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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  • New Orleans

    CHRIS KROMM SUE STURGIS Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm is currently in New Orleans and posting on the group’s “Facing South” blog. He said today: “Gustav exposes how vulnerable the Gulf Coast still is three years after Katrina, from the levees to coastal land loss. Even if this one didn’t cause…

  • Palin’s Record

    SHANNYN MOORE KELLY WALTERS Moore co-hosts a talkshow on KWHL in Anchorage. She said today: “Palin called into our show 45 minutes before going on stage with John McCain — and she said we were the only outlet she was calling. … Palin is against abortion rights even in the case of incest and rape…

  • Martin Luther King: “Our Only Hope…”

    Sen. Barack Obama speaks at Invesco Field in Denver to accept the Democratic Party presidential nomination tonight, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the National March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Here are excerpts from King’s sermon “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break…

  • Assessing Party Conventions

    GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of the forthcoming Feminism and Inequality, Mink is scrutinizing various portions of the Democratic Party platform on her blog. She was featured on IPA’s recent news release titled “Is Obama Clinton 2.0?.” ELIZABETH SANDERS Sanders…

  • Biden and Dividing Iraq

    Reuters recently reported: “Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians … bemoaned Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s choice of running mate, known in Iraq as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.” VERA BEAUDIN SAEEDPOUR Editor of Kurdish Life and the International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Saeedpour…

  • Obama and Afghanistan

    Reuters reports: “The United Nations said on Tuesday it had found convincing evidence that 90 Afghan civilians, most of them children, were killed in air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces in western Afghanistan last week.” SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, Kolhatkar said today: “The war in Afghanistan…

  • D.C. Statehood Out of Democratic Platform

    ANISE JENKINS Jenkins is with the Stand Up! for Democracy in D.C. Coalition (Free D.C). She said today: “Non-voting U.S. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks at the Democratic convention Tuesday night. She is the vice-chair of the DNC Platform Committee this year as she was in 2004. “Statehood for D.C. was dropped from the…

  • * Health Care * Michelle Obama

    CLAUDIA FEGAN, MD Co-author of the book Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from the Canadian Experience, Fegan is former president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “The reason I’m at the convention is that we have millions more people who are uninsured than when George Bush became…

  • Biden: The Senator from MasterCard/MBNA?

    JONATHAN TASINI Tasini is executive director of the Labor Research Association and editor of the blog “Working Life.” He just wrote the pieces “Biden and Bankruptcy” and “Is Joe Biden Good For Labor? Mostly, Yes.” DANNY SCHECHTER Director of the new film “In Debt We Trust” and author of the new book Plunder, Schechter said…

  • Biden: What Kind of Foreign Policy “Experience”?

    STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, Zunes will be in Denver for the first few days of the Democratic Convention. His recent pieces include “Obama’s Right Turn?” He said today: “One of Obama’s strongest distinctions from McCain was his wisdom and courage…

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