Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER Senior pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and national president of Ministers For Racial, Social and Economic Justice, Hagler said today: “The legal controversy around the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama highlights the misuse and abuse of religion in the United States. A monument of this kind is a radically conservative statement that hardly reflects the inclusion and tolerance that we seek to effect in this society…. Furthermore, as a preacher of the Gospel, I am astonished that there is so much passion around a monument, when in fact we ignore religiously what the…

As representatives of six governments hold talks in Beijing regarding North Korea’s nuclear capability, the following analysts are available for interviews: BRUCE CUMINGS Author of several books including The Origins of the Korean War, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History and most recently Parallax Visions: American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century, Cumings is a professor of history at the University of Chicago. More Information SEUNG HYE SUH Suh is an organizer with the group Nodutdol for Korean Community Development and assistant professor at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. She said today: “This is a dangerous…

PAUL COX Cox is a Vietnam War veteran and the commander for the American Legion Post 315 in San Francisco. He said today: “Bush made assertions that the primary reason for the invasion of Iraq was weapons of mass destruction. Exactly a year ago today, Cheney said to the Veterans of Foreign Wars: ‘Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.’ It now appears increasingly likely that there were no such weapons. They lied to the American people, to the world and to the United Nations. Bush is the prototypical chickenhawk — pretends…

The 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is August 28. Events begin today in Washington, D.C. The following analysts and activists are available for interviews: Rev. JAMES LAWSON Pastor emeritus of Holman United Methodist Church, Lawson was a longtime associate of Martin Luther King Jr. and is available for a limited number of interviews. Though involved in the planning of the 1963 march, he did not attend it, having given his bus seat to a student. He said today: “The entire march was under pressure from the Kennedy administration. John Lewis changed his speech…

NANCY LESSIN, CHARLIE RICHARDSON Co-founders of Military Families Speak Out, Lessin and Richardson have a son, Joe, who just returned from Iraq. They said today: “Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and others are arguing that attacks in Iraq mean we have to send more troops. We have 58,000 names on a wall — and millions of dead Vietnamese — to tell us where that road leads.” More Information More Information EMAN AHMED KHAMMAS, in Baghdad via: Khammas is co-director of the Occupation Watch Center in Iraq. She said today: “The U.N. is not very reputable here. Many people consider the U.N.…

GREG PALAST Palast is coauthor of Regulation and Democracy (a book that includes analysis of power markets) and author of the best-selling The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. He said today: “Like some sort of mediaeval doctors bleeding their patient, the Bush administration keeps pushing for more deregulation when it’s been the problem — not the solution.” More Information WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Hauter said today: “Electric deregulation was the major factor behind the blackouts last week. Because deregulation replaced integrated resource planning — where states ordered local utilities to provide adequate…

LLOYD J. DUMAS Dumas is the author of Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies and is a professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. He said today: “The massive failure that knocked out power to the Northeast and Midwest U.S. and Canada looks like the disastrous blackouts of 1965 and 1977. Once again we are reminded of our technological vulnerability and the impossibility of eliminating failure. Electric systems were connected together to make blackouts a thing of the past. In 1965, when part of the grid failed and the rest took over, the strain caused…

DOUG HELLER CARMEN BALBER Consumer advocates with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, Heller and Balber said today: “The California energy crisis was the culmination of a decade-long push to remove consumer protections and regulatory oversight of California’s electric power system… Leading the charge was Ken Lay, the former CEO and Chairman of Enron, whose close ties with the Bush family were supplemented by campaign contributions both in Washington and across the country, notably including more than $100,000 to California Governor Gray Davis. It was, of course, no surprise that Governor Davis failed to meaningfully take on the power…

Today an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (embargoed for 3 p.m. ET), backed by more than 7,000 physicians, proposes national health insurance. A news conference on the proposal, including two former Surgeon Generals, was set to take place today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at 10 a.m. Dr. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, [via Kimberly Soenen] A lead author of the proposal being presented today, Woolhandler is a primary care doctor practicing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She said today: “We are already spending enough to provide every…

ROBERT POLLIN Professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of the forthcoming book Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity, Pollin said today: “Recently there has been much talk, and some signs, of a recovery out of the long stagnation that has gripped the U.S. economy since the stock market bubble burst three years ago. In fact the evidence of a recovery is mixed. But it is also true that economies will in some sense always recover from three years of a slump. The nature of the recovery is the…