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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  • Byrd, Kagan Hearings and the Constitution

    CBS News reports: “The Senate Judiciary Committee will suspend Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday while the late-Sen. Robert Byrd lies in state at the Capitol.” Byrd famously made a habit of carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his shirt pocket. In 2004,…

  • Did Kagan Cover for Dershowitz’s Plagiarism?

    While Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has been extensively questioned in her hearings about her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School regarding military recruiters on campus, her role in a controversy involving charges of plagiarism against Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz (as well as other plagiarism scandals which erupted while she was head…

  • “Why Petraeus Won’t Salvage This War”

    Confirmation hearings for Gen. David Petraeus as top military commander in Afghanistan are being held today. GARETH PORTER Porter just wrote “Why Petraeus Won’t Salvage This War” for Foreign Policy. The piece states: “As Gen. David Petraeus prepares for his next command, his supporters are hoping he can rescue a failing war for the second…

  • Repression Increasing One Year After Honduras Coup

    One year ago today, Manuel Zelaya was overthrown as president of Honduras. A general strike and other activities are expected today. ADRIENNE PINE Assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras, Pine has been in Honduras for the last month. She just wrote…

  • Kagan “Similar to Bush on Executive Power”

    FRANCIS BOYLE Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle is author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. The Los Angles Times on Sunday wrote that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s “most audacious move [while Dean at Harvard Law School] was to recruit Jack Goldsmith, a lawyer who had served in the George W. Bush…

  • G20 Gets a “D”

    Leaders of the G8/G20, including President Obama, are meeting in Toronto beginning Friday. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER DALLAS GOLDTOOTH Currently in Toronto, Thomas-Muller is Tar Sands Campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He said today: “The G20 is continuing down a road of business as usual for big oil. The Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada is an…

  • McChrystal

    NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon today wrote the piece “From Great Man to Great Screwup: Behind the McChrystal Uproar,” which states: “But the most profound aspects of Rolling Stone’s article ‘The Runaway General’ have little to do with the general. The takeaway is — or should be — that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is an insoluble…

  • Peterson’s “Rigged” Drive to Cut Social Security

    BARBARA KENNELLY, PAMELA TAINTER CAUSEY Kennelly is president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security; Causey is communications director for the group, which has written several pieces that critique the Peterson Foundation including “Ahhh … the Good Old Days … Debtor’s Prisons and No Entitlements” and “The Campaign Against Social Security.” See: http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?tag=pete-peterson DEAN…

  • UN Group: Israel Should Fully Lift Gaza Blockade

    Reuters is reporting: “Nothing short of the full lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza would allow the territory to be rebuilt, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees said on Monday, a day after Israel said it would ease its siege. … “‘We need to have the blockade fully lifted,’ said spokesman Christopher Gunness of…

  • Rowley, McGovern and Ellsberg — Statement on Wikileaks

    The British Guardian reports: “The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan in which scores of children are believed to have been killed.” In April, Wikileaks released the “Collateral Murder” video showing U.S. soldiers in Iraq killing civilians including a…

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