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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  • Target Iran: Will Assassinations Lead to Overt War?

    “The latest assassination is part of the covert war that the U.S. and Israel have been waging on Iran for quite some time. The covert war may eventually lead to an overt war, because state-sponsored assassinations of Iranian scientists may provoke Iran to retaliate, which will spark a war that, if started, may engulf the…

  • Ten Years of Guantanamo, Threat of More Indefinite Detentions

    A host of human rights and other groups today are forming a human chain from the White House to the Capitol Building marking ten years of detentions at Guantanamo. ANDY WORTHINGTON, currently in D.C.: andy at andyworthington.co.uk Available for a limited number of interviews, Worthington is one of the founders of the just-launched webpage http://www.closeguantanamo.org…

  • Two Years after Haiti Earthquake: UN Cholera Epidemic Rages as Situation in Camps Deteriorates

    “Decisions made in the earliest days of the recovery haunt Haiti’s internally displaced to this day. Fundamental and internationally accepted minimum standards for disaster victims were never adhered to, and now two years after the quake the humanitarian community has spent billions of dollars without meeting some of the most critical goals they set. Despite…

  • Hot Spots: Strait of Hormuz, South China Sea and Caspian Basin

    MICHAEL KLARE, mklare at hampshire.edu Klare is author of the forthcoming book The Race for What’s Left and just wrote the piece “Danger Waters: The Three Top Hot Spots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era,” which states: “Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy ‘chokepoint’ could set a region…

  • Crude Tragedy: Nigeria Repression and Austerity Lead to General Strike

    BBC reports: “A general strike in Nigeria over the elimination of a fuel subsidy has brought the country to a standstill. Shops, offices, schools and petrol stations around the country closed on the first day of an indefinite strike. “In Lagos and other cities, thousands marched against the removal of the subsidy, which has doubled…

  • Money in Politics: Citizens United Setback in Montana; Gingrich Hoisted on Own Petard

    Truth-out reports: “In a rebuke to the United States Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Montana has held that Citizens United does not apply to Montana campaign finance law. “Last Friday, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a 1912 voter initiative – the Corrupt Practices Act – that prohibits corporations from making contributions…

  • Is the Military Budget Really Being Cut?

    CATHERINE LUTZ, Catherine_Lutz at brown.edu Editor of the book “The Bases of Empire: The Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts,” Lutz said today: “Despite alarms sent up by politicians looking only at Pentagon press releases or their military industry backers’ interests, the new proposal for Department of Defense base budget reductions over the next five years…

  • Romney, Santorum and Separation of Church and State

  • Santorum on Iran: Ignorance or Lies?

    Virtually all Republican candidates — with the notable exception of Ron Paul — have sounded a belligerent note on Iran at one point or another. However, Rick Santorum has apparently taken this to a higher level, analysts note. AP reports: “Republican Rick Santorum says that if he’s elected president, he would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities…

  • Occupy Iowa Caucuses

    DAVID GOODNER, david at iowacci.org Goodner is with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and has been active with the Occupy Iowa movement. He said today: “Occupy Des Moines started the Occupy Iowa Caucus campaign largely to address the problem of big money in politics — the presidential candidates and their SuperPACs have spent $200 for…

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