Although it is still not backing off from efforts to vilify the courageous men and women who have undertaken representation of the so-called “worst of the worst” now held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (around half of whom have already been released, and over 80 of the 380 or so left have been declared completely innocent by the military itself, and only ten of whom have ever been charged with anything)… the Justice Department withdrew its demands to limit attorneys to three visits with their clients. In some sense, I take this as a personal affront, on any number of levels....

Dick Cheney seems to be making up for what some might argue was a lack of personal courage in his younger days when he had “other priorities” than serving in his nation’s war in Vietnam (by obtaining five deferments, some in legendary fashion). Cheney tops his trip to Afghanistan earlier this year (in which Bagram Airbase was attacked while he was there) with a trip to Baghdad (the U.S. Embassy was attacked while he was there). Interestingly, while his second was off in Iraq, risking death either from insurgent attacks or from his own ticker giving out during insurgent attacks,...

Happy birthday to TD Dad, who turns three score and ten today. And happy birthday to TD-Niece IV, who turns two days old today.

Such is the famous response of former SecDef Rumsfeld when pressed by a deployed soldier about why he and so many like him were supplied with inadequate body and vehicle armor, resulting in countless avoidable combat deaths and injuries. It seems that besides a cavalier attitude toward adequately equipping troops in the field (as opposed to lining the pockets of Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, et al.), the former SecDef’s cavalier attitude toward treating local populaces with dignity and respect and with humanely treating those captured has, in turn, also filtered down to the troops, with some pretty alarming survey results as...

Paris Hilton, that is, who takes back the headlines with a 45-day jail sentence for violating the terms of her probation for wreckless driving.

Many of you know that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing matters of American detention policy with an emphasis on the tropical resort we have consigned our military to run at the Eastern tip of Cuba; I do this because that particular facility, from an information standpoint, is relatively accessible. The guests of that resort have attorneys who have e-mail addresses and phone numbers and are sometimes willing to talk to me; some former soldiers have written books, and journalists have visited from time to time. Regular readers are well aware that the United States also...

I’m kind of disappointed by the mealy-mouthed comments coming from Democratic leaders prior to what was inevitable, to wit, the President vetoed the Iraq war funding bill that contained time-tables for troop withdrawals. E-mails I keep getting from John Edwards suggest that the Democrats continue to send the President the same bill, until he signs it. My view is that the Democrats should now move on to their legislative priorities, minimum wage increases, expanding health insurance to the working poor and all children, restoring low income housing subsidies cut by the President’s mean-spiritedness, combatting global warming, and… you know. An...

That would be the Bush Administration’s protecting us from foreign threats of aid, offered after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to this account from WaPo. The offered aid appears in the range of just under a billion dollars; total Katrina clean-up and recovery is at $125 billion and counting, and quite frankly, much remains to be done. It’s not as if the foreign aid could have completely alleviated suffering of Americans– but it sure as hell could have helped alleviate some of it, especially if the Bush Administration permitted its timely delivery. But, of course, there are people in this...

Coming the same day a leading international aid official abruptly resigned over allegations concerning his generous use of an escort service (and while Paul Wolfowitz continues to hang on at World Bank despite findings of an ethics breach amidst allegations of favoritism for the benefit of his Tunisian-Saudi girlfriend… and Alberto Gonzales hangs on despite being a freakishly scary incompetent crony yes-man) we see that the Christianist soldier-bots have infiltrated yet something else close to home, the once-proud Attorney General’s Honors Program where many attorneys (including, btw, m’self) start their careers with the United States Department of Justice, which, according...

In its own version of “asymmetrical warfare”, the Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to limit lawyers’ access to Guantanamo detainees as part of its ongoing efforts to restore GTMO’s status as “America’s Legal Black Hole”. Even as “the terrorists” down there are so dangerous that the only one even charged was sentenced to a draconian nine months in an Australian jail, and half of “the worst of the worst” have just been released without charge or trial… those left must be treated more severely, in order to justify having held them for no reason in the first...