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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Syria: “Propaganda Machine Goes into High Gear”

    “As the media celebrate the U.S. visit by Saudi prince Salman, author of the catastrophic bombing and starvation of Yemen, they castigate Syria’s president Bashar for a chemical weapons attack and denounce him once again as the nastiest dictator on earth.”

  • Israel Shooting Palestinian Protesters and the Gaza “Conspiracy of Silence”

    “From video footage we can see that people were shot in the back. Others were shot for carrying tires or for simply walking into these areas. These were individuals who posed no threat whatsoever. Even if they were attempting to cross the border, you don’t use live fire to kill people who are crossing a…

  • Bolton: Trump’s Most “Dangerous” Move

    “Bolton was such a lightning rod that in 2005, even the GOP-controlled Senate refused to confirm him as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. To avoid the need for Senate confirmation, George W. Bush named Bolton to the post in a recess appointment. But Bolton doesn’t just bully individuals. He pushed for the 2003 invasion…

  • MLK: Radical Revolutionary

    “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important…

  • Wave of Teachers’ Strikes: Kentucky and Oklahoma

    “On Friday, teachers in Kentucky went out on illegal wildcat strikes in more than 25 counties against the wishes of union leaders to protest against draconian changes to the state’s … pension plans. … While Oklahoma has the country’s lowest tax on oil and natural gas production, teachers’ salaries remain stubbornly low, at 49th in…

  • “Hawks and Liars” Flying High on Cable News

    “When it comes to Trump critics,” the article says, “CNN and MSNBC regularly serve up a basket of elite deplorables from the military/intelligence establishment—for example, the appalling ex-CIA Director John Brennan and horrific former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin. The hollowness of their Trump critique on ‘liberal cable news’ was on display last week when both men endorsed Trump’s choice for CIA…

  • “Trump’s Choice of Bolton Satisfies His Biggest Donor”

    “Last August, shortly after John Kelly replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Steve Bannon was fired as the president’s chief strategist, John Bolton complained that he could no longer get a meeting with Donald Trump.”Just three months later, however, on the eve of Trump’s belligerent address to the United Nations, Bolton…

  • Bolton’s Falsifications for War

    “The Nuremberg principles, which arose from the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, define as an international crime the ‘planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.’ Bolton appears to have ‘participated in a common plan’ to prepare for the war (also defined…

  • The Real Threat: Facebook and Google’s Business Model

    “Our present-day freakout over Cambridge Analytica needs to be put in the broader historical context of our decades-long complacency over Silicon Valley’s business model. The fact is that companies like Facebook and Google are the real malicious actors here — they are vital public communications systems that run on profiling and manipulation for private profit…

  • U.S. Saudi Lobby “in Overdrive” as U.S. Helps Starve Yemen

    “Just as important, the Saudis use Washington lobbyists to influence U.S. policies on issues as critical as our own foreign policy with allies like Qatar (whom the Saudis are currently blockading economically), bang the war drums against Iran, and help kill the 9/11 bill, which would allow survivors of the World Trade Center and Pentagon…

Mastodon