Arun Gupta is a co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and The Indypendent. He said today: “In terms of the protests, these security scare stories around the conventions keep the public away from substantial protest and dissent. The Olympics are about pushing the poor out through massive gentrification and infrastructure projects. What these conventions…

Policy analyst at FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing, Lisa Guisbond said today: “The looming Chicago teachers strike may well have a lasting impact on the course of school so-called ‘reform’ efforts.” Guisbond recently wrote the piece “New School Year: Doubling Down on Failed Ed Policy,” for the Washington Post, which states: “As children…

Ben Carroll and Zaina Alsous are media contacts with the Coalition to March on Wall Street South, which helped organize a march of over 2,500 over the weekend and is organizing other actions around the Democratic Convention. These activists are critical of both major political parties and their ties to major corporations. They can connect…

Worried about Democratic congressional prospects this fall, 20 prominent Democrats sent an open letter — available at protectdemocracy.org — to the Democratic Congressional leadership urging that they “get back on offense” by exposing the GOP as “more extreme than mainstream” and proposing a “positive program of ‘Progressive Patriotism.'”

Director of the Arkansas Interfaith Alliance and chairman of the national nonpartisan Let Justice Roll Living Wage Coalition, Rev. Stephen Copley said: “Our motto at Let Justice Roll is ‘A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.’ Today’s minimum wage is a poverty wage, not a living wage. At $7.25…

Steven Hassan is author of three books on issues relating to undue influence and the destructive cult experience, most recently, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs. He was a leading member of the Moon organization in the 1970s. He said today: “The death of my former cult leader, Sun…

The Financial Times reports: “For months, Mitt Romney has been speaking about his Mormon faith only when pressed. On Thursday night, when he accepts the Republican party’s nomination for president, his religion will be celebrated in prime time like never before.” Francis Boyle is a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and…

Communications director of the Praxis Project and a New Orleans resident, Kenyon Farrow said today: “While the country may see hope in the new levees and drainage systems built for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the levees aren’t the only thing in need of repair. Most of the funds allocated for rebuilding the city did…

Simona Sharoni is a professor at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh and the chairperson of its Gender and Women’s Studies Department. A citizen of Israel who served in the IDF, she worked closely with Rachel Corrie before she left to Gaza while Sharoni was teaching at the Evergreen State College. Sharoni said…

Alice Slater is the New York director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is on the coordinating committee of Abolition 2000, a nuclear disarmament network. She said today: “Significantly, an Associated Press article in the Washington Post headlined, ‘Iran Opens Nonaligned Summit with Calls for Nuclear Arms Ban’ reported that ‘Iranian Foreign Minister Ali…