ANGELA BONAVOGLIA Bonavoglia is author of Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church. She just wrote the piece “Women and the Church — Catholicism’s Original Sin,” which states: “Talking about the Catholic Church without talking about the place of women is like talking about the history of South Africa…

RAJ PATEL Author of the just-released book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel said today: “What’s happening in Haiti is an augury to the rest of the developing world. Haiti is the poster child of an economy that liberalized its agricultural economy and removed the social safety nets for…

PAUL HUDSON Hudson is executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project and a longtime member of the FAA’s Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee for air safety who represents airline passengers. He said today: “What has in effect happened over the last several years is that airplane safety inspections have been largely privatized. “The government is…

PATRICK COCKBURN Currently in London, Cockburn is available for a limited number of interviews. He is author of the just-published Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. An excerpt from the book is available online. Seymour Hersh has called Cockburn, who writes for the British paper The Independent, “quite simply, the…

AP is reporting this morning: “Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad … said a long-term agreement the U.S. is now negotiating with Iraq will give a needed legal framework for the continued presence of U.S. troops. Many in Congress have raised alarm about the agreement, and Democrats have accused the White House of trying…

GARETH PORTER Porter, author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, just wrote the piece “Petraeus Testimony to Defend False ‘Proxy War’ Line,” which states: “Based on preliminary indications of his spin on the surprisingly effective armed resistance to the joint U.S.-Iraqi ‘Operation Knights Assault’ in Basra, Petraeus…

JOSHUA HOLLAND Holland just wrote the piece “Obama and Hillary Spin a ‘Big Lie’ About Iraq,” which states: “On the campaign trail, the two candidates often speak of bringing the troops home and ending the war, and Democratic primary voters, 80 percent of whom want U.S. troops out of Iraq within 12 months, reward them…

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis 40 years ago, on April 4, 1968. After his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, King accelerated and broadened his activism, emphasizing economics and militarism as well as racism. The following analysts can speak to the many aspects of King’s work and legacy in today’s context:…

The Washington Post reports today in its lead story, about a 2003 Justice Department memo: “Sent to the Pentagon’s general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of…

AP reports that “President Bush on Wednesday [in Bucharest, Romania] renewed urgent calls for NATO to start the admission process for Ukraine and Georgia despite a split among alliance members and fierce Russian objections.” Bush was just in Ukraine and is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir Putin in Russia on April 6. Sen. TINY…