreams

Among the significant differences between Donald Trump’s first term as president in 2017 and his return to the White House in 2025, this time around he appears more in control and better prepared. And despite the drastic measures of his first weeks in office, the opposition he is facing appears more subdued and less focused.

Though he won the presidency in 2016, Trump was not yet master of the Republican Party. The party’s “old guard” found him not conservative enough, a personal embarrassment, and too erratic to lead the Grand Old Party. His Make America Great Again movement, though substantial, had not yet demonstrated its capacity for mobilizing its ranks to sway members of Congress to fully embrace Trump and his agenda.

That has clearly changed. Trump’s control of the Republican Party, its apparatus, and congressional cohort are complete. His opponents have been silenced or faded into the background.

In the end, it will most likely be Mr. Trump’s own hubris and the contradictions between his promises and his policies that will prove to be his undoing.

In 2017, to bolster confidence in his administration, he brought on board a number of older, respected individuals to fill sensitive posts in the White House and Cabinet. Some of them, at times, served as a check on his penchant for unpredictable behavior.

The cast of characters in the 2025 Trump White House and Cabinet are themselves more unpredictable and less qualified to serve in their assigned posts than the 2017 appointees. The number one qualification is being a longtime Trump devotee—or having made amends and groveled sufficiently for any past opposition.

The most significant difference between Trump 2017 and Trump 2025 is that he now has a more clearly defined agenda and is more prepared to impose it.

When Ronald Reagan won in 1980, he arrived in Washington with a well-developed conservative game plan designed by the Heritage Foundation to transform the federal government according to conservative principles. In 2017, Trump entered the Oval Office with an array of ideas, complaints, and actions to be taken, but without a plan to implement them.

In 2025, many of the ideas, complaints, and actions are the same as 2017, but they are now bigger, bolder, more thought through and backed up by extensive plans for implementation developed by the very same Heritage Foundation that helped guide Reagan’s time in the White House. And just as Heritage helped populate Reagan’s administration with hundreds of staff in agencies to help implement the conservative agenda, this year Heritage boasts of having tens of thousands of vetted individuals waiting to serve in the new Trump administration.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, his “hatchet-man,” are running roughshod over the federal government’s institutions and workforce. Entire agencies have been shuttered, and tens of thousands of workers have been fired or placed on indefinite leave, setting the stage for the kind of Trump takeover in 2025 that he was unable to accomplish in 2017.

There’s one final difference to be noted. Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was greeted by an eruption of mass protests. They came in waves with advocates for women’s rights and immigrants, and those calling for more restrictive gun laws and an end to police brutality each in turn making their mark. While there have been protests since last November’s election, they’ve lacked the numbers and emotional intensity of those in Trump’s first term.

Much has been written about the threat posed by Trump 2025 for democracy and the impact of the programs and staff that have been terminated by the Trump-Musk wrecking-ball approach to reform. Much less attention has been given to the public’s reaction to these developments. Opinion polls are one way to measure that—a recent Washington Post poll indicates that the American electorate is as divided as ever. 45% approve of Trump’s job performance as opposed to 53% who disapprove. What also comes through in this poll is that there are significantly more respondents who say they “strongly disapprove” than those who say they “strongly approve” of Trump’s job in office.

Given this, why the lack of intensity in the public’s reaction to White House’s actions? One reason may be that the Trump-Musk “shock and awe” assaults on so many targets in just a few days have left the opposition disoriented and demoralized. Add to this the lack of Democratic leadership. In a recent discussion, an elected Democratic leader outlined his party’s approach as simply to keep proposing amendments to Trump’s budget bills to demonstrate how the GOP wants tax cuts for the rich while placing greater burdens on the working class. This, he said, would drag Trump’s favorable ratings down, enabling Democrats to win back the Congress in 2026. This isn’t leadership. It’s crass opportunism and yet another reason why no coherent or effective opposition has been mounted to President Trump’s efforts to take excessive power in his second term.

In the end, it will most likely be Mr. Trump’s own hubris and the contradictions between his promises and his policies that will prove to be his undoing. Just one example: Polls show that while his supporters love his bold actions, what they most want to see is the drop in prices and inflation that Trump promised during the campaign. But his use of tariffs and the mass deportation of migrants (who perform essential tasks in the agricultural and service sectors) will inevitably cause prices to rise, without the results that Trump voters were promised. If the improvements in the daily lives of his supporters don’t come, Trump2 could end worse than Trump1.

