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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  • Skewed Coverage of the Vietnam War

    “Scapegoating the media fits neatly into ‘stab in the back’ theories of Americans who can’t stand the fact that their country lost a war to impoverished Vietnamese fighters. And praising the media as catalysts for the nation’s roused conscience gives undue credit while fostering illusions about mainstream news coverage of America’s wars.”

  • Israel Breaks Records in Killing Journalists

    Journalism is not a crime, but Israel treats it like one. It wants to suppress our voices. It’s inhuman and barbaric and an enemy of the truth because the truth is not in its favor. … The international media organizations have failed to protect Palestinian journalists.”

  • Is Israel Set to Shred International Law? How to Stop It

    “If Israel gets away with genocide, all of that nascent project of a world governed by human rights and the rule of law crumbles, and then it’s every person for themselves.”

  • Slaughters in Gaza and Yemen, Bombing Beirut — and Iran?

    AntiWar.com reports: “Sixty-Eight Reported Killed by U.S. Airstrike on African Migrant Facility in Yemen” and “Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 167 Palestinians in Three Days Amid Total Siege.”  Hala Jaber, author of Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance, states: “Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs again [Sunday night]. The Lebanese government, stripped of deterrence & forced by the U.S.…

  • The Pope and Palestine

    “’Yesterday, children were bombed,’ Pope Francis said in his final Christmas message last December. ‘Children. This is cruelty, this is not war.’

  • “Unconstitutional” U.S. Strikes on Yemen Kill Civilians

    Action Corps, a humanitarian advocacy group, and Peace Action, the nation’s largest grassroots peace network, just called for Congress to “introduce a War Powers Resolution to end U.S. military operations in Yemen, following disturbing new reports of civilian deaths and a second leak of sensitive war planning details by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

  • Making It Easier to Have and Raise Children

    The New York Times reported that the White House “has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining…

  • Trackers Help the Public Follow DOGE’s Chaos

    The Revolving Door Project is updating resources that track public health crises and the Trump administration’s defiance of court orders as well as profiles of DOGE personnel. The trackers aid coverage of the Trump administration’s actions by providing additional context for breaking news.

  • “Closing Military Bases Overseas Will Save Billions and Improve National Security”

    According to the Pentagon, the military has at least 19–22 percent excess base capacity worldwide, imposing billions in unnecessary costs.

  • * A Push for DNC Emergency Meeting * Biden Back 

    The petition adds: “The predatory, extreme and dictatorial actions of the Trump administration call for an all-out commensurate response, which so far has been terribly lacking from the Democratic Party.”

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