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News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Drone Resisters Acquitted, Juror Tells Them: “Keep Doing It”

    “The United States conducted a series of airstrikes on Al-Qaeda targets in Yemen on Thursday, the Pentagon said, in another sign of the Trump administration’s expanding counterterrorism campaign there.”

  • Breaking the Yemen Central Bank: Is Saudi Arabia Using Starvation as a Weapon?

    Now what we’re seeing is another layer of actually using starvation as a weapon: The Saudi government — with U.S. government support — has effectively eliminated the Central Bank of Yemen. This has been the only institution standing between hundreds of thousands — millions, really — and the prospect of famine.

  • Confronting Military Recruitment of Students

    America is witnessing the ‘grave implications’ of the ‘economic, political and even spiritual’ influence of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about. A single F-35 fighter jet costs more than the budget of a medium-sized city’s school system and the U.S. is building 2,500 of them while the schools crumble.

  • Resisters to Militarism on Trial Today

    “I learned that our government is assassinating people in other countries and this violates the UN Charter — which, as a treaty, the Constitution says is the supreme law of the land. But the judges and police are ignoring that. We’re working to uphold such laws. Our country isn’t supposed to use violence or even…

  • “Neo-McCarthyite Furor” on Russia and Threat of More War

    “In the targeting of Trump, too many liberals have joined in fanning a neo-McCarthyite furor, working to discredit those who seek to deescalate U.S.-Russian tensions, and dismissing anyone expressing doubts about the charges of hacking or collusion as a Putin apologist.”

  • The “Assault on Keith Ellison”

    “Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of the leading candidates to chair the Democratic National Committee, left open the possibility of pushing for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, in a break with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just days ahead of the DNC election.”

  • Bacevich on New Trump Advisor McMaster: Where’s the Vision?

    “The national security adviser operates — or should operate — in the realm of ‘grand strategy.’ In this rarified atmosphere, preparing for and conducting war coexists with, and arguably should even take a backseat to, other considerations. To advance the fundamental interests of the state, the successful grand strategist orchestrates all the various elements of…

  • Trump at African American Museum: House and Field Negroes

    “On one hand it’s good to see Trump make an attempt to reach out to blacks in his own clumsy way but on the other hand his bone deep stereotypical view of black people, even in his personal relations with those he considers friends or allies, left him once again with his foot in his…

  • After Trump-Netanyahu Meeting: What Kind of One-State Solution?

    “U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference at the White House on Wednesday morning, before going into their much-anticipated bilateral meeting.

  • Netanyahu’s “Blatant” Violations of International Law Now Becoming “Unhinged”

    “It is true that the colony-building activities accelerated after the signing of the so-called Oslo Peace Accord, but in recent years Israel realized that every decision to approve constructing more units in illegal colonies came at the price of international criticism and condemnation. Now that Trump is in power, Israel, controlled by right-wing, ultra-nationalist and…

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