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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  • Pelosi: Image vs. Record

    TIM REDMOND Executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Redmond has been tracking Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s career for over a decade. He recently wrote the article “Pelosi is not one of us,” in which he stated: “Pelosi is by no means a San Francisco liberal. She’s a Washington insider, a born and bred…

  • Bush Administration and Legal Accountability

    ELIZABETH DE LA VEGA Elizabeth de la Vega served as a federal prosecutor in Minneapolis and San Jose for 20 years. She is author of the new book U.S. v. George W. Bush et. al. She said today: “Over half the people in the United States believe that the president misled the country into a…

  • Hawk Slated to Chair International Relations

    Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and is reportedly slated to chair the committee in the next Congress. His foreign-policy views are widely deplored by antiwar analysts. For several articles about and by Lantos, see: Peninsula Peace and Justice Center. PAUL GEORGE George is director of the Peninsula…

  • Olmert in Washington

    DANIEL LEVY Lead Israeli drafter of the unofficial Geneva Initiative detailed peace plan and former official Israeli peace negotiator and advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office to the Barak government, Levy is now senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the Century Foundation and directs their respective Middle East and Peace initiatives. His upcoming…

  • Post-Election Iraq Politics: Peace Mandate?

    NANCY NAHVI CINDY SHEEHAN Both Nahvi and Sheehan have lost sons in the Iraq War. Following a White House press conference where President Bush announced the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, they were arrested during a protest organized by the group Gold Star Families for Peace. Nahvi met Sheehan in summer 2005 when Sheehan set up…

  • Behind Gates and Rumsfeld

    ROBERT PARRY Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek and is the founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com. He has written extensively about Robert Gates. Parry said today: “There have been suspicions that Gates was involved with secret dealings with both Iran and Iraq during the 1980s.…

  • Virginia Recount?

    SPENCER OVERTON A law professor at George Washington University, Overton was a commissioner on the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform. Author of the new book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression, Overton just wrote the piece “Bush v. Gore II?: Virginia Election Irregularities and Recount Procedures.” More Information WARREN STEWART Stewart is…

  • Second Look at Saddam Verdict: · Timing · History

    SCOTT HORTON Horton is chairman of the International Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Law School. He makes frequent trips to Iraq, working as an attorney representing arrested local-hire reporters of U.S. media. On Oct. 26, Horton was quoted on a news release from the…

  • Voting Integrity on Election Day

    WARREN STEWART Stewart is the policy director of VoteTrustUSA.org and will be available for interviews in New York. More Information JUSTIN LEVITT Levitt is associate counsel with the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. More Information DEBORAH NARRIGAN JOE IRRERA Narrigan works in Tennessee with Gathering to Save…

  • Oceans in Peril?

    DAVID HELVARG Helvarg is president of the Blue Frontier Campaign and author of the book Fifty Ways to Save the Ocean. He said today: “The new study in Science magazine that asserts we could run out of edible fish in the world’s ocean by 2048 is based on our continuing business as usual. But there…

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