James Zogby
Dr. James J. Zogby is the author of Arab Voices (2010) and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community. Since 1985, Dr. Zogby and AAI have led Arab American efforts to secure political empowerment in the U.S. Through voter registration, education and mobilization, AAI has moved Arab Americans into the political mainstream. Dr. Zogby has also been personally active in U.S. politics for many years; in 1984 and 1988 he served as Deputy Campaign manager and Senior Advisor to the Jesse Jackson Presidential campaign. In 1988, he led the first ever debate on Palestinian statehood at that year's Democratic convention in Atlanta, GA. In 2000, 2008, and 2016 he served as an advisor to the Gore, Obama, and Sanders presidential campaigns.
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'Murky': NY Times ties Dr. Oz's fortune to Medicare Trump has chosen him to oversee

Adam Nichols
February 24, 2025 

Dr Oz. (G Holland / Shutterstock.com)

A deep dive New York Times investigation has linked much of Dr. Mehmet Oz’s massive fortune to the Medicare and Medicaid programs President Donald Trump has nominated him to oversee.

The celebrity TV doctor is estimated to have made as much as $355 million through business and family ventures, the Times reported.

And a delve into his financial background showed clear ties to the programs he’s been chosen to regulate, and relationships with multiple companies that would be affected by decisions he’d make in the new role.

One of them, the Times revealed, is Medicare Advantage, a private for-profit company that targets older Americans who are eligible for Medicaid. Oz not only promoted it on his show, but is a licensed broker for the company in nearly every U.S. state, the Times found.

“He has been paid by medical device firms and health-related ventures, and his money was invested in a dizzying array of businesses,” the Times reported.

“Many of those companies would be affected by any decisions he would make in the government post and many already benefit from agency funding.”

Last week, Oz made ethics filings claiming he'd sell his interests in 70 companies in an effort to avoid accusations of conflicts of interest. They include $600,000 in United Health Group stock, the company that is the largest provider of private Medicare plans, according to the report.

He also vowed to sell up to $26 million he’d invested in Amazon, which has many medical interests including an online pharmacy.

But the Times called at least some of the filings "murky."

“Still, he has several limited liability companies — Oz Works and Oz Property Holdings among them — and the nature of their operations is not known,” reported the newspaper.

“He has no plans to close them and the filings state that he would remain an official at some.”

Washington University law professor Kathleen Clark told the Times his filings gave “the appearance of disclosure without disclosure.”

“You can sell assets, and if you have a specific contractual agreement you can end it. But I can’t even tell from his disclosures what direct or indirect arrangements he has," she added.

Oz’s representatives didn’t answer questions from the Times.

Oz, if confirmed by the Senate, wold run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, overseeing health insurance used by half of Americans with a $1.5 trillion annual budget. The confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled.

“Government spending toward the private Medicare plans amounts to about $500 billion a year,” the Times reported.“The plans have been heavily scrutinized, faulted by lawmakers and regulators for systemic overbilling and unjustified denials of payment for patient care. The very agency Dr. Oz would run recently cracked down on overpayments and forced insurers to be more transparent when they refuse to pay for patients’ care.”

'Dangerous and bigoted': Trump accused of sneaking violent triggers into executive orders

Marty Schladen,

 Ohio Capital Journal
February 24, 2025 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order on tariffs on aluminum imports in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 10, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque//File Photo

When it comes to talking about immigrants, the word “invasion” is both explosive and inaccurate, experts and human rights advocates say. Yet with Donald Trump back in the White House, it’s showing up on official orders and other communications — and it’s being echoed by Ohio politicians.



Just in the waning weeks of January, Trump issued two executive orders using the language — “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” and “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”

On Thursday, more than 80 civil and human rights organizations sent a letter to congressional leaders calling on them to reject what the groups said was a “false and bigoted conspiracy theory.”

As at times past, numbers of migrants spiked at the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and severely strained resources. That led certain politicians on the right — including Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and now-Ohio U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno — to claim it was an invasion even though migrants weren’t driving tanks, carrying machine guns, or even functioning as an organized group. They don’t even commit crime at rates as high as native-born Americans

“Immigration policy is an important topic that demands congressional discussion and debate,” the groups’ letter to Republican and Democratic congressional leaders said. “We implore Senate and House leadership not to support or fund efforts that are led by a fictional and dangerous conspiracy theory purporting an ‘invasion.’ Congress should not provide the justification for continued attacks on our democracy.”

