News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • Billions to Subsidize Nuclear Energy

    The New York Times reports today: “In a speech in Lanham, Md., Mr. Obama announced government approval of an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to help the Southern Company build two reactors in Burke County, Georgia, near Augusta.” ROBERT ALVAREZ A former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and now a senior scholar…

  • New Offensive in Afghanistan: U.S. Poised to Commit War Crimes?

    ROBERT NAIMAN Naiman is policy director of Just Foreign Policy. He just wrote the piece “U.S. Poised to Commit War Crimes in Marjah,” which states: “The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will…

  • Protesting the Olympics?

    DAVE ZIRIN Sportswriter Zirin’s latest book is “A People’s History of Sports in the United States.” He just wrote the piece “When Snow Melts: Vancouver’s Olympic Crackdown,” which states: “News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow — on the public dime — to make sure that the 2010…

  • So Much for Global Warming

    MICHAEL DORSEY Professor of global environmental policy at Dartmouth College, Dorsey said today: “We live on a planet. … While snow falls in footloads in D.C., on the other side of the planet, Rio was hotter than Sahara; and 32 elderly people died silently in their apartments.” DAPHNE WYSHAM Wysham is a fellow of the…

  • Soldier Faces Court-Martial in Iraq for Hip Hop Song About Stop-Loss

    JEFF PATERSON SARAH LAZARE Paterson is project director of Courage to Resist; Lazare is an organizer with the group. She just wrote the piece “Soldier Faces Iraq Court-Martial for Writing Angry Hip Hop Song About Stop-Loss,” which states: “Any day now, Marc Hall — a Fort Stewart soldier and Hip Hop artist — will be…

  • Haiti: * Canceling Debt * Adoptions * Just Back

    MELINDA ST. LOUIS Melinda St. Louis is deputy director of the Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of more than 75 religious denominations, human rights organizations and development agencies. She said today: “This weekend the G-7 finance ministers [who are meeting in Canada] must respond to the mounting global consensus to drop Haiti’s debt. It’s time…

  • Obama Shielding Torture Memo Lawyers?

    Newsweek recently told readers that “an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the ‘torture’ memos of professional-misconduct allegations.” MARJORIE COHN Cohn is immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She…

  • U.S. Night Raids in Afghanistan

    ANAND GOPAL Based in Afghanistan, Gopal has just published the results of an investigation in TomDispatch.com and The Nation magazine, “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons.” He writes: “Sometime in the last few years, Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan’s rugged heartland began to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment…

  • “Largest Pentagon Budget”

    Reuters reports: “President Barack Obama on Monday asked Congress to approve a record $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2011, including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon’s base budget and $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” JO COMERFORD Comerford is executive director of the National Priorities…

  • “Deception and Abuse at the Fed”

    The Senate voted yesterday to approve a second term for Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman. ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach is author of the book Deception and Abuse at the Fed. His recent articles include “Stop the Federal Reserve From Shredding Its Records.” Auerbach said…

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