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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  • Can WikiLeaks Save Lives?

    WikiLeaks has posted on its Twitter feed that it will be holding a news conference shortly. The program Democracy Now reported this morning that “WikiLeaks is preparing to release up to 400,000 U.S. intelligence reports on the Iraq war. The disclosure would comprise the biggest leak in U.S. history, far more than the … Afghanistan…

  • France: “A Stunning and Historical Shift”

    RICHARD WOLFF Recently back from Europe, Wolff is author of the book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. He said today: “For many weeks now, a stunning and historical shift has accelerated across France. An alliance of trade unions, left political parties and sections of parties, students…

  • Election Ignoring Social Security

    Politico is reporting: “More than 200 Democrats have signed onto a pledge to protect Social Security from any interference, amid some Republican calls for partial privatization of the entitlement program.” DOUG HENWOOD Editor of Left Business Observer, Henwood said today: “It’s cheering to see 200 Congressional Democrats sign a pledge to protect Social Security from…

  • Do Veteran Suicides Exceed U.S. Deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq?

    AARON GLANTZ Available for a limited number of interviews, Glantz just wrote the investigative piece “After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge: Suicides, vehicle accidents and drug overdoses take lives,” simultaneously published in the Bay Citizen and by the New York Times. The piece states: “In the six years after Reuben Paul Santos returned to Daly City…

  • Killing Emissions Law Would Hurt Alternative Energy Industry

    California’s Proposition 23 seeks 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…

  • How Upton Sinclair Helped Energize the New Deal: Lessons for Today

    GREG MITCHELL Mitchell wrote the book The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics. A new edition has just been released. Excerpts of the book and relevant videos are available Mitchell, who writes the Media Fix blog for TheNation.com, just wrote the piece “Upton Sinclair’s…

  • * Public Citizen: Rove Breaking the Law * Spoof Corporate Money Ads

    ROBERT WEISSMAN, via Angela Bradbery KEVIN ZEESE President of Public Citizen, Weissman said today: “American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS [created by Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie] are this year’s poster children for everything wrong with our campaign finance system in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election…

  • Oil Price Gouging Behind Drive To Stop Greenhouse Gas Caps

    California’s Proposition 23 seeks to suspend a 2006 law intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As of October 8, oil company Valero has donated more than $4 million to the effort to suspend the law. JAMIE COURT Court is author of the new book The Progressive’s Guide To Raising Hell: How To Win Grassroots Campaigns…

  • Education: Rhee’s Resignation

    Bloomberg is reporting: “Michelle Rhee, the public schools chancellor of the District of Columbia … has resigned, effective at the end of the month. Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson will take over, Rhee’s boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, said at a press conference today. Fenty lost his bid for re-election Sept. 14 in a primary in which…

  • What About Water Infrastructure?

    WENONAH HAUTER, via Kate Fried Executive director of Food & Water Watch, Hauter said today: “President Obama’s recently-announced infrastructure plan aims to modernize crumbling roads, rails and airports while providing jobs for the nearly one-in-five construction workers who are unemployed. Another way Obama could modernize our infrastructure while boosting the economy is to renew America’s…

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