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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  • Iraq to Iran: Propaganda for War

    RAY McGOVERN McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He just wrote the piece “A Neocon Preps U.S. for War with Iran,” which states: “I guess I was naïve in thinking that The Atlantic and its American-Israeli writer Jeffrey Goldberg might shy…

  • BP Oil: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even When It’s Not Out of Sight)”

    DAHR JAMAIL Currently in Florida, independent journalist Jamail is on his way to New Orleans. He has written a string of investigative pieces on the effects of the oil leak in the Gulf. He recently co-wrote “Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even When It’s Not Out of Sight).” He also just wrote: “Gulf Coast…

  • Would Google-Verizon Deal Hurt Innovation and Independent Voices?

    SUSAN CRAWFORD Available for a limited number of interviews, Crawford is former special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy (2009). She now teaches at the Cardozo Law School and is a visiting researcher at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. She is quoted in Time Magazine: “It’s the next Google…

  • Pakistan: “Zardari’s Katrina”

    FATIMA BHUTTO Bhutto just wrote the piece “Zardari’s Katrina: Why is Pakistan’s president junketing while his people drown?” — which states: “This week, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, boarded a private Gulfstream jet along with his family and his hundreds-large entourage to visit the European countries included on the president’s grand tour. Yesterday, Zardari —…

  • Social Security and CBO’s Odd Numbers

    The 2010 Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ Report is scheduled to be released on Thursday. The 75th anniversary of Social Security is on Aug. 14. DOUG HENWOOD Henwood is editor of Left Business Observer. He writes regularly at http://doughenwood.wordpress.com. His books include Wall Street. He said today: “Though what little economic recovery we saw earlier…

  • Hiroshima After 65 Years: Disarmament or Nuclear Buildup?

    MARYLIA KELLEY Kelley is executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) located in Livermore, California. She said today: “This August 6, at 8 a.m., I will join hundreds of people of peace who will gather at the Livermore nuclear weapons Lab in California in solemn remembrance of the 65th anniversary of the…

  • Questions to EPA on Gulf and Dispersants, from Expert at EPA

    HUGH KAUFMAN A noted expert at the Environmental Protection Agency, Kaufman today produced a list of questions for EPA Assistant Administrator for Research and Development Paul Anastas, whose testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee is currently on C-SPAN: 1) Do you believe EPA had enough technical and scientific information, in April, to…

  • Veterans and Military Families: Pentagon Statements on WikiLeaks Cloud Real Issues

    Three organizations representing veterans and military families have released a joint statement on the Pentagon’s response to the Afghanistan WikiLeaks documents. They said today: “Obama administration officials are trying to spin events in their favor. On the one hand, in an effort to downplay the significance of the release, we are told the documents contain…

  • Obama Speech and Iraq Realities

    Today, Obama made remarks about Iraq to a veterans group convention in Georgia. The New York Times today published a piece titled “A Benchmark of Progress, Electrical Grid Fails Iraqis.” Obama made no mention of it, but today is the 20th anniversary of Iraq invading Kuwait and the beginning of the buildup to the early…

  • Education: “Chicago Model a Disaster”

    PAULINE LIPMAN Lipman is professor of policy studies at the College of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Her books include High Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban School Reform. She said today: “President Obama’s speech Thursday, in which he touted the performance of ‘Race to the Top,’ is now the prime example of equating…

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