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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  • U.S.-Iran Confrontation in the Gulf?

    CNN reports: “Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats ‘harassed and provoked’ three U.S. Navy ships early Sunday in international waters, the U.S. military said Monday, calling the encounter a ‘significant’ confrontation.” AP reports that: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry says weekend incident between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in Gulf was ‘something normal’ and was resolved.” The…

  • Behind the Conventional Wisdom on Clinton, Obama & Edwards

    * Clinton’s “Experience” * Obama on Racial Justice and Africa * Edward’s Corporate Friend JUNAID AHMAD President of the U.S.-based National Muslim Law Students Association, Ahmad was last in Pakistan this August. He just wrote the piece “What’s Behind Bhutto’s Assasination?” Ahmad said today: “At the ABC debate on Saturday, Clinton called Musharraf ‘the elected…

  • Veterans in New Hampshire

    WILLIAM HOPKINS An Iraq war veteran, Hopkins said today: “I joined the New Hampshire National Guard in May of 2001 at a time the World Trade towers still stood; it was not at all unusual to talk to fellow guardsmen who had been in for 25 years or more and not been deployed aside from…

  • Examining Candidates’ Foreign Policy Advisers: How Real a “Change”?

    KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS Vlahos wrote a piece for The American Conservative titled “War Whisperers: The 2008 hopefuls promised a change in foreign policy then hired the old guard.” ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews through Monday. A noted independent journalist, he runs the new weblog…

  • Beyond Iowa to “Super Stupid Tuesday”

    ROB RICHIE Executive director of FairVote, Richie said today: “The Iowa caucuses showcased two principles of voting not available to many in the U.S. despite their common use around the world: proportional representation and second choice, ‘instant runoff’ balloting. “[In this case] proportional representation meant that the delegates were awarded relative to the number of…

  • Why Did the U.S. Back the Kenyan Election Results?

    GERALD LeMELLE Executive director of Africa Action, LeMelle said today: “The U.S. government initially expressed support for the government-announced outcome of the election despite overwhelming evidence that something was wrong. There seemed to have been some disconnect between the U.S. embassy in Nairobi — which has taken a relatively cautious approach to the crisis —…

  • “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”

    FRANK CORDARO A member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker and a former priest, Cordaro said today: “[Mike] Huckabee claims to follow Jesus, but he has shown his true allegiance is to empire. He has more in common with the empire that put Jesus on the cross than the Jesus of love and peace who…

  • Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan

    SHAHID MAHMOOD Mahmood was the editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. He recently wrote a piece titled “The Dream That Was Benazir Bhutto,” which states: “I too was swept-up in that initial euphoria and as a budding political cartoonist remember drawing…

  • Pakistan

    SAMEER DOSSANI Director of 50 Years Is Enough, a group that scrutinizes major international financial institutions, Dossani, a Pakistani-American, said today: “While the death of Benazir Bhutto is the latest in a long and tragic line of blood that has been spilled in Pakistan’s history, it should not detract from our analysis of her legacy.…

  • Assessing Iraq

    DAVID ENDERS Enders is a journalist who has spent nearly half of the last four years in Iraq and is author of the book “Baghdad Bulletin.” He said today: “Any progress the military is claiming to have made in Iraq should be looked at in the big picture: the prison population is larger than ever,…

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