For all of the lurid propaganda about Islamo-fascism, you'd think these guys would at least know a little about Islam... From the Nov. 2 editorial page of the conservative Washington Times, link added:

What they don't know is frightening
How alarmed should Americans be upon learning that one of the nation's highest-ranking FBI counterterrorism policy-makers and two members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, among numerous other unnamed officials, possess shallow knowledge about terrorist groups that have slaughtered Americans in the past, are killing our soldiers in the war on terror today and threaten to obliterate us in the future?

In this Nov. 8 commentary for Truthout, Jason Leopold saves some salient facts about the incoming Defense Secretary from the Orwellian Memory Hole. It seems that like the outgoing Rumsfeld, he was instrumental in building US intelligence and military links with the Saddam Hussein dictatorship in the 1980s. Life's little ironices. However, we are not as optimistic as Leopold that these facts "are bound to come up again." We can only hope...:

From Mexico's El Universal, Nov. 7 via Chiapas95:

GENEVA - The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), embroiled in a conflict with the Attorney General's Office (PGR), will present a report before the UN human rights officials on Wednesday saying that torture in Mexico has increased 300 percent during the current administration.

From the AP, Nov. 7:

Hundreds protest border fence in Mexico

CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico -- The mayor of a Mexican city on the Texas border led about 400 people on a 55-mile march Tuesday to protest U.S. plans for new border fence.

Under the slogan "the struggle of Oaxaca is the struggle of Puebla," representatives of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) met with local activists in the capital of neighboring Puebla state Nov. 3. Leaders of the Frente Civico Poblano (Pueblan Civic Front), the Movimiento Cholulteca Unido (United Cholutecan Movement), the Asociacion de Comerciantes 28 de Octubre (October 28 Merchants Association) and other groups pledged to join under the umbrella of a "Popular Assembly of the State of Puebla," to unite social, labor and human rights struggles in their own state. They said the new organization would have up to 40,000 members from its inception. The participating groups have been holding large demonstrations in solidarity with Oaxaca over the past weeks. (APRO, Nov. 3 via Chiapas95)

From Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 3 via Chiapas95:

While noting that two of Indymedia cameraman Brad Will's alleged killers were arrested and taken before a judge yesterday in Oaxaca, Reporters Without Borders today condemned the shortcomings in the investigation into his fatal shooting and the fact that three others allegedly involved have been able to escape.

Oaxaca's beseiged Gov. Ulises Ruiz continues to resist calls for his resignation from all three of Mexico's major political parties. He insisted Nov. 4 that the conflict in his state affects only "one avenue in one of 570 municipalities." (La Jornada, Nov. 4) "No conditions exist in which I would resign," he told another reporter from the governor's mansion in Santa Maria Coyotepec, just outside Oaxaca City, where he returned from an exile of several weeks in the naitonal capital after federal police were sent in last weekend. (El Universal, Nov. 4)

Tens of thousands of protesters from across Mexico have gathered in Oaxaca City Nov. 5 to defy federal police control of the streets in what organizers are calling a "mega-march." Cars and buses from throughout the country arrived at Oaxaca‘s state university, which is controlled by protesters and is serving as a staging ground. Soldiers searched cars for weapons as they arrived on the outskirts of the city, and federal police unrolled razor wire in the city center. But under Mexican law the police cannot enter the university campus without the permission of the rector. Oaxaca rector Francisco Martinez has said police are not welcome.