SARAH ANDERSON JOHN CAVANAGH Anderson is director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and Cavanagh is IPS director. They are co-authors of a new report titled “Skewed Priorities: How the Bailouts Dwarf Other Global Crisis Spending.” They write: “The financial crisis is only one of multiple crises that will affect…

CRAIG HOLMAN Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen. He said today: “Bolstered with enthusiastic public support, Obama has a great opportunity for breaking the grip of special interests over Washington. But his transition to the White House — marked with the appointment of several lobbyists and big-money bundlers — is cause for concern.…

BARBARA SMITH Author of The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom and other books, Smith said today: “In the wake of Barack Obama’s historic election there is a lot of talk about racism suddenly becoming a thing of the past. It is true that millions of white people voted for an…

The Washington Post on Tuesday published a piece titled “Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees: Political Positions Shifted to Career Civil Service Job.” Parallel to this process, some whistleblowers and government workers are apparently being forced out. MARSHA COLEMAN-ADEBAYO Coleman-Adebayo is a senior policy analyst and whistleblower at the EPA. She has recently received a…

Media reports indicate that President-elect Obama will be nominating Eric Holder, a former Clinton administration official, as attorney general. The following are available for interviews: JOHN NICHOLS A columnist with The Nation magazine, Nichols just wrote the piece “The Trouble With Eric Holder.” The piece states that “Holder was part of the legal team that…

“I don’t want to just end the war; I want to end the mindset that got us into war.” — Barack Obama Feb. 19, 2008 ROBERT PARRY Parry is editor of ConsortiumNews.com, a reader-supported investigative webpage. His recent pieces include “The Danger of Keeping Robert Gates” and “Obama Risks Clinton-Era Mistakes,” which states: “After a…

CHUCK COLLINS Collins is senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he coordinates the Working Group on Extreme Inequality. He wrote the piece “A Fair Plan to Pay for Economic Recovery,” which states: “The corporations that rigged the casino economy and the wealthy CEOs and investors that profited at everyone else’s expense should…

As the G-20 convenes in Washington, D.C. this weekend to discuss the global financial system, grassroots activists working on poverty and other issues will be in D.C. and available for interviews. Many are organizing protests and educational events in the coming days. Events in D.C. this weekend are listed online. The following activists just arrived…

HARVEY WASSERMAN Wasserman is co-author of the books What Happened in Ohio? and As Goes Ohio. He said today: “The primary election protection lesson of the 2008 election is that the entire nation must convert to universal automatic voter registration and universal hand-counted paper ballots as soon as possible. Even with thousands of election protection…

SUSAN STEIGERWALT A practicing physician in Detroit and past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, Steigerwalt said today: “The auto industry would be saving a huge amount of money and would not be in such dire straits if we had a single-payer healthcare system. The same is true for many industries and our…