The U.S. Supreme Court granted review in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a case brought by a detainee at Guantanimo Bay challenging the military tribunal process and other issues. As you will recall, this very blog interviewed Mr. Hamdan’s lead civilian counsel Neal Katyal, around a month ago. Professor Katyal was kind enough to respond to my request that he answer some follow-up questions, by noting that, at this point, he is telling all media sources, big dogs and talking dogs alike, that he has no comment at this time (a decision I certainly respect.) It looks like the case will be...

Your talking dog finished today’s ING New York City Marathon in a stunningly mediocre finishing time of 5 hours 40 something minutes… thus, reversing the effectiveness of last year’s strategy of running Washington, D.C.’s Marine Corps Marathon a week before… this year, evidently, I didn’t fully recover from the earlier marathon (perhaps driving back from it wasn’t the greatest of ideas…). Live and learn… we’ll have to consider this in planning next year’s mishugas. The City came out in its usual gigantic and enthusiastic numbers, Mrs. TD and the Loquacious Pup and Mr. Crabcakes were out on the course cheering,...

First, we’ll start with a quick trip to our comrades at Pravda, particularly our old buddy Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey who takes aim at our European friends (and not us stateside!), with this analysis of the riots in France with a broader eye at European behavior writ large. Next, I coin a new phrase over at The American Street (at least, I haven’t seen the phrase before); anyway, I’m shocked… shocked, I tell you… to hear that Halliburton not only overcharged the Iraqi people, but delivered them substandard work as well (“Your Halliburton dividend check, Sir? Thank you…”) The (current) President has...

That would be a bill that passed the senate on a more or less party line vote and purports to simultaneously cut medicare and medicaid funding as well as farm subsidies, while also permitting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, budget cuts estimated to run around $30 billion over the next few years, or $6 billion next year, or in any event, maybe 2% of the federal budget deficit, although coupled with the latest round of tax cuts for the rich ($70 billion), the measure will actually make the deficit still worse! The alleged fiscal conservative party, through...

Well, well. It seems we have an… embarassing situation. It seems that a key Al Qaeda player just kind of walked out of American custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Omar al-Faruq, purportedly an organizer of Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia and confidant of OBL himself, was captured in Indonesia, and rendered to us. Interestingly, Mr. Faruq’s disappearance (apparently, he picked a lock and slipped past an Afghan guard) has become an issue at a military trial in Texas of Sergeant Alan Driver on charges of abusing prisoners in Afghanistan (you will note that its always a sergeant; it...

The Grey Lady gives us this discussion of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a case where soon-to-be-Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. dissented in part in a case challenging various Pennsylvania state laws designed to reduce access to abortion. The part at issue, which reads like an audition to be this President’s nominee at this time, would require married women to notify their husbands to obtain an abortion… not encourage it, or suggest it… but require it, even in the case of abusive or criminally abusive husbands. A 6-3 Supreme Court held the other way in a decision by Chief...

Familia TD came down and rooted in the nation’s capitol, as we “ran” our second consecutive Marine Corps Marathon (the 30th edition of same, and in honor of the occasion, attended by 30,000 entrants, its largest field by far) in a time of… 5 minutes faster than last year! During our visit, we were delighted to dine with Familia Offering. This week-after-Fitzmas promises… a new Supreme Court nominee (as early as tomorrow). Let’s just say that the choice will be telling. Will the President go for another loyalist, or will he feel obliged to cave to the religious right (whose...

CNN is reporting that I[rve] Lewis “Scooter” Libby will be indicted later today, Rove stays “under investigation” and that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will make some kind of public announcement at a press conference at 2:00 p.m. EDT today. Talking dog senior legal analyst Mrs. TD had suggested that one possible strategy for Rove might be (rather than the childish name-calling he has already engaged in) to bait the prosecutor by daring him to indict… pointing out that any indictment would be based on nothing after years of investigation, slapped together at the last possible moment, and flimsy evidence. Your...

Pissed off at the Neanderthals who run the Kansas State Education apparatus, two leading national scientific and educational organizations have refused to grant the State of Kansas permission to use their copyright with respect to certain materials associated with the teaching of biology, a move expected to slow down, but not stop, Kansas’ asinine decision to teach fairy tales right next to actual science as part of some revisionist “scientific heresy critical studies thing” to satisfy certain religio-fascist extremists. Obviously, the Kansas State Board of Education has not yet been touched by His Noodly Appendage. Well, some sign of progress...

Harriet “Church Lady” Miers, the latest in government-by-crony nominations out of the Bush Administration, withdrew her nomination for Supreme Court Justice this morning. The bitter irony is that it’s only a matter of time before Bush, et al. manages to blame obstructionist Democrats, who, of course (alas) had nothing to do with the attacks on Miers’ nomination. Those concerned her lack of fire-breathing hard-ass right wing credentials (see “Bork, Robert”, rumored to be a possible replacement candidate himself… would that be sweet, in its own perverse way?), her lack of constitutional (or other relevant) experience, her close ties to the...