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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  • Responses to Obama’s Cairo Speech

    JOEL BEININ Professor of Middle East History at Stanford, Beinin was recently a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo. MEDEA BENJAMIN ANN WRIGHT Currently in Cairo, Benjamin is a founder of CodePink and was just in Gaza, where she was given a letter to Obama from Hamas. She said today: “While Osama bin…

  • Chomsky on Obama Speech

    NOAM CHOMSKY Chomsky, whose recent books include Interventions and The Essential Chomsky, sent the following to the Institute for Public Accuracy this morning: “A CNN headline, reporting Obama’s plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads ‘Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.’ Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is…

  • Healthcare: What Can We Learn from Europe?

    President Obama is scheduled to be in Germany on Friday and France on Saturday. BRIGITTE MARTI MARGARET FLOWERS Marti and Flowers are co-chairs of the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (a national organization of 16,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance). Sen. Max Baucus of…

  • Obama in Cairo

    HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY El-Hamalawy is a journalist and blogger in Cairo. More Information HEDY EPSTEIN Epstein, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, is author of Remembering Is Not Enough. After World War II, she worked at the Nuremberg Medical Trial, which tried the doctors accused of performing medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. She said today:…

  • Nader on GM

    RALPH NADER Consumer advocate Nader first came onto the national scene with his book Unsafe at Any Speed about GM and its Chevrolet Corvair. He said today: “We have to recognize the total autocratic, secretive way this bankruptcy was initiated. Congress, which in 1979 had thorough public hearings on the Chrysler bailout and a few…

  • Obama Urged to Go to Gaza

    Obama is scheduled to meet with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and to make a speech in Cairo on Thursday. AMJAD SHAWA Shawa, the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organization Network coordinator for Gaza, said today: “Gaza is still under siege — there’s been no real movement from the U.S. to pressure Israel to allow the…

  • North Korea’s Logic

    TAD DALEY Daley is a writing fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and author of the book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, forthcoming from Rutgers University Press. He recently wrote the piece “Maybe We Should Take the North Koreans at Their Word.” Daley said today: “Both…

  • GM and Unemployment

    AP reports that according to government data released today, “the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to 6.78 million — the largest total on records dating back to 1967 and the 17th straight record week.” FRANK HAMMER Hammer is a retired GM employee of 32 years. He was president of United Auto…

  • North Korea and Malign Neglect

    JOHN FEFFER Co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus, Feffer is author of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations. He said today: “North Korea’s second nuclear test is certainly not good news. But the Obama administration would make a mistake to treat North Korea with malign neglect. Pyongyang has backed away from using its nuclear program as…

  • Sotomayor Nomination

    MARJORIE COHN Cohn is the president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She said today: “It is significant that President Obama has nominated the first Latino to the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor will bring to two the number of women on the high court. She will…

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