News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • The Internet: Democracy or Ad System?

    JEFF CHESTER Executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, Chester is author of the new book Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy. He said today: “Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace to make it an advertising delivery system. Google bought YouTube to make it an advertising delivery system. The industry giants are trying…

  • Iraq Legal Challenge: “Can the U.S. Kill Children Legally?”

    In 2002, the U.S. government fined a retired American engineer, Bert Sacks, $10,000 for traveling to Iraq to bring medicines with the humanitarian groups Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and Voices in the Wilderness. At a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at 1 p.m. on Tuesday (the 16th anniversary of…

  • War and Martin Luther King Jr.

    Following are excerpts from King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination. He was addressing the group Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam: “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this…

  • Responses to Bush’s Speech

    MICHAEL McPHEARSON Executive director of Veterans for Peace, McPhearson was in the 1991 Gulf War and visited Iraq in 2003. His son has done a U.S. military tour in Iraq since the invasion and may be called back for any “surge.” More Information HOWARD ZINN Available for a limited number of interviews, Zinn’s most recent…

  • War and the Power of the Purse

    The Boston Globe noted Tuesday: “If Congress blocks funding for a surge in troops for Baghdad, as some Democrats are considering, President Bush would have little choice but to follow the law, legal specialists said yesterday.” The paper noted that even “legal scholars normally sympathetic to the executive branch agreed that Congress could stop the…

  • War Powers

    UPI is reporting: “If Congressional Democrats want to block any proposed escalation in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, as new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hinted at the weekend, they have the constitutional authority and the legal power to do so, according to some scholars.” The following legal analysts are available for media interviews: JOHN…

  • Somalia Strike

    The British Guardian is reporting: “The United States has launched air strikes against Islamists in southern Somalia, confirming the country’s status as a new frontline in Washington’s war on terror. “An AC130 warplane strafed the village of Hayo near the Kenyan border late yesterday afternoon leaving ‘many dead,’ according to the Somali government. Ras Kamboni,…

  • Bush’s Plan — for Iraq’s Oil

    The British newspaper The Independent reported in an in-depth story Sunday, titled “Future of Iraq: The Spoils of War — Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq’s most precious commodity,” that: “So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the…

  • · Lobbying · Earmarks · 9-11 Commission Recommendations

    The Democratic leadership has slated lobbying reform, addressing earmarks and the 9-11 Commission recommendations as among the first issues for the new Congress. The following analysts can address specific proposals as well as the general direction of domestic policies. SALLY KOHN Director of the Movement Vision Project, Kohn recently wrote the piece “An Agenda for…

  • Activism Roiling Hill

    CINDY SHEEHAN JUAN TORRES TIFFANY BURNS AMY BRANHAM Sheehan, Torres, Burns and other peace activists interrupted a news conference as Congress member Rahm Emanuel was speaking Wednesday. They shouted “De-escalate! Investigate! Troops home now!” [Video] Today, they dropped two banners in the Senate’s Hart Building. Sheehan, Torres and Branham are members of Gold Star Families…

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