Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute. He said today: “Earlier this year the president established a bipartisan National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and asked it to recommend a plan for bringing the federal deficit into primary balance in 2015. … “The defense budget has been responsible…

MarketWatch is reporting: “Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on Tuesday offered up her own proposals for budget cutting that relies on defense spending cuts and corporate and estate tax hikes.” CARL CONETTA Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at…

JEREMY SCAHILL Available for a limited number of interviews, Scahill is recently back from Afghanistan and just wrote the piece “Killing Reconciliation.” Scahill states that while the Obama administration says it is backing a strategy of reconciliation with the Taliban, night raids by U.S. Special Operations are killing that reconciliation. Scahill is author of Blackwater:…

NANCY ALTMAN Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of over 215 national and state organizations representing more than 50 million Americans. She said today: “An angry electorate last week expressed its frustration with a Washington political class that does not appear to be listening. Now, the Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs’ Social…

ALLAN NAIRN Currently in Indonesia, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews with major media outlets. He just wrote the piece “Breaking News: Secret Files Show Kopassus, Indonesia’s Special Forces, Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians. Documents Leak from Notorious U.S.-Backed Unit as Obama Lands in Indonesia.” The piece states: “Secret documents have leaked from…

JAMES PAUL Available for a limited number of interviews, Paul is executive director of the Global Policy Forum. He said today: “U.S. statements regarding including India as a permanent member of the Security Council are fake and everyone knows it. It won’t happen. And it shouldn’t. The Security Council is an extremely problematic institution, constantly…

VIJAY PRASHAD Prashad just wrote the piece “Obama in India.” He is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. His most recent book is The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. For more information, contact at the Institute for…

MELINDA MILES Available for a very limited number of interviews, Miles is with Let Haiti Live. She can speak about conditions on the ground, role of environmental destruction, trade and aid policies and earthquake response. BRIAN CONCANNON Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon lived in Haiti for eight years. He…

California’s Proposition 23 sought to suspend a 2006 law (AB 32) intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. DAVID CHENG Available for a limited number of interviews, Cheng is a senior manager at the Cleantech Group, a research and advisory company focused on clean tech innovation. He is also a member of E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs), a…

Public Citizen has just released a pair of reports assessing the election: DAVID ARKUSH, via Angela Bradbery Arkush is director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, which just released the report “Outside Job.” The group writes: “Of 74 contests in which power changed hands in Tuesday’s congressional elections, independent groups engaging in a spree of secretive,…