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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  • Israel Rams Gaza Relief Boat

    CNN reports: “An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said. “CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot, Gibraltar-registered pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked…

  • Bombing of Gaza

    Oxfam International has released a list of partner organizations and allies in the occupied Gaza Strip who can be media contacts for journalists. EWA JASIEWICZ LUBNA MASARWA RAMZI KYSIA GRETA BERLIN Jasiewicz, Masarwa, Kysia and Berlin work with the Free Gaza Movement, which is sending a ship, the Dignity, from Cyprus today to Gaza. The…

  • From Gaza

    Reuters reports: “Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 155 people in the bloodiest day for Palestinians in more than 20 years of conflict.” AFP reports: “Christmas lights will be shut off around Bethlehem, including those on the city’s giant Christmas tree, to protest Israel’s deadly attacks…

  • Pardons and Accountability

    ROBERT PARRY Parry, editor of ConsortiumNews.com, a reader-supported investigative webpage, has written a number of pieces about accountability for White House officials. He wrote: “During George W. Bush’s presidency alone, language has been routinely twisted to justify everything from aggressive war to torture. Those two international crimes were turned into ‘preventive war’ and ‘alternative interrogation…

  • Racism at Browner’s EPA?

    AP reports “Carol Browner … will lead a White House council on energy and climate. Browner, the longest-serving EPA administrator in history, headed the agency during the Clinton administration’s two terms.” Time magazine, in its section of “Quotes About Browner,” features this: “She wasn’t at all sympathetic to complaints about civil rights abuses. We were…

  • UN Investigator Expelled by Israel

    Reuters reports: “UN human rights chief Navi Pillay accused Israel on Tuesday of ‘unprecedented and deeply regrettable’ treatment of a U.N. investigator it deported after barring him from crossing Israel to get to Palestinian areas. Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, was stopped at Ben…

  • Obama Nominees: * Education * Agriculture

    President-elect Obama is nominating Chicago public school CEO Arne Duncan to be secretary of education and Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, to be secretary of agriculture. KEVIN KUMASHIRO Chair of the department of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Kumashiro said today: “Under Duncan’s leadership, public education in Chicago is being…

  • Electoral College and the Right to Vote

    Today, the electors of the Electoral College meet to vote for the next president. MAYME HUBERT Hubert is an elector currently in Sacramento, and will be engaged in voting from 12:45-3:15 PT. She said today: “I’m honored to have been chosen by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, but I’d rather we voted for a president by popular…

  • Significance of Shoes Thrown

    AP is reporting: “On a whirlwind trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the wars that define his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference in Iraq. ‘This is your farewell…

  • Gates in Afghanistan

    AP reports: “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon is moving to get three of the four combat brigades requested by commanders into Afghanistan by next summer. … “The Pentagon chief spoke with reporters traveling with him to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was to meet with military leaders Thursday.” STEPHEN KINZER Available for a limited…

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