“America was not born as a colonial power.” — Barack Obama in his interview on Tuesday with al-Arabiya ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ Author of the forthcoming Myth and Empire: Indigenous History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz said today in response to Obama’s claim: “The United States was founded as a European settler state, with maps and plans…

KATHY KELLY AUDREY STEWART AP reports that Mideast special envoy George Mitchell’s trip “will include stops in Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian West Bank and Saudi Arabia.” Kelly and Stewart are just back from six days in Gaza. Kelly is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She said today: “Mitchell has such an opportunity to make…

JOSH BIVENS Bivens is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which has posted information contrasting the economic benefits of various stimulus provisions, per dollar spent: Food stamps: $1.73 Extend unemployment benefits: $1.64 Infrastructure spending: $1.59 Aid to states: $1.36 In contrast: Make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent: $0.37 Corporate tax cuts: $0.30…

GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End, Mink said today: “The Administration for Children and Families is THE critical agency for low-income families with children: It is the administrative center of federal poverty policy. Given its reach into family…

NASEER ARURI Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “This is Senator Mitchell’s second assignment in the Middle East since the year 2000, and it may not prove to be…

ALLAN NAIRN Currently in Indonesia, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews with major media outlets. A noted independent journalist, he runs the weblog “News and Comment.” He just wrote the piece “U.S. Intel Nominee Lied About ’99 Massacre. U.S., Church Documents Show Adm. Dennis Blair Knew of Church Killings Before Crucial Meeting,”…

ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah is co-founder of the Electronic Intifada web page and is author of the book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. He said today of Obama’s speech: “When he talks about ‘the Muslim world,’ he is reinforcing the idea of conflict between ‘the West’ (which he also mentioned) and…

BRUCE FEIN Author of the book Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, Fein was a Justice Department attorney in the Nixon administration. Today he and Ralph Nader sent a letter to Barack Obama: “The United States ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1994. Article 12 of the…

“I don’t think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable, and this goes to the core differences, I think, in this campaign. I believe change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up.…

GERI JENKINS CHARLES IDELSON SHUM PRESTON Jenkins is co-president of the California Nurses Association. The group has just released a study that finds: “Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public…