News Releases

  • Death Penalty

    Gary Graham is scheduled to be executed at 7 P.M. Eastern Time. The following analysts and critics of the death penalty are available for interviews: WILLIAM HARRELL Executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Harrell said today: “We are outraged by the board’s failure to halt this execution. The judicial system has failed us, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has failed us and the governor has failed us. This is the greatest proof that the time for a moratorium on executions in Texas is now.” The president of the board of the ACLU of Texas, Greg…


  • “Prosperity and Progress”?

    Inequalities, Health-Care Coverage, Estate Tax CHARLES ANDREWS The author of the forthcoming From Capitalism to Equality, Andrews said today: “Before we celebrate the economy’s alleged prosperity and progress, we should tally the exhaustion it is causing. The average husband-and-wife family works six hours today for every five hours worked in 1979. The percentage of employees who work 49 hours a week or more rose from 13 percent in 1976 to 20 percent today. If there is a bit of prosperity today in our role as consumers, the deeper truth is that today’s economy consumes people’s lives.” SARA NICHOLS National spokesperson…


  • Interviews Available: Father’s Day

    WILL GLENNON Glennon is author of Fathering: Strengthening Connection with Your Children No Matter Where They Are, for which he interviewed 180 fathers, aged 15 to 87, almost all of whom cried during their interviews. He said today: “Fathers need to get deeply engaged in the upbringing of their children. Fathers don’t want to be isolated, children don’t want them to be disconnected and mothers don’t want them to be absent — physically or emotionally. But we have patterns of how we raise our children which keep fathers distant, cost them emotionally, cause pain in their relationships, making boys more…


  • Arafat’s Visit to U.S.

    The following analysts are available for interviews about the U.S. visit by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat scheduled to begin on Wednesday: NASEER ARURI Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, former board member of Amnesty International and author of The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians, Aruri said today: “The approach of Syria’s Hafez Assad toward Israel was based on equality, land for peace, an international framework, and normalization with Israel after it fully withdraws from occupied territory. By contrast, Arafat’s approach — despite lip service to the contrary — is open-ended. It would…


  • Study Finds Conservative Think Tanks Predominant

    Brookings Leads; Left-of-Center Think Tanks Decrease WASHINGTON — A study released today found that conservative think tanks and the centrist Brookings Institution dominated much of the national media debate last year. Of the 25 leading think tanks studied, Brookings had the most citations (2,883), twice as many media mentions as the next-ranked conservative/libertarian Cato Institute (1,428 cites). The conservative Heritage Foundation, which had rivaled Brookings in prominence a few years ago, has fallen to third place (1,419 cites), while the conservative American Enterprise Institute (1,263 cites) is the fourth most cited think tank in the U.S. media. These four think…


  • Analysts Available on Microsoft Decision

    The following analysts are available to comment on the Microsoft decision: NORMAN HAWKER Hawker is a law professor at Western Michigan University specializing in antitrust issues. JUDY SLOAN Sloan is a professor at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles. ROBERT LANDE Lande is senior research scholar at the American Antitrust Institute and professor of law at the University of Baltimore. More Information For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 More Information More Information


  • Interviews Available on Germany and Russia

    MARTIN A. LEE Author of The Beast Reawakens, a book on neofascism, Lee said today: “President Clinton’s visit to Germany comes at a time when that country is mired in a major political scandal, involving secret slush funds and illegal influence-peddling by big business. The scandal has resulted in the fall from grace of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and several other leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, now the main opposition party in Germany. Thus far, U.S. officials have yet to acknowledge the role that the U.S. government played in setting the stage for this scandal. For years, Washington turned…


  • Interviews on “Missile Defense”

    WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and co-author of the recent report “Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense, 1994-2000,” Hartung said today: “In its ongoing effort to ‘triangulate’ by co-opting Republican issues, the Clinton administration has met right-wing missile defense boosters more than half way. Meanwhile, Republicans have stepped up their calls for an elaborate, multi-tiered system akin to Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated Star Wars scheme. The nation’s four major missile contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW — are looking to missile defense to revive them from mismanagement and technical problems that have slashed…


