J. ALEXANDER THIER Thier was a legal advisor to Afghanistan’s constitutional and judicial reform commissions. He is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He said today: “By most measures, Afghanistan seems far from ripe for democracy. As President Hamid Karzai struggles to build a government in Kabul, much of the country remains under the control of warlord armies. … Factional fighting has touched every corner of the country, and more soldiers and aid workers have been killed this year than in the previous two. It…

LISA WOZNIAK Wozniak is the Great Lakes regional director for the League of Conservation Voters. She said today: “The biggest hurdle we face here in Michigan is the requirement that the address on a voter’s driver’s license must match the address on his or her voter registration card. This disenfranchises large numbers of students. Students move often, and being required to update these records in the midst of trying to make academic progress is an unreasonable expectation. Also, some students prefer to keep their parents’ addresses on their driver’s license for insurance purposes. This in no way means that they…

JOHN NICHOLS Currently in New York City, Nichols is author of the new book Dick: The Man Who Is President. Nichols also wrote the recent article “10 Questions for Dick Cheney,” available at the web page below. More Information ROBERT PARRY Author of the just-released book Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories while working as a reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He now edits the online magazine Consortium News. Parry today spoke about some of the findings in Secrecy & Privilege: * “During the Nixon-Ford…

MARIE CLARKE NEIL WATKINS Watkins is the outreach coordinator for Jubilee USA Network. Clarke is the national coordinator of Jubilee USA Network. Clarke said today: “As G7 finance ministers gather in Washington today, we issue an urgent call to G7 nations, and in particular our own government, to work in the spirit of multilateral cooperation and compromise to achieve a deal on 100 percent debt cancellation for impoverished nations at this meeting, or soon thereafter. Debt costs lives, and it is morally unconscionable to delay. The sale of IMF gold is an approach to financing poor country debt cancellation that…

NATHAN RICHTER PETER MONTGOMERY JOHN WHITE The NAACP and People for the American Way have recently released the report “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America.” John White is the director of communications at NAACP. People for the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas said: “There is more than one way to deprive people of their right to vote, from systematic and technical problems to inadequate voter education to illegal actions by public officials. Although voter intimidation has not historically been confined to a single political party, we are increasingly concerned about recent incidents…

DANIEL ELLSBERG Currently on the west coast, Ellsberg is available for a limited number of interviews. Today’s New York Times features an op-ed by Ellsberg titled “Truths Worth Telling” in which he writes: “Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence — as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that…

GEORGE FARAH Farah, founder and executive director of Open Debates, was featured on Friday’s “Now with Bill Moyers” [see: www.pbs.org/now/politics/debates.html]. He said today: “Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush promised the American people a series of engaging presidential debates, but the major party candidates’ lawyers have drafted a binding contract that virtually eliminates spontaneity and confrontation from these public forums and excludes all third-party voices. Much of the fault lies with the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a creation of the Republican and Democratic parties that submits to the joint demands of the Republican and Democratic candidates, at…

Ayad Allawi spoke before a joint session of the U.S. Congress this morning. He spoke of “the values of liberty and democracy.” For general information on Allawi, see the resource Disinfopedia. Here are some relevant articles: The New York Times, “Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90’s Attacks” (June 9, 2004) by Joel Brinkley The article states: “Dr. Allawi’s group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said.” More Information The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), “Allawi Shot Inmates in Cold Blood, Say Witnesses” (July 17, 2004)…

JULIANA ZUCCARO Zuccaro is a student at the University of Arizona and a member of the Network of Feminist Student Activists, which runs student voter registration drives. She said today: “We were registering students when we were interviewed by Fox News reporter Natalie Tejeda, who claimed that we were committing ‘unintentional felony’ by registering out-of-state students. She cited Pima County Voter Registrar Chris Roads, a Republican, who said that out-of-state students are committing a felony if they register to vote in Arizona and they don’t intend on remaining in the state ‘indefinitely.’ The report was broadcast with those statements. It…

BEV HARRIS KATHLEEN WYNNE ABBE WALDMAN DELOZIER, VICKIE KARP Black Box Voting and the National Ballot Integrity Project Task Force announced Wednesday that they “have been able to hack into both Diebold’s and Sequoia Voting Systems’ voting machines.” Harris is the executive director of Black Box Voting. Karp is a board member with Black Box Voting. Delozier works with the Texas Coalition for Visible Ballots. Wynne is with the National Ballot Integrity Project Task Force. At the National Press Club this morning, Harris and others demonstrated methods of manipulating vote-counting programs. Harris said: “We are able to use a hidden…