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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  • Making Elections Better

    ROB RICHIE Richie is executive director of FairVote and co-author of Every Vote Equal and Whose Votes Count. He outlined eight points toward better elections: 1) “Non-partisan election officials: It hardly matters whether the method of voting is with paper and pen or open-source computerized equipment if election administrators are not trustworthy. In 2004, the…

  • Congress to Condemn Goldstone Report on Gaza?

    Foreign Policy Journal states: “The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on a resolution calling on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ‘to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict”‘… “Headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, a…

  • Healthcare: Key Democrats Undermining Their Own?

    ELLEN SHAFFER Shaffer is co-director of the California-based Center for Policy Analysis, focusing on health policy. She recently wrote the backgrounder “Kucinich Amendment Grants ERISA Waiver for Single Payer States.” DANIEL HODGES Chair of Healthcare for All – California, Hodges said today: “I called the offices of Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and George Miller on…

  • Agreement in Honduras?

    ANDRES CONTERIS Conteris is in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, where Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge. Conteris is the director of the Program on the Americas for Nonviolence International. He worked as a human rights advocate in Honduras from 1994 to 1999 and is a co-producer of “Hidden in Plain Sight,” a documentary…

  • Pelosi Ditches Single-Payer Provision

    CLARK NEWHALL Executive director of Health Justice, Newhall is a doctor and a lawyer. He said today: “Thursday the House Democrats released their version of healthcare reform. While we have been pushing for a debate on the House floor for single payer, and been calling for the representatives to keep the Kucinich [Amendment]. … It…

  • Ellsberg on Resignation Over Afghan Policy

    Matthew Hoh, the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, stated in a Washington Post forum Wednesday: “I found that the majority of those who were fighting us and the Afghan central government were fighting us because they felt occupied. … We cannot justify the deaths of our young men…

  • U.S. Official Resigns Over Afghanistan

    A top U.S. official in Afghanistan has resigned in protest of the war, the Washington Post reports. “I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” Matthew Hoh, the senior U.S. official in Zabul province, said in his letter of resignation. Many Afghans, he wrote, are…

  • Protests at Insurance Company Offices

    Beginning Wednesday, protests are expected in 19 cities at offices of insurance companies. The Mobilization for Health Care for All said in a statement that it “has seen almost 900 people sign up to risk arrest at a health insurance office in the past four weeks. … Participants in the sit-ins will walk into the…

  • A Woman Among Warlords: Afghan Malalai Joya in U.S.

    MALALAI JOYA, via Sonali Kolhatkar Joya is author of the new book A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out. Now 31, Joya was the youngest ever woman elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005. She has just begun a tour of North America. She recently wrote:…

  • Afghan Policy a “Script” for Escalation

    ELIZABETH GOULD and PAUL FITZGERALD In Washington D.C., until Saturday, Gould and Fitzgerald recently wrote the book Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story. They began covering Afghanistan in 1981 for CBS and produced the documentary “Afghanistan Between Three Worlds” for PBS. They said today: “Opinion here indicates that the administration is behind the runoff, expects Karzai…

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