News Releases

  • * Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia * Peace Activist Kelly To Be Imprisoned

    NORMA CASTILLO ALEXIS CASTILLO Norma Castillo and Alexis Castillo are aunt and uncle to Camilo Mejia. Tonight on CBS, 60 Minutes II will be airing a segment on Mejia, the Florida National Guard staff sergeant who did not return to Iraq from leave and turned himself in recently. Mejia has filed for conscientious objector (C.O.) status and has spoken out against the war in Iraq, saying: “I could not continue to do the things I was doing in Iraq…. I’m completely against it because it’s an oil-motivated war.” [For more on Mejia’s case, see: http://citizen-soldier.org/CS07-Camilo.html, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/29/60II/main609216.shtml.] More Information LUKE HIKEN…


  • * Condoleezza Rice and Reality * Oil Prices * Oil-for-Food Scandal?

    LAURA FLANDERS Flanders is author of the just-released book Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, which includes profiles of Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Laura Bush and others. Flanders said today: “Much of the reporting on Rice has tended to play up the personal — her childhood in segregated Alabama — and play down the political. But Rice, who served for 10 years on the board of the Chevron Corporation, deserves at least as much scrutiny as the other members of Bush’s oiligopoly. In the first Bush administration, she defended the CIA when it stood accused of misleading Congress into arming…


  • In Afghanistan: Fighting Terrorism? Building Democracy?

    The U.S. has recently increased military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Colin Powell is leaving for a conference in Berlin about Afghanistan on Tuesday. Afghan President Hamid Karzai this weekend proclaimed that elections would be delayed. The following are available for interviews: BEAU GROSSCUP Grosscup is author of the book The Newest Explosions of Terrorism and professor of international relations at California State University in Chico. He said today: “The so-called ‘Spring Offensive’ in Pakistan seems to be mostly symbolic… Especially in the light of insider accounts from Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke that the administration was fixated on Iraq…


  • * Bush’s Housing Policies * Budget * Kerry’s Corporate Tax Cut

    ANN NORTON President Bush is speaking about housing today in New Mexico. Norton is president of the Housing Preservation Project. She said today: “Affordable housing is very much an issue here in New Mexico. Bush is touting this ‘American Dream Down Payment Act.’ But at the same time, he is proposing a budget that is cutting housing assistance. The administration is pushing for significant cuts in the Section 8 voucher program which provides for subsidies for low-income rents in private housing.” More Information SHEILA CROWLEY, [via Kim Schaffer] President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Crowley said today: “While…


  • Sources of Bombing of Yugoslavia

    TERESA CRAWFORD Teresa Crawford was arrested and expelled by Serbian authorities last March while engaging in conflict-resolution efforts in Kosovo. She is a university fellow in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. “That the international community has resorted to bombing as the only way to deal with Milosevic and his regime jeopardizes the future of the region,” she said. “Bombing or no bombing, all the people of Kosovo whose communities are being destroyed will have to live together.” More Information JULIANNE SMITH Senior analyst at the European Security desk at BASIC (British American Security Information…


  • * The Future of Medicare * Exxon Valdez Anniversary

    ALAN SAGER DEBORAH SOCOLAR Sager and Socolar are directors of the Health Reform Program at Boston University’s School of Public Health. They released a report in October 2003 entitled “New Medicare Rx Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Makers.” Sager said today: “In 2003, actuaries predicted that the Medicare Trust Fund would be depleted in 2026 — 23 years ahead. Yesterday, the actuaries predicted depletion in 2019 — seven years sooner. The evidence from past years is clear that managed care privatization has cost Medicare money. So no one should be surprised that the Medicare actuaries have cited the new…


  • 9-11 Commission

    DAVID MacMICHAEL A former analyst for the CIA, MacMichael said today: “Richard Clarke is not the first to make the point, though he does it from the inside, that the administration had priorities that superseded protecting the American people. According to Gary Hart, the Hart-Rudman report lay unopened until August 2001 on Condoleezza Rice’s desk; on Sept. 10, 2001, Ashcroft was trying to cut counterterrorism budget items….” ANDREW RICE Andrew Rice’s brother was killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11. He said today: “Among many of the family members who have followed the 9-11 Commission closely, there is great…


