News Items

  • Affidavit by Daniel Ellsberg for Plowshare Activists Being Allowed a Defense of Necessity

    In 1971 I gave the U.S. Senate, the New York Times and the Washington Post copies of what have come to be known as The Pentagon Papers. I was arrested on twelve felony counts. My trial was dismissed because of government misconduct which figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon…These considerations bear on two other elements of the necessity defense, the “lack of legal alternatives” and the “imminence” of the harms to be averted. Again, I speak from my own experience, but not only mine, in saying that it is the perceived insufficiency of other means, by themselves not…

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  • A Long List of Democratic Candidates Requires a Large Catalog of Their Funders

    By Sam Haut: As the first debates for the Democratic primary begin, and the list of candidates has grown to 24, it can be difficult to contextualize where each candidate has received funding from over the course of their time in office. What follows is a list of the Democratic candidates and the top sources for how much money they’ve made and where those top sources come from.

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  • NATO and US Foreign Policy: Dangers Ahead

    RootsAction.org held a news conference Thursday on “NATO and U.S. Foreign Policy: Dangers Ahead” hosted by the Institute for Public Accuracy. Speakers include former State Department officials Matthew Hoh, Ann Wright, as well as Martin Fleck. The event was moderated by Norman Solomon.

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  • Media Advisory: “NATO and U.S. Foreign Policy: Dangers Ahead”

    At 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 2, 2019 at the National Press Club: On the same day that President Trump is scheduled to meet with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House, this news conference will focus on the U.S.-NATO relationship. Speakers include former State Department officials Matthew Hoh and Ann Wright.

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  • Statement by Floyd Abrams in response to Attorney General nominee William Barr’s remarks on the First Amendment

    “It’s one thing to say that there could be circumstances in which a journalist’s need to protect her sources could lead to a potential finding of contempt of court if she refused to obey a court order requiring such disclosure. But the notion that a journalist could properly be jailed for publishing material that the government thinks could ‘hurt the country’ is something else entirely and would be deeply threatening to First Amendment norms in general and journalistic freedom in particular.”

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  • Statement on NAFTA’s “Kafkaesque” Turn

    The supposedly concluded renegotiation of NAFTA has reached a Kafkaesque stage. As the United States Trade Representative has stated: “The United States and Mexico have reached a preliminary agreement in principle, subject to finalization and implementation.” Not only the negotiations have not been finalized, and without Canada, but the texts remain hidden from the public.

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  • What’s the Cost of Medicare for All?

    Even a Koch-backed think tank finds Medicare for all would cut health care spending. In a report released by the Mercatus Center, a single-payer health care system would offset costs with even greater savings. The Intercept and other media reporting on this are citing the work of Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler. They are distinguished professors of health policy at the City University of New York at Hunter College and lecturers in medicine at Harvard Medical School. They have written an analysis of the work of the Koch-backed think tank, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which is…

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  • Trump Team Hired Israeli Spy Firm Used by Harvey Weinstein to Attack Obama Officials on Iran Deal

    “Aides to Donald Trump, the U.S. president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a ‘dirty ops’ campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal. People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to ‘get dirt’ on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obama’s top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.”

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  • From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    From the desk of Noam Chomsky

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  • 15 Years Later: The Whistleblower Who Almost Blocked the Iraq War

    Media Advisory: Press Conference to Mark 15th Anniversary Of Leak by GCHQ Translator Katharine Gun Revealing US “Dirty Tricks” at UN for Iraq War When:  Thursday, 1 March 2018 at 11:00 a.m. Where:  Head office, National Union of Journalists Headland House, 72 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NB Who:  Katharine Gun, Thomas Drake, Matthew Hoh, Jesselyn Radack This press conference will take place the day before the 15th anniversary of the Observer’s publication of the explosive March 2, 2003 story “US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war” — based on a leak by GCHQ translator Katharine Gun — revealing the US National Security Agency’s UN surveillance memo that aimed to grease the way for the…

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  • As Afghans Face Starvation, Biden Is Withholding $7 Billion of Their Money

    70 economists sent President Biden a letter advocating for the release of 7 billion dollars worth of foreign reserves owned by Afghanistan, as the majority of the population continues to suffer from acute poverty and starvation.

  • CIA Sued over WikiLeaks Spying, Roger Waters to Speak at Rally at DoJ

    Stefana Maurizi said today, “What happened in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London is a complete scandal. It is a very sinister fact that a media organisation was targeted by espionage activities that you would expect in an authoritarian country.”

  • Espionage Act Misreporting and the Prosecution of Assange

    Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights & Dissent, said: “many media commentators are now misrepresenting what the Espionage Act, a law with a troubled history of abuse, is and what is required for conviction. Some have gone so far as to equate criticisms of the law with disloyalty to the nation. Neither an assertion…

  • Monkeypox Crisis: Activists Tell White House to Take Urgent Steps for Equity

    After activists sent an open letter to the White House national monkeypox response coordinator Robert Fenton and deputy coordinator Demetre Daskalakis earlier this week, a meeting between the letter’s co-authors and the two officials was scheduled for Thursday.

  • Is the FBI Targeting Legitimate First Amendment Activity?

    Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute says the FBI targeting “marginal groups with little to no impact on the broader political process” could be a warning sign for similar groups with foreign ties despite “First Amendment” activity.

  • The Policing of Roger Waters

    Kevin Gosztola, the managing editor of Shadowproof, recently critiqued CNN’s negative portrayal of Pink Floyd’s Roger Walters for his condemnation of US wars and Biden

  • “Monkeypox”: What’s In a Name?

    As monkeypox is declared a public health emergency worldwide, health justice advocates are urging experts not to exacerbate stigma among those most at risk of the virus. Dr. Stella Safo, an HIV primary care physician and the founder of Just Equity for Health, told the Institute for Public Accuracy that renaming the virus is an…

  • Analysis of White House Decision to Declare Monkeypox a Public Health Emergency

    The White House announcement Thursday declaring the monkeypox outbreak a state of emergency was made by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has come under fire in recent weeks for what activists see as his “lack of urgency” with regard to the virus.

  • Long Covid: Activists Disappointed in Two New Reports from Biden Administration

    The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services released two new reports about long Covid on Wednesday, sparking a critical response from activist organizations. 

  • “How Israel Made AIPAC”

    Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Grant Smith says, “In 1962, AIPAC was the lobbying and foreign propaganda division of an umbrella group (the American Zionist Council) that triggered the Department of Justice order to AZC to register as an Israeli foreign agent.. AIPAC should still be seen as a creation of…

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