Yes I know, the Sanford affair has been covered ad nauseam by the U.S. media. As a translator for Watching America, I have been scanning the Latin press for any spicy articles on the subject. Surprisingly—except for the initial flurry of rather factual articles—the Spanish and Latin press have been quite sedate about the entire episode. In a piece about a week ago, I posted a few links to some of those initial articles—articles with headlines such as “Governor Sanford had not...

An Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times by John P. Hannah, who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security advisor from 2005-2009, got my attention and my dander up. On the eve of U.S. troops leaving Iraqi cities in accordance with a formal U.S.-Iraq agreement, Hannah seems to lament–almost as much as his ex-boss does–the implementation of the very agreement, and timeline, on U.S. troop withdrawals negotiated and agreed upon by President Bush and, I...

(UPDATE: Republican Norm Coleman has now officially conceded in the hotly contested and litigious battle for Minnesota’s Senate seat.) As an ex-mathematician, I like digits, numbers. While statistics can be made to lie, I don’t believe pure numbers do, except when manipulated by Rush Limbaugh, as in the recent Supreme Court decision involving Sotomayor. Numbers haven’t lied in the case of the Franken-Coleman election battle. (UPDATE: Norm Coleman has now conceded.) On a 5-0 vote...

The Washington Post has just reported that the Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s long-running Senate race, and rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, “whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.” However, “Coleman hasn’t ruled out seeking federal court intervention.”

The day marking the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities and towns has been declared a national holiday, and Iraqis are celebrating. Of course everyone is hoping that the pullback and the eventual withdrawal of all 130,000 U.S. troops from Iraq will not lead to more violence, or worse. Sadly, The New York Times already reports: As if on cue, a car bomb exploded in a crowded outdoor market in the northern city of Kirkuk late Tuesday, killing at least 24 people, in a deadly reminder that the...

If all goes according to plan and schedule, by this time tomorrow night, most of the 130,000 American troops in Iraq should have safely withdrawn from Iraqi towns and cities to military operating bases, where they will be on call to provide support if and when needed. The American pullback was agreed upon as part of a security accord—a Status of Forces Agreement—negotiated and agreed to last year by the Bush administration. Under the Status of Forces Agreement, U.S. commanders must...

The New York Times has just reported that a federal judge sentenced Bernard L. Madoff to 150 years in prison for operating a huge Ponzi scheme that devastated thousands of people, calling his crimes “extraordinarily evil.” Apparently, Mr. Madoff finally expressed some regret before a courtroom packed with victims: I’m responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that…I live in a tormented state now, knowing all of the pain and suffering that I’ve created....

According to Wikipedia, a political party platform is “a list of the actions which a political party supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said party’s candidates voted into office…Individual topics are often called planks of the platform.” During the past five national elections, Republican Party leaders, candidates and politicians have made “traditional values,” including family, moral and religious values, key structural planks...

As I have written before, unbelievably good common sense and wisdom can be found in many of the letters written daily by regular Americans to the editors of their newspapers. In a book about and dedicated to Letters to the Editor*, the authors make this comment: Again and again, we found citizens speaking freely and from their hearts, recording a personal yet public diary of our community…Here was a marvelous sense of humor, there a deep need to set the record straight. And under it all was a...

Of course, the Spanish/Latin American press and web are full of stories on the “Yankee Governor” who instead of hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, was having an affair way down South, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There are literally scores of articles describing the scandal in varying levels of detail. Here are some of the headlines and links to some of those articles (All are translations from Spanish): abc.es reports: “Governor Sanford had not disappeared. Instead, he was with...

We have all seen the chilling video of the 27-year-old Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltani, dying in the streets of Tehran. In his press conference a few minutes ago, President Obama mentioned the “searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets [in Tehran]” He also mentioned how “powerful images and pointed words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers…” We know that the video of Neda dying in front of our eyes was captured on a cell phone...

First, my usual disclosures. I voted for Obama. I like Salon’s Joan Walsh. I especially liked the cool, calm, collected, and informed way she recently debated—whenever she wasn’t rudely interrupted—a boorish, fuming, huffing and puffing, uninformed O’Reilly on Dr. Tiller’s murder and on O’Reilly’s previous ranting on this subject—prior to the murder. I also like the way she has been supporting both the brave people in Iran who are protesting...

I don’t tweet, nor do I know much about Twitting. At my age, when I can’t even “Blackberry,” or “iPhone”, or “iPod,” or even “iPod-Touch,” (or whatever the name is of the latest gadget that my 9-year-old grandson so masterfully “operates”), why should I venture into even more iNcomprehensible technological territory. So, a couple of weeks ago, when Time Magazine’s cover story was all about Twitter and “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live,” for the first...

