President-elect Obama is nominating Chicago public school CEO Arne Duncan (hearing Tuesday) to be secretary of education and Eric Shinseki (hearing Wednesday) to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. AARON GLANTZ Author of The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans, Glantz is Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism at The Carter Center.…

Hillary Clinton’s hearing in the Senate for Secretary of State is scheduled for Tuesday. The Financial Times recently reported that Dennis Ross has been selected by President-elect Obama for Mideast envoy, a position Ross held in the Clinton administration. STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign…

RICHARD FALK Just back in the U.S. and available for a limited number of interviews with major media, Falk is the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Last month he was denied entry to Israel. He said today: “It is irresponsible to exclude Hamas from international participation…

DAVID ROSNICK An economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Rosnick said today: “While short on specific numbers, President-elect Obama helped prepare the country for a large, but much-needed stimulus package to be negotiated by Congress over the next few weeks. Speedy and large should be our watchwords, as the recession continues to…

AP reports: “President-elect Barack Obama’s reported choice for surgeon general, CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, could bring a dose of star power to a job that hasn’t had that much clout in decades.” TRUDY LIEBERMAN Lieberman is director of the health and medicine reporting program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She just wrote…

ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews. A noted independent journalist, he runs the weblog “News and Comment.” Nairn just wrote the piece “Admiral Dennis Blair, Prospective Obama Appointee, Aided Perpetrators of 1999 Church Killings,” which states: “Reports say that President-elect Obama wants to nominate retired…

CHRIS HEDGES Hedges just wrote the piece “Lost in the Rubble,” which, among other things, recounts his meeting with Nizar Rayan, who Israel killed in a targeted assassination on Thursday. Author of several books, Hedges covered the Mideast for the New York Times for seven years. AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil is author of several books on…

EDWARD L. PECK Available for a limited number of interviews, Ambassador Peck spent November with a delegation to the Mideast organized by the Council for the National Interest. He was chief of mission in Iraq and Mauritania and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. He said today:…

ANN WRIGHT, Reuters reports: “A small group of placard-waving pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered near U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s vacation retreat in Hawaii on Tuesday to protest against the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. … Obama has made no public comment on the strikes, which Israel launched on Saturday.” Wright is a former State Department diplomat and retired…

OMER GOLDMAN JESSE BACON Goldman is one of the “Shministim” — high school seniors who refuse to enter the Israeli military process. She said today: “I’m proud to refuse to serve in an army that claims to be for humanity and defense but hurts people on a daily basis.” She recently wrote: “I first went…