Continuing on the topic of torture (scroll down one posting). The New York Times is out today with a story, based on a new International Red Cross report, which documents the use of torture by American officials at Guantanamo. Here’s how the pinko Voice of America reports it:Neither the Red Cross in Geneva nor the [...]

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos went on national TV last night to officially make public the findings of his national commission on torture conducted during the 17 years of the Pinochet military dictatorship. Lagos set a new international precedent by saying he will seek congressional approval to pay the 28,000 surviving witness/victims a monthly lifetime pension [...]

It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you fly with turkeys, isn’t it? So what’s left to do other than eat a few? Or drink some? Not sure I’ll be doing much posting over the Thanksgiving holiday break (though I may do some fishing). So, for your edification and enjoyment I have compiled this [...]

I was locked up in the car most of the day listening to the radio and the big buzz is, of course, Dan Rather’s rather expected resignation. I, along with another couple hundred rocket scientists, predicted he’d be cast aside more or less now — a decent interval since the brouhaha over the Texas Air National [...]

I can’t help but mull over some of the ironies twisted into a pair of contrasting elections. On November 2nd,  here at home, we saw the Republican Party in Ohio announce that it was going to send “observers” to each and every polling station to insure that the voting process was pristine; that each voter [...]

Heavy work and family schedules have crimped blogging a bit the past handful of days. I hope to be back running off at the mouth at full speed by Monday nite or Tuesday.

Next time you’re in a sluggish teller’s line at your local bank, try telling them you’re a blood-soaked dictator and watch your lowly status immediately begin to soar. New details are out today about the incestuous relationship between the august Riggs Bank and a certain General Augusto Pinochet. An internal investigation by former Secret Service [...]

Here’s the now-familiar scenario: An exile source from one of the Axis of Evil countries comes to U.S. officials and tells them that the government he opposes is developing weapons of mass destruction of the nuclear variety. Next the top leadership of our own government claims that our immediate security depends on taking out the [...]

If you don’t believe in freedom of the press — if you prefer the press systems of places like Cuba or Burma, then please skip this posting. Otherwise, get concerned  — real concerned– about the jailing of American reporters.  Take the case of  Rhode Island TV reporter Jim Taricani.  A veteran investigative journo with three [...]

Will we miss the good old days when John Aschroft was Attorney General? My latest L.A. Weekly column swatting Alberto "Speedy" Gonzales — the guy who can’t wait to roll back our rights.

One might wonder if FCC Chairman, Michael Powell — Son of Colin””was watching the tube today when his pop’s replacmenet, Condi Rice, got the official nod from Dubya. As their eyes watered and their voices wavered you could almost sniff the primal chemistry percolating in the room. Will the younger Powell now slap the networks [...]

Nothing re-assuring can be gleaned from the personnel shuffles and purges now accelerating inside the Bush administration. Colin Powell’s departure from State and his replacement by Condoleeza Rice guarantees that Bush will now be 100% free from even mildly dissenting opinions and views. No less than Kissinger sidekick Lawrence Eagleburger was just on CNN lamenting [...]

Within the sea of ink now spilled on the battle of Fallujah, there’s one defintive piece that requires fishing out. Former General Wesley Clark writing in Sunday’s Washington Post reminds us that the capture of the embattled city by U.S. troops is, alas, only the beginning of a process that — as I argued last [...]

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to read Thursday’s news out of Iraq and not be deeply depressed. As I scanned Friday morning’s papers online and watched the TV reports on CNN and ABC, I felt a physical chill. The U.S. push into Fallujah, which seemed to meet little resistance for the first three days, has [...]

Since Saturday night I’ve been running a conference at USC’s Institute for Justice and Journalism looking at security and liberty in the post-9-11 era. NYU journalism prof and new media enthusiast Jay Rosen  rocked the boat as one of our lunch-time speakers, declaring flatly that the American mainstream media model — something he calls “the [...]

It’s been but a scant week since George W. Bush’s re-election, yet so far there’s damn little public self-examination by Democrat liberals and progressives — at least that I have been able to see. Predictably enough, the center-right Democratic Leadership Council types have already made several calls for the party to move rightward.  But the [...]

Gentleman commenter and conversationalist "GM" has just joined the fray. Copy and paste his new blog’s URL into ur favorites list —–>   http://gmscorner.blogspot.com/ Or click here. Go. P.S. Broken link now fixed.

Take a look at Slate columnist Eric Umansky’s personal blog to sample some exemplary journalism. He’s put up back to back posts with equally bad news from Cuba– each one from a different side of the fence at Guantanamo. Eric’s first post reports on the sickening charade now underway at the Gitmo base where the [...]

I’m managing this conference this week so it will be lighter posting here. Discuss among yourselves: is the "stolen election" narrative taking on susbtantial life and blocking out real self-assessment of the Democratic defeat? Tell me NO…. P.S. I HAVE DELETED A STACK OF LONG, BORING, HERMETICALLY SEALED, INACCESSIBLE, LUGUBRIOUS, AND GENERALLY TEDIOUS "COMMENT" POSTINGS [...]

Last week, a few days before the election, I spoke with the irrascible Gore Vidal. We’re living in the "United States of Amnesia", he said. Here’s the full interview.