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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  • Gaza Siege Challenged by Sea

    Reuters reports today: “International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza. The 44 activists sailed from the port of Larnaca in two wooden boats … Hailing from 14 countries, they said they expected to reach the shores of Gaza,…

  • Is Obama Clinton 2.0?

    KEVIN GRAY Gray is author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics and the forthcoming The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama. Gray said today: “Obama is slipping in the polls and I think it’s because he’s seen as going with the flow. He’s not taking on…

  • Assessing China and the Olympics

    JACQUES LESLIE Available for a very limited number of interviews, Leslie wrote the in-depth piece for Mother Jones, “The Last Empire: Can the World Survive China’s Rush to Emulate the American Way of Life?” Leslie’s latest book, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress…

  • The Marketing of Cervical Cancer Drug

    The New York Times reports today in an extensive article titled “Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Fast Rise” that “the lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. The vaccines, which offer…

  • Why Not Rate Candidates Like in the Olympics?

    WILLIAM POUNDSTONE A best-selling author, Poundstone has written the new book Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It). He said today: “In the Olympics, we recognize that it’s possible for two competitors to both be ‘perfect 10s.’ A judge who feels that way can give both athletes the…

  • Paraguay: * Liberation Theology * End of an Era in Latin America?

    Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, was recently inaugurated as the president of Paraguay. The British Guardian today published a piece headlined: “Paraguay: Former slave gets cabinet position.” BLASE BONPANE Director of the Office of the Americas, Bonpane served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala and has written five books including Guerrillas of Peace: Liberation Theology…

  • Presidential Policies and Morality

    KATHY KELLY DAN PEARSON Kelly and Pearson are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which is organizing the Witness Against War 2008, a 450-mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul “to challenge and nonviolently resist our country’s continuing war in and occupation of Iraq.” Kelly said today: “Our journey began in the City of Chicago,…

  • * Pakistan * Caucasus

    The Washington Post is reporting: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, once a top U.S. ally, is expected to resign in the next few days, according to Pakistani officials.” ALI AHSAN Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in Pakistan, was the first person jailed when Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3,…

  • * “The Long War” * Russia and Expanding NATO

    ANDREW BACEVICH Professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich is author of the just-released The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. He also just wrote the piece “Is Perpetual War Our Future? Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Bush Era” and will be the guest for a full hour on…

  • Bush Policy on Russia and Georgia

    The New York Times reports today: “The United States took a series of steps that emboldened Georgia: sending advisers to build up the Georgian military, including an exercise last month with more than 1,000 American troops; pressing hard to bring Georgia into the NATO orbit…” Neither President Bush this morning nor Secretary of State Rice…

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