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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  • NSA Spying — Church Committee Whilstleblower: “Are Senators Compromised?”

    “We still need more information about what happened then. But more critically, we need more information about what’s happening now. These revelations raise the obvious question: If the NSA was targeting people like Sen. Frank Church, who were in a position to oversee the NSA — is that happening now? That is, are people like…

  • Transforming the Economy

    GAR ALPEROVITZ, KEANE BHATT, via John Duda, jduda at democracycollaborative.org, @GarAlperovitz, @KeaneBhatt Alperovitz and Bhatt just wrote the piece “What Then Can I Do? Ten Ways to Democratize the Economy.” Alperovitz is professor of political economy at the University of Maryland. He is the author of What Then Must We Do? Straight Talk About The…

  • UN: NSA Scandal, Syria, Iran, Congo’s Dead Millions

    MARK WEISBROT, beeton at cepr.net At the start of the UN General Assembly meeting, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff attacked the U.S. government’s global spying network. She told the UN: “We must establish multilateral mechanisms for the world wide web” to ensure “freedom of speech; multi-lateral governance with transparency; the principle of universality and non-discrimination; cultural…

  • Kenya and Pakistan Violence

    JAMES JENNINGS, jimjennings at earthlink.net President of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization that worked during the worst of the Somalia famine in 2010-11 in the refugee camp at Bokolmayo on the Ethiopia-Somalia border as well as in the giant Daadab Camp for Somalia refugees in Kenya. The group also has a representative on the…

  • Pope Francis: Less Birth Control, More Peace

    America Magazine and other Jesuit journals around the world simultaneously published an interview with Pope Francis Thursday. Among his remarks: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.…

  • * Re-Purposing Military * Stop Arming Syria Rebels * Admitting Israel Nukes

    MIRIAM PEMBERTON, miriam at ips-dc.org A research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Pemberton just co-wrote the piece “Beating Swords Into Solar Panels: Re-Purposing America’s War Machine.” DAVID SWANSON, davidcnswanson at gmail.com, @davidcnswanson Swanson is with RootsAction.org, which recently launched a petition, now at over 22,000 signatories: “We helped prevent U.S. missile strikes on…

  • Greece: Assassination of Hip-Hop Artist and Rise of Neo-Nazi Party

    “The murder of Greek anti-fascist activist and musician Pavlos Fyssas by a supporter of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is the latest reminder of the threat to Greek democracy that this party, as well as the brutal austerity policies that have fueled its meteoric rise in the last two years, represents. Fyssas’ murder is only…

  • With Record Number in Poverty; Food Stamp Cuts?

    “The poverty report for 2012 just released by the Census Bureau indicates that the poverty rate was 15.0 percent in 2012, the same as in 2011, but well above the 12.3 percent rate in 2006, the year prior to the beginning of the ‘Great Recession.’ The 15 percent rate was the fourth highest in the…

  • Poverty: “Utterly Unresponsive” Economy and Political System

    The national poverty figures were released today by the Census Bureau. JENNIFER JONES AUSTIN, Bich Ha Pham, bhpham at fpwa.org Executive director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Austin said today: “Today’s release of the national poverty figures shows that 21.8 percent of our nation’s children and 15 percent of the population overall are…

  • What About the U.S. and Russia’s Massive WMD Stockpiles?

    Vice President Joe Biden claimed over the weekend that Syria has the “largest stockpile in the world of chemical weapons.” Nass runs the Anthrax Vaccine blog and has been regularly debunking false claims about biological and chemical weapons. She said today: “First, the U.S. stockpile is admittedly three times larger than Syria’s. The Army says…

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