Because… after an almost inconceivable thirty month blog hiatus, one of the most original blogs in the sphere (and, btw, one of the all-time TD faves) Granny Rant… is… back! Granny comes to us from her undisclosed location somewhere in rural Tennessee… and Granny treats us to a wake-up call to consciousness… Whether railing on matters of science, religion, politics, or the infinite variety of (only seemingly crackpot) conspiracy theories, from our seemingly almost “done deal” North American Union to chemtrails to Area 51… Gran is on a rant… and Gran is on it, and putting it in the context...

The title is about the mirth and merriment coming out of Guantanamo today pertaining to Canadian national Omar Khadr (the beaver being, IIRC, the national animal of Canada). This blog was really never intended to go “All Gitmo all the time”; indeed, there are better sources for that, notably the great Guantanamo Blog and Cage Prisoners, both of which I frequently consult myself. My interest is almost at a meta-level… what interests me almost as much as the subject itself is the [obscene] lack of interest in the subject on the part of most Americans, largely driven by a feckless...

Not much to add to what Julia, and Patrick, or especially what Kevin, and most of the known-liberal-blog-world has already had to say about the untimely loss of Steve Gilliard, who passed away at 41. Familia TD met Steve at a number of gatherings of the Sinister Barbecue Cabal. Steve was always a friendly guy, and knew his s***, whatever the subject at hand… and he was also a humble guy, who, despite the success he had with his blog, eschewed things like awards. I’m glad to see that his net was cast wide, and tributes to him have come...

Regular readers know all about our nation’s not-so-slow slide into the “dark side” (see, for instance, our interview with former Guantanamo (GTMO) Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, where he (more or less) confirms (albeit by qualifying that it is “his hunch”) that so-called “SERE” (“Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape”) training methods, i.e. abuses designed for our members of our military to prepare for the exigency of being captured by hostile forces, were used by members of our military against detainees at GTMO.) Well now… via Bruce the Veep and Andrew Sullivan, we give you this Time report confirming that the Pentagon,...

The mirth and merriment coming to us from the Super-Max Pleasure Palace we have created to satisfy our paranoia (and throw a few bucks to Kellog, Brown & Root) down Guantanamo-way continues… with this story that Canadian detainee Omar Khadr has decided to fire his American lawyers. While the story mentions Lt. Col. Colby Vokey (USMC) by name, we suspect the firing also includes Rick Wilson, who we interviewed here. There may be an issue that Khadr wants a Canadian lawyer… though who really knows? Our friend Candace also brings our attention to this piece (also in the Globe and...

So far, no flippant responses from the Defense or Justice Departments to the latest news that yet another GTMO detainee, this time a Saudi national, has managed to kill himself at our gulag beach resort at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Around this time last year, when three detainees killed themselves, GTMO commanding officer Rear Adm. Harris insisted that this was some kind of gesture of “asymmetrical warfare”.) While we do get the usual explanation of a detainee “found not responsive”, we get no details such as the name, or whether the detainee was one of those scheduled for release (because they’re...

WaPo reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee is releasing some details from key pre-Iraq-War intelligence assessments (performed at our taxpayer expense) which demonstrate that the Bush Administration was flat-out warned about a lot of the post-invasion consequences that have come to pass vis a vis an insurgency and post-invasion chaos; indeed, if the reports are glaringly wrong in anything, it was in their somewhat optimistic assessment that Iraq rebuilding could be well underway and hence the insurgency should be subsiding by now. Well, no plan is perfect, as they say. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo) is not incorrect by pointing out...

Thus sayeth Monica Goodling, during testimony before a House committee yesterday. She was referring to her service as a loyal Christianist soldier-bot, duly vetting out well-qualified applicants to the Department of Justice for such crimes as contributing to Democratic candidates, or not being bat-shit right-wing enough to satisfy her Pat Robertson-honed political (though clearly not legal) skills. She also appears to be trying to throw former Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul McNulty and Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson under the bus, by contending that they attended key meetings (along with Gonzales himself) discussing the U.S. Attorney firing scheme with the White House...

And so, handing the President a more or less complete victory in the inter-branch urinating contest associated with funding the Iraq war, it seems that the Democratic Congressional leaders have removed provisions for troop withdrawal from the new proposed Iraq war supplemental bill, retreating from what had been significant Congressional victories in holding together on a war funding . Well, well. Polling does show that a substantial majority of Americans oppose the Presidents handling of the Iraq war, and indeed, a substantial majority favor a troop reduction. But in practical terms, there really are only two choices with Iraq: (1)...

The Grey Lady gives us this discussion of former Deputy Attorney General (and U.S. Attorney in Manhattan) James Comey, notably Comey’s tendency to do things that bite the Bush Administration on the tushy, including appointing Patrick FitzGerald as special prosecutor, praising a group of fired U.S. Attorneys, and of late, testifying before the Sentate Judiciary Committee as to the extraordinarily poor taste shown by Andy Card and (yes!) Alberto “Abu” Gonzales, who showed up in a hospital intensive care unit to try to cajole then Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing off on a warrantless eavesdropping program that even Ashcroft...