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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  • Tomorrow: Trial on Drone War

    In a piece titled “U.S. drone strike kills ‘six militants’ in Pakistan,” AFP is reporting: “Pakistan has seen a sharp spike in U.S. drone strikes in its rugged northwestern tribal region in recent days, amid a surge in suicide attacks and bombings across the country. “The Pakistani Taliban said Tuesday they would continue to target…

  • K Street “Almost Giddy” about “Speaker Boehner”

    The New York Times reported Sunday — in “A G.O.P. Leader Tightly Bound to Lobbyists” — about “Mr. Boehner, the House minority leader and would-be speaker if Republicans win the House in November.” Wrote the Times: “He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest…

  • 9/11, Burning Qurans and Burning People

    COLLEEN KELLY TERRY ROCKEFELLER Available for a limited number of interviews, Kelly lost her brother, William, and Rockefeller lost her sister, Laura, in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They are members of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. On Sept. 11, the group will launch the web page “911 Stories: Our Voices,…

  • Europe Protests a Model?

    Protests in Europe against austerity measures are expected throughout September. STEVEN HILL Hill (who travels to Europe on Monday for an extensive speaking tour and research trip) is author of the new book “Europe’s Promise: Why The European Way Is The Best Hope In An Insecure Age” (http://www.EuropesPromise.org). In observing the rash of labor actions…

  • “Great American Stickup” Author: Obama Should Dump Econ Team

    ROBERT SCHEER Editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer is author of the new book The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street. Scheer recently wrote the piece “They Go or Obama Goes,” which states: “When homes are foreclosed in a neighborhood, the equity of those in the area…

  • Pakistan: IMF — Savior or Parasite?

    ERIC LeCOMPTE, MELINDA ST. LOUIS LeCompte is executive director and St. Louis is deputy director of the Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of more than 75 religious denominations, human rights groups and development agencies. The network just released a statement: “Jubilee USA joins global advocacy groups in an outcry against the new debt that Pakistan…

  • Europe Protests

    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: “Today’s general strike across France represents a major escalation of mass opposition to governments seeking to make the mass of people pay for the economic crisis…

  • CEO Pay, Unemployment and Labor

    Monday is Labor Day. Today the unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent. The U6 rate, which includes those accepting part-time work instead of full-time work and those who have stopped looking for work, rose to 16.7 percent. SARAH ANDERSON, via Tamar Abrams Anderson is global economy project director at the Institute for Policy Studies and…

  • Washington’s Mideast Talks

    Amb. EDWARD L. PECK Available for a limited number of interviews, Peck was chief of mission in Iraq and Mauritania and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. On May 31, he sailed from Athens aboard the M/S Sfendoni as part of the flotilla taking humanitarian supplies to…

  • Obama’s Iraq Speech

    NIR ROSEN Available for a limited number of interviews, Rosen is author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq and a fellow at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. RAED JARRAR Jarrar is an Iraqi-born political analyst and Iraq consultant with the American Friends Service…

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