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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  • U.S.-China Relations: Neither Collision nor Collusion

    HENRY ROSEMONT, hrosemont at smcm.edu Rosemont is distinguished professor emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and visiting professor of religious studies at Brown University. His books include “A Chinese Mirror: Moral Reflections on Political Economy” and translations of Chinese classics. Rosemont said today: “If President Obama bases U.S. relations with China on principles of…

  • Israel Hitting Palestinian Infrastructure

    AP reports that Israeli “missiles also knocked out five electricity transformers, plunging more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza into darkness, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company.

  • Over 90 Killed in Gaza; 3 in Israel — Parsing the Myths

    MAIREAD MAGUIRE, [in Ireland] [email] Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire just wrote the piece “Israeli Military Assault on Gaza Not Defence but Murder of Unarmed Civilians.”

  • BP Settlement

    A noted expert and whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency, Hugh Kaufman said today: “BP lied about how much oil was being released because under the Clean Water Act they were liable for a penalty of up to a $4,000 per barrel released. Thus, the lies could save them tens of billions of dollars. That’s…

  • Spanish Unions Lead Anti-Austerity Strike

    AFP is reporting: “Spain announced Thursday it has moved into a second year of a job-killing recession, a day after millions joined anti-austerity strikes and vast protests.” DAVID MARTY, [email] Marty is with the International Organization for a Participatory Society in Spain and is co-author of the new book “Occupy Strategy.” He said today: “Just over…

  • Israeli Attack on Gaza: Netanyahu’s Electioneering?

    CINDY and CRAIG CORRIE [email] Cindy and Craig Corrie are the parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003, while trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist, his wife and three young children. Cindy Corrie said today: “We…

  • “Cliff” Part of Ploy to Target Social Security and Medicare

    Author of Modern Money Theory, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute in New York, Randall Wray said today: “We all knew the election was a minor diversion because no matter who won, the first order of business would be to gut the social…

  • UN Condemns U.S.’s Cuba Policy, 188-3

    Professor emeritus at California State University, Pomona, Saul Landau is a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and has won numerous awards for the 40 films he has produced, several of which are about Cuba. He said today: “We look like idiots to the whole world. Every year, virtually the entire United Nations…

  • “It’s Not a Cliff”

    Chris Hellman is communications liaison at the National Priorities Project and specializes in the military budget. Mattea Kramer is senior research analyst there, and lead author of A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget. They recently wrote the piece “Washington’s Cliff Notes” for TomDispatch. It states: “Ignore the sound and fury. While prophecy is usually…

  • Lame Duck Will Put Democrats to the Test

    Solomon’s article in the current edition of The Nation magazine is titled “How to Build a Grassroots Power Base.” He said today: “A profound question hovering over the lame duck session is whether Democrats in Congress will push back against White House pressure for a ‘grand bargain.’ Medicare and Medicaid are headed to the chopping…

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