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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  • One Million Iraqis Killed?

    ROBERT NAIMAN National coordinator and senior policy analyst at Just Foreign Policy, Naiman said: “Just Foreign Policy is publishing updated estimates of Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion and occupation starting in 2003. And the way that we constructed this estimate is to extrapolate from the Lancet study that was published last fall. “The…

  • Nagasaki and the Second Bomb

    August 9 is the 62nd anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. WILLIAM D. HARTUNG Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the New America Foundation. He said today: “Even more so than Hiroshima, the U.S. decision drop a second atomic bomb — this time on Nagasaki —…

  • Iraqi Oil Law Impasse: Good News for Democracy?

    Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields to foreign investment by a ratio of two to one, according to a poll released yesterday. ANTONIA JUHASZ Juhasz is the author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time and a fellow with Oil Change International. She said today: “For the first…

  • Anniversary of Tonkin Gulf Resolution — August 7

    With only two dissenting votes in the entire Senate and House, the Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964 — clearing the path to escalate the war in Vietnam. Passage of the measure came after the Johnson administration falsely claimed that U.S. vessels in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of…

  • · Presidential Politics and Nuclear Weapons · Hiroshima Anniversary

    The New York Times reports: “[Senator Barack Obama’s] remarks about removing nuclear weapons as an option in the region [Afghanistan or Pakistan] drew fresh attacks from Democratic rivals who had already questioned his foreign policy experience. American officials have generally been deliberately ambiguous about their nuclear strike policies.” JIM WALSH Walsh is a research associate…

  • Bush Threat to Veto Health Insurance for Children

    President Bush has announced that he would veto any expansion in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance for children in low-income families. Congress will be considering legislation to renew or expand funding for the program this week. On Monday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote: “When a child is enrolled…

  • Military Budget

    The House is expected to debate the Fiscal Year 2008 “Defense appropriations” bill this week. WILLIAM HARTUNG Director of the Arms and Security Project at the New America Foundation, Hartung said today: “While Democratic leaders in the House talk about withdrawing from Iraq and closing Guantanamo, the only action that will come out of this…

  • Mideast Arms Deals

    CNN reports: “The United States is cutting new arms and military assistance deals with Middle Eastern countries in an effort to counter terrorism and improve stability in the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.” AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil is author of several books on the Mideast including The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism,…

  • The 50th Anniversary of the IAEA

    This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ROBERT ALVAREZ A former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and now a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, Alvarez said today: “As the IAEA marks its 50th anniversary, it faces major challenges associated with…

  • Democrats: Hurting Republicans Rather Than Ending War?

    JOHN BERG Professor and chair of the government department at Suffolk University in Boston, Berg is author of Unequal Struggle: Class, Gender, Race and Power in the U.S. Congress. His doctoral dissertation, “Why the Doves Failed,” analyzed the failure of Congress to end the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He said today: “The Democrats…

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