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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.”

    Read more »


  • From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    From the desk of Noam Chomsky

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • Tax Day

    ANITA DANCS Research director of the National Priorities Project, Dancs said today: “With the cost of the Iraq war at $315 billion through fiscal year 2006, taxpayers should reflect this tax day on where their money is going. That’s enough money to have built 18,000 elementary schools across the country and paid more than 900,000…

  • Behind the Immigration Crisis: Policies in Latin America

    ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ, Rodriguez writes the syndicated “Column of the Americas” with Patrisia Gonzales. He said today: “The effect of the Sensenbrenner proposal may well be to make a ‘guest worker’ program seem reasonable. Such a proposal would create a two-tiered society of citizens and non-citizens. Or better yet, a system with full-fledged citizens and dehumanized,…

  • Peru Elections

    MARK WEISBROT The AP is reporting that “Ollanta Humala, a populist retired army officer … [is] in first place” in Peru’s first round of presidential elections. Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of the recent paper “Peru’s Election: Background on Economic Issues,” which notes: “In the last several…

  • “The Israel Lobby” — A Debate

    The paper “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University, has come under attack from various quarters. It was published in edited form as “The Israel Lobby” in the London Review of Books. The authors write: “The thrust of U.S. policy in…

  • U.S. Plans on Iran

    “There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change,” Seymour Hersh writes in the new issue of The New Yorker. He also reports: “One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to…

  • Leak Story: Rogue President?

    The Washington Post reports today that “President Bush authorized White House official I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby to disclose highly sensitive intelligence information to the news media in an attempt to discredit a CIA adviser whose views undermined the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, according to a federal prosecutor’s account of Libby’s testimony to a…

  • The Massachusetts Health Plan: Behind the Hype

    The lead story in today’s New York Times reports that “Massachusetts is poised to become the first state to provide nearly universal health care coverage with a bill passed overwhelmingly by the legislature Tuesday that Gov. Mitt Romney says he will sign.” The following Boston-based health care analysts are available for interviews: STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, MD…

  • Saddam and Attacks on Kurds

    AP is reporting: “The Iraq tribunal Tuesday announced new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein and six others for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity in [the] 1980s crackdown against the Kurds.” The following analysts are available for interviews; many of them point to U.S. policy during the 1980s as helping Saddam Hussein. For background, see:…

  • U.S. in Iraq: Big Picture · Election Interference · America’s Blinders · The Logic of Withdrawal

    JERRY STARR Author of The Lessons of the Vietnam War, Starr said today: “The U.S. government is openly manipulating the construction of the Iraqi government. For the past half century, the U.S. has intervened in elections on behalf of candidates and parties considered most responsive to U.S. interests, including Iran and Guatemala in 1954, Vietnam…

  • Iraq “White House Memo”

    On Monday the New York Times reported on the “White House Memo” — secret minutes, taken by a high British official, of a White House meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in January 2003. Highlights of the memo were first published this year in January in the book Lawless World: America…

Mastodon