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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  • Consolidation of the Internet: Microsoft Bids For Yahoo!

    JEFF CHESTER Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and author of the recently released book Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy. He said today: “Today’s proposed acquisition by Microsoft of Yahoo!, if consummated, will create a powerful interactive Internet duopoly in online media. Google and Microsoft will…

  • Clinton’s Big Lie from Last Night

    “We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors.” — Hillary Clinton, Jan. 31, 2008 http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/iraq-in-democratic-debate.html NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He said today: “If facts matter, then it…

  • Bridgestone Super Bowl Deal Under Fire

    Auto Spectator reports on an “extensive partnership between the Bridgestone Firestone brand and the NFL,” which includes “title sponsorship of the Super Bowl XLII and XLIII ‘Bridgestone Super Bowl Halftime Show’.” The following analysts are available for interviews: DAVE ZIRIN Sportswriter Zirin’s latest book is Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of…

  • Signing Statements and Permanent Bases in Iraq

    The Boston Globe reports today: “President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued…

  • Suharto’s Death

    JEFFREY WINTERS Available for a limited number of interviews, Winters is author of Power in Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State. The AP reports that “critics say Suharto squandered Indonesia’s vast natural resources of oil, timber and gold, siphoning the nation’s wealth to benefit his cronies and family like a mafia don. Jeffrey Winters,…

  • Stimulus Package

    AVIS JONES-DeWEEVER Director of the Research, Public Policy, and Information Center for African American Women, Jones-DeWeever said today: “The recently announced House stimulus package can be summed up in one phrase, ‘too little, too late.’ History tells us that effective stimulus plans have three qualities: they’re quick, they’re temporary, and they’re targeted to the people…

  • Iraq War Lies

    The Center for Public Integrity has released a report titled “Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War.” JOHN R. MACARTHUR In October 2002, MacArthur wrote the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President: To Drum Up Rage Against Iraq, Bush Senior and Junior Have Been Known to Tell Tall Tales” and in January of 2003 he appeared…

  • Gaza Crisis

    YONATAN SHAPIRA BASSAM ARAMIN ELIK ELHANAN Currently in Washington, D.C., Shapira was a captain in the Israeli Air Force as a Black Hawk pilot. In 2003 he wrote a noted “Pilot’s Letter” refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Aramin is a former Fatah fighter who served seven years in jail from the age…

  • Economic Crisis

    ROBERT POLLIN Author of the books Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity and The Macroeconomics of Saving, Finance, and Investment, Pollin said today: “U.S. and global financial markets are mired in a severe crisis due to the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble and the subprime mortgage market. A…

  • More Bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan

    The Washington Post reports today in a piece headlined “U.S. Boosts Its Use of Airstrikes In Iraq” that: “The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006. … In Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO bombings picked…

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