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 »


  • Is Murdoch Fit to Control Broadcast Licenses?

    KARL GROSSMAN, Professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, Grossman recently wrote the article, “Rupert Murdoch and the FCC: Unfit to Broadcast,” which states: “With the finding this week by a committee of the British Parliament that Rupert Murdoch is ‘not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of…

  • Obama-Karzai Text Allows for Tens of Thousands of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

    The New York Times just wrote from Afghanistan: “President Obama landed here Tuesday, on a surprise visit, to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan meant to mark the beginning of the end of a war that has lasted for more than a decade. The Times claimed: “Mr. Obama, arriving after nightfall under a veil…

  • May Day: Activists on the Ground

    The Guardian is providing live coverage of May Day protests. ARUN GUPTA, Gupta is a founding editor of the New York City-based Indypendent, co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and covers the Occupy movement for Salon. He has recently visited dozens of “occupations” around the country and just wrote “Occupy’s Other Big Test: In…

  • “Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the FBI”

    Pulitzer-prize winning author David Shipler had an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times titled “Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the FBI,” which states: “The United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol;…

  • “May Day is Coming Home”

    Available for a very limited numbers of interviews scheduled well in advance, Chomsky’s latest pamphlet, titled Occupy, is being released on MayDay. It’s the first of the new “Occupied Media” pamphlet series from Zuccotti Park Press. Chomsky just wrote the piece “May Day,” which states: “People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where…

  • Charles Taylor Conviction

    Reuters reports: “A United Nations-backed court convicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first time a head of state has been found guilty by an international tribunal since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg.” Woods, who is originally from Liberia, is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the…

  • Arizona Immigration Case and “Reverse-Commandeering”

    Hu is an assistant professor at Duke Law School and is the author of a forthcoming article in the U.C. Davis Law Review titled “Reverse-Commandeering.” She just wrote on the American Constitution Society blog: “As the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Arizona v. U.S., one of the main legal questions it considered is this:…

  • “Occupy the Justice Department”

    Actor Danny Glover, activists and authors Frances Fox Piven and Norman Finkelstein and Public Enemy frontman Talib Kweli are among those participating in “Occupy the Justice Department” protests today. The protests demand an end to “systemic police corruption and civil rights violations in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case and in the cases of hundreds of others across…

  • Principals Against State of Testing

    Throughout the U.S., children are taking tests this week so that local jurisdictions can get federal “Race to the Top” funds. Burris has served as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York since 2000. She is author of “Detracking for Equity and Excellence.” She was just featured…

  • Socialist Victory in France

    The Los Angeles Times reports: “Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday advanced to a presidential runoff election, as a far-right candidate surprised many observers with a strong third-place finish.” Content manager for Economy Watch, a blog sponsored by the Brecht Forum, Young said today: “Nationalism — both anti-European unity…

Mastodon