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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  • Occupations and Public vs Congress and Super Committee?

    Today, the “Super Committee” will hold its first open public hearing in more than a month. Congressional Budget Office head Doug Elmendorf will testify. The CBO just released a study finding that the top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades. THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson…

  • * Greenwald * Occupy Tour * Oakland Attack

    GLENN GREENWALD, via Elizabeth Shreve, elizabeth at shrevewilliams.com Greenwald is author of the new book With Liberty and Justice for Some. He just wrote the piece “Immunity and Impunity in Elite America: How the Legal System Was Deep-Sixed and Occupy Wall Street Swept the Land.” ARUN GUPTA, ebrowniess at yahoo.com A founding editor of the…

  • Occupation: The Challenges of Urban Camping

    BARBARA EHRENREICH, barbara.ehrenreich at gmail.com Available for a limited number of interviews, Ehrenreich just wrote a piece on the “occupy” movement and homelessness that appeared in the Los Angeles Times and TomDispatch. She writes: “Political protesters are not alone in facing the challenges of urban camping. Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how…

  • The Iraq War is Not Over

    AP reports today: “On his flight to Indonesia on Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that negotiations with Iraq on future training possibilities will begin later. “If such talks are held, they likely would start either when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visits Washington in December or after the end of the year, according…

  • Argentine Election Highlights Successful Economic Policies: Lessons for the Eurozone

    Argentina’s election this weekend, in which President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner — who succeeded her now-deceased husband as president in 2007 — is expected to win handily in the first round. MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton, beeton at cepr.net Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which today releases a report…

  • * Gadhafi’s Killing * Bush in Canada, a Challenge to Impunity

    VIJAY PRASHAD, Vijay.Prashad at trincoll.edu Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad said today: “The death of Gadhafi closes a chapter in Libyan history, but it does not settle many open questions for the Libyan people. What, for instance, will be the character of the next Libyan epoch? Gadhafi’s…

  • New Book Chronicles “Oligarchy”

    JEFFREY WINTERS, winters at northwestern.edu Author of the new book Oligarchy, Winters said today: “By choosing Wall Street as the origin of their action, and by focusing on the gap separating the 1% from 99%, the Occupy movement has hit upon the chronic problem of oligarchy and democracy in America. The power of concentrated wealth…

  • Protests Build to Massive General Strike in Greece

    COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS, 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: “What happened in Greece today was the beginning of a two-day general strike in response to the…

  • Protests vs. Pay to Play and Petrified Politics

    THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “A desperate population is plainly losing patience with the leaders of both major parties. At least a quarter of all the signs at Occupy Wall Street meetings…

  • Coming to Honor MLK, or Bury a Movement?

    JARED BALL, freemixradio at gmail.com Ball is an associate professor of communication studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore and is the author of I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto. He wrote the piece “The Corporate King Memorial and the Burial of a Movement,” which states that the MLK Memorial is designed to…

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