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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  • 100 U.S. Organizations Release Statement Urging Biden “to End the U.S. Role in Escalating” the Ukraine Crisis

    For the United States and Russia, the only sane course of action now is a commitment to genuine diplomacy with serious negotiations, not military escalation – which could easily spiral out of control to the point of pushing the world to the precipice of nuclear war.

  • Roots of Joe Rogan Controversy: “A War on Public Health”

    Journalist Alex Kotch said that to understand the origins of Covid-19 disinformation, we must look to corporate greed.

  • How NATO Inflames Relations with Russia

    “Coming so soon after their 20-year war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials should not be looking for new foreign interventions in the Ukraine — which risks even worse outcomes than the ‘War on Terror’ produced,” David Gibbs said.

  • “Insane Reality”: As Wealthy Meet at Davos, Taxing them Could Provide for Humanity

    Groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam, and Patriotic Millionaires released a report, “Taxing Extreme Wealth,” which reveals that modest taxes on the richest could “lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty” as well as “deliver universal health care and social protection for all the citizens of low and lower middle-income…

  • Post Office Offering COVID Tests

    Lisa Graves, executive director of the watchdog group True North Research and leader of the BOLD ReThink project, said: “The Postal Service is one of the largest workforces in the U.S. and with forward-thinking leadership it can play a significant role in providing services and assistance so many Americans need, like COVID-19 tests to help Americans protect their health.”

  • A Campaign Against COVID Public-Health Measures

    A new investigative report reveals how a “corporate-bankrolled campaign” to combat public health measures began, and “how it has continued to supplant public health experts and hijack the governmental response to the pandemic.”

  • Newsom Fact-Checked on Rejection of Sirhan Parole on RFK Assassination

    Expert Lisa Pease contends there are numerous falsehoods in California Governor Gavin Newsom’s statement denying Sirhan Sirhan’s parole.

  • Maya Angelou, the Quarter and Real Change

    Kali Holloway said today, “I suspect that Dr. Angelou, an outspoken activist for the liberation of black folks, would question her placement on the same coin as a man who stole even the teeth of those he enslaved. I believe she would recognize the irony of America’s willingness to put a black woman on its…

  • Martin Luther King’s Call for a “Radical Revolution of Values”

    “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar,” Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech given in New York one year before his assassination. “It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty…

  • Organizations Call for Elimination of “Launch on Warning” Land-Based Nuclear Missiles

    The statement, titled “A Call to Eliminate ICBMs,” warns that “intercontinental ballistic missiles are uniquely dangerous, greatly increasing the chances that a false alarm or miscalculation will result in nuclear war.” The organizations urged the U.S. government to “shut down the 400 ICBMs now in underground silos that are scattered across five states,

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