A farming family from the now radioactively contaminated Fukushima region in Japan, along with one American and three leading Japanese anti-nuclear campaigners, will be available for interviews while visiting the U.S. The group will deliver eye-witness accounts about the health impacts and continued contamination produced by the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor units that suffered catastrophic damage on…

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at law.uiuc.edu Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign and author of Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law, Boyle said today: “This week, President Obama has attacked the Palestinian UN membership bid as a ‘distraction’ and Secretary of State Clinton has claimed the U.S. ‘strongly supports’…

The New York Times is reporting: “A House subcommittee released documents on Wednesday morning suggesting that a final review of more than $500 million in loan guarantees for Solyndra, a California solar company that recently declared bankruptcy, may have been rushed so that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. could announce its approval at a…

Census Bureau numbers released yesterday found that nearly one in six Americans are in poverty. The following are available to further analyze other findings: ELIZABETH GRAYER, TIMOTHY CASEY, tcasey at legalmomentum.org Grayer is president of Legal Momentum, Casey is senior staff attorney with the group, which just released the memo “Reading Between the Lines: Women’s…

At last night’s Republican candidate debate, Congressman Ron Paul said “There’s a difference between military spending and defense spending. I’m tired of all the militarism we’re involved in. … I agree, we’re in alot of danger but most of the danger comes from a lack of wisdom in our foreign policy. … We’re under grave…

On Tuesday morning, the Census Bureau will release this year’s poverty numbers. ALICE O’CONNOR, aoconnor at history.ucsb.edu Author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor in Twentieth Century U.S. History, O’Connor said today: “The Great Recession has sent millions more Americans below minimally acceptable standards of living, while heightening the extremes of…

At Wednesday night’s Republican debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry said (when talking about mandatory vaccines for girls and women) “I will always err on the side of saving lives.” Later in the evening, he drew cheers for his record number of 234 executions, saying “Americans understand justice.” Video of death penalty exchange. Full transcript.

RANDALL WRAY, WrayR at umkc.edu Currently in New York, Wray, is professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He recently wrote the piece “With $300 Billion, The President Could Reduce Unemployment to Zero,” which was published by TruthDig and is available on Wray’s blog: http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com He said today: “President Obama gave a good,…

DAVID POTORTI, [in NYC] dpotort at gmail.com, ANDREA LeBLANC, aldvm at comcast.net, PAUL ARPAIA, paularpaia at mac.com Potorti, LeBlanc and Arpaia (who is recently back from Afghanistan) are members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group whose family members were killed in the attacks. The group recently issued the following statement: “The members…

HEIDI GARRETT-PELTIER, hpeltier at econs.umass.edu Assistant research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, Garrett-Peltier is author of several reports on employment impacts of spending including “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities” (with Robert Pollin) and “Pedestrian and Bicycle Infrastructure: A National Study of Employment Impacts.” She said today: “Many people…