News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Israel Maintained Security and Surveillance Equipment at Epstein Residence

    “The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street — the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak…

  • Rev. Jesse Jackson Did Not Have Establishment Media on His Side

    Robert Borosage writes in an obituary of the Reverend Jesse Jackson that in both 1984 and 1988, Jackson faced a “skeptical, often hostile press, with little money for paid advertising, [and] Jackson relied on generating free media and drawing big crowds.” Yet Borosage argues that Jackson’s “brilliance and his greatest legacy [are] that the mission,…

  • Palestine Action Ban Ruled Unlawful

    He writes of the group which openly targeted facilities in Britain making weapons for Israel: “A panel of judges found on Friday that the ban resulted in ‘very significant interference with the right to freedom of speech and the right to freedom of assembly.’

  • Nationalizing Elections

    A federal judge has ordered the release of a Justice Department affidavit that led to the FBI raid at a Fulton County elections warehouse on January 28th. 

  • ICE’s “Close Relationship” with Israel

    “Over the past two decades, U.S. immigration officials have maintained a close relationship with the Israeli government. This collaboration has included trips ferrying high-level U.S. law enforcement officials around Israel, joint training for immigration officers, and technology transfers that have put sophisticated surveillance capabilities in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The result…

  • A Proposed Antidote to Big Pharma

    A new proposal, urging “a public option for pharmaceutical R&D,”argues that a federal pharmaceutical research and development laboratory––the National Pharmaceutical Institute––could implement a “tried-and-true approach to meeting public health needs” that would result in social, economic and political benefits. The NPI would help erode Big Pharma’s regulatory capture, break its monopoly on the medicine supply,…

  • Epstein Files Show He Funded Norwegians Behind Oslo Deals

    “Mona Juul and Terje Roed Larsen, the Norwegian husband and wife team that were the architects of the disastrous Oslo process (which side-stepped international law, devastated Palestinian rights for three decades, and consolidated the Israel regime’s unlawful position in Palestine), are revealed in the Epstein files as having close relations with (Mossad-adjacent Israel regime operative)…

  • ICE Detention Centers Endanger Public Health

    While the United States is likely to soon lose its measles elimination status and the Trump administration continues to undermine public confidence in vaccines, two people detained at an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas have active measles infections. 

  • Epstein and Israel: The Case of India

    “Epstein connected an Indian billionaire close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak ahead of the first ever trip by an Indian PM to Israel. Days later, that billionaire, Anil Ambani, told Epstein after a visit to Delhi that ‘Leadership’ wanted Epstein’s assistance for Ambani to meet ‘jared and Bannon…

  • * Hind Rajab * Attack on Iran “Imminent”

    In “The Coming War with Iran: Why This Escalation Path Is Structurally Plausible,” Elijah Magnier warns of an “Israeli alarmist narrative. … What is being revived is not new evidence, but an old pretext — one that has already been proven unfounded and is now being repurposed to manufacture consent for confrontation.”

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