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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  • Kosovo War: “Humanitarian Interventionism” Ten Years Later

    March 24 marks the tenth anniversary of the start of the bombing of Yugoslavia by a U.S.-led NATO force. The bombing continued until June 10, 1999. DAVID N. GIBBS Author of the soon-to-be-released book First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Gibbs is an associate professor of history and political science…

  • Saving Money on Health Care

    RONALD LIND, M.D. An anesthesiologist in St. Charles, Iowa, Lind is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and will be at the forum today. Lind will be speaking at a news conference beforehand. He said today: “The single payer ‘Medicare for All’ proposal put forward by Rep. John Conyers had over 90…

  • Beyond the AIG Bonuses

    SARAH ANDERSON Anderson is director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, which just released the report “Beyond the AIG Bonuses: The Taxpayer Subsidies for Executive Excess That Haven’t Yet Hit the Headlines.” Her past pieces include “Executive Pay and the Stimulus Bill,” “The CEO Pay Debate: Myths v Facts” and…

  • Former Senator: “Let the Republicans Filibuster”

    MIKE GRAVEL In the D.C. area this week, Gravel is a former two-term senator from Alaska who ran for president last year. He is author of the book A Political Odyssey. He said today: “Whenever something comes up that [Senate minority leader] Mitch McConnell is adamantly opposed to, he just threatens a filibuster. Then [Senate…

  • Iraq War Anniversary

    LORETTA ALPER Alper is the producer and co-director of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” a film that documents a pattern of falsehoods disseminated by successive administrations and major media to go to war, as well as a series of rationalizations to keep wars going. The film highlights the…

  • Assessing the El Salvador Election

    The Los Angeles Times reported: “Mauricio Funes, an affable political moderate running on behalf of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, claimed victory after nearly complete returns gave him a lead that experts said was insurmountable.” The following are in El Salvador and are reachable via Jesse Stewart [[email protected]], who works with…

  • Can Single Payer Get a Fair Hearing?

    DEB RICHTER Chair of Vermont Health Care for All, Richter is a physician in rural Vermont. She said today: “Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick have been asked by President Obama to host a regional New England health care summit at the University of Vermont on Tuesday, March 17. We do not…

  • How to Stop AIG’s Bonuses

    Four leading analysts on finance Monday issued a statement outlining how to stop the AIG bonuses: “AIG’s decision to pay out at least $165 million in bonuses takes the bank bailout program’s abuse of the public trust to a whole new level. “This act simply cannot be allowed to stand. The only question is how…

  • What Should the Global Economy Look Like?

    Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 countries are gathering for meetings in Britain. HA-JOON CHANG In the U.S. until Sunday, Chang will then be in the UK where he is Cambridge University economics professor. He is author of Bad Samaritans — The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of…

  • Beyond Madoff

    The cartoonist Tom Toles makes the point that a main difference between Bernard Madoff and other Wall Street “charlatans” is that he’s admitting guilt. CHUCK COLLINS Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, is co-author of “Paying For a Strong Economy: Seven New Revenue Sources That Can Revitalize America and Reduce Financial Speculation.”…

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