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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  • Israel Still Occupies Most of Gaza; Still Holds Thousands without Charge

    Nesrine Malik writes in the Guardian: “Devastation’s perpetrators disqualified themselves long ago from any mandate over the people they have aided in killing and shattering. … The crimes that have been committed cannot be redressed, or even prevented from recurring, if the conditions that enabled their perpetrators continue.”

  • Trump at Knesset Credits Big Funder Adelson for Shifting Policy

    “I actually asked [Miriam Adelson], I’m going to get her in trouble with this, but I actually asked her once. I said, ‘So Miriam, I know you love Israel, what do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means, that might mean Israel.”

  • Public Health Association Bars Leader After Peaceful Protest for Gaza Ceasefire

    The American Public Health Association (APHA) has barred public health leader Amy Hagopian from APHA meetings and removed her from her elected position after she engaged in a silent, peaceful protest against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in 2024. The protest occurred at APHA’s annual meeting, after the organization’s governing council declined to consider a…

  • Using “Counterterrorism” Policy Against the Left

    Chip Gibbons writes that in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Trump administration has seized the opportunity to attack the left through reinvigorated “counterterrorism” policy. 

  • Nobel Committee Pushes to Target Venezuela

    Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday morning.  DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson    Swanson is executive director of World Beyond War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.     He just wrote the piece “Nobel Committee Tried Its Best to Give Trump a Peace Prize,” which states: Trump is not the right type of warmonger. Nobody could do it with…

  • Israeli-Palestinian Agreement

    “While it is likely to save numerous lives, at least for the time being, and should be welcomed for that reason alone, it is hardly a peace agreement nor one that lays the basis for attaining Palestinian rights.”

  • Palestinian Prisoners, Propaganda Stressed by Gaza Flotilla Members

    * It’s up to the people of the world “to shut down this war machine.” He cited the general strikes in Italy and moves to use Uniting for Peace: “We have to use every tool that we have.” 

  • Taxpayers File Legal Charges Over Gaza Genocide Against U.S. Government

    “The groups assert that the United States government — through the actions of both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as Congress — has been “complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and has violated its binding obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. This is the only…

  • Working-Class Voters on “Key Issues”

    A new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics and Jacobin analyzed three comprehensive surveys in U.S. political science, revealing where “working-class voters stand on key issues.” The study found that “the message is clear: economic populism must be the core of progressive appeals to workers.” The data spans from 1960 to 2022, tracking long-term…

  • Israel’s Slaughter Continues

    On Friday, Trump called for Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza” and on Saturday said he appreciated “Israel has temporarily stopped the bombing.” Mosab Abu Toha noted then: “President Trump just claimed that Israel has temporarily stopped bombing Gaza. No, Mr. Trump. They haven’t. Please, take a few minutes to check reliable news sources, not just the information…

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