CHRISTOPHER HELLMAN Hellman just wrote the piece “The Real U.S. National Security Budget” (for TomDispatch.com), which gives a breakdown and states: “What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu…

JAMES K. GALBRAITH, THEA HARVEY Chair of Economists for Peace and Security, Galbraith (available for a limited number of interviews) is Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government/business relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, citing “universal principles.” MICHAEL RATNER President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ratner said today: “While it appears that serious crimes against humanity are being committed by the Libyan government, the referral of those abuses to the International Criminal Court by the…

Last night Charles Ferguson, director of “Inside Job” (about Wall Street’s wrongdoing), upon receiving the Oscar for best documentary, said: “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.” See video at…

AHMET DOGAN, via Ann Wright, Greta Berlin Professor Dogan, whose 18-year-old son Furkan was killed during the Israeli military raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May 2010, is in Washington, D.C. He hopes to convince U.S. officials to open an independent investigation into his son’s killing by Israeli commandos and to discuss with them what…

Chair of the department of political science at the University of New England, Ahmida’s books include The Making of Modern Libya and Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya — largely about the little-known Italian genocide in Libya of 100 years ago. He said today: “Despite the brutal backlash it is too…

Dave Lindorff said today: “When Raymond Davis, the American who killed two Pakistani intelligence operatives in Lahore and now sits in a Lahore prison, was arrested, he claimed to have worked for a security company in Orlando. I checked it out for Counterpunch magazine. The address proved to be a vacant storefront in an empty…

Abdulla is director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain. He recently wrote the piece “The Revolt in Bahrain.” He said today: “King Hamad bis Isa Al Khalifs, the ruler of Bahrain, is in Saudi Arabia today to get assurances from the Saudi regime. The Saudi regime will back the Al Khalifa ruling…

Fletcher is co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal and author of the book Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. He just wrote the piece “Modern-day Pirates: the Republicans vs. the Public Sector.” Fletcher has been a critic of unions as well, see this interview: YouTube.

Worthington just wrote the piece “Revolution in Libya: Protesters Respond to Gaddafi’s Murderous Backlash with Remarkable Courage; U.S. and UK Look Like the Hypocrites They Are,” which states: “An adept survivor, Gaddafi came onside in the ‘War on Terror’ after the 9/11 attacks, prompting the most miserably transparent examples of hypocrisy on the part of…