EXTRA! EXTRA!: Mr. Phawker Goes To Washington

  DAILY NEWS: We’re surprised he cleared Secret Service security, but Phawker.com editor Jonathan Valania was at the White House on Friday interviewing President Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, about his love of indie-rock veterans Guided By Voices. The interview is to appear in the October issue of Magnet. Like the local music magazine, which had been on hiatus, Guided By Voices is also back, after more than five years apart, and plays the Trocadero (1003 Arch) on July 6. Carney revealed his affinity for the Ohio-based Robert Pollard and his GBV cohorts last year. The interview was rescheduled a […]

THE AMERICAN GULAG: McClatchy Publishes Hard-Hitting Overview Of Gitmo, Who’s There, How They Got There, And Why Most Shouldn’t Be

BY TOM LASSETER OF MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens and perhaps hundreds of men whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments. McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees along with a number of local officials, primarily in Afghanistan, and reviewed available U.S. military tribunal documents and other records. Most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals, the McClatchy investigation found. At least seven […]