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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  • Israel’s Attacks on West Bank

    “The Israeli army closed the West Bank completely, no movement is allowed. In H2 in Hebron, the Israeli army is imposing [a] curfew on the families. Many families left their homes and many communities from area C left too.”

  • UN Official Resigns, Calling Israel’s Attack “Genocide” — Will a Nation Invoke the Genocide Convention?

    “With the International Criminal Court refusing for years to hold Israel accountable and with the U.S. government blocking everything at the Security Council, the application of the Genocide Convention may be the only remaining legal mechanism to stop what Israel is doing. All that’s needed is a State Party to invoke it to start the…

  • Israel Bombs Refugee Camp; “No Human Being Can Exist”

    “At any moment, without warning, at any time of the day or night, any apartment building in the densely populated Gaza Strip can be struck by an Israeli bomb or missile. Some of the stricken buildings simply collapse into layers of concrete pancakes, the dead and the living alike entombed in the shattered ruins. …”

  • In “Grotesque Hoax” Biden Admin Not Just “Green Lighting” Israeli Ethnic Cleansing — “It’s Bankrolling It”

    “Supporting Israeli efforts to forcibly transfer Palestinians to Egypt would make U.S. officials liable for complicity in war crimes. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes the ‘Deportation or forcible transfer of population’ as a war crime. Article 25 of the same statute defines individual criminal responsibility and states that…

  • Biden Damaging His Re-Election Chances with Policy Toward Israel

    In a story headlined “Democrats Splinter Over Israel as the Young, Diverse Left Rages at Biden,” the New York Times reports: “The Democratic Party’s yearslong unity behind President Biden is beginning to erode over his steadfast support of Israel in its escalating war with the Palestinians, with a left-leaning coalition of young voters and people…

  • Mental Health Practice and Palestine

    The Israeli state has used the mental health professions to further its occupation.

  • “The West Exempts Israel from Compliance with International Law”

    “In February 2024 the International Court of Justice will pronounce on the legality of this occupation. Hopefully this will pave the way for a new dispensation from which an independent Palestinian State will emerge. Until then the world will watch Israel’s assault with mixed feelings. Western Powers like U.S., U.K., Germany, Canada, France, Netherlands and…

  • * Gaza “Catastrophic Disaster” * Indigenous Struggle * On the Ground

    “Oxfam said Gaza is also virtually out of clean water, making some of the food that has been let in, such as rice and lentils, useless since people do not have clean water or fuel to prepare them. The group said Israeli airstrikes have hit bakeries and supermarkets, further straining the food supply. The electricity…

  • Palestinians in Gaza Do Have Somewhere to Go: Their Homes in Israel

    “Statistically, the majority of the persons killed in Gaza in the past two weeks must be from families displaced in 1948. Many more of their number are at risk of being killed in like fashion in the coming weeks.”

  • On Israel: Lawyer Who Applied Genocide Convention for Bosnia Recommends it Now for Palestinians

    The U.S. government has twice vetoed calls for a ceasefire during the current crisis at the UN Security Council. Al Jazeera reports: “Nearly 90 countries were on the speakers’ list for Tuesday’s debate including about 30 foreign ministers and deputy ministers, with many echoing calls for a ceasefire and a halt to attacks on Palestinian civilians…

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