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News Items

  • NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake Statement on Surveillance Legislation

    At this late hour (with all the fear mongering by national security authorities pushing to reauthorize and expand an unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program), unless the Amash-Lofgren Amendment is passed, Congress may end up passing a bill (S. 139) that actually gives criminal suspects more Fourth Amendment protections than innocent people.

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  • News Conference at Department of Justice on Threats to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange by Attorney General Jeff Sessions

    CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently called WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently stated that Julian Assange’s arrest is a “priority” of the Trump administration. This has caused numerous individuals — with differing perspectives on WikiLeaks — to warn of a growing threat to press freedom. The following will address U.S. government policy toward WikiLeaks and whistleblowers:

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  • Trump Education Policy

    Rhee and Moskowitz would certainly be zealous proponents of school choice. Selecting either of them would be a thumb in the eyes of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, who campaigned mightily for Clinton. Both have tangled with the unions and made clear their distaste for public schools and for teachers’ unions.

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  • Costas Panayotakis on the Brexit

    “The Brexit vote may have partly been an expression of right-wing xenophobia but it is also an expression of disgust across the continent with the neoliberal monstrosity that the EU has become. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the result will be honored. In the past, European political and economic elites have often ignored referendum results they didn’t like by cranking up Pro-European propaganda and repeating the referendum so that the sovereign people could ‘correct’ their mistake.”

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  • Breaking Down the Brexit Decision

    The political center has lost its commanding appeal and the public is drawn to vague slogans like “freedom” and “independence.” Right-wing projects are implausible as solutions to the problems faced by ordinary citizens but the electorate acts in desperation. The process has been under way for many years. Reagan and Thatcher were early signs. The parties of the center-left fell ever-more-completely under the sway of financial interests and rich donors, providing very little choice.

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  • From “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”

    All the laws and customs of civilized warfare may not be applicable to an armed conflict with the Indian tribes upon our western frontier; but the circumstances attending the assassination of Canby [Army general] and Thomas [U.S. peace commissioner] are such as to make their murder as much a violation of the laws of savage as of civilized warfare, and the Indians concerned in it fully understood the baseness and treachery of their act.

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  • Bradley on His Visit to the Philippines

    Princess Alice sipped punch under a hot tropical sun as “Big Bill” Taft deliver a florid speech extolling the benefits of the American way. A century later I ventured to Zamboanga and learned that the local Muslims hadn’t taken Taft’s message to heart: Zamboanga officials feared for my safety because I was an American and would not allow me to venture out of my hotel without an armed police escort.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    On February 17th, 2016, Holly Sterling, Jesselyn Radack, John Kiriakou, Tim Karr, Delphine Halgand, and Cornel West spoke at a news conference at the National Press Club, then delivered a petition containing over 150.000 signatures to the White House calling for the pardon of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling.

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  • Media Advisory — Cornel West, John Kiriakou among speakers to urge Obama pardon for CIA whistleblower

    News Conference: Release of Petition Urging Obama to Pardon Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower; Speakers to Include Cornel West, John Kiriakou, Jesselyn Radack, Holly Sterling When: Wednesday, February 17 at 9:30 a.m. Where: National Press Club (Bloomberg Room), 13th Floor, National Press Building, Washington

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  • Noam Chomsky & Abby Martin: Electing The President Of An Empire (Full Transcript)

    At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Abby Martin interviews world-renowned philosopher and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky. Full transcript included.

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  • Supreme Court’s “Catch-22” on Government Spying

    “Having previously prompted threats of a mass resignation by Justice Department officials under the Bush administration, the program was sensibly struck down as unconstitutional by multiple federal courts, only to be reversed on appeal. Today’s decision allows government surveillance to continue in secret, without meaningful checks and balances.”

  • Intelligence Veterans to Sen. Feinstein: Brennan Falsifying “Intelligence” on Iran, as His Mentor George Tenet Did on Iraq

    “First, please find out what evidence John Brennan is relying upon for his assertion that Iran is “bent on pursuing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile delivery systems.” Does he know something others should know? Or are we beginning to see the makings of another consequential hoax? Second, please look closely into the role Brennan…

  • Argo, Fact Check Yourself

    “The danger of this for the American public is that it paints things as black and white with Americans and the CIA as the good guys and Iranians as bad guys out to kill any American they see. In fact, there were quite a few Americans living in Iran. The embassy workers were targeted because…

  • Sequestration, Military and Trade-Offs

    CHRIS HELLMAN, [email] Hellman is military budget specialist and senior research analyst at the National Priorities Project. He said today that while many have focused on looming reductions to military spending, “in fact, the Pentagon is in a better position to absorb these cuts because of sizable growth in [its] spending over the past decade.”…

  • Oscars Use Ranked Voting — Why Can’t We?

    “All you need to do is ask voters to indicate their backup choices. With those rankings we can simulate a runoff between the top candidates if no candidate wins a majority of first choices. There’s no need to ask people to return to the polls — ranking candidates allows us to know how people would…

  • Reported Obama Energy Pick a “Nail in Coffin” for Focus on Climate Solutions

    “If we pursue our fossil fuel addiction by expanding fracking, which Mr. Moniz will likely advocate, the oil and gas industry will thrive while true energy efficiency and renewable solutions languish. Our water, public health and climate would suffer.”

  • Study: Privatizing Medicare Spikes Overhead Costs

    “The traditional Medicare program allocates only 1 percent of total spending to overhead compared with 6 percent when the privatized portion of Medicare, known as Medicare Advantage, is included, according to a study in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.”

  • China Cyber Report Reflects Tension — and Need to Demilitarize Internet

    “This tactic — hacking is actively pursued by the U.S. and China among others — needs to cease. Demilitarizing cyberspace must be a core goal for the Obama administration. As a global technological leader and first adopter, the United States is particularly vulnerable to the weaponization of the Internet; it’s time for the Obama administration…

  • Ten Years After Feb. 15 Global Protests, A New Call

    “We don’t just say ‘no’ to war — we say ‘yes’ to peace, we say yes to building economic and social systems that are not dominated by central banks and huge financial institutions. We don’t just say ‘no’ to war — we demand an end to massive resources being squandered on the military while billions…

  • If Minimum Wage Kept Pace with Productivity, it Would be $16.54

    “Congressional proposals to raise the minimum wage to above $10 per hour or President Obama’s call for a minimum wage of $9 per hour are well within the range of historical increases and would still leave low-wage workers behind reasonable historical benchmarks based on cost-of-living or productivity growth.”

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