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. Bases in Iraq: The Meaning of “Permanent”

    AP is reporting: “The House voted 399-24 on Wednesday to pass a bill proposed by [Rep. Barbara] Lee that would ban permanent bases in Iraq.” PHYLLIS BENNIS Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis said today: “The bill states an important principle opposing the ‘establishment’ of new bases in…

  • U.S. Troops and Iraqi Civilians

    Last week, McClatchy newspapers reported that, according to the U.S. military’s own statistics, “U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year. … The statistics don’t include instances of American soldiers killing civilians during raids, arrests or in the midst of battle with armed…

  • · Torture · Executive Privilege

    DAVID COLE Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Cole wrote in the recent piece “Bush’s Torture Ban is Full of Loopholes”: “[A]n executive order that categorically bans torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is a significant step in the right direction. … But how much of a step the administration has really taken remains…

  • Soldiers Reveal Disturbing Patterns

    In this week’s issue of The Nation, an article details interviews with fifty U.S. combat veterans. According to The Nation: “It is time to reckon with the weight of evidence that American forces regularly kill Iraqi noncombatants. Occupying armies with little knowledge of the local culture, fighting guerrillas who mingle among the population, have usually…

  • Lotteries: A Regressive Tax

    ALICIA HANSEN BILL AHERN Hansen is staff writer and Ahern is the communication director for the Tax Foundation. Hansen said today: “Most Americans don’t think of lotteries in terms of tax policy. The lottery conjures up images of smiling Powerball winners displaying $10 million checks for the TV camera or perhaps stories of lottery players…

  • Reporting From Iraq

    DAVID ENDERS Available for a limited number of interviews from Baghdad, Enders is a freelance journalist who has spent more than 18 months in Iraq over the past four years. He is author of the book Baghdad Bulletin. Enders said today: “The last time I was here was in May 2006. It’s never been this…

  • Pakistan: Aftermath of Storming of Mosque

    Agence France Presse is reporting: “Pakistan’s army said Thursday that women and children may have been among those killed in the Red Mosque raid, as the burials of militants killed in the assault sparked angry Islamist protests. President Pervez Musharraf was due to address the nation in a bid to defuse tensions after the storming…

  • Washington’s Current Debate on Iraq Echoes the Rhetoric of Vietnam Era

    While debate over Iraq intensifies in Washington, a new film’s rarely-seen archival footage shows that current arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops are eerily reminiscent of persistent claims from the Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War. Parallels emerge sharply in the documentary, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”…

  • Poll on Cheney — Critical Mass on Impeachment?

    A new poll by the American Research Group shows a majority of the U.S. public in favor of the House beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney by a 54 to 40 percent majority. The same poll found a near tie on President George W. Bush and impeachment, with 45 percent in favor and 46…

  • “Targeting Iran” — Iraq Redux?

    The editor of Editor & Publisher, Greg Mitchell, is charging that Michael R. Gordon — “the same [New York] Times reporter who, on his own, or with [Judith] Miller, wrote some of the key yet badly misleading or downright inaccurate articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion” — is “now writing…

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