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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  • U.S. War in Afghanistan: “Increasing Violence and Instability”

    “President Obama’s decision to rescind his earlier pronouncement of withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan must be interpreted as an admission to the great scandal of the ‘global war on terrorism’: Western violence has only increased violence and instability, not ended or reduced it. While he continues to ridiculously invoke the insignificant Al Qaeda threat as…

  • “The Drone Papers,” Killings and Whistleblowers

    “I was frustrated anyway about how our superiors were treating me and my peers. We were supposed to function and never ask questions. Then there was this moment while we were hunting for Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen. I suddenly realized that by doing what I was doing I was going against the American Constitution…

  • Debate Fallout: * Clinton’s Emails and Whistleblowers * Big Banks

    “Clinton’s statement shows how out of touch she is with the reality for whistleblowers. Apparently, Mrs. Clinton wasn’t reading the newspapers in 2010 when the Justice Department indicted NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake for espionage as retaliation for going through all the proper channels. There were no safe internal channels for Snowden to use.”

  • Award in Iowa: Black Farms Matter

    “Our view is local production for local consumption. It’s just supporting mankind as family farmers. Everything we’re about is food sovereignty, the right of every individual on earth to wholesome food, clean water, clean air, clean land, and the self-determination of a local community to grow and do what they want. We just recognize the…

  • Turkey: “Lust for Power” threatening Civil War

    “President Obama has disrespected the Turkish constitution by directly conducting foreign policy with the Turkish president. The parliamentary system in Turkey mandates foreign leaders to engage prime ministers, which the White House has not done.”

  • Criticism of CNN’s Democratic Debate Panel

    “This is a simple test of balance, and CNN has so far flunked. If CNN included a conservative partisan from the right-wing Salem Radio Network to question Republican candidates for president, why wouldn’t a progressive advocate be included in Tuesday’s panel questioning Democrats?”

  • Nobel Peace Prize’s Betrayal

    “The Norwegian trustees have disconnected the prize entirely from Nobel´s visionary idea of peacemaking and are spreading ‘Nobel’ honor in all directions. The rule on full secrecy for 50 years around the selection process makes it possible for them to get away with it, but their brazen neglect of Nobel can no longer be tolerated.”

  • China and the TPP

    “More than corporate profits have driven the now concluded negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, which is designed to integrate 40 percent of the world’s total annual production of wealth and resources. It is a geopolitical great wall in reverse, designed to isolate and marginalize China. The short-term zero-sum thinking that led to Beijing’s…

  • * War Crimes * Activists Against Killer Drones

    “So many in the mainstream media and elsewhere seem allergic to openly discussing U.S. war crimes. But there are thousands of examples, this bombing of the Doctors Without Borders Hospital is just a dramatic and timely example. The U.S. government has consistently used such bombings since at least Hiroshima.”

  • Trans-Pacific “Free-Trade” “Charade” 

    “The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual…

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