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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  • Panama Papers: Pritzkers, American Oligarchs

    “We like to think we don’t have oligarchical families in the U.S., but the Pritzker family shows a grim reality. Starting decades ago, the grandfather of the family [Abram Nicholas Pritzker] virtually pioneered offshore trusts as a way of avoiding paying taxes.”

  • Panama Papers: Some U.S. Connections Emerging

    “McClatchy also reports on how havens inside the U.S. offer “the same secrecy” as places like Panama in states like Wyoming — which has reportedly started an investigation of Mossack Fonseca, the firm tied to the Panama Papers.”

  • Panama Papers: * Whistleblowers * How Trade Deals Facilitate Dirty Money

    “It’s worth noting that in 2011 the White House said that the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement and various tax haven/secrecy ‘reforms’ extracted from Panama would end Panama’s financial crime secrecy protections and tax haven and money laundering activities. ”

  • Panama Papers Fallout: Overview, Iceland, Putin, Trade Deals

    “The greater crime, which the Panama Papers illustrate comprehensively, is that we have a secret economy connected to and even supporting some of the worst aspects of the global capitalist system. Iceland’s PM is not an isolated incident. We need to not only look at individual players, but the system itself. If we mean to…

  • #PanamaPapers: “Poor Are Biggest Victims”

    “The most vulnerable people in the world are harmed by financial secrecy. … Congress should pass legislation to make it more difficult to set up anonymous companies here in the U.S. These companies fuel corruption, poverty, human trafficking and armed conflict. Congress can pass the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act and move meaningful…

  • “Clinton’s Claims on Fossil Fuel Funding: Greenpeace Responds”

    “To be clear, we are talking about more than just individual contributions from oil and gas employees. According to data compiled by Greenpeace’s research department, Secretary Clinton’s campaign and the Super PAC supporting her have received more than $4.5 million from the fossil fuel industry during the 2016 election cycle. Eleven registered oil and gas…

  • Ignoring Turkey’s “Dirty War” Against the Kurds

    “But diplomats say Erdogan’s increasingly aggressive and undemocratic behavior in Turkey, plus what they describe as his mercurial role in the conflict in neighboring Syria, have diminished his standing in the Obama administration.”

  • “Nuclear Security Summit” — Hypocrisy, Profiteering, Spectacle

    “The reality is that the rewards of the nuclear weapons industrial complex are so vast, unaccountable and surely at this stage, ‘a dark hole’ — how can anyone account for close to $10 trillion dollars in 70 years, let alone the next three decades for $1 trillion plus more? The ultimate in profiteering.”

  • Pakistan: How U.S. Adds “Fuel to Fire”

    “The U.S. government has condemned the terrorist attacks in Lahore and is promising to work with the Pakistani state to fight terrorism. This will most likely be followed by more military campaigns, more drone attacks, and a crackdown in Punjab. This is how the U.S. government adds fuel to the fire.”

  • Beyond DOJ vs Apple: Chipping Away at Civil Liberties in Secret

    “While it looks like DOJ backed off a fight they seemed sure to lose, even since Monday’s announcement, DOJ has renewed its determination to access other phones, most of which it can probably access via other means as well. Ultimately there needs to be affirmative protection for companies that build security into their products, or…

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