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 »


  • NYC Mayor Ends Public Sector Employee Vaccine Mandate

    NYC Mayor Eric Adams ended the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for public sector workers this past week.

  • Left and Right Unite Against Ukraine War

    Many from the political left and right are joining together at a rally — Rage Against the War Machine — at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, Feb. 19, the anniversary of the Ukraine War and President’s Day weekend. After the rally, the protestors will march to the White House. Speakers include: Ron Paul, author, physician and former…

  • State Dept. Denies Latest Detailed Report That U.S. Blew up Nord Stream

    On Thursday, Sam Husseini questioned State Department spokesperson Ned Price about the story, see video and transcript: “State Dept. Denies Latest Allegations that U.S. Government Blew up Nord Stream,” also on Substack. The Nord Stream pipeline had provided Russian natural gas to Germany. Many current and former U.S. officials had called for their destruction prior to the bombing. 

  • Myths of Ukraine War: Blowing Up Pipelines and Protecting Nazis

    Greene has written a string of pieces for the media watch group FAIR on myths surrounding the Ukraine war. Last fall, he wrote the piece “U.S. Media’s Intellectual No-Fly-Zone on U.S. Culpability in Nord Stream Attack.” He just wrote the piece “Facebook Protects Nazis to Protect Ukraine Proxy War.” Greene writes: “Meta, the parent company of…

  • “Not in the public interest”: HHS Ends Covid Hospitalization Dashboard

    Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services ended its dashboard that had tracked Covid-19 hospitalizations, announcing it was streamlining data sharing with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Biden Claims Not to Seek Conflict with China: So Why All the Military Bases?

    There are already at least 313 U.S. military base sites in East Asia, according to the Pentagon’s most recent list, including in Japan, South Korea, Guam, and Australia. New bases would add to a counterproductive buildup of U.S. bases and forces in the region that is costing U.S. taxpayers billions while undermining U.S. and regional…

  • Chas Freeman: U.S.’s China Policy Harming Both U.S. and Chinese People

    On Tuesday, he delivered remarks to the American Academy of Diplomacy, “U.S. China Policy: A Case of Self-Harm.” He said: “We no longer even pretend to comply with the basic agreements that we later worked out with Beijing to enable it to set the Taiwan issue aside for future peaceful resolution. Now, all the talk…

  • “The Coming War with China”

    “The U.S. reaction to an alleged Chinese spy balloon over Montana adds the absurd to its usual firehose of anti-China rhetoric. Instead of negotiating the balloon down to earth — i.e. talking to the Chinese — Washington sent up a couple of fighter planes and shot it down. That’s the news. What is almost never…

  • New York Governor Hochul Proposes Budget Without Significant Reforms for Home Care Workers

    New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced a FY24 Executive Budget that activists say lowers home-care wages and worsens the state’s home care shortage––which is the worst in the nation. 

  • Activists Confront DNC about Biden, Manipulation of Primaries

    Democrats in the House and Senate have received thousands of emails from constituents who urged them to “stop muffling genuine concerns and start being honest about the pivotal downsides of a prospective Biden ’24 candidacy,” according to the Don’t Run Joe campaign, which is sponsored by RootsAction.org. 

Mastodon