We have all heard by now of the allegations of massive fraud in the counting and reporting of the recent election results in Iran. There is telltale “suggestive evidence” that tends to confirm such allegations: * The unrealistically high votes for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in urban areas, including Tehran and Tabriz where he is not very popular. * The surprisingly poor performance by opposition candidates in their own home cities and provinces. * The “eyebrow-raising”...

This morning I wrote on the latest so-called “ruling” by a Brazilian judge on the five-year long battle by New Jersey dad David Goldman for custody of his son, Sean, who is being held in Brazil against every international rule and convention. In the “ruling,” the Brazilian judge said that David Goldman should have custody of his son. However, there are some big, ridiculous “ropes” attached: David Goldman can “have custody” of his son for only six days a week,...

The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad has snatched an unprecedented interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s right-hand man and head of Ahmadinejad’s reelection committee, Mojataba Samareh Hashemi. According to the Handelsblad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Samareh Hashemi have been friends since childhood, and analysts say Samareh Hashemi has great influence on the president. In the interview, Samareh Hashemi says that it is unthinkable that last week’s election result...

Both NJ.com and MSNBC report on a startling development in the tragic battle by an American father to regain custody of his son who was kidnapped to Brazil five years ago. A Brazilian judge has ruled that David Goldman should have custody of his son. However, there is just one big, ridiculous catch: David Goldman can “have custody” of his son for only six days a week, from Monday 9 AM until Saturday 8 PM, and…in Brazil. This arrangement is supposed to be in effect until a ruling...

On long international flights, after I have exhausted my regular reading material, I sometimes resort to reading my U.S. passport. I have one of those “old” passports, the ones without the “sensitive electronics,” but also without much interesting reading material. Thus, I have by now pretty much memorized the gallant laissez-passer admonishment by our State Department: The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national...

First, it was Frank Rich. In a recent New York Times column, “Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack?”, in which Rich rightly condemns Cheney’s ongoing attempts to once again “using lies and fear… rewrite history and escape accountability for the failed Bush presidency…”, he also bemoans the incessant and groundless Republican attacks that the Obama administration is making our country “less safe,” that Obama’s “half measures” are leaving Americans “half exposed,” that Obama...

Springtime is time for graduations and, of course, for those rousing and sometimes not-so-rousing commencement addresses. It is the time when presidents and vice presidents are invited—and sometimes disinvited—to congratulate, praise, motivate and encourage the new graduates as they go into the “real world.” This spring, that “real world,” with our economy in a full-throated recession and unemployment at record high levels, has been particularly depressing and uninviting for...

For the sake of full disclosure: Am I a Democrat? Guilty! Do I like Joan Walsh? Guilty, Guilty! Do I dislike Bill O’Reilly? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty! Since I stopped watching “The O’Reilly Factor” a long time ago, I did not watch last night’s Bill O’Reilly’s so-called interview with Joan Walsh. The subject was Dr. George Tiller and late-term abortion. In an article on Salon.com, titled “Why I went on ‘The O’Reilly Factor,’”...

Auschwitz, the Gulag Archipelago, the Killing Fields of Cambodia. These are names that immediately evoke images of some of the most horrific acts of cruelty and inhumanity. In their new book, Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman take us to yet another place and another time when men and women “suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of starvation, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, torture, murder, and journeys on ‘hell ships’ to the enemy’s...

According to the Associated Press, Brazil’s Supreme Court, yesterday, in a 10-0 decision ruled that 9-year-old Sean Goldman should be reunited with his father, thereby turning back the efforts by Brazil’s Progressive Party to overturn a similar ruling by a lower federal court. An obviously delighted, but still cautious, David Goldman appeared this morning on NBC’s Today Show and talked about the Court’s decision. Goldman said that even the Supreme Court had commented that...

To thunderous applause, Mr. Newt Gingrich said the following during his speech at the recent Republican fundraiser dinner in Washington: Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous. Many political observers claim that Mr. Gingrich’s remarks were a clear slap at President Obama, including at Obama’s remarks during his July 2008 speech in Berlin, Germany: I speak today as both a citizen of the United States...

I have always believed that, whether dealing with local community issues or with issues of national import, much common sense and wisdom can be found in many of the letters written daily by regular Americans to the editors of their newspapers. In a book dedicated to Letters to the Editor*, the authors make this comment: As we leafed through thousands of letters, we sensed we were on to something. Sure, there were plenty of the angry diatribes and political screeds…but there was also something...