First in a series

1. From Spin Cycle: How The White House And The Media Manipulate The News, the 1998 book by Howard Kurtz.
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“Senior adviser Rahm Emanuel assumed Stephanopoulos’s role of behind-the-scenes press handler.”
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“The morning papers had strikingly different takes on the [tobacco negotiations]. The Washington Post quoted unnamed sources as saying the administration ‘refused to intervene’ in the tobacco talks until both sides agreed on a final package. The New York Times, however, cited ‘a top Clinton administration official’ in saying ‘that the White House might be willing to play a more active role if negotiators were not able to produce a completed plan.’ The reporters had obviously relied on different administration leakers.
“Rahm Emanuel, the ever-intense presidential assistant who was assuming a larger role in dealing with the press, stuck his head in McCurry’s office. ‘I had my headline in the Washington Post; Bruce [Lindsey] had his in the New York Times,’ he said. It was a rare instance of two White House aides pushing their competing views in public, and Emanuel felt lucky that no journalist had called them on the contradiction.”
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“[O]n a different story, [Wall Street Journal reporter Michael] Frisby found himself pointedly excluded. Rahm Emanuel had passed the word to USA Today that Clinton had decided to ask the Federal Election Commission to outlaw the use of ‘soft money,’ the large, unregulated donations that filled both parties’ coffers. As other reporters picked up on the buzz, Emanuel also leaked the story to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Even though it was not much of a story – the odds that the FEC would take such action were slim – Frisby immediately called Emanuel when he realized he had been bypassed.
“‘I’m going to fuck you,’ he declared.

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Posted on February 28, 2011

By DJ Ghostly

Held over the weekend.

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Posted on February 15, 2011

By The Beachwood Blasphemy Affairs Desk

“The perfect musical for everyone who has ever worked a day in their lives!”

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Posted on February 11, 2011

By The Beachwood University of Hard Knocks Affairs Desk

“As Chicago work its way into a snow-free community, 69-year-old Al Wynn is daily working on the re-releasing re-releasing of his 2008 bestselling book A Pimp and a Hustler,” Darnell T. Glover writes.
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“During Mr. Wynn’s life time he has rubbed shoulders with aldermen, congressmen, judges, and the top notch gangsters of Chicago. Most of them were head gang lords in the late sixties. He had several narrow escapes with his life.”
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“After Al graduated from the University of Hard Knocks USA, he became a successful entrepreneur in real estate, restaurant, roofing contractor, construction and general contracting.”
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Posted on February 9, 2011

* “The Institutionalization of Torture: Is Anyone Responsible?”, Feb. 24, The Chicago Club, 81 E. Van Buren St., Chicago. Reception: 5:30 p.m.; program: 6 p.m. Cost is $10 for young professional members, $20 for members and $30 for nonmembers. For more information and to register, visit www.thechicagocouncil.org.
sentencing of Burge
Conroy book
rumsfeld memoir
DePaul Professor’s Book Documents Torture Under the Bush Administration in its War on Terrorism
By institutionalizing torture in its “war on terrorism,” the United States under George W. Bush’s presidential administration lost moral ground and violated national and international law, said M. Cherif Bassiouni in his new book. An internationally known scholar, Bassiouni is president emeritus of the International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) in DePaul University’s College of Law.
Titled “The Institutionalization of Torture by the Bush Administration: Is Anyone Responsible?” (September 2010, Intersentia), Bassiouni’s book outlines how the U.S. engaged in a seven-year program of torture involving an estimated 200,000 people and resulting in more than 100 deaths, under the guise of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.
“Are the events of Sept. 11, 2001 enough to reopen the question of whether the medieval practice of torture should be allowed? The answer to [this] question must be a resounding and unqualified ‘no,'” Bassiouni wrote in his foreword. “The nation needs to know why relatively few did so much harm to so many victims, because a handful at the top made it happen.”
In the book, Bassiouni analyzes how U.S. governmental institutions bypassed international law to enable the creation of a policy that allowed torture.
“History teaches us that abusive regimes always start on a slippery slope, with one erosion of the rule of law leading to another, and during that process, the general public accepts these erosions out of fear, indifference, or callousness,” Bassiouni said. “When that happens, the nation’s moral compass no longer points to the right direction, and the right path is lost.”
Bassiouni, a noted international human rights law scholar, founded the IHRLI at DePaul in 1990. Since its creation, the IHRLI has been at the forefront of contemporary human rights research, training and advocacy. President of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Syracuse, Italy, and honorary president of the International Association of Penal Law in Paris, France, Bassiouni is known globally for his extensive work in international human rights law and human rights advocacy.
Bassiouni was co-chair of the Committee of Experts that prepared the first draft of the 1984 Convention Against Torture (1977-1978); and member, then chairman, of the Security Council’s Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1994). He was an independent expert for the Commission on Human Rights on The Rights to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Grave Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1998-2000), and the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006. In the former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan, Bassiouni had firsthand experience in recording many cases of arbitrary arrest and detention of innocent persons, rape, and torture.
Upcoming programs that Bassiouni will participate in include the following:
Editor’s note: To interview Bassiouni about this book, contact Judith Wolford at (312) 362-5922 or jwolfor1@depaul.edu. For more information about the book, visit http://www.intersentia.com/searchDetail.aspx?bookId=101412.

Posted on February 4, 2011