  • Israel’s Assassination: Larger Context

    STEVE NIVA Niva wrote “Israel’s Assassination Policy: The Trigger for the Latest Suicide Bombings?” and other articles on Israeli violence and Palestinian suicide bombings. Niva, who is writing a book on the subject, is professor of international politics at Evergreen State College in Washington. More Information More Information MUSTAFA BARGHOUTHI, M.D. President of the Palestinian National Initiative, a democratic opposition movement, Barghouthi said today: “There has been a shift in the intifada [the Palestinian uprising] toward more nonviolent struggle, with peaceful protests by Palestinians, Israelis and others against Sharon’s apartheid wall. This assassination is trying to push things in the…


  • * Global Public Opinion * Role of U.N. * Blix’s Fibs

    ED BICE Executive director of the People’s Opinion Project, Bice said today: “International public opinion polling shows continued strong opposition to U.S. foreign policy among the people of the world… The Pew Center poll released yesterday found majorities in all foreign countries surveyed, except Britain, had unfavorable views of the U.S. and ‘believe that controlling Mideast oil supplies is an important reason why the U.S. is conducting the war on terrorism.’ In all foreign countries, majorities had an unfavorable opinion of President Bush and ‘believe that America pays little or no attention to their country’s interests in making its foreign…


  • One Year Later: The Invasion of Iraq

    SUE NIEDERER Niederer’s son Army 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin was killed on Feb. 4 by a roadside bomb in Iraq. More Information DENIS HALLIDAY Halliday is former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and a former U.N. Assistant Secretary General. WRIGHT SALISBURY Salisbury lost his son-in-law Ted Hennessey on Flight 11 on September 11. He went on to found the Center for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Understanding and is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. He recently told Salon “I was a Republican up until I voted for Bush….” More Information More Information More Information KATHY KELLY Kelly…


  • Did Baerbock Coverup Germany’s Role in the Gaza Genocide at the ICJ?

    “Journalists should ask Annalena Baerbock if German diplomats — under her leadership as foreign minister — lied to the ICJ about Germany’s active military support at Israel’s request. A @DropSiteNews report suggests as as much.” 

  • Deception About Medicare for All

    A new report from corporate-oriented Democrats called “Deciding to Win” declares that Medicare for All is an “unpopular economic policy”––but advocates say the claim is false.

  • Trump’s Big Caribbean War Lie

    “The evidence that the U.S. Navy’s buildup in the Caribbean is not about combating drugs but rather regime change in Venezuela is overwhelming. Perhaps the most obvious is that the U.S. is obliterating small boats and their crews, rather than capturing the men and forcing a confession from them. No names are released.“

  • Trump and Nuclear Threats

    “The U.S. government has withdrawn from various nuclear weapons treaties, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty during the George W. Bush administration and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Trump’s first administration. It has been in violation of its disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Biden administration made U.S. nuclear policy more aggressive in…

  • U.S. “Ceasefire” a “Ploy to Sabotage the Rule of Law” — Again

    Mokhiber added: “We are indeed seeing another ploy by the U.S. government working in collusion with the secretariat of the U.N. to sabotage the rule of law as well as the work of many in the U.N. system who are trying desperately to uphold the U.N. Charter.”

  • The Long History of Long Covid

    Writing for Truthout, Jesse Hagopian, a longtime educator with long Covid, details how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has harmed Americans with long Covid by shutting down the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice, gutting funding, and derailing trials and studies. Hagopian did extensive research to “situate this moment of disability caused by Covid, contextualized…

  • MIT, Palestinian Grandmother Among Targets of “Lawfare” Regarding Israel

    “There are differences, but the MIT case involves many of the same concepts as Ali’s case. In both, the plaintiffs are trying to use the courts to weaponize the law to attack protected speech. They are trying to prohibit protests against Israel’s actions using civil rights law. They are using different statutes, but both rely on much the same type…

  • Rabbis Are Not a Monolith in New York City Mayoral Campaign

    An open letter from rabbis across the country recently called State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani a threat to the “safety and dignity of Jews in every city.” But rabbis––and New York City-based rabbis in particular––are not a monolith, and many openly support Mamdani and his campaign for mayor. 

  • “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream”

    Michelle Fawcett’s new documentary, “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream,” examines how a populist upsurge swept the nation, put oligarchs on their back foot, and revived working-class politics. 

  • U.N.: Gaza “Proxy Occupation Force” or Protection Force?

    “The colonial powers that carved up Palestine for their European settler colony, granted the colony full impunity as it carried out its bloody 100-year project of ethnic cleansing, and then supported it in two years of open genocide, are now plotting to finish the job with a U.S. and Western directed proxy occupation force manned…

Mastodon