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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Cuba’s Hurricane Preparedness: A Model for Florida and the Gulf Coast?

    Gail Reed is executive editor of MEDICC [Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba] Review. She said today: “In the many years I’ve worked here in Cuba, I’ve seen the disaster prevention strategy up close — and been in at least five hurricanes myself. Cuba does a few things we don’t often see in other countries that…

  • Who Runs the Presidential Debates?

    Last week the Commission on Presidential Debates named the moderators for the scheduled presidential and vice presidential debates. While some criticized the lack of ethnic diversity and other aspects of the debates, largely unexamined is the group that sponsors the debates. George Farah is executive director of Open Debates and author of the book No…

  • Questions About Sweden’s Actions in Assange Case

    Jonathan Schwarz is a researcher and producer for Michael Moore’s Dog Eat Dog Films. Michael Moore and Oliver Stone write in their Tuesday New York Times op-ed, “WikiLeaks and Free Speech,” that: “Mr. Assange has also committed to traveling to Sweden immediately if the Swedish government pledges that it will not extradite him to the…

  • Beyond Akin’s Rape Comment: The Republican Platform

    Jodi Jacobson is president and editor-in-chief for RH Reality Check. She just wrote the piece “As Romney and Ryan Dissemble, RNC Prepares Radical Anti-Choice Platform Based on Personhood,” which states: “As of today, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan may find themselves in a wee bit of a bind. “For the past two days, the pair…

  • “Big Oil and Energy Traders Manipulating Consumers”

    Antonia Juhasz is an oil and energy analyst, author and journalist. Her books on the oil industry include The Tyranny of Oil. She is an investigative journalism fellow at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The Los Angeles Times recently published an op-ed of hers on the Chevron refinery fire. Juhasz said…

  • TANF at 16: The Failure of Welfare “Reform”

    Tim Casey is senior staff attorney with Legal Momentum, “the nation’s oldest legal defense and education fund dedicated to advancing the rights of all women and girls.” He said today: “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families has been a disaster for poor parents and kids. Under TANF, the enrollment rate has declined from 79 percent to…

  • “Cover-Up of Civilian Drone Deaths Revealed by New Evidence”

    Reuters reports: “A flurry of drone attacks pounded northern Pakistan at the weekend, killing 13 people in three separate attacks, officials and witnesses said on Sunday. The attacks came as Pakistanis celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.” AP reports: “The U.S. military’s top general met with…

  • Voter-ID Election Fraud Found “Virtually Non-Existent”

    Even as Pennsylvania became the latest state to uphold a restrictive voter ID law, a News21 analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day is virtually non-existent. News21 is a Carnegie-Knight project featuring journalism students from across the…

  • “Three Basic Questions” the Media Should be Asking in Assange Asylum Case

    ROBERT NAIMAN, naiman at justforeignpolicy.org, www.justforeignpolicy.org Robert Naiman is policy director of Just Foreign Policy. The group organized and delivered this appeal signed by prominent Americans urging Ecuador to accept Julian Assange’s asylum request in late June. Naiman said today: “As Americans who appealed to Ecuador to grant Julian Assange’s request for political asylum from…

  • Romney Campaign’s Claims About Paul Ryan’s Stock Trade Inconsistent with Disclosure Form

    At a meeting with Congressional leaders on September 18, 2008, then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke famously broke the news to leaders of Congress that they would have to approve a giant bank bailout to avert a meltdown of the financial system. Since last weekend, reports have circulated that Congressman…

Mastodon