DAHR JAMAIL Currently in Tampa, Florida, independent journalist Jamail has been in the Gulf region for three weeks. His recent pieces include “BP’s Scheme To Swindle The ‘Small People’” and “BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain.” More Information For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020

GARETH PORTER Porter just wrote “Amiri Told CIA Iran Has No Nuclear Bomb Program” for Inter Press Service. The piece states: “Contrary to a news media narrative that Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri has provided intelligence on covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, CIA sources familiar with the Amiri case say he told his CIA handlers that…

Today, the Washington Post began publishing an in-depth series by Dana Priest and William Arkin titled “Top Secret America,” which begins: “The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe.”…

JOY GORDON Gordon is author of the new book Invisible War: The U.S. and Iraq Sanctions (Harvard University Press) and just wrote the piece “Lessons we should have learned from the Iraqi sanctions” for Foreign Policy. She said today: “If we are to understand the kind of damage that can be done by economic sanctions,…

WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama is reporting: “At one point during Thursday’s hearings into the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the dispersants that are being used in the Gulf were referred to as the potential ‘Agent Orange of the Gulf.’ “BP has used millions of gallons of the chemical Corexit to break down the…

THOMAS FERGUSON Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “This whole business reminds me of the old Bob Hope line: ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time,…

RICHARD WOLFF Recently back from Europe, Wolff is author of the book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. He recently wrote the piece “Austerity: Why and for Whom?” which states: “Nearly all current political leaders of major capitalist countries responded positively to the banks’ demand for austerity…

TOM ENGELHARDT Engelhardt is founder of TomDispatch.com; his book The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s was just released. Engelhardt’s latest piece is “Why Are We in Afghanistan? As Petraeus Takes Over, Could Success Be Worse Than Failure?” which states: “It’s now past time to ask that question, even as the Obama…

BRIAN CONCANNON Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon lived in Haiti for eight years. He said today: “The international community promised to change the trade, aid and governance policies that helped make Haiti so poor and extremely vulnerable to earthquakes and other natural disasters. But six months after the earthquake,…

MANUEL PEREZ-ROCHA Associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Perez-Rocha has been critical of trade deals like NAFTA. He said today: “It is worrying that discussions about immigration in the U.S. tend to ignore its causes. Most people do not migrate to this country because they want to live their ‘American dream’ as it…