The New York Times reported Wednesday that “almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost…” [www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/politics/campaign/28vote.final.html] HOWARD SIMON, [via Alessandra Soler Meetze] In April 2003, a state administrative rule was issued in Florida, prohibiting manual recounts on the computerized voting machines in cases of…

GWENDOLYN MINK Author of the book “Welfare’s End,” Mink is currently writing a book about the Democratic Party, “Retreat from Democracy.” She said today: “For decades, the Democratic Party was hogtied from within by a powerful Dixiecrat faction. That faction has for the most part left the party, leaving behind a coherent, progressive Democratic electoral…

BRIAN WILLSON Willson, a former U.S. Air Force captain who served in Vietnam, first met John Kerry in 1971 during protests on Capitol Hill. In the 1980s, Willson was one of “Kerry’s Commandos” or “the dog hunters”; then-Lt.-Gov. Kerry appointed Willson to his Vietnam Veteran’s Advisory Committee. In October 2002, Willson wrote “An Open Letter…

SIBEL EDMONDS Edmonds is a former FBI translator. The Boston Globe recently reported: “Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated…

The Reform Party — which gave its presidential nomination to Ross Perot in 1996 and Patrick Buchanan in 2000 — has endorsed Ralph Nader for president this year. That endorsement seems to provide Reform Party ballot lines to Nader in half a dozen states. And in Michigan, the Washington Post reports today, the Nader campaign…

JAMES JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian relief organization, Jennings has traveled to Sudan on humanitarian missions in the past and is currently organizing another one to be undertaken this year. He said today: “The crisis in Sudan is so massive and complicated that many deaths will likely occur before an adequate mechanism for…

With the 15th International AIDS Conference underway in Bangkok, American policy watchdogs charged today that the Bush administration is implicated in a conflict of interest with the drug industry. The following analysts are available for interviews from Thailand and from the United States. ASIA RUSSELL SHARONANN LYNCH Both Russell and Lynch are with the group…

Citizens for a Sound Economy, a national organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R., Texas), is widening its efforts to help presidential candidate Ralph Nader get on the ballot in pivotal states. A recent news release from the corporate-backed group says it plans to pursue those efforts “in key battleground states like…

The International Court of Justice ruled today on the legality of the wall the Israeli government has been constructing in the occupied West Bank. On its web page, the Israeli newspaper Haartz headlines the story: “World Court: West Bank Separation Barrier Violates International Law, Israel Must Tear It Down.” The following are available for interviews:…

The Boston Globe reported on Monday: “Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English…. Edmonds said she made another…