News Items

  • NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake Statement on Surveillance Legislation

    At this late hour (with all the fear mongering by national security authorities pushing to reauthorize and expand an unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program), unless the Amash-Lofgren Amendment is passed, Congress may end up passing a bill (S. 139) that actually gives criminal suspects more Fourth Amendment protections than innocent people.

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  • News Conference at Department of Justice on Threats to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange by Attorney General Jeff Sessions

    CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently called WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently stated that Julian Assange’s arrest is a “priority” of the Trump administration. This has caused numerous individuals — with differing perspectives on WikiLeaks — to warn of a growing threat to press freedom. The following will address U.S. government policy toward WikiLeaks and whistleblowers:

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  • Trump Education Policy

    Rhee and Moskowitz would certainly be zealous proponents of school choice. Selecting either of them would be a thumb in the eyes of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, who campaigned mightily for Clinton. Both have tangled with the unions and made clear their distaste for public schools and for teachers’ unions.

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  • Costas Panayotakis on the Brexit

    “The Brexit vote may have partly been an expression of right-wing xenophobia but it is also an expression of disgust across the continent with the neoliberal monstrosity that the EU has become. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the result will be honored. In the past, European political and economic elites have often ignored referendum results they didn’t like by cranking up Pro-European propaganda and repeating the referendum so that the sovereign people could ‘correct’ their mistake.”

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  • Breaking Down the Brexit Decision

    The political center has lost its commanding appeal and the public is drawn to vague slogans like “freedom” and “independence.” Right-wing projects are implausible as solutions to the problems faced by ordinary citizens but the electorate acts in desperation. The process has been under way for many years. Reagan and Thatcher were early signs. The parties of the center-left fell ever-more-completely under the sway of financial interests and rich donors, providing very little choice.

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  • From “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”

    All the laws and customs of civilized warfare may not be applicable to an armed conflict with the Indian tribes upon our western frontier; but the circumstances attending the assassination of Canby [Army general] and Thomas [U.S. peace commissioner] are such as to make their murder as much a violation of the laws of savage as of civilized warfare, and the Indians concerned in it fully understood the baseness and treachery of their act.

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  • Bradley on His Visit to the Philippines

    Princess Alice sipped punch under a hot tropical sun as “Big Bill” Taft deliver a florid speech extolling the benefits of the American way. A century later I ventured to Zamboanga and learned that the local Muslims hadn’t taken Taft’s message to heart: Zamboanga officials feared for my safety because I was an American and would not allow me to venture out of my hotel without an armed police escort.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    On February 17th, 2016, Holly Sterling, Jesselyn Radack, John Kiriakou, Tim Karr, Delphine Halgand, and Cornel West spoke at a news conference at the National Press Club, then delivered a petition containing over 150.000 signatures to the White House calling for the pardon of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling.

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  • Media Advisory — Cornel West, John Kiriakou among speakers to urge Obama pardon for CIA whistleblower

    News Conference: Release of Petition Urging Obama to Pardon Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower; Speakers to Include Cornel West, John Kiriakou, Jesselyn Radack, Holly Sterling When: Wednesday, February 17 at 9:30 a.m. Where: National Press Club (Bloomberg Room), 13th Floor, National Press Building, Washington

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  • Noam Chomsky & Abby Martin: Electing The President Of An Empire (Full Transcript)

    At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Abby Martin interviews world-renowned philosopher and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky. Full transcript included.

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  • Is the U.S. Heading Toward a Railroad Workers Strike?

    The Real News reports: “…an overwhelming number of surveyed workers seem prepared to reject the PEB’s recommendations, and if the current contract dispute isn’t resolved the US could be headed towards its largest rail strike in decades.”

  • Gorbachev’s Contested Legacy: The Soviet State Did Not “Collapse”

    David M. Kotz, coauthor of Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, said today: “Democracy and individual rights cannot survive in a country with an oligarchic capitalism and extreme inequality.”

  • Alaska Joins Maine with Rank Choice Voting

    “That Alaska pulled this election off without a hitch — even when they had to implement RCV much faster than expected following the passing of Don Young — speaks to just how straightforward RCV is,” says FairVote president Rob Richie.

  • Extensive Fall Booster Campaign Could Save 160,000 Lives

    Analysis shows that an extensive fall booster vaccination campaign could save 160,000 lives and avert $109 billion in medical costs. Yet public health experts say we will be lucky if we can get 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. population boosted.

  • FDA Authorizes Omicron Boosters for Imminent Rollout

    The FDA has authorized new booster shots targeting Omicron subvariants, which will be available to the public in the United States as early as next week. 

  • Gorbachev * Ended Cold War * Unpopular in Russia

    Experts are available for interviews in the wake of Gorbachev’s death. Says Katrina vanden Heuvel: “Gorbachev was perhaps the most radical thinker about security to ever lead a major world power — and to ever lead a nuclear weapons state. As Soviet president, he reversed generations of military buildup and democratized the Soviet Union and…

  • Activist Moms Confront EPA’s “Criminal Negligence” on Sept. 20

    After her daughter, Taylor, was diagnosed with cancer, Susan’s investigative skill set exposed a dirty secret in her town — coal ash from the local Duke Energy power plant was sold and used as structural fill as a substitute for soil to build communities throughout North Carolina. “No one told us, no one helped us,”…

  • Establishment Narrative on Ukraine Based on Deceit and “Threat Inflation”

    Ramzy Mardini writes in a new piece: “”Needless to say, Putin started an illegal and unjustified war. Yet, to enable a course correction toward a diplomatic solution, it’s the Western-based narrative about the war that requires a repudiation. … Today, the narrative of an unprovoked and maximum-aim war persists and dominates the public discourse in…

  • Implications of the Monkeypox Outbreak 

    Steven Thrasher’s book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, was published earlier this month. Thrasher spoke with the Institute for Public Accuracy this week about how the current spread of monkeypox is relevant to the book’s themes. 

  • Pakistan’s Imran Khan “Terrorism” Charge Called “Grotesque”

    The New York Times reports that the crackdown against former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan “appears to have heightened Mr. Khan’s popularity, analysts say, bolstering his claims that the military establishment conspired to topple his government in April.”

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