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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  • Will Holder Uphold the Law on Torture?

    CHRISTOPHER H. PYLE Pyle is professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and author of the new book Getting Away with Torture, about war crimes of the Bush administration. He said today: “By refusing to enforce the laws against torture impartially, President Obama and Attorney General Holder are not only violating their oath of office;…

  • Insider on Health Insurance PR

    The Bill Moyers Journal webpage states: “Last month, testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former health insurance insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS News headlined: ‘Cigna Whistleblower to Testify.’ After Potter’s testimony the industry scrambled to do damage control: ‘Insurers defend…

  • Honduras: Will a Coup Continue to Stand?

    ANDRES THOMAS CONTERIS Andrés Thomas Conteris is director of Nonviolence International’s Program on the Americas. He is in contact with various political groups and officials in Honduras, is available for interviews and can also facilitate arranging interviews with others. He is also founder of Democracy Now! en Español and was on Democracy Now! recently. HECTOR…

  • In Norway, Obama a “Right Winger”

    GEORGE LAKEY Lakey, who is writing a book on Norway, just wrote the piece “Seeing Obama as Norwegians See Him,” which states: “I just returned from a research trip to Norway where the people I interviewed often brought up the topic of our new president. The first was Kristin Clemet, the director of a conservative…

  • “The Obama Justice System”

    The Wall Street Journal reports today: “The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission. “Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and…

  • Obama, Africa and Priorities

    Obama is scheduled to go to Ghana on Friday evening after spending several days at the G-8 meeting in Rome. The G-8 are scheduled to include African and other representatives in some of their meetings. EMIRA WOODS Woods is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, specializing in Africa and…

  • McNamara: U.S. a Violator of Proliferation Treaty

    President Obama emphasized proliferation issues at his news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today. Robert McNamara, who died today, is most noted for presiding over much of the escalation of the Vietnam War during the Johnson administration; he was also an increasingly outspoken advocate on nuclear non-proliferation. In 2005, former Secretary of Defense McNamara…

  • Obama in Russia

    BORIS KAGARLITSKY Director of the Institute for Globalization and Social Movements in Moscow, Kagarlitsky is the author of Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System and The Revolt of the Middle Class. He was arrested under Brezhnev and under Yeltsin for his political activism. Kagarlitsky was just interviewed by Russia Today. KATRINA VANDEN…

  • U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq: Looking Ahead

    RICK REYES A veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Reyes has testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said today: “Obama’s plan to step down our presence in Iraqi cities only to step up our presence in Afghan cities gets us no closer to ending these disastrous occupations. Obama’s renaming the…

  • Coup in Honduras

    GREG GRANDIN [in New York City] Greg Grandin teaches history at New York University. He is the author of Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism and The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. He said today: “Obama needs to align his position with the…

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