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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  • Left-Right Alliance on Cutting Military Budget

    MarketWatch is reporting: “Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on Tuesday offered up her own proposals for budget cutting that relies on defense spending cuts and corporate and estate tax hikes.” CARL CONETTA Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at…

  • Afghanistan Policy: Fueling War

    JEREMY SCAHILL Available for a limited number of interviews, Scahill is recently back from Afghanistan and just wrote the piece “Killing Reconciliation.” Scahill states that while the Obama administration says it is backing a strategy of reconciliation with the Taliban, night raids by U.S. Special Operations are killing that reconciliation. Scahill is author of Blackwater:…

  • The Battle for Social Security

    NANCY ALTMAN Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of over 215 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans. She said today: “An angry electorate last week expressed its frustration with a Washington political class that does not appear to be listening. Now, the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs’ Social…

  • U.S. and Murderous Military in Indonesia

    ALLAN NAIRN Currently in Indonesia, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews with major media outlets. He just wrote the piece “Breaking News: Secret Files Show Kopassus, Indonesia’s Special Forces, Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians. Documents Leak from Notorious U.S.-Backed Unit as Obama Lands in Indonesia.” The piece states: “Secret documents have leaked from…

  • India: Security Council, Gandhi, Walmart and Bhopal

    JAMES PAUL Available for a limited number of interviews, Paul is executive director of the Global Policy Forum. He said today: “U.S. statements regarding including India as a permanent member of the Security Council are fake and everyone knows it. It won’t happen. And it shouldn’t. The Security Council is an extremely problematic institution, constantly…

  • Obama in India

    VIJAY PRASHAD Prashad just wrote the piece “Obama in India.” He is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. His most recent book is The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. For more information, contact at the Institute for…

  • Haiti Destruction “Man-Made, Not Natural Disaster”

    MELINDA MILES Available for a very limited number of interviews, Miles is with Let Haiti Live. She can speak about conditions on the ground, role of environmental destruction, trade and aid policies and earthquake response. BRIAN CONCANNON Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon lived in Haiti for eight years. He…

  • Why Initiative to Gut Calif. Environmental Law Failed

    California’s Proposition 23 sought to suspend a 2006 law (AB 32) intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. DAVID CHENG Available for a limited number of interviews, Cheng is a senior manager at the Cleantech Group, a research and advisory company focused on clean tech innovation. He is also a member of E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), a…

  • Election: * Outside Money * Jobs and Trade

    Public Citizen has just released a pair of reports assessing the election: DAVID ARKUSH, via Angela Bradbery Arkush is director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, which just released the report “Outside Job.” The group writes: “Of 74 contests in which power changed hands in Tuesday’s congressional elections, independent groups engaging in a spree of secretive,…

  • Election Results from Obama’s Bank Failure

    JAMES K. GALBRAITH Galbraith is Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government/business relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too. He said today: “This election was lost in…

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