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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  • From the Brazilian Embassy 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…

  • Honduran President Returns as UN Meets

    As the United Nations meets this week, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in June, has reportedly returned to Honduras where he took refuge in the Brazilian embassy from the coup government. MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot said today: “This could be the moment…

  • UN, G-20 and Climate Change

    Climate change is expected to play a central role in meetings of the United Nations and G-20 this week. ANASTASIA PINTO, ORIN LANGELLE HALLIE BOAS In Pittsburgh until Wednesday, Pinto is executive director of the Center for Organizing, Research and Education in India. She said today: “We’re already seeing climate devastation in India. Scientists are…

  • Pittsburgh and G-20 Protests

    CHARLES McCOLLESTER McCollester, author of The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio, just wrote the piece “There are plenty of reasons to protest the G-20: The global economic system has deindustrialized America, despoiled the Earth and marginalized working people everywhere” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. McCollester writes: “When the announcement…

  • UN Report on Israel and the International Criminal Court

    The Independent in Britain reports that “Israel targeted ‘the people of Gaza as a whole’ in the three-week military operation which is estimated to have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians at the beginning of this year, according to a UN-commissioned report published yesterday. “A UN fact-finding mission led by the Jewish South African former Supreme…

  • Real Bank Regulation

    NOMI PRINS, via Celeste Balducci Prins, a former investment banker turned journalist, is author of the just-released It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. Her latest article is titled “Obama Banking Too Much on Banks,” which states: “Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, the government,…

  • Behind the Poverty Numbers

    New census numbers show “the share of people living in poverty rose to 13.2 percent in 2008 from 12.5 percent in 2007. That’s the highest poverty rate since 1997,” reports USA Today in an article headlined “Census: Income fell sharply last year.” ALICE O’CONNOR Author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor…

  • U.S. Spending in Afghanistan: Upside Down?

    NORMAN SOLOMON Executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon — recently back from Kabul — appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Sunday. Video is posted here. Questioned about administration policy in Afghanistan, Solomon stated: “We have to compare the rhetoric, where [President Obama] spoke a few weeks ago about development, about governance,…

  • Uninsured Numbers Show Mandate-Based Health Reforms Don’t Work

    Official estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau showing a marginal increase in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2008 — now estimated at 46.3 million, up from 45.7 million in 2007 — mask the true dimensions of the problem, a national doctors’ group said. Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership…

  • Supreme Court and Corporate Power

    ROBERT WEISSMAN, CRAIG HOLMAN, via Angela Bradbery President of Public Citizen, Weissman wrote the piece “Tightening the Corporate Grip: The Stakes at the Supreme Court” about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a case the Supreme Court heard Wednesday that could have far-reaching effects on corporate power. Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen.…

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