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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  • As O’Neill and Bono Tour Africa: Interviews Available

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and rock star Bono have started a 10-day tour of Africa. The following policy analysts are available for interviews: SALIH BOOKER Executive director of Africa Action, Booker said today: “African governments are being held liable for the cost of failed and often grandiose development projects pushed by creditors. Now Africa’s…

  • Pre-9/11 Warnings: Interviews Available

    MARTIN LEE Author of The Beast Reawakens, a book that explores relations between U.S. intelligence and right-wing extremist groups, Lee said today: “There is abundant evidence that Bush administration officials engaged in a post-9/11 cover-up to avoid acknowledging what we now know to be true — that the FBI, CIA, and several foreign intelligence sources…

  • Clinton in East Timor: Interviews Available

    Former president Bill Clinton, at the request of the Bush administration, is leading the U.S. delegation to East Timor’s independence celebrations this weekend. The following are in the U.S. and East Timor: JOHN M. MILLER Media and outreach coordinator for the East Timor Action Network, Miller said today: When President Clinton cut military ties between…

  • Enron and Andersen: Interviews Available

    GREG PALAST Palast is co-author of the forthcoming book Democracy and Regulation. He said today: “The U.S. Senate is recoiling in phony shock and horror at the games Enron played to manipulate the California power market. The rip-offs, which Enron traders called ‘Get Shorty,’ ‘Deathstar,’ ‘Fat Boy,’ are simply variants on games Enron has been…

  • Spotlight on Cuba

    ANYA LANDAU, WAYNE SMITH Landau is a research associate with the Center for International Policy (based in Washington, D.C.). Smith is a senior analyst with the group. They are authors of the recent report “CIP Challenges Bolton on Cuba Bio-Terror Charges.” Landau is going to Cuba on Wednesday. More Information MARLENE ARZOLA Outreach coordinator for…

  • Enron: Then and Now

    TYSON SLOCUM On a release by the Institute for Public Accuracy on January 24, 2001, Slocum (the research director of the Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program at Public Citizen) said: “What we’re seeing in California is price manipulation by the handful of power producers who exert total market control over the wholesale market. ……

  • Sharon in Washington: Interviews Available

    JEFF HALPER Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Halper said today: “What Sharon did in Jenin was severely undermine the Palestinian capacity for resistance. In Ramallah, he severely undermined the Palestinian capacity to govern by devastating everything from the education ministry to the land registry. The Palestinian Authority, what was becoming a fledgling…

  • U.S. and International Criminal Court

    MARJORIE COHN An associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Cohn said today: “Ironically, the same day Colin Powell paid tribute to the memory of those killed in the Nazi Holocaust, the U.S. government claimed it is renouncing the International Criminal Court treaty. The stated reason is to prevent other countries…

  • Beyond the New Unemployment Numbers

    SHEILA COLLINS Professor of political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey and a member of the National Jobs for All Coalition executive committee, Collins is coauthor of Washington’s New Poor Law: Welfare ‘Reform’ and the Roads Not Taken, 1935 to the Present. She said Friday afternoon: “The official rate announced today is 6…

  • Debating Welfare: Interviews Available

    BARBARA EHRENREICH Ehrenreich is a columnist for The Progressive and the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She said today: “In the ‘job-readiness’ programs routinely inflicted on welfare recipients since 1996, poor women have it drummed into them that by getting a job they will win ‘self-esteem’ and, at the…

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