I was most saddened when Candace told me that Charles Gittings passed away at the extremely untimely age of 57. Charly (whom I interviewed here) epitomized the concept of “citizen activist.”. Charly’s Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions was a kind of one-man-show. It served as both an archive of the misdeeds of those of in power and a back-drop for Charly’s one of a kind advocacy. Despite not having legal training, he submitted a number of amicus curae briefs in major “war on terror” cases that were so brilliant that they downright sung. I can only wish we saw...

Andy writes to advise that he has updated both his definitive Guantanamo prisoner’s list and an index to his archives. For those of us interested in the specifics of the nuts and bolts of America’s little foray into The Dark Side If You Will (TM), Andy’s painstaking work has been utterly indispensable. One does hope that Andy’s work will be a key resource for the time when this nation’s quite irrational obsession with “terrrrorism” will be seen with the same clear-eyed regret with which we now look back on similar hysterics of the past, such as the post-World War I...

The old Thomas Nast cartoons depict political elephants against political donkeys. The reality these days is more jackals vs. pussiespussy cats. Not that I any longer think it makes much difference (if any), but does anyone out there think that in such a contest, the jackals are going to lose to the pussiespussy cats? Me neither. Update: The Obama Administration seems to agree.

Item the first: while Clarence Thomas has been one of the most reliable Republican conservative apparatchiks in history, serving as a complete and polar opposite number to the man he replaced, the activist ground-breaking first Black justice, the legendary Thurgood Marshall, this is still the United States of America, and he, and his relatives are still Black. And hence, when his epileptic nephew Derek Thomas got all uppity and suggested he would leave the hospital rather than do what he was told and assume the position in his hospital gown (or was he just being, you know, epileptic?), he got...

Our friend Roy Edroso identifies the latest brilliant and on-point observation as set forth in the pages of the Grey Lady, to wit, wait for it, certain rich kids don’t want to take standard issue entry level corporate jobs that they feel are beneath them, Roy gives a most excellent meta-analysis of why he thinks The New York Times is behaving in this seemingly clueless way of presenting the “plight” of a most unrepresentative comparator for purposes of assessing just how bad the job market is right now for so many millions of people, to wit, a recent elite college...

I have no idea why I’m so amused by the reports of now 4-time champion Joey Chestnut downing 54 Nathans hot dogs in ten minutes to win the annual hot dog eating contest at Coney Island yet again, other than it takes place in Brooklyn every year, and is an amusing slice of Americana. Of course, it was also amusing that the prior champion (Mr. Kobiyashi of Japan, a six time winner), managed to get himself arrested for trying to crash the proceedings (there seems to be some contractual limitation on his competing himself… for whatever reason, he won’t sign...

That of course, sums up the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings pertaining to the confirmation of Elena Kagan, currently Solicitor General of the United States, to the position of Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. I have listened to portions of the question and answer session on the radio, and heard hints of the current Republican challenge-point, to wit, the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom Ms. Kagan served as a law clerk in the 1980’s, was “too Black activist.” Ms. Kagan’s observations in the 1990’s that these kinds of hearings featured inane questions and evasive, if any, “answers”...

Charlie Savage, who is one of the heroes of American journalism, tells us in the pages of the Grey Lady that, wait for it, closing Guantanamo is no longer one of the Obama Administration’s priorities. Savage, who, like a few others (Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy comes to mind,,, as do… well, my friend Andy Worthington and.,. me) has been on top of this story for years, and “the story” is not merely some backwater island prison somewhere, but an entire seachange in American attitude and acceptance of arbitrary totalitarian behavior by American governments (now of both parties), as long as...

In a move that I believe unprecedented in a Guantanamo habeas case, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia recused himself from further proceedings in the case of Candace’s client, Razak Ali. Although it has been reported that the sole basis for recusal was Judge Lamberth’s public comments both in a bar association breakfast and in an interview with “Pro Publica” to the effect that federal judges hearing Guantanamo detainee habeas cases might have trepidations and be concerned that the people they might order the Government to release might just go on...

I guess the President regards his first primetime Oval Office address to the nation as his way of showing he means to “kick someone’s ass,” presumably the British Petroieum BP Corporation, whom he tells us will “soon” be containing around 90% of the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico (although, of course, there might be a bit more oil leaking out than heretofore thought,.. just a little), Oh, and BP will be placing large sums of money necessary to pay damage claims in a lockbox an independently administered escrow account, and the barndoor will be shut the Minerals Management...