  • United – U.S. Airways

    United Airlines said today it intends to buy U.S. Airways. The following analysts are available for interviews: PAUL HUDSON Executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, Hudson said today: “If this merger is approved without major divesting of routes and other restrictions, the ‘Big Six’ will quickly become the ‘Big Three’ and U.S. airline passengers will be the major losers. No airline should control more than 25 percent to 30 percent of the nation’s airline seats or over 40 percent of seats in a particular region. This merger would give United dominant control of most routes in the Northeast…


  • Interviews Available on International Issues

    SIMONA SHARONI Author of Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Sharoni is currently a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She said today: “If there is any relationship between the recent mini-intifada and the negotiations, it is that the two issues that have been central to the protests — the Palestinian refugees and the release of political prisoners — have not been seriously addressed. Those who are familiar with the Oslo Accords, its supplements and its rocky implementation should not be surprised that Palestinians have once again taken to the streets…. If Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon is designed to…


  • Power Struggles in Haiti and Venezuela: Interviews Available

    BILL FLETCHER Executive director of TransAfrica, Fletcher said today: “In recent weeks, the Haitian crisis has been deepening. In addition to mass protests against President Aristide, demanding his resignation, there have been military assaults in several cities and what appears to be a move toward insurrection. The alleged rebels have been described in different ways,…

  • Scandal on Pre-War U.N. Spying by U.S. Now Mushrooming in Mexico and Chile

    Statements from Mexican and Chilean government officials in recent days are bringing renewed interest to the subject of U.S. spying at the United Nations in early 2003 prior to the Iraq war. The story first broke in March 2003 when the Observer newspaper in London published a U.S. National Security Agency memo describing a “surge”…

  • New Support for British Whistleblower Katharine Gun

    Members of Congress today released an open letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in support of Katharine Gun, the former British intelligence employee who faces two years in prison for leaking a memo to the press that exposed a U.S. surveillance “surge” against countries on the U.N. Security Council aimed at securing authorization for…

  • Bush’s Nuclear Proposal: Hypocrisy Charged

    JOHN BURROUGHS Burroughs is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. He said this afternoon: “While Bush proposes ad hoc measures to limit the capacity of other countries to produce nuclear materials usable in reactors or bombs, his administration has yet to agree to start negotiations on a verified treaty (the…

  • * Bush: A Call for Censure * Prosecuting Protestors

    TREVOR FITZGIBBON Fitzgibbon is a contact person for a campaign being launched today by MoveOn.org and the national coalition Win Without War to censure President George W. Bush for misleading the American people in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. This afternoon a news conference at the National Press Club included a father of…

  • * Bush Iraq Deceptions — Then and Now * Skull vs. Bones?

    JOHN R. MACARTHUR, [via] Author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, MacArthur repeatedly scrutinized Bush’s claims during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, writing the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President” in October 2002 [See: www.commondreams.org/views02/1028-09.htm]. In December 2002 he was quoted on an IPA news release: “Recently, Bush cited an IAEA…

  • * Cheney Scandal * Tauzin/PHARMA * Candidates and War Powers

    PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee, recently back from Iraq, is program director at Corpwatch. He said today: “Newsweek reported Wednesday that the Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton paid $180 million in bribes to win a contract in Nigeria when Dick Cheney was chairman of the company…. Last year Cheney received two dollars…

  • “Intelligence Failure”?

    RAY McGOVERN McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Before the invasion of Iraq he co-authored the article “Cooking Intelligence for War” with other members of the steering group for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said today: “The ‘investigation’ is slated to go past the election. Members will be picked by the…

  • The Economy: Nine Months Before Election Day * Budget * Job Training * The Deficit

    CHRIS HARTMAN, [via Christina Kasica] Research director for United for a Fair Economy, Hartman said today: “Tax cuts by the current administration have shifted the tax burden to the middle class and widened the wealth gap into a chasm…. The annual deficit is of historic proportions, over half a trillion for this year alone. With…

  • Prominent Americans Support British Whistleblower

    An array of high-profile Americans — including Rev. Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, leaders of the ACLU and the Newspaper Guild, and artists such as Sean Penn, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Sheen — released a joint statement Thursday (Jan. 29) in support of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower. Ms. Gun faces…

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