In Texas, Abbott has tried to portray what has happened at the border as a military invasion as he seeks to take border-security responsibilities into his own hands. Such powers have traditionally been reserved for the federal government because it would create chaos if each of the 50 states was in charge of its own policy and security when it came to dealing with foreign countries.

Also, the places along the border that Abbott claimed were the site of a military invasion are among the safest communities in the country. So, even when immigrants showed up in large numbers, that didn’t amount to the military invasion Abbott claimed in an attempt to get around federal primacy, a judge ruled last year.

“Contemporary definitions of ‘invasion’ and ‘actually invaded’ as well as common usage of the term in the late Eighteenth Century predominantly referred to an ‘invasion’ as a hostile and organized military force, too powerful to be dealt with by ordinary judicial proceedings,” U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra wrote last year as he blocked Abbott. “This Court could not locate a single contemporaneous use of the term to refer to surges in unauthorized foreign immigration.”

After briefly lifting it, the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld Ezra’s stay and is scheduled to hear Texas’s appeal in July.

Meanwhile, many experts have said false claims of invasion have prompted murderous rampages against vulnerable communities. For example, Patrick Crusius in 2019 drove from Dallas to El Paso, posted a manifesto saying he was stopping an “invasion” at the border and went to a Walmart. There he used an AK-47 to murder 23 and injured 22 more.

Some experts say the fact that such false, incendiary rhetoric can be deadly isn’t just incidental, it’s part of the point. It scares immigrants and others from standing up to those who use it, and that serves the political ends of those who use such rhetoric, those experts say.

Not to fight false claims that we’re being invaded undermines democracy, a program director at one of the groups that signed the letter to congressional leaders said in a statement.

“Depicting migrants and refugees as an ‘invasion’ is not only a dangerous and bigoted attempt to fearmonger, it is now the basis of an authoritarian power grab,” said Liz Yates of the Western States Center.

In their letter, all the groups said the harm will only spread unless those in power stand against claims of an “invasion.”

“This bigoted narrative has already been leveraged to promote policies that have and will continue to have a devastating impact on immigrant communities,” the letter said. “It has also inspired a pattern of white nationalist and antisemitic deadly attacks across the nation. Use of this bigoted conspiracy theory as justification for a policy agenda poses a public safety risk not only to the immigrant communities who are targeted for policy enforcement, but also to Jewish, Black, Brown, Muslim, LGBTQ+, AANHPI, Latinx and many other communities who are implicated in this conspiratorial rhetoric. It also constitutes a direct threat to our democracy.” Congress must refuse to further legitimize this bigotry by sanctioning or funding policies in its name.”

Federal judge blocks Musk's DOGE from sensitive Department of Education personnel data

David Edwards
February 24, 2025 

A view of the U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon

U.S. District Court Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a temporary restraining order blocking Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and other government agencies from accessing sensitive personal information from the Department of Education.

The Monday ruling came after the American Federation of Teachers sued Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to prevent his agency from disclosing the information on personnel — including union members and student aid recipients.

"The plaintiffs allege that the agencies unlawfully granted access to records that contain their personally identifiable information ('PII') to personnel implementing the President's Executive Orders on the DOGE agenda," the judge wrote. "Upon consideration of the amended complaint, the TRO briefing, the limited record evidence, oral argument, and the recent decisions of other courts in similar cases, the Court finds that the plaintiffs have met their burden for the extraordinary relief they seek."

The judge argued that the plaintiffs "have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their APA claim that Education and OPM took final agency actions' not in accordance with law.' Specifically, the plaintiffs have shown that Education and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent."

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was also barred from sharing the information with DOGE employees.

"The plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that OPM's disclosure of their records to DOGE affiliates... does not fall within the need-to-know exception and thus violates the Privacy Act," Boardman explained.

A follow-up hearing was scheduled for Feb. 26.

