News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Misinformation about Immigrant Voters

    Organizations that track misinformation have observed an acceleration of racist lies in social and mainstream media targeting immigrants and Latino voters. Such misinformation includes the claims that noncitizen immigrants are illegally voting in droves and the lie, popularized in fringe groups but amplified by Donald Trump, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets. The misinformation targets…

  • War and Media: Has Nothing Been Learned?

    “The media — despite some good reporting by many individual journalists in the field — has treated the IDF onslaught against Gaza, the West Bank and Gaza as reasonable conflicts rather than mass murder.”

  • Demands for Arms Embargo on Israel

    “As the genocide and massacres continue .. the Israeli regime and its enablers have reached new levels of depravity. Civilians, hospitals, schools, and vital infrastructure are being systematically obliterated, in direct contravention of international laws meant to protect human life. The world is witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe that the Israeli government is perpetrating with clear…

  • Corporations Undermining Democracy

    The International Trade Union Confederation released a list of seven corporations undermining democracy. Big Tech, Big Oil, and private equity firms all made the list.

  • Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine

    “Dehumanization is the first step in genocidal incitement. However, counter-annihilation is also a key feature of settler colonialism. It is the belief and practice that colonial society must annihilate Native people; otherwise, the colonizers, in turn, will be annihilated in a zero-sum calculus. It is a pre-emptive ‘self-defense’ against any real or imagined anti-colonial attack.…

  • “Israel is Turning Northern Gaza into a Killing Cage”

    Sidhwa is a trauma surgeon who volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. See his articles and interviews he has given, including “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza,” recently published by the New York Times.

  • As Israel Targets the North, Doctors Back From Gaza: “I Saw Maggots Coming Out of a Patient’s Wound”

    “The doctors, nurses, and administrators that we met at the Indonesian hospital are by far the most admirable and heroic people that I’ve ever met in my life. They felt they had no choice but to stay at the hospital and provide care for the community because they could not fathom there being no health…

  • As Israel “Fires at Anyone Who Moves”

    We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why…

  • America First Legal Foundation

    Reuters reported that the America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit right-wing litigation group, is advancing a legal theory that would allow judges to throw out election results over “failures or irregularities” by local officials. 

  • Follow the Money: Peter Thiel and Menstrual Monitoring

    In a new report, Democracy Labs followed the money to connect the dots between J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel, Project 2025, and the push to monitor women’s menstrual cycles. 

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