By Iris Vander Pluym on 09.08.2013
On Sunday, August 18, The Guardian reported that David Miranda, the long-term partner of its journalist Glenn Greenwald who lives with him in Brazil, was detained for almost nine hours during a stopover at London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
[He] was returning from a trip to Berlin...
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By Iris Vander Pluym on July 28, 2013
The War on Drugs is not a war on drugs, at least not as that phrase is commonly understood in the English language. Assess the misery associated with the drug trade, and you would have to be on drugs yourself to believe the War on Drugs is anything other than a total, abject failure. From measures of public health, addiction rates, narco-terrorism, police corruption, gang violence, vast criminal networks spanning the globe...
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By Iris Vander Pluym on 07.07.13
Larry Gaines flew his J35 Bonanza from San Andreas in California to a small airport in Cordell, Oklahoma. The flight was uneventful; the pilot followed all FAA regulations. Shortly after landing around 6:30pm, a friend picked him up to take him to dinner. When he realized he had forgotten his eyeglasses, they headed back toward the airport to retrieve them. Unbeknownst to Mr. Gaines, he was about to star in a heart-pounding thriller with a budget and cast that puts Hollywood blockbusters to shame:
Read MoreBy Iris Vander Pluym - 06.16.13
...who needs Republicans?
Before she announced her retirement from Congress on May 29, the Tea Queen of Kookville Michele Bachmann had been cited by name in a relentless barrage of fundraising emails from the DCCC and its House Majority PAC. There were twelve such missives in May alone. The messaging was similar in each one: Tea Party! Extremist! Crazy! MUST BE STOPPED!
Iris Vander Pluym - 05.26.13
At this writing, the death toll at the site of a collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh has reached 1,127. The pictures are horrific, the scale of pain and grief unfathomable.
It isn't as though no one could see this coming. Over 1,800 garment workers have been killed in...
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By Iris Vander Pluym - 05.05.13
“[A]ny degree of ‘flexibility’ about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone — the rare exception fast becoming the rule.”
-Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, former commandant of the Marine Corps and former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, respectively.
The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment recently issued its report.
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