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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  • * Asia * Saudi * Lebanon

    “While some media outlets have been content to take at face value the Saudi authorities’ message that this is an ‘anti-corruption drive,’ and have focused mostly on the arrest of billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the reality is that in the last 24 hours several of the crown prince’s key potential rivals and critics have…

  • “Why the Papadopoulos Plea Isn’t a Smoking Gun”

    “What we do know is that Papadopoulos has a record of embellishing his credentials. And more importantly, we already know that he reported false claims to the campaign about his contacts as he tried to position himself as the middleman to Moscow. He transmitted one of the false claims knowingly: Papadopoulos e-mailed his superiors that…

  • How to Unrig the Democratic Party

    “The “Democracy and the Party” section of the just-released Autopsy and the full report provide context for the current uproar over Donna Brazile’s new account of the Clinton campaign “rigging” the primary, “internal corruption” and “unethical” finances at the DNC.”

  • Money and the DNC Nomination

    “In August 2015 — six months before the first vote was cast in any primary or caucus — the DNC worked directly with the Clinton Campaign and 32 state Democratic parties to implement the Hillary Victory Fund. … Essentially, the DNC-Clinton Campaign deal was an enticement for superdelegates from various states to get on the…

  • * NYC Attack * Manafort in Ukraine

    “Some Ukrainian political analysts believe that Manafort and his team knowingly pursued a policy of dividing the country because it served his political and financial sponsors in the United States.”

  • What Killed the Democratic Party?

    “The Democratic Party lost just about everything in 2016, but so far it has offered only evasive regrets and mild apologies. Instead of acknowledging gross failure and astounding errors, the party’s leaders and campaign professionals wallowed in self-pity and righteous indignation. The true villains, they insisted, were the wily Russians and the odious Donald Trump,…

  • Mueller Indictments Won’t Save Democrats at Election Time: New Report

    “the Democratic National Committee and the party’s congressional leadership remain bent on prioritizing the chase for elusive Republican voters over the Democratic base: especially people of color, young people and working-class voters overall.”

  • Do Military Enlistees Actually “Know What They Are Getting into”?

    Elder argues that between economic pressures, racial prejudices, lack of educational opportunities and deceit in the military recruitment process faced by many enlistees, they frequently don’t actually know what they are signing up for.

  • Balfour Declaration at 100: Cause of Mideast Instability?

    Balfour “clearly had no genuine regard for the millions of Palestinian Arabs — Muslims and Christians alike — who were to suffer the cruelty of war, ethnic cleansing, racism and humiliation over the course of a century. The Balfour Declaration was equivalent to a decree calling for the annihilation of the Palestinian people. Not one…

  • Effects of Russia Demonization

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