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 »


  • No Oath for Gonzales; No Law for the President?

    JONATHAN TURLEY Turley is a professor of Constitutional law at George Washington University. He said today: “Alberto Gonzales has been claiming national security to avoid answering basic questions about the program. For example, when asked if he revealed information from the program to the FISA court, he refused to answer under the absurd claim that…

  • Iran and IAEA

    The International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to continue to meet this weekend on the case of Iran. The following are available for interviews: WILLIAM PEDEN Currently in Vienna at the IAEA meeting, Peden is a Greenpeace International nuclear analyst. The group has recently released a statement titled “Nukes, Iran, the UN: A Grave Mistake.”…

  • Budget Cuts: Costs and Consequence

    AVIS JONES-DEWEEVER Study director on poverty and income security at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Jones-DeWeever said today: “Following Hurricane Katrina, President Bush stood in New Orleans and made the strong statement that ‘we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.’ The budget that passed the House of Representatives last night,…

  • Responses to State of the Union Address

    IPA has a PDF critique of the State of the Union for public distribution here. CELESTE ZAPPALA A member of Gold Star Families Speak Out, Zappala’s eldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was the first Pennsylvania National Guardsman to die in combat since World War II. He was killed in action in Baghdad on April 26,…

  • Assessments of the State of the Union Address

    The following analysts and activists are available to critique various aspects of the State of the Union address. IPA will be producing a PDF critique of the State of the Union for public distribution by Wednesday morning, available here. FRANCES FOX PIVEN Author of the book The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s…

  • Oil Profits

    ExxonMobil announced Monday that in 2005 it made the biggest annual profit on record for a U.S. corporation — $36.13 billion — up 42 percent from the year before. The following analysts are available for interviews: STEVE KRETZMANN Executive director of Oil Change International, Kretzmann said today: “While ExxonMobil is posting $10 billion profits in…

  • Scrutinizing Bush’s Claim That NSA Spying Could Stop More 9-11s

    In attempting to justify the government’s use of warrantless domestic spying by the National Security Agency, Bush administration officials have argued that such surveillance would help prevent another attack comparable to 9-11. MELVIN A. GOODMAN Now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, Goodman was with the CIA for 41 years, serving as…

  • Hamas Victory

    EDWARD L. PECK EUGENE BIRD Peck and Bird are on a delegation observing the Palestinian election. Peck is a former U.S. chief of mission to Iraq and was deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. He said today: “Many are talking about Hamas’ victory without mentioning Israel. [Israeli…

  • The Filibuster Option

    ROBERT PARRY “With the fate of the U.S. Constitution in the balance, it’s hard to believe there’s no senator prepared to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, whose theories on the ‘unitary executive’ could spell the end of the American democratic Republic,” ConsortiumNews.com editor Parry writes in a recent article, “Alito Filibuster: It Only Takes…

  • Does Gen. Hayden Know What the Fourth Amendment Says?

    As part of the Bush administration’s response to the revelations of warrantless domestic spying by the National Security Agency, a former head of the NSA, Gen. Michael Hayden, now the nation’s second-ranking intelligence official, spoke Monday at the National Press Club. Gen. Hayden disputed a questioner’s statement that the Fourth Amendment requires a showing of…

Mastodon