News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • Sikh Temple Shooting: “Christian Terror”

    The Southern Poverty Law Center reports: Alleged Sikh temple shooter former member of Skinhead band. MARK JUERGENSMEYER, juergens at global.ucsb.edu, www.global.ucsb.edu/faculty/ juergensmeyer.html, www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-juergensmeyer Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include “Terror…

  • One Reason Behind India’s Blackout: World Bank Policies

    DAPHNE WYSHAM, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org, [email protected], www.ips-dc.org Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and is the founder and co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network. She grew up in India and was last there in December. She just wrote the piece One Reason Behind India’s Blackout: World…

  • Campaign Targets New NBC “War-o-tainment” Show

    RootsAction.org and Just Foreign Policy have launched a campaign targeting NBC’s new program, “Stars Earn Stripes,” a reality show co-hosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark and co-starring Todd Palin, which the network is advertising during the Olympics. DAVID SWANSON, david at davidswanson.org StarsEarnStripes.org David Swanson is a campaigner for RootsAction.org. He said today: “NBC…

  • Medicare Anniversary

    This weeks marks the 47th anniversary of Medicare. STEFFIE WOODHANDLER, swoolhandler at challiance.org also, via Mark Almberg, mark at pnhp.org, http://pnhp.org Woolhandler is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “We celebrate Medicare which, along with Social Security, has lifted millions of…

  • Romney Lauds Israeli Economy During Wave of Attempted Self-Immolations

    LIA TRACHANSKY, lia at therealnews.com, skype: lia-tarachansky, http://www.liatarachansky.com, http://www.therealnews.com Israel/Palestine correspondent for The Real News Network, Trachansky said today: “In his address to major donors such as Woody Johnson and Sheldon Adelson (one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s largest supporters), U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney misrepresented Israel’s economy and enraged Palestinian leaders by claiming that the fact…

  • Western Fires: “Perfect Storm” or New Norm?

    WILLIAM DEBUYS, wdebuys at earthlink.net Author of A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, deBuys recently wrote a piece titled “The Oxygen Planet Struts Its Stuff: Not a ‘Perfect Storm’ But the New Norm in the American West,” which states: “Dire fire conditions, like the inferno of heat, turbulence, and…

  • $21 Trillion the Wealthy are Hiding: The Shocking Facts — and the Great Opportunity

    ABC News is reporting: “The super-rich are hiding at least $21 trillion in accounts outside their home countries, according to a report by an activist group called the Tax Justice Network. The wealth hidden in these tax shelters is the equivalent of the United States and Japanese economies combined, according to the report, ‘The Price…

  • Iran: A Repeat Ten Years After “Fixing” Intel on Iraq

    RAY McGOVERN, rrmcgovern at gmail.com, http://raymondmcgovern.com ANNIE MACHON, [email protected], skype: annie.machon, http://www.anniemachon.ch Machon is a former intelligence officer in the UK’s MI5 Security Service (the U.S. counterpart is the FBI), McGovern is a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and CIA analyst. They just wrote a piece titled “Will Downing St. Memo Recur on Iran?” They…

  • Empty Anniversary: Minimum Wage Stuck as Poverty Climbs

    July 24 is the anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 in 2009. The minimum had been increased on July 24 on 2007, 2008 and 2009 and not since. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California have proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.80 by 2014 in three…

  • Alexander Cockburn, “Our Voltaire”, Dies at 71

    JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, sitka at comcast.net Co-editor of Counterpunch with Cockburn, St. Clair said today: “Alexander Cockburn was the fiercest, funniest and most uncompromising political writer of our era. He excoriated the powerful, punctured the pretentious and championed the oppressed. He was our Voltaire. He taught two generations how to think, how to look at…

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