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News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Military Contractor Resigns in Impassioned Protest: “I Hereby Throw Down My Rifle”

    “I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance for the last two or three years. I knew what the truth was and what the consequences of our actions were. But I needed to make a living. … When [Edward Snowden] talked about how he had believed in the mission, joined after the Iraq war, and found…

  • Senate Bill’s Path to Citizenship a “Myth”

    “While the Obama administration continues to take the Spanish language airwaves and social media pushing reform and its benefits, the President and his mouthpieces, including Cecilia Munoz, continue to blatantly lie, saying that administrative relief is outside of executive purview. In the meantime, deportations and detentions, already at record highs, continue. “The only communities that…

  • 2,500 California Prisoners Remain on Hunger Strike Over Long-term Solitary Confinement — Without Even a Window

    “We are in our fourth day and our keepers have remained true to form, because on [Thursday, July 11] they came and kidnapped my [cellmate] and took him to hell row. Hell row is an even more oppressive number of cells used as further sensory deprivation and torture for those already in prolonged isolation. They,…

  • Church, Rights Groups Sue NSA Over Spying

    “The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles has a proud history of working for justice and protecting people in jeopardy for expressing their political views. In the 1950s, we resisted the McCarthy hysteria and supported blacklisted Hollywood writers and actors, and we fought California’s ‘loyalty oaths’ all the way to the Supreme Court. And in…

  • How the Surveillance State is Becoming Permanent

    “Today, as Washington withdraws troops from the Greater Middle East, a sophisticated intelligence apparatus built for the pacification of Afghanistan and Iraq has come home to help create a twenty-first century surveillance state of unprecedented scope. But the past pattern that once checked the rise of a U.S. surveillance state seems to be breaking down.…

  • Zimmerman Acquittal: Criminalization of Black Youth; ALEC

    “There’s a widespread sense that this verdict is not justice and that it shows again that the courts are not capable of producing justice. There’s also great concern about the general criminalization of black youth — they are automatically labeled ‘suspicious.’ There’s certainly interest in remedies — if the Department of Justice can take action,…

  • Pelosi “Throwdown” Over Snowden and NSA at Saturday Fundraiser

    “On Saturday afternoon, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jared Huffman and big dollar donors are going to get an earful about the Obama administration NSA’s surveillance program. “The throwdown will be outside the 2 p.m. fundraiser at the home of Steve Silberstein to benefit the DCCC. Minimum to get in the door: $1,000.…

  • Debate on Egypt: Scrutinizing the Coup and the Brotherhood

    “President Obama said he was ‘deeply concerned’ about the coup. But the U.S. should also do some soul-searching; America’s long relationship with Egypt’s military has included funding, training and propagandizing, and many in Egypt can’t help but feel that helped enable the coup. … “Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, who got his master’s degree at the…

  • Over 100 Economists Agree: Raise the Minimum Wage to $10.50

    “Over one hundred professional economists have signed on to a petition in support of H.R. 1346, the ‘Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2013.’ The act, sponsored by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida, would raise the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 to $10.50 per hour, the approximate level it would have…

  • Did Comey’s “Stand-Off” with Bush Lead to Legal Rationale for Monitoring Americans?

    “The Inspector General Report by Glenn Fine and other information shows it was ‘the legal footing’ of the ‘President’s Surveillance Program’ or ‘PSP’ (which Bush later called the ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program’) to which Comey, Mueller, Goldsmith and others who threatened resignation objected. It seems John Yoo had been the sole source of the legal theory…

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