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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  • Millions Dead in Congo Virtually Ignored in Election

    This week is “Break the Silence” Congo week, a global initiative led by students to raise awareness and provide support to the people of Congo. Events are planned in more than 30 countries and on 125 college campuses. The Congo has been virtually ignored during the campaign. It was raised in one debate by Tom…

  • Will Rightful Voters Be Able to Vote: Ohio and Colorado

    JENNY FLANAGAN Flanagan is the executive director of Colorado Common Cause. She said today: “The State of Colorado should accept registration applications that contain all necessary identifying information, but lack a checkmark in a superfluous box. Currently, the state is treating these applications as ‘incomplete.’ If this policy goes unchanged, thousands of eligible Colorado voters…

  • The Fed System: Banks Regulating Banks

    AP is reporting this morning: “Testimony is on tap today by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. He’s to talk about the economic outlook before members of the House Budget Committee.” ROBERT AUERBACH Auerbach is professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He was an economist with the House Committee on Financial…

  • Debate Fallout: * Economic Discussion * D.C. Education System * Colombia

    MAX FRAAD WOLFF Wolff is an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University. He is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Asia Times and The Indypendent. He cites a disconnect between the economic crisis and the lack of meaningful discussion in the presidential race: “We are still talking tax…

  • Will Mickey Mouse Vote?

    TOVA WANG Wang is the vice president for research at Common Cause. She said today: “It is unfortunate that some would seek to distract us from the real work that needs to be done to ensure a fair election in which every eligible voter can cast a ballot and all the ballots are counted. While…

  • Bomber Pilot McCain: War Heroism or War Crimes?

    ROBERT RICHTER Richter is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and was political director for CBS News from 1965 to 1968. He notes that McCain has repeatedly invoked his record in the Vietnam War during the campaign, but that the effect of bomber pilots like McCain and of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign has not been sufficiently…

  • Priorities of the Financial System

    NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU SOREN AMBROSE Co-coordinator of Africa Jubilee South, based in Nairobi, Kenya, Njehu said today: “Governments are bailing out the banks — profit-making institutions — hundreds of billions were found instantly for them. Meanwhile, the debt crisis has continued to devastate life around the world. The G8 has promised to act but has…

  • Allegations of Voter Registration Fraud

    ALEX KEYSSAR Keyssar is the Stirling Professor of History and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the author of the book “he Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. He said today: “Once again we seem to be finding a pattern where allegations of fraud…

  • “Open Bigotry: Islamophobia in the 2008 Presidential Campaign”

    The media watch group FAIR has just launched the web page “Smearcasters: How Islamophobes spread fear, bigotry and misinformation.” ISABEL MacDONALD MacDonald is communications director with FAIR. She recently wrote the piece “The Anti-Muslim Smear Machine Strikes Again?” The piece states: “In the midst of remarkably cynical election-time mud-slinging, the ‘Obsession’ campaign is truly in…

  • Global Financial Crisis

    THOMAS FERGUSON Available for a limited number of interviews, Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (University of Chicago Press). Ferguson noted that the Financial Times reported in its Thursday…

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