DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood at panix.com Editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book “Wall Street,” Henwood said today: “Global markets panicked after the S&P downgrade of the U.S. Treasury (though, paradoxically, in the classic “flight to quality” reaction, investors poured billions into the very same U.S. Treasury securities that had just been downgraded).

Time Business is reporting: “Thousands of striking workers in Verizon Communication Inc.’s landline division joined picket lines and rallies Monday at company offices from Massachusetts to Virginia, a union official said. “The contract for 45,000 employees expired at midnight Saturday after the company and the workers were unable to come to terms on issues including…

SCOTT KLINGER, scottklinger at businessforsharedprosperity.org Klinger is Director of Tax Policy for Business for Shared Prosperity, a network of forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation. He said today: “Wall Street and its Washington representatives downgraded America with disinvestment in Main…

“Against the backdrop of the disastrous Fukushima nuclear plant accident, I will speak of the absolute need for Japan to not only work to ban nuclear weapons but also to completely eradicate dependence on nuclear energy.” -Matashichi Oishi, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll, the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in 1954. See:…

NICK TURSE, nat9 at columbia.edu, http://www.tomdispatch.com, https://twitter.com/#!/NickTurse Turse is a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and author of “The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” He recently wrote “A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite.” In the article he says: “From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special…

CHRISTINE OWENS, via Norman Eng, neng at nelp.org, @NelpNews Owens is the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, which just released a report titled “Unraveling the Unemployment Insurance Lifeline.” She said today: “It’s disconcerting that these lawmakers would expend so much energy making cuts to state unemployment insurance programs when more people are…

GWENDOLYN MINK, wendymink at gmail.com Available for a limited number of interviews, Mink is co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End. She said today: “The debt deal certainly is better than the Boehner Bill, and better still than the Tea Party…

THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “Even by American legislative standards, this deal is a turkey and it’s totally appropriate that the new bipartisan Congressional committee should have to report at Thanksgiving. The…

Saturday is the 46th anniversary of Medicare. MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.,  mdpnhp at gmail.com Flowers is congressional fellow for the 18,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program. She has written recently: “Medicare Is the Answer, Not the Problem. Both Democrats and Republicans are missing the point by putting the emphasis on controlling Medicare and Medicaid costs…

DAVE JOHNSON, djohnson at ourfuture.org, @dcjohnson Johnson is a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future. He said today: “Poll after poll shows that the public gets it. People understand that our deficits were caused by tax cuts for the wealthy, wars and increases in military budgets and the effects of the recession, and they want…