Michele Simon is a public health lawyer, president of Eat Drink Politics and author of Appetite for Profit: How the food industry undermines our health and how to fight back. She said today: “Prop 37 was attacked by a massive disinformation and propaganda campaign waged by the likes of Monsanto and PepsiCo, who out-spent the…

Chris Kromm is the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of Facing South/Southern Exposure. He said today: “Three big themes are emerging in the South this election. One, the battle over the right to vote is reaching a fever pitch. Changes in voting laws in Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and other states…

Peter Rugh has been writing for Waging Nonviolence. He said today: “Since the storm, thousands of volunteers have stepped up to provide food, water, blankets, medicine, medical treatment, housing and comfort to New Yorkers where basic social infrastructure has collapsed. Many of those hardest hit by Sandy are those who have already been hit by…

Chris Williams is author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis and a professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University. He recently wrote the piece “Frankenstorms and Climate Change: How the 1% Created a Monster.” He said today: “In point of fact, the whole reason why the candidates don’t want to discuss…

Paul Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute, and contributing editor at AlterNet. Jorgensen is assistant professor of political science at University of Texas, Pan American and Non-Resident Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center at Harvard. They co-authored a just-released piece: “Massive Surge…

Rick Ungar is a contributor to Forbes.com, and appears as the liberal voice of the “Forbes on Fox” television show and as a political pundit on other Fox network programs. He recently wrote the op-ed, “Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern.” It states: “A test conducted…

Editor of Ballot Access News, Richard Winger said today: “In the November 2012 election across the U.S., in 39.9 percent of all state legislative districts, there is no Democratic-Republican contest, because either the Democrats, or the Republicans, didn’t nominate any candidate. The United States, for legislative elections, suffers from undercrowded ballots, not overcrowded ballots. Yet…

Jeff Cohen is among a number of well-known progressives — including Daniel Ellsberg, Cornel West, Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich, Marjorie Cohn, Jim Hightower and Norman Solomon — backing a RootsAction.org proposal aimed at progressive voters: “If you live in a close state, defeat Romney and his right-wing policies by voting Obama/Biden. If you live…

BRIAN CONCANNON [email], via Nicole Phillips [email] Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon said today: “Hurricane Sandy will kill many times more people in Haiti than everywhere else combined, despite barely touching the country with tropical storm-strength winds. Sandy shows that Haiti’s real disaster is decades of policies by Haitian…

International specialist at Beyond Nuclear, Linda Gunter said today: “Given that all the safety systems are reliant upon offsite power, nuclear reactors in the path of this mega-storm need to promptly shut down because of grid instability. But when they do, they can no longer provide electricity at a time when it is needed most.”