In his foreword to Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death, author Jim Frederick, contributing editor of Time magazine, describes being riveted in June, 2006, by a pair of news items. The first noted that two members of a U.S. Army platoon had been the...

Doris "Granny D." Haddock was a treasured friend and guiding spirit who walked 3400 miles at age 90 to rouse the nation against the corporate buy-out of U.S. government. My daughter Laura, then 19, had heard Granny say over dinner at our house in Louisville that Granny -- fearless to...

On September 12, a federal census-taker, Bill Sparkman, was found nude, dead and tied by his neck to a tree in someone else's family cemetery in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Kentucky, with his empty truck nearby. Binding him with duct tape and gagging him, a person or persons had...

A rebellion against the pharmaceutical mega-corporations, which charge Americans more for drugs than they charge the citizens of most other countries for the same medications, bubbled up 9/22/2009 in Senator Max Baucus' crucial Senate Finance Committee.

An amendment offered by Senator Bill Nelson [D-FL] would reportedly lower the health...

Just before Congress went back to work after the August recess, a rawboned man waved a sign, "A Sure Option -- Capitolism!" That was either a simple misspelling or an inspired pun, a shorthand expression for the crisis. U.S. federal political corruption has become a cheap, safe investment with an...

Tall, tanned, white-haired, U.S. Congressional Representative Baron Hill (D-IN) at his August 31, 2009 town hall meeting at Indiana University Southeast (IUS), New Albany, said to the crowd, "I would rather go to the dentist than be here."

"At least he's telling the truth on that score," muttered a man...

Representative Baron Hill [D-IN] at his August 31, 2009 town hall meeting in New Albany, Indiana, said to the crowd, "I would rather go to the dentist than be here."

"At least he's telling the truth on that score," muttered a man in the meeting.

Indiana, a rectangular state...

Originally Reported for Women's Media Center.

Former U.S. Army 101st Airborne Private 1st Class Steven Green of Midland, Texas, 24, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by the first civilian jury in U.S. history to try a soldier for acts committed during military service. Many...

First Published by Gail McGowan Mellor for The Women's Media Center.

Four U.S. soldiers have been tried and convicted in military court for the March 12, 2006 assault and murder of Abeer al-Janabi and her family. Now, in the federal court trial of the last man accused, former...

As the jury deliberates in federal court in Paducah, Kentucky, the spotlight is on defendant ex-U.S. Army Private Steven Green, but that leaves the other four soldiers involved in his crime in the shadows. The four are serving time, with quite long sentences in three instances -- 110 years [Pvt....

The story below was my first take on a complex case. For a comprehensive updated story of the atrocity check Part I.
Part II covers the trial outcome and the officers who got away.

Former U.S. Army Private First Class Steven Dale Green waits at the...

In the heavily African American area of well-kept middle class houses next to Shawnee Park, in Louisville, Kentucky, people across from the polls at Christ Temple Christian were awakened at six .a.m. by the sound of two hundred car doors slamming all at once as the polls opened. Voters--many of...

A U.S. research chemist living in Switzerland says that Americans living abroad [expatriates or "expats"] face "double taxation without representation."

Six million eligible U.S. voters--a group equal to the population of Washington State--live overseas. Many are on a military or corporate rotation but some have been away for decades....

As Sarah Palin spoke in Jeffersonville, Indiana, during the last week of the 2008 election, she made a rousing speech, cheered by the crowd at almost every line, but tight campaign control and poor reporting are making a potentially dangerous situation worse.

To a degree remarkable even in these...

Red and blue state Obama supporters are putting their weight on the see-saw state of Indiana, crossing state lines to help. Political tourists from other countries are there watching.

Meanwhile, the people of Indiana are deciding.

Kenneth Paton, his missing teeth perhaps showing one thing that a lack of...

Voters on November 4, 2008, will be genuine Deciders, using the election not only to select a president but to clean house--to clear a path by getting the corrupt old political machines out of the way. By getting rid of people who have been in Congress far too long and...

No one has gained more from the new net-based political organizing than presidential candidate Barack Obama. Yet in states like Kentucky, where web savvy is not widespread, the Obama campaign's apparent failure to link with Democratic Party operatives and to give supporters off-line ways to contact him and each other...