in 1999 when I interviewed anti-drug-war warrior Ethan Nadelmann for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he was optimistic about reforming America’s hideous drug laws when he really had no right to be. In 2009 when I interviewed Nadelmann about America’s war on drugs and the prospects of the government losing it, things were looking rosier for the…

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We’re still hoping/praying for a rave review of 30 Days a Black Man from The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Or a nice Sunday Morning segment from CBS. Until then, let’s go way back to Feb. 14, in mid-Black History Month, when Smithsonian.com ran a long and thoughtful article about my book…

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Supposedly smart people over the age of 11 who have never heard of the failures of the FCC, the FDA, the old ICC, the CAA, the federal ETC, ETC, are running around the USA calling for things like a total government takeover of health care. Others equally naive and historically challenged on the subjects of…

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Ray Sprigle was undeniably Pittsburgh’s greatest newspaperman. He worked for more than four decades for the Post-Gazette as an editor and reporter, winning a Pulitzer in 1938 for having exposed Supreme Court Justice Hugo Blacks ties to the KKK. A great reporter, a prolific, passionate and authoritative writer, he undertook a handful of undercover investigations…

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Chris Hayes of MSNBC and I don’t overlap much when it comes to politics, and his book sales are far higher than mine. But our race-centric works of nonfiction are bumping against each other trying to attract eyeballs in the sidewalk display window of Bradleys’ Books in the Strip District. Hayes’ premise in A Colony…

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