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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  • Will Wall Street Eat Away at Biden Infrastructure Spending?

    “Now private equity is going to try to feed at the public trough again in the coming infrastructure legislation that Democrats want to pass via reconciliation. That will be yet another fight with Wall Street in the fall, even as progressive lawmakers prepare for a broad reform of private equity known as the Stop Wall…

  • Israel Lobby Helped Shontel Brown Defeat Nina Turner

    Brown notes that in March Shontel Brown “tweeted her thanks to the pro-Israel organization for its endorsement, noting that ‘the US and Israel have a solid and unbreakable bond with shared democratic values and common interests.’ … “Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch have stated this year that Israel commits the crime…

  • Britain’s Imprisonment of Journalist Craig Murray “Disgraceful”

    Craig Murray — a former British ambassador who has become a journalist — has been imprisoned on the charge of “jigsaw identification.” Murray and others charge that he was targeted for his anti-establishment political stances including his exposing British and U.S. complicity with torture in Uzbekistan, where he was ambassador, and for his outspoken defense of Wikileaks founder Jullian…

  • Hollywood Actor Invokes Cultural Boycott of Israel, Risks Netflix Lawsuit, California Law Reprisal

    The call by Clennon and Jewish Voice for Peace marks the opening of a new front in the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: Hollywood. Clennon just wrote a piece revealing narrative plot points in the “Hit and Run” series, in order “to encourage viewers to focus on the racism and violence inherent in Israeli…

  • Has the Infrastructure Deal Become the #ExxonPlan?

        “They backed that lobbying with plenty of campaign cash — a total of $333,000 from Exxon and its hired guns over the last decade to just the six Democrats that Exxon targeted. So it was for a very good reason that the bipartisan deal has been ridiculed on social media as the #ExxonPlan.”

  • First Sign of Normalcy: Ramp up Evictions

    “The current eviction protections in New York State, enacted through the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act (CEEFPA), protects most tenants from eviction, but only if they submit a hardship declaration form. These state protections are set to expire on August 31 and must absolutely be extended to prevent a health and homelessness crisis.

  • Drone Whistleblower to be Sentenced Today

    Gibbons has said: “Hale’s crime is exposing the human rights abuses of U.S. drone strikes, including that during a given time period nearly 90 percent of those killed by drone strikes were not the intended target.” 

  • Biden Escalates Cuba Sanctions, Reneges on Campaign Promise

    He said today: “More sanctions is another step into deepening draconian Trump Cuba policy, another step into betrayal of Biden-Harris Cuba campaign policy, which attracted many progressive and democratic socialist votes in line with large public support to renew the progress of Barack Obama-Raul Castro full diplomatic relations. It’s a blatant unilateral dismissal of the overwhelming global UN vote to dismantle the embargo, further highlighting the…

  • AFRICOM Strikes Somalia: Black Bombings Matter

    Samatar recently wrote the piece “Somalia’s toxic political and security order: the death knell of democracy” for The Conversation: “In 2006, after a decade-and-a-half of cruel civil war, the Union of Islamic Courts, a homegrown alliance of religious leaders, terminated 15 years of warlords’ terror and tyranny. They pacified Mogadishu and surrounding areas and were…

  • Cuba and the “Pink Tides” in Latin America

    Garrido recently wrote the piece “A Marxist Analysis of the New Socialist Tide in Latin America” for The International. Garrido notes that about 20 years ago, there was a “Pink Tide” of left-wing victories in Latin America, but was followed by right-wing governments: “Brazil saw the emergence of Michel Termer after the illegitimate, U.S. backed impeachment of Dilma Rousseff…

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