JUDITH GOLUB Congress is expected to soon pass a piece of legislation known as the Real ID Act. Golub is senior director of advocacy and public affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She said today: “Real ID is an example of the legislative process gone wrong — both procedurally and substantively. It’s been tacked…

HOWARD ZINN Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Vietnam. Zinn’s 1967 book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal argued for the U.S. to pull its troops out of Southeast Asia. He said today: “The U.S. is not doing any good with its military in Iraq. It’s not bringing liberty…

MARJORIE COHN Thursday is the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos. Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and author of “Torture of Prisoners in U.S. Custody,” Cohn said today: “Although Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of physical coercion and sexual abuse of…

TYSON SLOCUM Research director for Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Slocum said today: “Since Bush took office, the largest five oil companies operating in the U.S. have after-tax profits of $205 billion. We need to examine the relationship between U.S. oil company profits and the higher prices for consumers and American industry.…

AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil is author of the book The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power, professor in the Department of Politics at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at University of California, Berkeley. He said today: “The meeting today will cement the continued improvement in U.S.-Saudi relations despite criticism of the…

LEONARD SWIDLER Professor of Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at Temple University, Swidler said today: “I have known Ratzinger since 1964 when I published an article of his promoting ecumenical dialogue in the first issue of the new scholarly journal my wife Arlene and I launched, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Unfortunately he is not…

Friday, April 22, is the 35th Earth Day. The following environmentalists are available for interviews: BERN JOHNSON MECHE LU Johnson is executive director of the U.S. office of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, which works with attorneys in 60 countries to protect the environment through law. He said today: “The damage that we are doing…

ROBERT ELLSBERG Available for a limited number of interviews, Ellsberg is editor in chief of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. He is author of a number of books, most recently The Saints’ Guide to Happiness. He said today: “This would indicate that the cardinals viewed doctrinal orthodoxy as a…

Marla Ruzicka, who founded the organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was killed in Iraq over the weekend. The Washington Post reports today that she “won over Congress and the U.S. military, persuading the United States to free a precedent-setting $20 million for civilians it injured” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Post writes: “This…

STEPHANIE WEINBERG Weinberg is trade policy advisor at Oxfam. The group has helped organize April 10 to 16 as a “Global Week of Action for Trade Justice,” which organizers estimate will involve more than 10 million people in 70 countries. Oxfam has just released a report titled “Kicking Down the Door,” which finds that “the…