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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  • The Medicare Mess

    VALDA FORD Ford is director of community and multicultural affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She said today: “We have a responsibility for our most vulnerable citizens. Why are our senior citizens being put through this arcane program? Imagine people who are frail, disabled, who have English as a second language or who…

  • Roots of Medicare Drug Problems

    DEAN BAKER Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker wrote the just-released report “The Savings from an Efficient Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.” Baker said today: “The Medicare Modernization Act costs the government and beneficiaries considerably more than is necessary. If Medicare could negotiate directly with drug companies it could save the federal…

  • Bin Laden Tape

    The Arabic-language satellite network Al-Jazeera today aired portions of an audio tape purporting to be by Osama bin Laden. Al-Jazeera’s English-language webpage features a story titled “Bin Laden Offers Americans Truce.” The following analysts are available for interviews: BEAU GROSSCUP Author of the book The Newest Explosions of Terrorism, Grosscup said today: “Assuming the validity…

  • Congress-Public Disconnect? Zogby Finds Support for Impeachment Inquiry

    JOHN ZOGBY Pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, said today: “We’ve found that a slight majority of respondents — 51.7 percent — agreed with the following: ‘If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?’…

  • Breaking Story: NSA Tracked “Threat” of Local Peace Group

    The Baltimore Sun reports today: “The National Security Agency used law enforcement agencies, including the Baltimore Police Department, to track members of a city anti-war group as they prepared for protests outside the sprawling Fort Meade facility, internal NSA documents show. “The target of the clandestine surveillance was the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, a group…

  • Questions Not Asked: · Torturing People’s Children · War Powers · Geneva Conventions

    DOUG CASSEL Cassel is director of Notre Dame Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights. He said today: “At a time when the commander in chief asserts that his war powers give him carte blanche, it is critical that the Supreme Court be composed of individuals committed to the rule of law. Justices must…

  • What is the “Unitary Executive”?

    Judge Samuel Alito has stated in the course of the hearings that he subscribes to the concept of the unitary executive. While in the Reagan administration, he helped expand the practice of presidential statements upon signing of legislation. Presidential signing statements may express how a president interprets the law he is signing. The Washington Post…

  • Presidential Powers

    FRANCIS BOYLE Boyle is professor of law at the University of Illinois. Today Sen. Patrick Leahy asked Judge Samuel Alito: “If the Congress passed a law prohibiting torture,” could the president “immunize people from prosecution if they violated our laws on torture?” Said Boyle: “Instead of just saying ‘no’ to Leahy’s question, Alito is prepared…

  • Alito Nomination: · Imperial Presidency Fears · Environmental Groups’ First Opposition Since Bork

    [Imperial Presidency Fears:] MICHAEL AVERY HEIDI BOGHOSIAN Avery is president of the National Lawyers Guild and professor of constitutional law at Suffolk University. He said today: “We are particularly concerned that Samuel Alito will not impose necessary limits on presidential power and insist upon the checks and balances required by the Constitution. His long membership…

  • After Sharon

    NASEER ARURI Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “Sharon tried to redefine himself into a centrist, and therefore presumably a moderate when he established his new Kadima Party. That…

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