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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  • Rich Nations Stopping Global Reforms?

    AP reports today: “Developing nations’ hopes for forging a new, more just economic world order appear unlikely to be quickly realized as the United Nations’ Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis draws to a close Friday.” On Thursday, Ecuadorean President Rafeal Correa said member states should consider abolishing the International Monetary Fund. He…

  • The Need for Mass Transit

    National Transportation Safety Board officials have stated in recent days that they had warned the D.C.-area Metro that trains were in need of upgrades or replacement. Video is here. FRANK HAMMER Hammer is a retired GM employee of 32 years. He was president of United Auto Workers local 909 and also worked in the GM…

  • A Twitter Revolution?

    REESE ERLICH Just back from covering the Iranian election, Erlich is available for a limited number of interviews with major media. Foreign correspondent and author of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis, Erlich said today: “This isn’t a ‘Twitter Revolution.’ That description trivializes the broad mass movement…

  • General Strike: Possible in Iran? In the U.S.?

    The British Guardian reports today that Mir Hossein Mousavi “appears to be planning a general strike. A discussion on his Facebook page says: ‘We are working on a general strike plan. Please help us with your ideas if you have expertise on this issue.’” BILL FLETCHER Fletcher is co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal…

  • Cut Out Insurers, Save $400 Billion on Healthcare?

    QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., via Mark Almberg National coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, Young will be testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), on Wednesday. Young is past president of the American Public Health Association and is a master in the American College of Physicians. A…

  • “Regulatory Laws Legalize Corporate Harms”

    RICHARD GROSSMAN Grossman’s work on regulation, corporations and governance includes the books Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (2001); Fear At Work: Job Blackmail, Labor and the Environment (1982) and the best-selling pamphlet Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation (1993). He said today: “Regulatory laws and agencies legalize corporate harms, rights denials and…

  • More Power for the Fed?

    The New York Times reports: “The plan the president will formally announce on Wednesday would give the Federal Reserve greater supervisory authority over large financial institutions whose problems pose potential risks to the economic system.” ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach wrote the book Deception and Abuse…

  • Kennedy Plan Problems and Single-Payer Solutions

    NICHOLAS SKALA Skala, a Juris Doctor candidate and Harry L. Kinser Scholar for Health Law at Northwestern University School of Law and a former senior research associate at Physicians for a National Health Program. He said today: “The Congressional Budget Office estimate predicts that the Senate’s HELP [Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] Committee [chaired by…

  • Carter: Netanyahu ADDING Demands

    The British newspaper the Guardian reports today that Jimmy Carter, who has been in Israel and just met with top Hamas officials in Gaza, said of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent speech: “My opinion is he raised many new obstacles to peace that had not existed under previous prime ministers. … He still apparently…

  • Obama, AMA and “Our Traditions”

    Today, President Obama spoke before the American Medical Association. ANNE SHEETZ, MD, via Jim Rhodes A Chicago-based physician, Sheetz only does house calls to elderly home-bound patients. She is protesting with others today across from the AMA convention, where Obama noted that a single-payer option works in other countries but stated that we in the…

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