Speaking to a crowd at the Iowa State Fair Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stated that “corporations are people.” Asked by members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement as to why he was focusing on cutting Social Security and Medicare as a means of deficit reduction over asking corporations to share part of the burden…

HEIDI HARTMANN, dobuzinskis at iwpr.org The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) conducts research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. Hartmann is the president of the group. She said: “Little noted among the employment figures released…

BEN MANSKI, brmanski at gmail.com Manski is executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation and a spokesperson for the umbrella group Wisconsin Wave. He is a lifelong Wisconsinite and a public interest attorney. Manski said today: “Big money spoke yesterday, but big democracy spoke louder. The GOP lost one third of its seats, and the…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid named his picks to the congressional debt reduction “super committee” yesterday. The Huffington Post reports: “The choices are not particularly trusted in liberal circles either, in part because of concerns that moneyed interests may come in to play when it comes time to negotiate. In Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts,…

JAMES PECK, jlpeck1098 at aol.com Peck is author of the new book “Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights.” He was a Senior Editor at Pantheon Books for almost two decades where his authors included J. William Fulbright, Noam Chomsky, George Kennan, and Edward Said. He also worked in China for more than a…

DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood at panix.com Editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book “Wall Street,” Henwood said today: “Global markets panicked after the S&P downgrade of the U.S. Treasury (though, paradoxically, in the classic “flight to quality” reaction, investors poured billions into the very same U.S. Treasury securities that had just been downgraded).

Time Business is reporting: “Thousands of striking workers in Verizon Communication Inc.’s landline division joined picket lines and rallies Monday at company offices from Massachusetts to Virginia, a union official said. “The contract for 45,000 employees expired at midnight Saturday after the company and the workers were unable to come to terms on issues including…

SCOTT KLINGER, scottklinger at businessforsharedprosperity.org Klinger is Director of Tax Policy for Business for Shared Prosperity, a network of forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation. He said today: “Wall Street and its Washington representatives downgraded America with disinvestment in Main…

“Against the backdrop of the disastrous Fukushima nuclear plant accident, I will speak of the absolute need for Japan to not only work to ban nuclear weapons but also to completely eradicate dependence on nuclear energy.” -Matashichi Oishi, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll, the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in 1954. See:…

NICK TURSE, nat9 at columbia.edu, http://www.tomdispatch.com, https://twitter.com/#!/NickTurse Turse is a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and author of “The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” He recently wrote “A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite.” In the article he says: “From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special…