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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  • Amazon Terminated Paid Sick Leave for Covid-19 After Union Vote

    Just one day after union voting ended at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse in Staten Island, the company announced it will end its nationwide Covid-19 paid sick leave policy. Labor reporters and activists believe Amazon waited to make the announcement until after the vote. Eileen Appelbaum, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that the…

  • Israeli Killing of Palestinian Journalist a “Calculated Act of Savagery”

    Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadiliyya and expert on Palestinian affairs and the contemporary Middle East, said today, in the wake of the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh: “The Israeli occupier has repeatedly demonstrated that its priority is impunity, and it cannot be entrusted with either investigation, accountability, or justice for either…

  • Marcos Win in Philippines: Dynasties and Social Media Manipulation

    Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known as “Bongbong” Marcos, has won the Philippine presidency. WALDEN BELLO, [email protected], @WaldenBello Bello ran for vice president. He is chairperson of Laban ng Masa (LnM), “a Philippine national mass movement-based political center with a socialist direction.” He gained notoriety for his rallying cry: “FUCK YOU, MARCOS. THE BATTLE HAS JUST BEGUN”…

  • Scientific Analysis Links Environmental Change and New Diseases

    Climate change scholars weigh in on new analysis from scientists that climate change will cause new diseases to emerge more frequently.

  • Marking One Million Deaths 

    New analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies contrasts the nation’s death toll with billionaire wealth gains during the pandemic.

  • Former Negotiator on How the Ukraine War Should End

    Quigley notes however that the Biden administration “has framed the conflict in apocalyptic terms as a battle between democracy and authoritarianism. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s claim that the West is viewing the conflict as a proxy war against Russia cannot be lightly dismissed. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has set a long-term aim of weakening…

  • Media Shocked by the Leak, Not the Opinion

    “…in the flood of coverage, too many elite media outlets focused on the leak itself and treated the issue as a political football, rather than centering the real-world implications the opinion would have for everyday people.”

  • “Handbook for a Post-Roe America”

    “…the alternative is continuing a pregnancy and giving birth when you don’t want to. There’s no end to the desperation of people who want to terminate a pregnancy.”

  • “How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free”

    A new book from press freedom advocates Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney shows how during the pandemic, the Trump White House was part of a wave of global censorship in which governments hijacked the narrative to tell their own story. Mahoney says: “President Trump’s campaign strategy rested on a strong economy. Trump saw that the…

  • On World Press Freedom Day, Fighting Big Tech’s “Censorship by Proxy”

    On World Press Freedom Day, director of Project Censored Mickey Huff said: “In this digital era, the biggest private tech companies can engage in what we term ‘censorship by proxy,’ restricting freedom of expression or ability to raise funds in ways that the government cannot. These corporations exert control of online information through algorithms, deplatforming,…

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