Greenpeace trial begins in North Dakota in key free speech case

Agence France-Presse
February 24, 2025 

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) confront bulldozers working on the new oil pipeline in an effort to make them stop on September 3, 2016, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota (Robyn BECK/AFP)

by Issam AHMED

A U.S. oil pipeline operator's lawsuit seeking millions of dollars from Greenpeace for allegedly orchestrating a campaign of violence and defamation begins Monday in a North Dakota court, in a case with broad free speech implications.

At the heart of the case is the Dakota Access Pipeline, where nearly a decade ago, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe led one of the largest anti-fossil fuel protests in US history. Hundreds were arrested and injured, prompting concerns from the United Nations over violations of Indigenous sovereignty.

The pipeline, which transports fracked crude oil to refineries and global markets, has been operational since 2017.

But its operator, Energy Transfer, has continued pursuing legal action against Greenpeace -- first in a federal lawsuit seeking $300 million, which was dismissed, and now in a state court in Mandan, North Dakota, where jury selection began Monday.

Critics call the case a clear example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), designed to silence dissent and drain financial resources. Notably, North Dakota is among the minority of US states without anti-SLAPP protections.


"Big Oil is trying to send a message to us, and they're trying to silence Greenpeace as well as the wider movement," said Sushma Raman, Greenpeace's interim executive director, in a statement to AFP.

"But let us be clear: the limited actions Greenpeace took related to Standing Rock were peaceful, lawful, and in line with our values of non-violence and our work for a green and peaceful future."

Waniya Locke, a member of Standing Rock Grassroots, rejected the idea that Greenpeace led the movement.

"I want it to be very clear that no NGOs started or organized our resistance. It was matriarch-led. It was led by women who stood strong, who stood on the riverbanks unarmed," she said in a statement.

Energy Transfer for its part denies attempting to suppress free speech.

"Our lawsuit against Greenpeace is about them not following the law," the company said in a statement to AFP.

"We support the rights of all Americans to express their opinions and lawfully protest. However, when it is not done in accordance with our laws, we have a legal system to address that. Beyond that, we will let our case speak for itself."

Greenpeace is fighting back. This month, it became the first group to test the European Union's anti-SLAPP directive by suing Energy Transfer in The Netherlands. The group is seeking damages with interest and demanding that Energy Transfer publish the court's findings on its website.

More than 400 organizations, along with public figures such as singer Billie Eilish and actors Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon have signed an open letter in support of Greenpeace, as have hundreds of thousands of individuals globally.

WTF

Joy Reid’s staff had ‘tense’ meeting with MSNBC chiefs after learning her show was being axed in media: report

FEBRUARY 24, 2025

THE INDEPENDENT, UK

MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid’s evening news show and held a “tense” meeting with her staff after the news was leaked to the press.

The final episode ofThe ReidOut will air this week, The New York Times reports. Her slot will be replaced by a show led by a trio of hosts: Democratic strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez. They currently host The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Rebecca Kutler, the network’s newly-appointed leader, made the call amid larger plans to overhaul MSNBC’s programming, according to the Times.


Joy Reid’s staffers learned that he show was being canceled via the press, rather than MSNBC’s leadership, according to reports (Getty Images for ESSENCE)

Now, media journalist Oliver Darcy reports Reid’s staff found out they were losing their jobs in a tense and emotional 30-minute impromptu meeting Sunday morning. Staffers were reportedly frustrated they learned about the show shutting down from media reports, rather than directly from leadership.

Reid has hosted a 7 p.m. show on the network since 2020. She had been with the company since 2014.

The network has also removed Alex Wagner from her weekday evening spot, and Darcy reports Kutler held a “similar” meeting with the show’s staff. However, Wagner is expected to stay with MSNBC as a contributor.

Now, many are mourning Reid’s departure.

“I owe the television part of my career to Joy Reid, as do so many other Black voices y'all never would have heard of if not for her,” journalist Elie Mystal wrote on X. “And *that's* why she's gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable.”

Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison also thanked her for her time on the network.

“Grateful for Joy Reid & her willingness to always provide a forum for voices and candidates often ignored by mainstream media,” he wrote on X. “Can you name another show or host who brought together 5 Black candidates running for the US Senate?!”

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms similarly told The Daily Beast: “I am deeply saddened that Joy-Ann Reid, the only African American woman with her own show on MSNBC, will no longer be seen.”

But others — especially members of the GOP — are celebrating the end of her show.

Media personality Piers Morgan called her firing “long overdue,” while journalist Billy Binion accused of her pushing “the worst kind of journalism.”

