THOMAS FERGUSON ROBERT JOHNSON Ferguson and Johnson, who are with the Roosevelt Institute, just wrote the in-depth paper “A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession.” Key points include: “The current hysteria over deficits in the U.S. is unjustified. Markets for even long term U.S. government debt are strong. … Claims that economic…

ADRIENNE PINE Pine is assistant professor of anthropology at American University specializing in Latin America. She said today: “Cables released by WikiLeaks have painted a stark picture of State Department activities throughout the Americas. These include collecting biometric data on Paraguayan presidential candidates; covertly orchestrating an anti-Chavez propaganda campaign in Venezuela; working with Brazilian authorities…

President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (chaired by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles) releases its report today. See live webcast from the National Press Building with Joseph Stiglitz, Dean Baker, Robert Kuttner and others commenting on the report from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET: ourfiscalsecurity.org DEAN BAKER Available for a limited…

DOUG HENWOOD Editor of Left Business Observerth, Henwood said today: “While the government can’t run big deficits forever, there’s no great urgency to do anything in a hurry. Even on official projections (which assume decades of near-depression rates of economic growth), federal debt won’t become a problem until well into the 2020s. Alarmists are trying…

Reuters reports that UN Ambassador Susan Rice said Monday: “Let me be very clear — our diplomats are just that, they’re diplomats.” Reuters noted that “Rice declined to comment on the details of the cables.” KATHARINE GUN Available for a limited number of interviews, Gun is a former British government employee who faced two years…

PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee is a regular columnist for the Guardian and just wrote a piece titled “WikiLeaks v the imperial presidency’s poodle: Once, Harold Koh spoke truth to power. Now, as Hillary Clinton’s legal adviser, he obediently denounces the embassy cables leak.” Chatterjee is author of Iraq, Inc: A Profitable Occupation and Halliburton’s Army: How…

McClatchy reports: “Under a cloud of intimidation and suppression, Egyptians will vote Sunday in parliamentary elections that already have been denounced as a charade aimed at prolonging the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. “Egyptian authorities have jailed Mubarak’s opponents, blocked rallies, clamped down on independent news media and angrily rejected calls…

ALEX MAIN, [now in Haiti] Policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main said today: “These elections were already highly problematic before the cholera epidemic began to spread. Haiti’s electoral authority — the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council] — suffers from a lack of credibility; legitimate parties have been excluded from participating in…

GARETH PORTER The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report on Iran today. Last week, an article by Porter was published by Truthout.org titled “Exclusive Report: Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent.” He said today: “The latest IAEA report asserts that Iran has only addressed issues of ‘form’ rather than of ‘substance’…

THOMAS P. KIM Kim is executive director of the Korea Policy Institute and professor of politics and international relations at Scripps College. JOHN FEFFER Co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus, Feffer is author of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations. He said today: “Applying sanctions against North Korea and conducting military exercises near its border have…