Last Friday (Mar. 10), I talked about the more than 8,700 classified CIA documents released by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, whose stated mission “…is to bring important news and information to the public.” On March 9, The New York Times reported that Assange “…fresh from revealing the largest leak of classified documents in CIA history… tried to turn the table...

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks, the Julian Assange-created so-called “whistle-blower” site, released more than 8,700 classified documents and files, known as “zero day” – detailing all manner of cyber tools used by the CIA to gather information on “bad actors” (individual(s) with the intent on doing serious harm) outside the U.S. It is one of the worst thefts to occur since Edward...

On May 1, 1969, Fred Rogers – the venerable host of the Public Broadcasting Service show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications which had jurisdiction over television and radio. At the time, PBS received $20 million. However, due to the demands of the Vietnam War, President Nixon was looking to cut the funding in...

Like the many millions around the world who tuned in to watch the Oscar telecast (Feb. 26), I was stunned by the final piece of drama that played out on stage. By now, most everyone knows what happened when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presented the award for Best Picture. The audience was squirming in their seats waiting for Beatty...

No, this is not about the Academy Award-winning musical that takes place in a fabled land where fanciful dancers prance on a stalled Los Angeles freeway off-ramp. This is about a real place that’s becoming less articulate as the weeks pass, where fanciful “facts” are fabricated for the woefully and willfully ignorant. If the Trump presidency were a Hollywood movie,...

In an unprecedented move, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer last Friday, barred “journalists from the New York Times, CNN, Politico and BuzzFeed—which have been criticized by President Donald Trump and his administration for their reporting—from [an off-camera press briefing]. Reporters from the Associated Press and Time Magazine boycotted the event in protest,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Feb. 24)....

Milo Yiannopoulos is an obnoxious, loud-mouthed, hate-spewing – now, former editor of Breitbart “News” (quotations added because the organization is known to publish falsehoods and conspiracy theories, as well as intentionally misleading stories). In love with the First Amendment, Yiannopoulos firmly believes that his right to free speech trumps… anything else (well, almost), and that’s one reason why HBO comedian...

While news stories about extremism and terrorism abound — infiltration, online radicalization, lone wolf attacks, etc. — these are symptoms. The real question is, how do we address the disease of terrorism itself? The answer to that question has seen little public attention. In his book, The Great War of Our Time, former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell...

Over the last several years, I have usually talked about Lincoln on Presidents’ Day. So, here’s to little equal time to our nation’s first president, George Washington. It’s interesting to note that unlike others running for office, Washington never went looking for the job. In fact, in August 1788, he was quite content in the role of retired gentleman farmer...

It’s getting harder and harder to keep politicians accountable, particularly when it comes to financial contributions. That’s where Montana Senator Jon Tester’s plan comes in. In a story researched and written by the Center for Public Integrity – a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, DC – earlier this month (Feb. 2), “Tester’s legislation… would require US Senate candidates...