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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  • Swine Flu and Meat Industry

    MIKE DAVIS Available for a limited number of interviews, Davis is author of The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. He just wrote the piece The Really Dangerous Swine Wear Suits. Davis’ other books include City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, In Praise of Barbarians and Planet of Slums. His most…

  • Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change

    AFP reported this week: “Indigenous peoples, who have been hard hit by the ravages of global warming, were gathering in Alaska Monday for talks on the impact of climate change on native communities. ‘Indigenous peoples are on the front lines of this global problem, at a time when their cultures and livelihoods in traditional lands…

  • IMF and World Bank Meetings in Washington

    Finance ministers and central bankers from around the world are in Washington this week for semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. DR. PETER BUJARI, via Blair Hinderliter Bujari is a medical doctor and the founder and current executive director of the Human Development Trust based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In…

  • Torture and Accountability

    McClatchy reports today: “The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist. Such information would’ve provided a foundation for…

  • Obama Administration and Cuba

    In the aftermath of the Summit of the Americas, which ended Sunday in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the relationship between Washington and Cuba has become one of the major bones of contention between the U.S. government and almost all Latin American and Caribbean leaders. REESE ERLICH Erlich, foreign correspondent and author of Dateline Havana: The…

  • Obama in Latin America

    President Obama is scheduled to be in Trinidad and Tobago today for the Summit of the Americas. MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA Mendonça, based in São Paulo, Brazil, is director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights. She said today: “The expectation of grassroots movements in Latin America is to change the focus of the…

  • Taxes Going to Military Spending

    CAROL KIGER ALLEN Rev. ROBERT MOORE Allen is a retired economist and is on the board of the Coalition for Peace Action & Peace Action Education Fund in New Jersey. Moore is executive director for the group. Allen said today: “Tomorrow, we’ll be administering our ‘Penny Poll.’ People approaching the post office, many to mail…

  • The Great Tax Burden Shift: From the Rich to the Rest?

    The Institute for Policy Studies has just released a report titled “Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Our Economic Recovery Fairly.” Among the authors of the report available for interviews are: CHUCK COLLINS Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, said today: “Now is the time to reverse three decades…

  • Obama’s Afghanistan Plan Could Be His “Fatal Mistake”

    RITA LASAR Lasar is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Her brother Abraham Zelmanowitz died in the World Trade Center attack while trying to save a coworker, Ed Bayea, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, who could not leave. She just wrote the piece “Dear President Obama: Get Us Out of Afghanistan.” More…

  • * Obama in Iraq * Military Spending * Drone Attack Protests

    ADAM KOKESH An Iraq war veteran and a member of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Kokesh said today: “Obama’s plan is to continue the indefinite presence of 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and have an increased reliance on private contractors.” More Information More Information FRIDA BERRIGAN The military budget is being released…

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