Candace tells us that Judge John Bates did our Constitution a huge solid today by ruling that three Bagram detainees who were moved there from outside of Afghanistan could challenge the legality of their detention in American courts, citing the Supreme Court’s rulings that the U.S. government cannot evade the Constitution by moving prisoners to locations it claims are beyond law. Judge Bates has made a number of rulings with respect to Candace’s client al-Ghizzawi with which we have disagreed… but today, he deserves all of our props for a courageous ruling that means that the concept of zones of...

Richard Bruce Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States of America until January 20th of this year, having previously served as a member of Congress, Secretary of Defense and White House Chief of Staff. On April 1, 2009, I had the privilege of interviewing Vice President Cheney by telephone, from an undisclosed location; what follows are my interview notes. The Talking Dog: Mr. Vice President, let me thank you for doing this interview; as you know, I have not always agreed with policies you and President Bush put in place, so let me commend you on...

The good news is that the Obama Administration has doubled the number of GTMO detainees it has released as a result of its executive review process. The bad news is that it has doubled that number… to two, with the release of a Yemeni orthopedist, Ayman Batarfi. Dr. Batarfi fell into that category of those swept up who were guilty of “being in Afghanistan while Arab,” a category that was far more likely to pick up aid workers than actual jihadists. Apparently, after seven years, the government has concluded that Batarfi… was an aid worker. The pace will have to...

George Clarke is a member of the law firm of Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C., specializing in tax law and related matters. For the past four years, he has represented two Chinese (Uighur) and two Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, two of whom have been determined to be “not enemy combatants” (or whatever nomenclature will replace that term) and one of whom has been “cleared for transfer or release” (two years ago and is still sitting in Guantamano) . On March 26, 2009, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Clarke in New York. What follows are my interview...

I’m tempted to just say “what Krugman said,” and leave it at that. What he said is that just a generation or two ago in the not so boring 1960’s, the boring banking and insurance sectors combined sucked out a seemingly reasonable 4% of American GDP for their services of greasing the wheels of capitalism, in a time of real growth at a pace never seen before or since. Fast forward to current times, and Professor Krugman notes, those sectors alone suck out a princely 8% of GDP… we won’t even talk about immense fees paid to mutual funds, pension...

It seems that the Obama Administration is hellbent on continuing the abuse of the “state secrets” privilege that the Bush Administration first abused to try to kill off embarrassing law suits; such is the saga of a case involving an Oregon Islamic charity pending in San Francisco. Obviously, this is not exactly “news”… but it’s still disappointing.

Ah, basking in the glow of a sleepy Sunday morning (made all the more sleepy after this morning’s surprisingly difficult Colon Cancer 15K in Central Park, caused by a cold morning and a late start which combined for an early breathing problem… ending in a rare “negative split” of finishing the second half faster than the first half… on this blog, it’s always about me, people…) And so… where to begin… why not with our friend (and interview subject) Terry Holdbrooks, and his big interview in Newsweek? And since we’re on the subject of how America treats its guests held...

This would be two seemingly disparate, but not that disparate at all, pieces in major magazines, the first a Newsweek article about Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, the second a Forbes column by NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini, currently the “it economist” because of his long-time moniker based on his forecasts of economic pessimism”Dr. Doom’… which, alas, has seemingly finally come to fruition. In the Newsweek piece, Col. Wilkerson tells us that there are at most two dozen or so actual terrorists at GTMO, including the 14 so-called “high-value” terrorists; rather than mince words, Col. Wilkerson...

The tragic death of stage and screen actress Natasha Richardson, at age 45, wife and mother of two, after what seemed a minor fall during a skiing lesson, comes as a reminder to us all that not a single one of us is guaranteed anything… anything… including that we, or anyone or anything else, will be here in an hour, let alone a day, a week, a year, a decade… Ms. Richardson certainly enjoyed a full and rich life, which in the end, is all any of us can really aspire to, even if, sadly in her case, it was...

The last time I saw this kind of a coordinated propaganda assault was, dare I say it, during the run-up to the Iraq War. And now, alas, it’s “my side,” led by my college classmate, The President, who rails against the current enemy the State, Emmanuel Goldstein… no wait… I mean… those greedy bastards at AIG’s credit default group who are getting hundreds of millions in bonuses that the President wants back. The thing is, of course, that just as then Senator Obama railed against a $150,000 junket taken by AIG executives during the debates against Senator McCain, this is...