Category Archives: Book reviews

Memoir recounts ordeal of candidate ‘canceled’ by media

Journalist who challenged 9/11 story smeared by B’nai Brith, blogger as anti-Semitic ‘conspiracy theorist’

July 21, 2024

By Barrie Zwicker

Canadian journalist and broadcaster Lesley Hughes compellingly describes her return from the dead in her 150-page memoir, The Dead Candidate’s Report.

The title of the book refers to the personal and professional nightmare she suffered when she was vilified then banished as the Liberal candidate in the Winnipeg, Manitoba, riding of Kildonan-St. Paul in the 2008 Canadian federal election. She shares indelible lessons she learned about the Canadian media—and media in general—of which she remains a part.

The first lesson was about the power of toxic bloggers, one of whom (an anonymous one) ambushed Hughes, slandering her as an anti-Israeli, Continue reading

Betrayed by the CIA: the framing, kidnapping, and imprisoning of an agent who just wanted out

J. Michael Springmann reviews the new book Eyes on Havana: Memoir of an American Spy Betrayed by the CIA by Verne Lyon for Truth and Shadows. McFarland (February 6, 2018), 227 pages.
February 14, 2018

By J. Michael Springmann (Special to Truth and Shadows)

If you want the truth, don’t go to the CIA, read Verne Lyon’s book. It is a reality check. It demonstrates how the United States government really works and how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, the Agency) is a totally out of control organization, accountable to no one and no thing.
Verne, whom I’ve known personally for many years, had his first contact with the CIA as a college student at Iowa State University in 1965. As part of Operation CHAOS, a massive surveillance program, Continue reading