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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  • What About the “Keystone XL Clone”?

    “While the Obama White House Keystone XL decision has been touted by most environmentalists and criticized by Big Oil and its front groups, the truth is much more complex and indeed, dirty. That’s because for years behind the scenes the Obama Administration has quietly been approving hundreds of miles-long pieces of pipeline owned by pipeline…

  • TPP and China: “It’s the Geopolitics Stupid”

    “Tensions between rising and declining powers are inevitable, but they can be transformed and overcome through common/shared security trade and military-related diplomacy. We would do well to learn from history and to pursue win-win diplomacy rather than self-defeating zero-sum challenges.”

  • What’s ISDS? How TPP “Puts Corporations in Driver’s Seat”

    “The text released this morning clearly demonstrates what we have long feared: The TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions would enable investors from any of the TPP countries to challenge environmental and public health laws, regulations and court decisions in international tribunals that circumvent the U.S. and any other country’s judicial system. Right now, a…

  • Electoral Reform Wins in Tuesdays’ Election

    “Electoral reform played a big role in the 2015 elections this year. Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment requiring that redistricting be done according to certain criteria by a bipartisan commission, and advocates of public financing of campaigns had big wins in Seattle and in Maine.”

  • * Russia and Kurds * U.S. Troops and Chalabi * Haitian Election

    “Stung by Vladimir Putin’s military intervention, Obama last week foreswore his previous refusal to put boots on the ground, announcing he’s sending a small contingent of U.S. special operations commandos to help America’s close allies, the Syrian Kurdish rebels. But to scant notice, the Kurds are receiving increased support from Russia as well — and…

  • Left and Right Opposing the “Privatization of the Justice System”

    “Forced arbitration clauses impact virtually every aspect of your life, from buying a car to credit card agreements to your employment. They even wipe out the right to go to court for many civil rights violations. The constitutional right of a citizen to sue has been fundamentally taken away.”

  • A Tale of Two Retirements

    “We examined the retirement assets of the Fortune 500 CEOs. … One CEO, David Novak from YUM Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC), has $234 million in his retirement account, yet hundreds of thousands of YUM’s low-wage restaurant workers have no retirement at all.”

  • Sanders’ Post Office Banking for Nearly 100 Million “Unbanked”

    “The USPS doesn’t spend taxpayer money, and would run at a profit but for the poisonous provision of the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act of 2006, which requires it to fund its pensions decades into the future. Postal banking, for extremely low fees and lending rates, would make the USPS financially solvent while providing a…

  • Is the Administration Finally Fessing up on School Testing?

    “Unfortunately the Department continues to call for annual testing and for making high-stakes decisions based on student growth (gains in test scores), including evaluations of teachers and teacher-preparation programs, despite the critique by researchers that such use of ‘value-added modeling’ has proven to be neither valid nor reliable for such decision-making. Giving states some flexibility…

  • Saudi Bombing of Doctors Without Borders

    “I have personally been in touch with the MSF International Communication Officer in Yemen Malak Shaher who confirmed yesterday that they share the right GPS coordinates of the places MSF is found with the operations room of the Saudi-led coalition every week. She said literally, ‘MSF confirms the right GPS coordinates of Haydan hospital were…

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