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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  • Lessons for Occupy — Richard Grossman: “Outlaw the Corporation”

    RUSSELL MOKHIBER, russellmokhiber at gmail.com Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter. His books include Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack on Democracy. He just wrote the piece “Richard Grossman 1943-2011.” Mokhiber said today: “When I first met him over 20 years ago, Richard Grossman was making the inside the beltway public…

  • U.S. Pakistan Policy “Threatening Another 9/11”

    A New York Times front page article reports today: “The NATO air attack that killed at least two dozen Pakistani soldiers over the weekend reflected a fundamental truth about American-Pakistani relations when it comes to securing the unruly border with Afghanistan: the tactics of war can easily undercut the broader strategy that leaders of both…

  • Egypt’s Struggle Against Counter-Revolution: Role of Junta, U.S. and Saudi Arabia

    EMAD MEKAY, emekay at stanford.edu Mekay is a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and has covered much of the Egyptian uprising. He said today: “The Egyptian military junta managed to fool many Egyptians when they took over after the fall of Mubarak by convincing them that they will be true to their…

  • Analysts: Supercommittee Failure a Victory for 99%

    NANCY ALTMAN, njalt at aol.com Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of over 300 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans and author of the book “The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble.” Altman said today: “The announcement that the so-called supercommittee could…

  • Hey Supercommittee: Potential $824 Billion * Tax Wall St. * Cut the Military * Tax Pollution

    JOHN CAVANAGH, SARAH ANDERSON, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org, Cavanagh and Anderson are lead authors of a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies titled “America Isn’t Broke: How to Pay for the Crisis While Making the Country More Equitable, Green, and Secure.” The report “lays out a plan for reform that amounts…

  • The Super Committee and the Budget: What Would Failure Really Mean?

    The Congressional budgetary Super Committee Report is due on Wednesday. Expectations for success are low. Talk about the possibility of another U.S. bond downgrade is widespread. But what exactly would “failure” really consist of? THOMAS FERGUSON, [email protected] Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the…

  • Public Citizen on Occupy: “Can’t Be Stopped”

    USA Today reports: “A crowd of several hundred protesters marched from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan to the New York Stock Exchange a few blocks away on Thursday as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators across the country promised mass gatherings to mark the movement’s two-month anniversary. Lines of helmeted police, some on horseback, blocked every approach…

  • * Military Bases * Military Rape

    The New York Times reports today: “Fresh from announcing an expanded American military presence in Australia, a plan that has angered China, President Obama came to this remote northern town that will be the base of operations and told American and Australian troops it is the ‘perfect place.’” CATHERINE LUTZ, Catherine_Lutz at brown.edu Editor of…

  • Analysts: Bankers Take over Italy and Greece

    COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS, [in NYC] cpanayotakis at gmail.com Panayotakis is associate professor of sociology at the New York City College of Technology at CUNY and author of the forthcoming book “Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy.” He said today: “The rise of bankers and unelected technocrats to power in Greece and Italy shows how…

  • Attacks on Occupy: “Revenge of the 1%”

    The New York Daily News is reporting: “Hours after baton-wielding cops cleared Occupy Wall Street protesters and their tents out of Zuccotti Park, a judge signed a order Tuesday saying the demonstrators can return with their stuff. “Mayor Bloomberg said the city was trying to clarify the restraining order signed by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice…

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