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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  • The Secret World of Voter Purges

    MYRNA PEREZ WENDY WEISER Pérez is counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law and the author of the report “Voter Purges.” Weiser is the deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center. The Brennan Center is today releasing one of the first systematic examinations of…

  • Is McCain’s “League of Democracies” an Attempt to Kill the UN?

    During the first presidential debate, Sen. John McCain repeatedly referred to his proposal for a “League of Democracies.” The following analysts have followed this proposal and can assess it: THOMAS CAROTHERS Director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carothers wrote the policy brief “Is a League…

  • Bailout: “A Gun Pointed at Their Head”

    DEAN BAKER Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker just wrote the piece “Why Bail? The Banks Have a Gun Pointed at Their Head and Are Threatening to Pull the Trigger,” which states: “There is no plausible scenario under which the no-bailout scenario gives us a Great Depression. There is a more…

  • Will There Be Any Meaningful Foreign Policy Debate?

    STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, Zunes said today: “It is ironic that the John McCain [campaign] has used the financial crisis as an excuse to call for postponing the foreign policy debate in Oxford, given that the enormous deficit spending resulting…

  • Economic Crisis

    Protests are planned today around the United States. Among the organizers: Arun Gupta, citizen organizer, New York City Cesar Maxit, FranklinkShelter.org Andrew Boyd, citizen organizer, New York City Matt Holland, TrueMajority.org David Elliot, TrueMajority.org/USAction THOMAS FERGUSON Available for a limited number of interviews, Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.…

  • Michigan and Ohio Voter Issues

    The Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Michigan and the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit challenging two statewide voter purge programs in advance of the November 2008 presidential election. BRADLEY HEARD Bradley Heard is a senior attorney with the Advancement Project, which released the following statement:…

  • Veterans But Not Voters?

    SHARON KUFELDT Kufeldt is the vice-president of Veterans for Peace. She said today: “More than 100,000 people reside for a month or longer at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities nationally. Instead of working hard to enable veterans to register to vote, the VA is obstructing nonpartisan groups who are working to register these people. Even…

  • As the U.N. Meets: The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War

    Katharine Gun, a former British government employee, faced two years imprisonment in England for leaking a U.S. intelligence memo before the invasion of Iraq. The memo indicated that the U.S. had mounted a spying “surge” against U.N. Security Council delegations in early 2003 in an effort to win approval for an Iraq war resolution. The…

  • Corporate Power: Is Regulation Enough?

    EDWARD S. HERMAN Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He said today: “Essentially, the Bush administration plan is Wall Street bailing itself out with taxpayers’ money, after Wall Street had failed to carry out its financial functions with efficiency and integrity, and with the bailout organized…

  • Paulson Plan “Would Be Disaster”

    AP is reporting: “The man behind the Bush administration’s sweeping intervention in the U.S. financial system is a former Goldman Sachs executive who came to Washington two years ago hoping to streamline regulation of the financial services sector.” DORENE ISENBERG Isenberg is chair of the Economics Department at the University of Redlands. She said today:…

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