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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Return of Ma Bell? FCC Net Neutrality Order a “Squandered Opportunity”

    Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron said today: “The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. …”

  • Cost of START Treaty

    Alice Slater is the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is on the coordinating committee of Abolition 2000, a disarmament coalition. She said today: “The Obama administration will pay a heavy price to ratify the modest START treaty should it receive the required 67 Senate votes this week to enact it…

  • Slavery and the States’ Rights Myth

    Loewen is author of the bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me and the new book The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader (with Edward Sebesta). Loewen said today: “In 1860 and 1861, when the Southern states seceded, they said why, and it was all about slavery — its protection and extension. They said nothing about states’ rights.…

  • D.C. Metro to Search Bags

    The D.C. Bill of Rights Coalition and the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalitionith launched an online petition campaign today in opposition to the bag search program announced on Thursday, but not yet implemented, by D.C. Metro Transit Police. Elder and Udry are members of both civil liberties groups. The bag searching program was initially announced…

  • Civil Resistance at White House Led by Veterans

    Military veterans will lead a nonviolent act of civil resistance at the White House Thursday, Dec. 16, at 10:00 a.m. to protest the ongoing U.S. wars and occupations. Veterans For Peace organizers expect this to be the largest veteran-led resistance since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. Among the scheduled participants: Daniel Ellsberg, who…

  • Holbrooke

    Zunes just wrote the piece “Richard Holbrooke Represented the Worst of the Foreign Policy Establishment.” Zunes is professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

  • New President’s House Exhibit Includes Slavery

    Lusane is author of the new book The Black History of the White House and an associate professor at American University. He said today: “The opening of the new exhibit ‘President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in Making a New Nation’ at Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell Center pavilion in Independence Park is an opportunity to highlight the…

  • Health Mandate

    Flowers is congressional fellow for the 18,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program; Almberg is the organization’s communications director. Flowers said today: “This ruling is just another sign of the deterioration of this complicated piece of legislation. What’s needed is a more reasonable, simpler approach, which would be enhanced Medicare-for-all.”

  • Obama, Congress and Taxes

    JOHN BERG Professor of government at Suffolk University in Boston, Berg is author of Unequal Struggle: Class, Gender, Race and Power in the U.S. Congress. He said today: “Ever since the Reagan administration, government policy has been making the rich richer, and working people poorer. This is not just about money, it’s about power: the…

  • Attacks on WikiLeaks Violating the Law?

    CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON Simpson is a professor who teaches about media, propaganda and media law at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. He said today: “The ongoing information war campaign against WikiLeaks conducted by U.S. security agencies, politicians and crackpots is illegal under U.S. law as well as under international treaties. In…

Mastodon