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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  • FBI “Off the Rails”

    The New York Times is reporting: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.” SHAHID BUTTAR, via Amy E. Ferrer, media at…

  • Should NATO Have a Future?

    AP reports: “America’s military alliance with Europe — the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades — faces a ‘dim, if not dismal’ future, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in a blunt valedictory address.” DAVID N. GIBBS, dgibbs at arizona.edu Author of First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, …

  • Syria and Yemen

    ELAINE HAGOPIAN, echagop at verizon.net Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV. She said today: “There is and has been in Syria an authentic desire for real democracy, for real economic opportunity, for elimination of the vast corruption and privilege…

  • Mountaintop Removal Mining Protests in West Virginia

    Hundreds of people are marching towards Blair Mountain in West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal mining. The march will culminate Saturday with a rally featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Emmylou Harris, among others. You can follow the march at marchonblairmountain.org The documentary “The Last Mountain,” which examines the threat mountaintop removal mining poses to the…

  • * Al-Qaeda Wants U.S. to Stay? * Palestinian U.N. Membership

    GARETH PORTER, porter.gareth50 at gmail.com Porter is an investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy and author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. He just wrote the piece “Slain Writer’s Book Says U.S.-NATO War Served Al-Qaeda Strategy,” which states: “Al-Qaeda strategists have been assisting…

  • Obama Meeting with Bahraini Despot

    The Wall Street Journal reports: “President Barack Obama will meet with the crown prince of Bahrain at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said. But in a show of how delicate relations with the U.S. ally have become, the sit-down is not officially on the president’s schedule.” HUSAIN ABDULLA, mohajer12 at comcast.net Abdulla is…

  • Jobs: Goolsbee Resignation and Ten Years After Bush Tax Cuts

    On Sunday chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee appeared on ABC’s “This Week” defending the administration’s record on helping to produce jobs. “It’s not a jobless recovery” he said. Later in the program, economist Paul Krugman said: “The fact is, for about 18 months, we’ve had an economy that’s recovering in a…

  • Japan Doubles Admission of Radiation, Admits Three Meltdowns

    AP is reporting today: “Japan’s government has doubled the estimate of how much radiation leaked from a tsunami-hit nuclear plant and says the damage to the reactors was greater than previously thought.” CNN International reports: “All three operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi melted down after the plant was swamped by the tsunami that followed northern…

  • Colbert or Goolsbee: Who’s the Clown?

    Nearly two years ago, Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee, told Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, “A year from now we’re going to be in a very happy place.” (June 15, 2009, 1:40 mark of the video.) TIMOTHY CANOVA, canova at chapman.edu Canova is a professor of international economic law at…

  • Yemen: “Crafted Chaos”

    The Christian Science Monitor is reporting: “Yemen slipped closer to a full-blown civil war today as opposition tribesmen attacked the compound of President Ali Abdullah Saleh for the first time. While the president appears to have narrowly escaped serious injury, the escalating fighting represents an unprecedented challenge to his 32-year rule.” ABDUL GHANI AL-ERYANI, agiryani…

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