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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  • What Trump is Right About: NATO

    “Trump’s recent criticisms of the NATO alliance are reasonable. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has provoked post-communist Russia into a stance of belligerence vis-a-vis the United States and its Western allies. The new Cold War with Russia resulted from NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, in violation of a 1990 U.S. commitment that…

  • Convention Spin vs Actual Issues

    “Issues at our convention included climate, the military-industrial-congressional complex, money in elections and the mis-named ‘trade deals’. The establishment politicians are rarely addressing these and when they do, it’s in a twisted fashion. We tried to go beyond reacting and responding, to put forward a positive vision. “The rally against poverty brought out over 1000…

  • The Trump-Pence Threat to Religious Liberty

    “Governor Mike Pence signed into law an Indiana state version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015 which would have effectively allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people if they claimed a religious reason for doing so. He claimed that it was identical to federal legislation and bills by the same name in…

  • 9/11 Widow/Activist on Declassified Saudi Arabia Pages

    “Our government’s relationship to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is no different than an addict’s relationship to heroin. Much like a heroin addict who will lie, cheat and steal to feed his vice, certain members of our government will lie, cheat and steal to continue their dysfunctional and deadly relationship with the KSA —…

  • Sanders Delegates See Clinton VP Pick Causing Clash

    “We Sanders delegates represent millions of progressive voters and activists. This survey suggests that a large proportion of the base that delivered 23 states and 13 million votes for Senator Sanders would be repelled by the potential running-mates for Secretary Clinton who are now being most widely touted. Can any Democratic presidential candidate afford to…

  • Terrorism and the “Series of Absurdities”

    “Our policies are a veritable series of absurdities: we invent enemies like Putin and Assad who have done nothing to us, and we help our real enemies, like the Islamic terrorists, in order to fight our imaginary ones. On top of that, all our politicians are fighting each other to prove that they are more…

  • Are Police Targeting People Who Take and Distribute Damning Videos of Them?

  • Dem Platform “Colonialism” and NATO’s “Provocations”

    Khalek, associate editor at the ElectronicIntifada.net and co-host of the “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast, live tweeted much of the meeting, writing: “Cornel West: ‘We’re in same condition party was in 80yrs ago when they didn’t wanna deal w Jim Crow.'” “Hillary supporter argues against universal healthcare in #DemPlatform bc it would disrespect Obama’s accomplishment with ACA.…

  • Escalating Militarization of Police

    “Police cannot use deadly force unless there’s an imminent threat of death or great bodily injury to them or other people. If the suspect was holed up in a parking garage and there was nobody in immediate danger from him, the police could have waited him out. They should have arrested him and brought him…

  • Police Killings

    Kelly is co-coordinator of the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. President Barack Obama at a NATO meeting in Warsaw decried the violence in Dallas while at at meeting of the military alliance. Kelly writes regularly on issues of violence and peace. She recently wrote the piece “Of Lethal Drones and Police Shootings.” Her books include…

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