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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  • 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…

  • “Impossible to Choose Good Guys” as Rebel Army Claims Responsibility for Beirut Bombing

    “One of the possible culprits behind the car bomb in southern Beirut is the so-called FSA [Free Syrian Army]. Brigade 313, of the so-called FSA, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Previously, other factions of the ‘FSA’ had threatened Hezbollah with direct attacks in Lebanon. Various threats to ‘take the battle to inside the Lebanese…

  • Whilstleblowers Blast NSA Programs, Award Snowden

    “When secrecy is misused to hide unconstitutional activities, fealty to that oath — and higher duty as citizens of conscience — dictate support for truth tellers who summon the courage to blow the whistle. Edward Snowden’s disclosures fit the classic definition of whistle blowing. “Former senior NSA executive Thomas Drake, who won the Sam Adams…

  • Egypt: Army Has Final Say?

    “The events of the past week have shown the continued power of mobilization and protest in Egypt, however we must continue the struggle until the army is no longer the final say in politics and it is the people who are fully in control of their government.”

  • 22 Million Signatures, Hundreds of Thousands of Protesters Call for Morsi’s Ouster

    “The Tamarod campaign … the campaign that really started the calls for this protest that took place yesterday, has given Mohamed Morsi until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow to respond and to step down and call for early elections. If he doesn’t, they’re saying they’re going to call for an escalation, further protests, more civil disobedience, and…

  • June 30 Cairo Protests — Against Authoritarianism No Matter the Ideology

    “The most naïve interpreter of Egypt’s anti-Mubarak rage was the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Encouraged by his populist base, Morsi proceeded to ignore all constitutional norms and cobble together a ramshackle alliance of pro-Qatari Salafists, bureaucrats and army officers. As in all revolutions, the extent of the neglect and abuse by Egypt’s first ideological/social class to…

  • Free Software Pioneer Denounces “Security-Industrial Complex” and Portable Phones as “Stalin’s Dream”

    “It used to be that the threat to people’s freedom from computers was that they used programs that the users don’t control — nonfree programs, that is. The free software movement aims to provide free/libre replacements for nonfree programs. Free software is software that respects the users’ freedom and community. A program that isn’t free…

  • DOMA Struck Down, But What About Those Who Don’t Marry?

    “I am so dismayed by the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act yesterday. Race is still a central component of who our society values or doesn’t value. The DOMA opinion means married same-sex couples will be treated as married under federal law, but the demographics of who marries now is highly skewed by race and…

  • Obama’s Climate Action Plan a “Full-Throttle Endorsement” of Fracking

    “President Obama announced his administration’s ‘Climate Action Plan’ for cutting carbon pollution in his second term in the Oval Office at Georgetown University and unfortunately, it’s a full-throttle endorsement of every aspect of fracking and the global shale gas market. “Hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) is the toxic horizontal drilling process via which gas is obtained from…

  • Supreme Court’s “Troublesome” Voting Rights Act Decision

    “The Supreme Court’s decision voiding Section 4 and effectively nullifying Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is most troublesome. The decision argues that the conditions identified in Section 4 that gave rise to Section 5’s protections have changed. That is correct but ignores why much of that change has come about. “Poll taxes, continuous…

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