News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • Trump: Anti-Establishment or Tool of Insiders?

    “Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration will likely be filled with people who will benefit financially from more fracking, more industrial agriculture and factory farms, and expanded deregulation masquerading as trade policy. The people he has indicated will be in his cabinet are the same people who have advocated policies that are destroying our climate and creating…

  • Economic Dynamics Behind Trump Victory

    “Clinton, not Trump, took the two bottom groups with respect to income: Under $30,000 and under $50,000. Trump won all of the rest, sometimes narrowly, but he won them. And white women college graduates only slightly favored Clinton, while trade and state-of-personal-finances badly hurt Clinton. Views of the parties are polarized, but more people have…

  • Will Trump Actually Pull Back from Wars?

    “Some new voices on the right advocating a more restrained foreign policy are needed — to be more aligned with Trump’s campaign promise to the American people to get involved in fewer foreign wars and reassess, and perhaps scale back, the U.S. role in globe-spanning alliances.”

  • The “Second-Most Important Vote” Today

    In our current system, the way we choose our leaders is failing. As a nonpartisan group, FairVote advocates for proven solutions to make elections better. Voters should have the freedom to vote for the candidate they like the best without fear that their vote will help the candidate they like the least. Studies show that…

  • Pence and the “Christian Right”: Election a “Win-Win”

    “Some of the best evidence of the success of the Christian Right is that no matter who wins the presidency, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is still a sitting member of the U.S. Senate from a major state and one of the best known pols in the country. And Mike Pence is either the Vice President;…

  • Beyond Dakota Access: Why Build More Fossil Fuel Infrastructure?

    And in suggesting that the pipeline could just be rerouted, Obama misses the key element of resistance to Dakota Access: all new fossil fuel infrastructure must be halted immediately, because our planet is on the brink of climate crisis and there is no excuse for building another 40 years of fossil fuel infrastructure. And no…

  • How Clinton’s Elite Corruption Breeds Trump’s Demagoguery

    “With days to go before the election, the FBI has served up its own October Surprise, saying it was examining a new batch of emails in an investigation most thought had generally ended. But at the heart of the broader controversy, Hillary Clinton has no one to blame except herself.

  • Aleppo and Mosul and Clinton and Trump

    “But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties. In the second city…

  • FBI Whistleblower on Comey and Clinton

    “Comey is neither saint nor villain but someone who has been around the block. As an acting Attorney General, he’s actually been in his nominal boss’s Loretta Lynch’s exact position and knows how the political pressures as well as media disclosures (i.e. leaking to the public) work. Although he wasn’t really challenging mass surveillance of…

  • “Historic” U.N. Vote for Nuclear Ban

    “The United States, which led the opposition, had hoped to limit the ‘Yes’ vote to less than one hundred, but failed badly. The final vote was 123 For, 38 Against and 16 Abstentions. The ‘No’ votes came from the nuclear weapons states, and U.S. allies in NATO, plus Japan, South Korea and Australia, which have…

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