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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  • Gun Violence

    ZACH RAGBOURN A spokesperson for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Ragbourn can address various aspects of gun violence in the United States, particularly problems with illegal guns. More Information JEREMY HOBBS DAVID KING Today, Oxfam released (with Amnesty International and International Action Network on Small Arms) the report “Arms Without Borders: Why a…

  • Ellsberg Named for Right Livelihood Award

    Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, was announced today as a recipient of this year’s Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the “alternative Nobel Peace Prize.” The award jury noted about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers: “In October 1969 he started copying this and passing it to Senator Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate…

  • NIE Issues: Terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan

    ROBERT DREYFUSS Dreyfuss wrote the piece “Beware the NIE” this week about the latest National Intelligence Estimate controversy. He is author of the book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. More Information CAMILO MEJIA A former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Mejia served nine months in a U.S. Army jail for…

  • Non-Proliferation: Critical Analysis on the Hill Today

    Hans Blix, the head of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Committee, is testifying on Capitol Hill this afternoon before a subcommittee on weapons of mass destruction and proliferation. The following analysts will also be testifying as part of the same proceedings and are available for interviews: Amb. THOMAS GRAHAM Jr. Graham is a member of…

  • Specter Denounces Presidential Signing Statements

    Sen. Arlen Specter this afternoon challenged the constitutionality of the president’s practice of adding signing statements to legislation. Specter, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the practice “is inappropriate under the Constitution, which provides that when Congress passes legislation, the legislation is presented to the president and if the president doesn’t like…

  • The Amnesty-for-Torturers Act?

    NAT HENTOFF Hentoff writes in his column in today’s Washington Times: “Little attention is being paid to Section 6 of this Warner-McCain-Graham bill that denies the right to a habeas-corpus hearing not only to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, but to any alien detainee outside the United States designated by the president as an ‘enemy combatant.’ ……

  • Torture Deal

    NBC is reporting: “The rift among Republicans over the treatment of terrorism detainees appears to have closed, with maverick GOP Sen. John McCain telling NBC News on Friday that a deal reached with President Bush will lead to fair trials and interrogations but not torture.” But based on details of the plans thus far made…

  • Facts Beyond the Bush Speech at the UN

    HOWARD ZINN Zinn, author of the bestseller A People’s History of the United States, is available for a limited number of interviews beginning Thursday afternoon. He said today: “The U.S. government used deceit to go to war with Iraq and in very similar fashion it is now propagandizing the U.S. public about Iran.” More Information…

  • Bush at the UN: Peace and Prosperity?

    President Bush’s address to the United Nations today followed his statement yesterday that “the goals of this country are to help those who feel hopeless, the goals of this country are to spread liberty, the goals of this country is [sic] to enhance prosperity and peace.” NOAM CHOMSKY Available for a very limited number of…

  • End of Habeas Corpus?

    While the Warner-Graham-McCain bill has gotten substantial attention with regards to its Geneva conventions provisions, the Center for Constitutional Rights has criticized both the bill and the administration’s proposal as gutting habeas corpus. McCain and Graham were questioned separately about this yesterday, by Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy, as they left the…

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