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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  • Obama’s Asia Trip Agenda

    JOSEPH GERSON Gerson is director of programs for the American Friends Service Committee in New England and the author of several books. He has traveled extensively in Asia and is able to comment on various aspects of Obama’s trip as well as to put media in touch with people in various countries Obama is visiting.…

  • Former U.S. Diplomat Got Stake in Iraqi Oil

    The New York Times reports today: “Peter W. Galbraith, an influential former American ambassador, is a powerful voice on Iraq who helped shape the views of policy makers like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and John Kerry. In the summer of 2005, he was also an adviser to the Kurdish regional government as Iraq wrote its…

  • “Healthcare” or Family Intervention?: Low-Income Mothers Singled Out for Home Visits

    GWENDOLYN MINK Mink is co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End. She has been following various aspects of healthcare reform legislation. She said today: “The House bill includes a section calling for home visits by nurses to poor pregnant families and…

  • Financial Reform

    The Washington Post today features a story headlined “Dodd’s reform plan takes aim at the Fed: Curbs on central bank are at odds with administration’s vision.” Sen. Dodd’s proposal would also “merge numerous federal banking regulators under a single roof,” McClatchy reports. ANDREW COCKBURN Cockburn is co-producer of the new film “American Casino.” He said…

  • Veterans Day

    SETH MANZEL Manzel is on the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War and is executive director of GI Voice, which operates Coffee Strong near Fort Lewis in Washington State. He deployed to northern Iraq from 2004-2005 where he worked as a driver, machine gunner and vehicle commander. He was in the Army infantry from…

  • Healthcare: Devil in the Details

    TRUDY LIEBERMAN Lieberman directs the health and medical reporting program in the graduate school of journalism at City University of New York and is a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. A complete archive of her Campaign Desk articles can be found here . Her pieces include a string of articles titled “Who Will…

  • Healthcare and Unemployment

    BRUCE DIXON Dixon is managing editor of Black Agenda Report, which is one of the groups organizing the “Black is Back” gathering Saturday in D.C. He recently wrote the piece “If Democrats Don’t Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year, What Do We Lose? And What Do We Gain?” The article states: “In the year since…

  • Fort Hood Shooting

    DAHR JAMAIL Jamail is the author of “The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. He just wrote “Mass Shooting Indicates Breakdown of Military.” AARON GLANTZ Glantz is an editor at New America Media and author of “The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans.” He just wrote the…

  • Italian Court Convicts Operatives: What About the Higher-Ups?

    SCOTT HORTON Horton is an attorney specializing in international law and human rights. He is also a legal affairs contributor to Harper’s Magazine, where he writes the blog No Comment. He said today: “The 23 American officials convicted were involved in a conspiracy to seize Abu Omar, who is an Egyptian cleric, while he was…

  • Healthcare Protests and Prospects

    CHARLES IDELSON, DONNA SMITH Idelson is a spokesperson for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. Politico reported late Tuesday: “Single-payer activists and labor union members held a sit-in at House Speaker Pelosi’s San Fransisco office today where 11 [in fact 12] people were arrested, said Chuck Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses…

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