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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  • Ukraine War: Why We Need a Real Debate

    The publisher and editorial director of The Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel writes, “It’s time to challenge the orthodox view on the war in Ukraine. As Russia’s illegal and brutal assault enters its fourth month, the impact on Europe, the Global South and the world is already profound.”

  • Biden on Taiwan: “A Casus Belli”

    Chas Freeman, a former U.S. diplomat, businessman, and current chair of Projects International Inc. says, “This is the fourth time in a year that the White House has had to walk back a pledge by President Biden to go to war with China over Taiwan that is inconsistent with both the terms of U.S.-China normalization…

  • Epidemiologist: “‘No doubt” the U.S. in middle of new Covid surge”

    The author of the popular Covid-19 newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist, says there is “no doubt we are in the middle of a case surge in the U.S. Unfortunately, it’s not getting communicated properly.” According to Katelyn Jetelina, current transmission rates (higher than 50 reported cases per 100,000 people) across 66 percent of counties correspond to…

  • Bereavement Activists Push for Support of Covid-19 Orphans

    Media outlets are increasingly focusing on the plight of children across the U.S. who have been orphaned by the Covid-19 pandemic. But advocates for the bereaved and pediatricians say that too little has been done to materially and emotionally support this growing group of young people, who still have “no return to normal.” An updated…

  • Biden in Asia: * Threat of War with China * Need to End Korean War

    Christine Ahn, executive director of Women Cross DMZ, said: “Biden must use his trip to South Korea to take the lead on diplomacy with North Korea by abandoning failed approaches of sanctions and pressure and instead focusing on building trust and reducing tensions. Most important would be officially ending the Korean War with a peace…

  • In Upcoming Summit, Latin America Calling out U.S. Double Standards

    “This is because many Latin American and Caribbean governments are unhappy with the U.S. government’s decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the summit. The countries of the hemisphere have grown accustomed to U.S. double standards when the arguments of democracy and human rights are flaunted. Who can forget that the United States managed…

  • Congress Goes All in With War

    The Senate could vote on a $40 billion Ukraine aid package as soon as Wednesday. DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson Executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org, Swanson said today: “The pretense that there are ten (or even one) members of Congress who can be relied on to oppose warmaking is dead. War opposition in the public theater of Congress is purely for…

  • Crisis in Science Labs: The Supply Chain Spiral

    Supply chain disruptions are affecting scientific lab work across the globe, from worsening vaccine inequity to delaying new research on both Covid-19 and other vaccines. Lee Riley, a professor of epidemiology and infectious disease, told IPA that we can expect similar problems if the case numbers continue to surge in this winter.

  • Facebook Lifting Ban on Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion “Stunning”

    “‘The ‘grand wizards’ of battling fake news have even dabbled with Holocaust distortion, downplaying WWII-era paramilitaries who slaughtered Jews as mere ‘historic figures’ and Ukrainian nationalist leaders, while attacking members of the U.S. Congress who had denounced Ukraine’s glorification of Nazi collaborators.'”

  • Ukraine: “Horrible Dangers” of a Proxy War; Nuclear War

    Anatol Lieven writes: writes: “To judge by its latest statements, the Biden administration is increasingly committed to using the conflict in Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia, with as its goal the weakening or even destruction of the Russian state. This would mean America adopting a strategy that every U.S. president during the…

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