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…


  • Nuclear Precipice: Korea and Iran

    BILL MESLER A former editor of the Seoul-based Korea Economic Journal, Mesler said today: “The upcoming talks in Beijing are a positive sign. Unfortunately the Bush administration has continued to make unacceptable demands without offering any concrete concessions, which continues to hamper the possibility of reaching a fruitful accord. The Bush administration says it wants…

  • Weapons of Mass Deception?

    SHELDON RAMPTON, JOHN STAUBER Rampton and Stauber are the authors of the just-released Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq. They said today: “In our book we report that the Bush administration’s phony claims about Iraq go well beyond those mere 16 words in the State of the Union…

  • * Israel’s Wall * Sharon’s Policies * Liberia * WTO in Montreal

    MARK LANCE Lance, a professor at Georgetown University, was in the West Bank in June and July with a delegation of university faculty and has written about the wall that Israel is constructing in the West Bank. He said today: “Sharon claims that Israel is building a ‘security fence’ so that it can protect itself.…

  • * Hussein’s Sons * 9/11 Report * Abbas and Bush

    ANAS SHALLAL The Pentagon has just released pictures of dead Uday and Qusay Hussein. Shallal is founder of Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives. He said today: “This is reminiscent to me of previous coups in Iraq. As a child, I remember seeing the killing of Abdul Karim Kassem on TV in 1963. Now, we have the…

  • The Economy: The Other Credibility Gap

    ROBERT McINTYRE McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said today: “Recently a lot of issues have come to light regarding presidential credibility about the war on Iraq. The administration also has serious credibility problems when it comes to economics. For example, the president has given numerous speeches implying that most people stand to gain…

  • Iraq Occupation: Huge Problems

    EMAN AHMED KHAMMAS Khammas is co-director of the newly founded Occupation Watch Center in Iraq. She said today: “We are all happy that Saddam Hussein is gone, but we continue to pay a very high price with our lives, our health and our country. The security situation here is hell, I don’t know how else…

  • Mr. Blair Goes to Washington

    MEL GOODMAN Goodman, a former CIA analyst, is a professor of international security at the National War College in Washington and a senior fellow for intelligence reform at the Center for International Policy. He said today: “The administration is now asserting that statements about Iraq’s alleged attempts to obtain unenriched uranium from Africa may well…

  • Iraq Interviews Available: “Had I known…”

    On July 11, 2003, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told the press aboard Air Force One: “Had I known that there was a forged document here, would I put this in the State of the Union? No.” RAHUL MAHAJAN Mahajan, author of the new book Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond, has…

  • WMD: The Dog Ate My Homework

    GREG THIELMANN Thielmann served as director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research until September 2002. He said today: “I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq…. Going down the…

  • Bush in Africa: Photo-Ops vs. Policies

    SALIH BOOKER Booker, the executive director of Africa Action, said today: “While Bush has made much of his commitment to fighting AIDS in Africa, this is becoming a cruel hoax… The president requested no new money this year and only $450 million in new money for 2004. He has virtually sidestepped the Global Fund to…

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