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 Roberts Nomination: Substance and Context

    MARJORIE COHN Cohn is professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and author of Payback Time? She said today: “George W. Bush is paying back his right-wing religious and corporate backers by nominating a conservative who served in the Reagan and George Bush I administrations. As Deputy…

  • Third Anniversary of the Downing Street Memo

    On Saturday, July 23, over 300 events organized by the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition and Rep. John Conyers will mark the three-year anniversary of the meeting at No. 10 Downing Street in London that was recorded in the now infamous minutes known as the “Downing Street memo.” Members of Congress will be hosting some of the events,…

  • Gaza “Disengagement”

    STAV ADIVI Program liaison for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Adivi has been a refusnik in the Israeli military. He said today: “It seems Sharon’s desire for Gaza disengagement is genuine, but is a smokescreen to obscure what he is doing in the West Bank: cutting it to pieces, building the illegal wall, cutting…

  • Big Picture: * Rove * Blair * British Muslims

    DAVID SWANSON Swanson is a co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org — a coalition of veterans and peace groups. He said today: “Many are realizing that Karl Rove has been lying about not being a source in the leaking of the identity of Joseph Wilson’s wife. But the bigger picture is that this was part of a broader…

  • * Why Was Laura Bush Picketed in South Africa? * G8, Live8 and Debt

    During her visit to Cape Town, South Africa, on Tuesday, Laura Bush was picketed by members of Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa’s largest HIV/AIDS activism group. FARID ESACK Esack is a founding member of both Treatment Action Campaign and Positive Muslims, based in Cape Town, which does work on AIDS. He said today: “The U.S.…

  • CEO Payouts: Problems and Solutions

    Stephen Crawford, the co-president of Morgan Stanley, is leaving the company with a $32 million severance package. Today, Congressman Martin Olav Sabo introduced legislation which would limit government subsidization of excessive executive pay by eliminating tax deductions for compensation that exceeds 25 times the company’s lowest paid full-time employee. For example, if the lowest paid,…

  • Rove Scandal

    Newsweek is reporting on a leaked email from Time magazine stating that Karl Rove, the president’s senior advisor and chief political strategist, revealed the name of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife, who was an undercover CIA agent. The following are available for interviews: ROSA BROOKS Professor of law at the University of Virginia, Brooks is a…

  • G8 Agenda: Rhetoric vs. Reality

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday: “Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. … It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a…

  • London Fallout

    COLLEEN KELLY Kelly is co-director of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of 9-11 victims’ relatives. More Information TARIQ ALI Currently in London, Ali is author of the books The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq. More Information OMAR WARAICH Waraich is an independent…

  • Advisory — War Made Easy

    The Los Angeles Times has published an early review of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death — a new book by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon. The review said that “Solomon offers 16 brutally persuasive chapters, each centered on a perennial falsehood, such as ‘If This…

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