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Ralph welcomes Janine Jackson, of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) and producer and host of FAIR\u2019s syndicated weekly radio show \u201cCounterSpin\u201d to give us her take on the corporate media landscape and in particular how the major outlets are opining on the crisis in Gaza. Then, Palestinian American, Dr. Tariq Haddad, cardiologist and member of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights joins us to recount the tragic story of how he has lost nearly one hundred family members in the current Israeli bombardment.

Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) and she is the producer and host of FAIR\u2019s syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin. Ms. Jackson contributes frequently to FAIR\u2019s newsletter Extra!, her articles have appeared in various publications, including In These Times and the UAW\u2019s Solidarity, and in books including Civil Rights Since 1787 and Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism.

What I like to say is: we hear a lot from the people we hear a lot from. The conversation becomes kind of insular, and it's very much a pro-U.S. and whatever the U.S. is doing position, with some criticism around the edges. But the point is, you're not hearing from the people who are recipients/victims of U.S. policy. You're hearing overwhelmingly from the people who make that policy.

Janine Jackson

If you just read the New York Times and the Washington Post, the U.S. is the world. We're the only good country in the world. Anything we do is democracy. Anybody we bomb, we're bombing in service to democracy. And you're just supposed to keep swallowing that. And I feel that elite news media don't understand that people are not buying it. We're not buying it anymore.

Janine Jackson

What [Dr. Tariq Haddad] relates is not going to be easy to take for our listeners, but bear with us, listeners. We have to face up to it because it's your tax dollars, it's your US weapons\u2026 and cover\u2014diplomatic and political\u2014that is what Netanyahu wants and gets. The rest is just deceptive rhetoric.

Ralph Nader

Dr. Tariq Haddad is a cardiologist and member of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights\u2014 a broadly based, growing coalition of 19 organizations, with over 10,000 Virginians from diverse backgrounds, who advocate for Palestinian human rights. Dr. Haddad grew up in Gaza.\xa0

For the last four months, my routine has been basically every morning finding out who's died, who's survived, who's suffering, who needs help, and it's been a constant daily thing starting from October.

Dr. Tariq Haddad

I couldn't bring myself as a human being\u2014forget as a physician\u2014couldn't bring myself to meet with somebody (Secretary of State, Antony Blinken) for a photo op as a grandstanding opportunity, knowing full well what this administration has done to cause suffering and death in my family. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And I just\u2014especially given three minutes. How am I, in three minutes, going to describe everything that's happened to my family and all my fellow Palestinians in Gaza?

Dr. Tariq Haddad

In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard with Francesco DeSantis

News 2/7/24

1. Eminent scholar Professor William Youmans, working with the Arab Center Washington DC, has published a study examining media bias on Gaza in the context of Sunday talk shows \u2013 including NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, CBS\u2019 Face the Nation, ABC\u2019s This Week and Fox News Sunday. This study found significant \u201cpatterns of bias in guest booking, in the range of views expressed by guests, and in the framing of issues,\u201d signifying \u201can abandonment of the ideal that news media\u2019s purpose is to scrutinize government policies and the actions of those in power and to inform the public so it can forge independent opinions.\u201d

2. A groundbreaking report from the Lever has revealed many of AIPAC\u2019s top donors, including such shady characters as Leonid Ravinsky, the billionaire behind the amateur pornography site OnlyFans, and Leslie Wexner, former CEO of Victoria\u2019s Secret and a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. This information came from a donors-only call that Lever journalists infiltrated. Also on that call was New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who said pro-ceasefire members of Congress are being misled by misinformation from \u201cTikTok and China and Russia and our other adversaries.\u201d

3. 19 student activists at Brown University have begun a hunger strike, demanding that the university divest \u201cits endowment from companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza," the Providence Journal reports. The group, called Hunger Strike for Palestine, includes both Jewish and Palestinian students. Brown has invested in weapons manufacturing companies such Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, among others. In a transparent attempt to suppress this story, the University is blocking media access to the campus.

4. Over 1,000 constituents of Representative Dan Goldman have signed a letter excoriating the Democratic Congressman for aligning himself with Republican efforts to discredit South Africa\u2019s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, per the Intercept. The letter reads \u201cDespite vehement and overwhelming opposition from your constituents and the alarming and escalating death toll that has now passed 26,000 Palestinians killed, including several thousand children, it is unfathomable that you persist in endorsing the U.S.\u2019s continued support for these atrocities.\u201d Goldman was a top recipient of AIPAC cash last month, receiving $45,400.

5. Following a mammoth general strike against President Javier Milei\u2019s radical capitalist economic policies in Argentina, the country\u2019s courts have \u201cannulled the entire labor chapter of\u2026Milei\u2019s mega-decree, declaring its \u2018constitutional invalidity,\u2019\u201d Progressive International reports. Among other controversial provisions, Milei\u2019s labor decree would have retaliated against workers who have engaged in certain forms of political protest.

6. The Intercept\u2019s Ryan Grim has, for some time, been covering the story of Imran Khan \u2013 Pakistan\u2019s popular former president who has been the target of political repression and a lightning rod of civil resistance in that country. Just recently, Khan\u2019s party was formally barred from the upcoming Pakistani elections. Interestingly, this is a similar set of facts as in Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro has also barred an opposition party from competing in their upcoming election. Yet, as Grim comments, the disparity in the American response is stark: \u201cPakistan\u2026\xa0 convict[s] the main opposition leader on totally bogus charges and\u2026ban[s] his party. State Dep[artmen]t calls that an internal matter for Pakistan. Maduro does similar, citing a coup attempt, and State instantly dishes out sanctions.\u201d

7. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive former teacher in Chicago public schools, now publicly supports ending the Board of Education\u2019s $10.3 million contract with the Chicago Police Department, thereby removing cops from the city\u2019s schools. According to research on this topic,\xa0 \u201cstudents who attended a high school that had a Chicago officer stationed inside were four times more likely to have the police called on them than kids at high schools that didn\u2019t have in-house cops. And there [is] a stark divide in the rate at which Black students [are] policed compared to their peers.\u201d Additionally \u201cthe presence of school officers has also not proven to prevent school shootings.\u201d This from the Chicago Sun-Times.\xa0

8. More Perfect Union reports \u201cMississippi has approved bills to give Amazon a 10-year, 100% corporate tax exemption, plus 30 years of state tax exemptions. Lawmakers also set aside $44 million to help fund Amazon's latest project in the state.\u201d This corporate welfare giveaway is all the more galling because, as More Perfect Union notes, \u201cMississippi has the highest poverty rate in America.\u201d One can only hope this vote does not kickoff another race to the bottom for Amazon\u2019s crumbs among the other poorest states in the union.

9. Bloomberg reports that the United Auto Workers union has signed up a majority of employees at Volkswagen\u2019s plant in Tennessee. Expansion of the union into plants owned by foreign auto companies has been a top priority for new UAW president Shawn Fain, and a union election at this factory would be key test for the industry and the union. Moreover, the speed at which they have organized majority support will no doubt put other non-union auto companies \u2013 namely Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla \u2013 on notice.

10. Finally, speaking of Elon Musk, the AP reports a Delaware judge ruled against the billionaire in a recent case, deciding that he is \u201cnot entitled to a landmark compensation package awarded by Tesla\u2019s board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.\u201d Lawyers for the shareholders argued that it was \u201cdictated by Musk and was the product of sham negotiations with [non-independent] directors \u2026 [and] approved by shareholders who were given misleading and incomplete disclosures in a proxy statement.\u201d This all begs the question, how crooked do you have to be to lose a corporate case in Delaware?

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard.

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