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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  • Global Warming Solutions and Shams: * Public Transit * Cap-and-Trade

    The Senate is debating global warming and a “cap-and-trade” proposal. HARVEY WASSERMAN Wasserman is author of the new book SOLARTOPIA: Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030. He said today: “With gas prices going through the roof, where’s the discussion about public transit? Here in Ohio, the federal government just spent $500 million to widen the freeway…

  • $544 Billion in Subsidies for Nuclear Industry

    KARL GROSSMAN Grossman just wrote the piece “Half-Trillion Dollars for Nukes!” which states: “With Wall Street unwilling to finance new nuclear plants, U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and John Warner of Virginia have cooked up a scheme to provide $544 billion — yes, with a ‘b’ — in subsidies for new nuclear power plant…

  • Backstory on McClellan’s Falsehoods on Rove

    In his new book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, former White House spokesperson Scott McClellan writes (page 179): “I was first asked specifically whether [Karl] Rove had been involved in the leak late in the briefing on September 16, 2003. Russell Mokhiber, editor of the advocacy newsletter Corporate…

  • Critical Voices on Scott McClellan

    VINCENT BUGLIOSI Bugliosi is a former prosecutor who successfully prosecuted 21 murder convictions without a single loss. His previous best-selling books include Helter Skelter about the Charles Manson case, which he successfully prosecuted. He has authored the just-released The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Bugliosi said today: “I have not had an opportunity…

  • Accountability: Scott McClellan and John Bolton Citizen Arrest

    The Washington Post has on its front page a piece headlined “Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq.” The British newspaper The Telegraph features a piece today: “John Bolton To Be Target of Citizen’s Arrest at Hay Festival: John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, faces a citizen’s arrest when…

  • Carter Acknowledges Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

    The BBC is reporting: “Ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal. “The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s. … “Mr. Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in…

  • The Influence of Hagee and Parsley

    SARAH POSNER Posner is author of the new book God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters. She said today: “Over the past 24 hours, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain rejected the endorsements of two charismatic evangelical televangelists, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, over controversial comments the two men have made.…

  • Oil Prices

    STEVE KRETZMANN NADINE BLOCH Kretzmann is founder and executive director of Oil Change International. He said today: “In their testimony about high gasoline prices, top oil executives repeatedly ducked questions about gas prices, demanded access to more drilling, and could not tell Senators how much they earn. Not a single suggestion came from the oil…

  • Veterans Group Disinvited to Memorial Day Parade

    AP is reporting: “Veterans For Peace was initially granted a spot in the May 26 [Memorial Day] parade that is scheduled to travel down Constitution Avenue, past landmarks that include the Washington Monument and the White House. But the American Veterans Center, a nonprofit that organizes the parade, has pulled that approval, saying it does…

  • Candidates, Money and Lobbyists

    CRAIG HOLMAN Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen, which has launched a web page WhiteHouseForSale.org that keeps track of money to candidates. He said today: “Even after John McCain ushered in the landmark McCain-Feingold law banning soft money, and Barack Obama brought us the sweeping lobbying and ethics reform law restricting influence-peddling by…

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