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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  • Whistleblowers Ellsberg, Gun Call for Massive Leaks on Iran

    KATHARINE GUN Shortly before the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq, in early 2003, Gun was a British government employee when she leaked a U.S. intelligence memo indicating that the U.S. had mounted a spying “surge” against delegations on the U.N. Security Council in an effort to win approval for an invasion of Iraq. President Bush continues…

  • Upheaval at World Bank and IMF Meetings

    Reuters is reporting that “World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz on Friday called Singapore’s restrictions on the entry of activists for the World Bank/IMF meetings ‘authoritarian.’” The news service added: “The city-state has put 27 civil rights activists on a blacklist for entry to the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank, and some would-be…

  • IAEA: Congress Panel Cooking Intel on Iran

    The Washington Post is reporting today: “U.N. inspectors investigating Iran’s nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran’s capabilities, calling parts of the document ‘outrageous and dishonest’ and offering evidence to refute its central claims.” CARAH ONG Ong is Iran Policy…

  • Bush’s Plans for Detention and Eavesdropping

    MICHAEL RATNER Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is holding a news conference in D.C. today with family members of Guantanamo detainees. He will discuss the two bills proposed by President Bush and Senator Warner to legislate military commissions. Ratner said today: “However problematic the [proposed military] commissions are, they are…

  • 9/11 Victims’ Families Host Conference Against Terrorism

    Marking the fifth anniversary of 9/11, more than 30 victims of political violence from around the world will gather with 9/11 families for a conference highlighting solutions to terrorism that break the cycle of violence. The gathering is being initiated by September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization founded by family members of those…

  • Environmental Fallout of WTC Attack

    JUAN GONZALEZ Available for a very limited number of interviews, Gonzalez is author of the book Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse, which came out in 2002. He co-hosts the program “Democracy Now!” and will be moderating a community forum this evening at St. Paul’s Church, near the site of the…

  • Realities of Afghanistan: Behind the Rhetoric

    SONALI KOLHATKAR JAMES INGALLS Kolhatkar and Ingalls are co-authors of the book Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, which is being released next week. They are co-directors of the Afghan Women’s Mission. Kolhatkar said today: “All too often, discussion of U.S. policy in Afghanistan focuses exclusively on the crimes of others. The…

  • Views of Bush Stance on Detainees, Torture and War

    MARJORIE COHN Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, Cohn said: “Today, Bush criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld because it will put a crimp in the CIA’s interrogation program. The Court declared that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions protects all prisoners…

  • Unrest Over Election-Rigging Charges in Mexico

    The Los Angeles Times reported this morning: “As President Vicente Fox prepares to deliver his final state of the nation address today, Mexico remains divided over who should be declared his successor, and many fear an escalation in unrest by protesters who feel betrayed by the electoral institutions Fox is expected to applaud in his…

  • Confronting Iran

    MUHAMMAD SAHIMI Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. He co-wrote, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, the Los Angeles Times op-ed “Defusing Iran with Democracy.” Sahimi said today: “The only way to have a peaceful resolution of Iran’s nuclear program is through negotiations without any preconditions and/or threats.…

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