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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  • Assessing Charges on Iranian Nuclear Program

    Yesterday when asked whether “there is a clandestine, secret nuclear weapons program right now underway in Iran?” Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: “We haven’t seen any concrete evidence to that effect” (transcript available). MUHAMMAD SAHIMI Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. His articles…

  • Iran Sanctions: * Terrorism * Diplomacy

    Labeling Iranian government groups “terrorist,” the Bush administration Thursday placed a new set of sanctions on Iran. NOAM CHOMSKY Available for a very limited number of interviews, Chomsky is author most recently of Interventions. He said today: “When we or our allies and clients carry out terror (or aggression), it’s the justified use of force…

  • Perspectives on Iraq, Turkey and Kurds

    EDMUND GHAREEB Professor at American University, Ghareeb is author of several books including The Kurdish Question in Iraq and The Kurdish Nationalist Movement. Ghareeb can assess the strategic interests of the various political operators. More Information SUREYA SAYADI, MD An Iraqi Kurdish doctor and academic now living in the U.S., Sayadi is an activist and…

  • Global Warming: * Fires * War

    THOMAS W. SWETNAM Co-author of the piece “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity” in Science magazine, Swetnam is director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and Dendrochronology at the University of Arizona. He said today: “Increasing numbers of large forest fires and total area burned in the western United States are…

  • Analysis of More Money for War

    CNN reports this afternoon: “The Bush administration on Monday requested an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.” ANITA DANCS Dancs is research director of the National Priorities Project. She said today: “If Congress passes this, it would bring the Iraq…

  • “Cancel Debt Fast”

    The IMF and World Bank are beginning their Fall meetings in Washington, D.C., later this week. REV. DAVID DUNCOMBE Rev. Duncombe, a United Church of Christ minister from Washington State, will end a 40-day fast during a prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Rev. Duncombe, who is 79, will be joined by several members…

  • UAW Strike & Chrysler Private Equity Firm

    CHRIS KUTALIK TIFFANY TEN EYCK Chris Kutalik is editor of Labor Notes, based in Detroit Michigan. Tiffany Ten Eyck is a correspondent for the magazine. They co-wrote the piece “Jobs, Wages, Health Care, Pensions — All in Jeopardy as Chrysler Is Sold to Private Firm” shortly after Daimler-Chrysler agreed to sell Chrysler to the buyout…

  • Behind the Biden Amendment

    Last week, the Senate voted 75­23 for the Biden amendment. Today, the Washington Post published a piece by Joseph Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations in which they write “our plan is not partition…” The following analysts are available…

  • 50th Anniversary of Sputnik on Thursday

    On October 4, 1957, the launch of Sputnik had enormous impacts on U.S. society. Fifty years later, the anniversary on Thursday provides an opportunity to assess those impacts — and to reassess the political priorities and hopes for technology in present-day American life. NORMAN SOLOMON Writing about Sputnik in his new book Made Love, Got…

  • What’s VEBA? Behind the GM-UAW Tentative Healthcare Deal

    LARRY SOLOMON Former UAW Local 751 president in Decatur, Ill., Solomon worked at Caterpillar for 34 years. He said today: “The UAW better be very careful about this Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association that GM is pushing. “For years, we were told by Caterpillar that we were getting an invisible paycheck in the form of free…

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