Trump also railed against MSNBC this weekend, writing on Truth Social: “These people lie... they are a vehicle of the Democrat Party.”

MSNBC declined to comment when contacted by The Independent.

'Unpardonable sin!' Trump demands 'vast sums of money' as he rages against MSNBC

Travis Gettys
February 24, 2025 
RAW STORY

Donald Trump celebrated MSNBC's cancellation of Joy Reid's show as part of a major shakeup of the network's prime-time lineup.

In a late-night Truth Social post, the president attacked Brian Roberts, the chairman of MSNBC parent company Comcast, and various on-air hosts while demanding "vast sums of money" for critical coverage, which he called an "unpardonable sin."

"Lowlife Chairman of 'Concast,' Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid," Trump posted late Sunday. "Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been 'canned' long ago, along with everyone else who works there."

The telecommunications giant Comcast announced in October that it would spin off MSNBC, CNBC and several other media properties into a separate public company that Trump adviser Elon Musk has publicly flirted with buying. New network president Rebecca Kutler is planning additional programming changes despite viewership shooting up 77 percent during prime time hours and 34 percent in total day viewers since Inauguration Day.

"Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show," Trump posted. "Rachel rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid."

"Then there’s, of course, the LOW IQ Con Man, Al Sharpton, who has, perhaps, the lowest TV ratings in the history of television," the president added. "What is he doing to Brian Roberts to stay on the air? This whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party. They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country. Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!"

Sources say that Kutler intends to replace “The ReidOut,” which has aired at 7 p.m. ET since 2020, with “The Weekend” co-hosts Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez. That show improved its total viewership 35 percent during its two-hour slot airing on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. ET.

RIP
Roberta Flack of 'Killing Me Softly' fame dies at 88

Agence France-Presse
February 24, 2025 

Roberta Flack arrives for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, 2020, in Los Angeles (VALERIE MACON/AFP)

by Maggy DONALDSON

Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer behind the classic "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and one of the most recognizable voices of the 1970s, died Monday at age 88.

Flack's publicist announced her death without citing a cause.

The influential pop and R&B star in recent years had lost her ability to sing because of ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which she was diagnosed with in 2022.

"She died peacefully surrounded by her family," the statement from the publicist said.

The classically trained musician with a tender voice produced a number of early classics of rhythm and blues that she frequently described as "scientific soul," timeless works that blended meticulous practice with impeccable taste.

Her work was key to the "quiet storm" radio form of smooth, sensuous, slow jams that popularized R&B and influenced its later aesthetics in the 1980s and 1990s.

- 'A lot of love' -

Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack in Black Mountain, North Carolina on February 10, 1937, the artist was raised in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC.

Her large, musical family had a penchant for gospel, and she took up the piano in her youth, which ultimately earned her a music scholarship to Washington's Howard University at the tender age of 15.

She told Forbes in 2021 that her father "found an old, smelly piano in a junkyard and restored it for me and painted it green."

"This was my first piano and was the instrument in which I found my expression and inspiration as a young person."

She was a regular playing clubs in Washington, where she was eventually discovered by jazz musician Les McCann.

Flack signed at Atlantic Records, launching a recording career at the relatively late age of 32.

But her magnetic star grew overnight after Clint Eastwood used her romantic ballad "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" on the soundtrack of his 1971 movie "Play Misty for Me."

The song earned her the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1972, a prize which she took home at the following ceremony as well for "Killing Me Softly With His Song," thus becoming the first artist ever to win the honor two years in a row.

A remixed rendition of "Killing Me Softly" was released in 1996 by the Fugees, with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, bringing Flack a resurgence as it soared to top charts worldwide and scored another Grammy.

Flack also won a lifetime achievement honor from the Recording Academy in 2020.

Flack was a figure in the mid-20th century's social movements, and was friends with both Reverend Jesse Jackson and activist Angela Davis. She sang at the funeral of baseball icon Jackie Robinson, MLB's first Black player.

She has described growing up "at a time 'Black' was the most derogatory word you could use. I went through the civil rights movement. I learned, long after leaving Black Mountain, that being Black was a positive thing, as all of us did, the most positive thing we could be."

"I did a lot of songs that were considered protest songs, a lot of folk music," she said, "but I protested as a singer with a lot of love."

© Agence France-Presse