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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  • Government Attempting to Silence Iraq War Vets?

    AP is reporting: “An Iraq war veteran could lose his honorable discharge status after being photographed wearing fatigues at an anti-war protest. Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh and other veterans marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq in March by wearing their uniforms — with military insignia removed — and roaming around the nation’s…

  • Zoellick at World Bank?

    SAMEER DOSSANI Director of 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice, Dossani said today: “Though I am not surprised that George Bush has nominated another white male neoconservative to the post of World Bank president, I am appalled. After the departure in disgrace of Paul Wolfowitz, the White House had a chance…

  • · Sudan · Cindy Sheehan

    JAMES JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization that has worked in Darfur since 2004, Jennings said today: “President Bush doesn’t understand Sudan any better than he did Iraq. The U.S. is behind the curve by making policy decisions based on ethnic cleansing that happened in 2004, and is jumping the gun by…

  • Is Bush Addressing the Root Causes of Terrorism — or Aggravating Them?

    CHALMERS JOHNSON Available for a limited number of interviews, Johnson is the author of the new book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. He is also author of the widely-noted Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. His most recent article is “Evil Empire: Is Imperial Liquidation Possible for America?” Johnson said…

  • War Funding

    ANTONIA JUHASZ Juhasz is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. She will be at a news conference in D.C. on Thursday with Rep. Dennis Kucinich, at noon in the Cannon Terrace. She said today: “A major ‘benchmark’ is for the Iraqi parliament to pass a new oil law. This is a major…

  • Immigration Proposal: Who Benefits?

    DEEPA FERNANDES Fernandes is author of the book Targeted: National Security and the Business of Immigration and has closely followed the existing guest worker program that began after Katrina. She said today: “The so-called ‘guest worker’ provisions of the bill serve only to benefit big business. Witness the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, an unambiguous…

  • Shelling in Lebanon

    SAMAR ASSAD Assad is executive director of the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C. She said today: “Conditions of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon — who have been there for nearly 60 years — are the worst of virtually any refugee population. During the talks in Taba under the Clinton administration, it was thought they would…

  • World Bank After Wolfowitz

    DENNIS BRUTUS SAMEER DOSSANI Currently in South Africa, Brutus is professor emeritus at the Unversity of Pittsburgh. He said today: “Wolfowitz’s arrogance, his insistence that any problems were the result of his colleagues’ actions, never his own, were a perfect match for the World Bank, which has always refused to take responsibility for its own…

  • · Gas Prices · Whistleblowers · Internet Ads Targeting Kids

    TYSON SLOCUM Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, Slocum said today: “Gas prices have tripled over the last five years and it hasn’t moderated demand. Oil companies, fueled by huge mergers, are engaging in anti-competitive and speculative behavior which explains their $477 billion in profits since Bush became president. So how can we address the…

  • · Jamestown · Pope in Latin America

    ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ Dunbar-Ortiz’s books include Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie, The Great Sioux Nation, and the forthcoming Home of the Brave: Indigenous History of the United States. She said today: “In Jamestown, what was to become the U.S. was founded as a commercial corporate enterprise. We are still saddled with much of this legacy. Jamestown…

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