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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  • Iraq: · Rice’s Chevron Scandal · Iraqi Parliament Wants Timetable for U.S. Withdrawal

    JAMES JENNINGS On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that “Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators. … At the time, Condoleezza Rice,…

  • The Anti-War Origins of Mother’s Day

    Each year the president issues a Mother’s Day Proclamation. The original Mother’s Day Proclamation was made in 1870. Written by Julia Ward Howe, perhaps best known today for having written the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862 when she was an anti-slavery activist, the original Proclamation was an impassioned call for…

  • World Bank Beyond Wolfowitz

    SAMEER DOSSANI NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU Director of the 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice, Dossani said today: “The Wolfowitz scandal is a symptom of a much deeper problem.” Referring to the “gentleman’s agreement” which allows the U.S. government to appoint the head of the World Bank, while Europe appoints the head…

  • Will the Iraq Oil Bill Increase Violence in Iraq?

    The lead story in the New York Times today is headlined “A Draft Oil Bill Stirs Opposition from Iraqi Blocs; Sunnis and Kurds Balk; Benchmark in Danger…” The piece states that the proposed Iraqi oil law “establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenue” and that “the White House was hoping for quick passage…

  • Thousands Die While Washington Plays “Blame Game”

    LIAM MADDEN Madden was a communications and electronics specialist with the Marines in Iraq. He co-founded the Appeal for Redress, a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and U.S. Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. He left the military in January. He said today: “The…

  • Implications: Murdoch and Dow Jones

    AP reports that “Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, said Tuesday it received an unsolicited bid from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to buy the company for $5 billion.” BEN H. BAGDIKIAN Author of The New Media Monopoly and professor emeritus and former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the…

  • Immigration

    NADIA MARTINEZ Martinez is a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She said today: “A sound immigration policy recognizes the importance of a sound foreign policy. We must deal with the pressing issues of poverty, inequality, unemployment and security abroad just as much as at home. “For instance, since 1994 when the North…

  • · Iraq Fatalities · Tenet · Pakistan Attack

    NANCY LESSIN Lessin is co-founder of Military Families Speak Out. She said today: “April has been an exceedingly violent month with at least 104 U.S. troops killed and we don’t know how many Iraqis. This is almost as high as during the offensives against Fallujah. Contrary to the White House line that we need to…

  • Big Pharma Blackmailing Thailand on AIDS Drugs?

    Activists today decried Abbott Laboratories’ stance on selling medicines to people living with HIV/AIDS in Thailand and announced plans to protest at offices across the U.S. during Abbott’s shareholder meeting set for Friday near Chicago. Under pressure from activists, Abbott recently offered to re-introduce the drugs if Thailand gives up the right to import generic…

  • Behind Prison Riots

    AP reports that in Indiana “inmates at the New Castle Correctional Facility took over part of the prison [Wednesday] afternoon, injuring two employees and setting several fires.” MARC MAUER Executive director of The Sentencing Project, Mauer is author of the book Race to Incarcerate. More Information ED MEAD Mead is publisher of Prison Focus magazine,…

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