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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  • Social Security “Facts”

    Last week in an address to the Hoover Institution Rep. Eric Cantor said, “We’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs (Social Security and Medicare) cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.” NANCY ALTMAN Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security…

  • Jobs Numbers, Cheered in Washington, “Reveal Weak Roots of Recovery”

    MARK BRENNER Brenner, labor economist and director of Labor Notes, said today: “Today’s better-than-expected jobs numbers are being trumpeted by the Obama administration and other beltway insiders, anxious for signs that the Great Recession is over and recovery underway. But examining the 230,000 new private sector jobs created last month offers less reason to cheer…

  • “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal”

    PEPE ESCOBAR, [in Brazil] Skype: pepeasia Escobar just wrote the piece “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal,” which states: “You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations…

  • As Japan Disaster Spreads, Threatening U.S., Obama Embraces Nuclear Power

    ARJUN MAKHIJANI Available for a limited number of interviews, Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which has released a series of papers on the Japan nuclear disaster. The most recent is titled “Radioactive Iodine Releases from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Reactors May Exceed Those of Three Mile Island by Over 100,000…

  • Libya: * Who Are the Rebels? * WikiLeaks

    VIJAY PRASHAD Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad said today: “We should be very careful when we think of the rebels. We should not confuse all the rebellions across the Arab world and consider them all to be the same. There are some important differences. Also, the United…

  • Libya: “Hidden Agendas” and “Vital Interests”

    JAN OBERG, Skype: janoberg Secretary of State Clinton is in London today at a conference with other governments participating in the bombing of Libya, including those of Britain, France and Qatar. Based in Sweden, Oberg, who is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, recently wrote the piece “Libya: Contradictions, Foolish Assumptions…

  • Bahrain Repression: Saudi Troops, U.S. Arms, Al-Jazeera Silence

    A source in Bahrain who wishes to remain anonymous for their personal safety told the Institute of Public Accuracy this afternoon: “The regime has just arrested Lin Noueihed of Reuters and some other reporters. [Noueihed’s last piece] “Other countries are getting rid of their emergency laws, while Bahrain is imposing a new martial law. Things…

  • AFRICOM as Libya Bombing Motive

    HORACE CAMPBELL Campbell is professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University and is currently working on a book on AFRICOM (United States Africa Command). He said today: “U.S. involvement in the Libyan bombing is being turned into a public relations ploy for AFRICOM. AFRICOM is fundamentally a front for U.S. military…

  • Chernobyl Experts: Fukushima Could be Worse

    Several experts on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (which took place 25 years ago on April 26) are in the U.S. and currently available for a limited number of interviews. ALEXEY V. YABLOKOV, JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD Yablokov is senior co-author and Sherman is consulting editor of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the…

  • Japan Parliamentarians: Expand Evacuation Zone

    In the first of a three-day sign-on, ten members of the Japanese Diet signed a petition seeking that the Japanese government: 1. “Evacuate pregnant mothers and pre-school age children from within the 30 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 2. “Drastically increase the general public evacuation zone beyond the 20 km radius.”…

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