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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  • VA and Education Nominees

    President-elect Obama is nominating Chicago public school CEO Arne Duncan (hearing Tuesday) to be secretary of education and Eric Shinseki (hearing Wednesday) to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. AARON GLANTZ Author of The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans, Glantz is Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism at The Carter Center.…

  • * Clinton * Ross

    Hillary Clinton’s hearing in the Senate for Secretary of State is scheduled for Tuesday. The Financial Times recently reported that Dennis Ross has been selected by President-elect Obama for Mideast envoy, a position Ross held in the Clinton administration. STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign…

  • As Attacks on Gaza Continue

    RICHARD FALK Just back in the U.S. and available for a limited number of interviews with major media, Falk is the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Last month he was denied entry to Israel. He said today: “It is irresponsible to exclude Hamas from international participation…

  • Obama, Stimulus and Entitlements

    DAVID ROSNICK An economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Rosnick said today: “While short on specific numbers, President-elect Obama helped prepare the country for a large, but much-needed stimulus package to be negotiated by Congress over the next few weeks. Speedy and large should be our watchwords, as the recession continues to…

  • Sanjay Gupta: In Whose Interest?

    AP reports: “President-elect Barack Obama’s reported choice for surgeon general, CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, could bring a dose of star power to a job that hasn’t had that much clout in decades.” TRUDY LIEBERMAN Lieberman is director of the health and medicine reporting program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She just wrote…

  • Intel Nominee “Aided Perpetrators of Killings”

    ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews. A noted independent journalist, he runs the weblog “News and Comment.” Nairn just wrote the piece “Admiral Dennis Blair, Prospective Obama Appointee, Aided Perpetrators of 1999 Church Killings,” which states: “Reports say that President-elect Obama wants to nominate retired…

  • Context for Gaza

    CHRIS HEDGES Hedges just wrote the piece “Lost in the Rubble,” which, among other things, recounts his meeting with Nizar Rayan, who Israel killed in a targeted assassination on Thursday. Author of several books, Hedges covered the Mideast for the New York Times for seven years. AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil is author of several books on…

  • Gaza: Crucial Perspectives

    EDWARD L. PECK Available for a limited number of interviews, Ambassador Peck spent November with a delegation to the Mideast organized by the Council for the National Interest. He was chief of mission in Iraq and Mauritania and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. He said today:…

  • Pressing Obama on Peace

    ANN WRIGHT, Reuters reports: “A small group of placard-waving pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered near U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s vacation retreat in Hawaii on Tuesday to protest against the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. … Obama has made no public comment on the strikes, which Israel launched on Saturday.” Wright is a former State Department diplomat and retired…

  • Israeli Military Refuseniks

    OMER GOLDMAN JESSE BACON Goldman is one of the “Shministim” — high school seniors who refuse to enter the Israeli military process. She said today: “I’m proud to refuse to serve in an army that claims to be for humanity and defense but hurts people on a daily basis.” She recently wrote: “I first went…

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