GARETH PORTER Porter recently wrote the piece “Obama Had Rejected His Own Speech’s Surge Rationale,” which states that Obama in his West Point speech “said the escalation was for a ‘vital national interest’ and invoked the threat of attacks from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, asserting that such attacks ‘are now being planned as I speak.’…

THOMAS E. MAHANY Mahany, a Vietnam War veteran (101st Airborne Division), now a stonemason and artist from Michigan, has been on a water-only fast in front of the White House since Veterans Day. He sent Obama a second letter yesterday, stating: “The policy of procuring soldiers through the Presidential Authority of Stop-Loss, USC 12305, Title…

PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee just wrote the piece “Paying Off the Warlords, Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption.” He is an investigative journalist, senior editor at CorpWatch and author of Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War and “Iraq, Inc. REESE ERLICH Freelance foreign correspondent Erlich has covered…

SERGIO MONCADA A co-founder of Hondurans for Democracy, Moncada is a D.C.-based environmental policy analyst. He said today: “We’re gravely disappointed that the State Department has said it will recognize the results of Sunday’s fraudulent election. We’re getting reports of widespread fear and intimidation by the military, especially in rural areas. The U.S. has taken…

The Los Angeles Times reports: “Ron Paul wins a key battle in war to open Fed’s books.” Huffington Post senior congressional correspondent Ryan Grim writes: “As the debate over an audit of the Federal Reserve intensifies in the House, one camp is trotting out eight academics that it calls a ‘political cross section of prominent…

THOMAS E. MAHANY Mahany, a Vietnam War veteran (101st Airborne Division), now a stonemason and artist from Michigan, has been fasting in front of the White House since Veterans Day. He sent Obama the following letter the day after Veterans Day: Dear Mr. President, In May of 1970 I spent 29 days in Lafayette Square…

SIMONE LOVERA Based in Paraguay, Lovera is co-founder of the Global Forest Coalition. She said today: “The U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions are so much higher than China’s emissions. In 2005, the U.S. was nearly 23.5 while China is 5.5 [tons of CO2 per person per year]. It’s inappropriate for the U.S. to be…

The Washington Post reports today: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to…

ROBERT WEISSMAN Public Citizen today released a report titled “Financial Industry Invests Heavily in Key Lawmakers.” The group states: “The industry — including banks, investment firms, insurance companies and real estate companies — has given $42 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers and their leadership political action committees since the current election cycle began in…

DAVID SWANSON Cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org, Swanson is author of the recently released book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He said today: “Providing charges and trials, even belatedly, even for selected prisoners is progress. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured, and our president has forbidden our Justice Department to prosecute…