I just thought that would be a cool thing to say. Never mind.

One of the issues being hotly litigated in the ongoing Guantanamo habeas corpus cases is the definition of “enemy combatant;” the significance of this term, of course, is that only a properly classified “enemy combatant” may be held in military custody for the duration of “hostilities.” Interestingly, what you might think would matter is the military’s own definition of “enemy combatant,” from the Defense Department’s own Dictionary of Military Terms, to wit, “Any person in an armed conflict who could be properly detained under the laws and customs of war. Also called EC.” But no… instead, as Scotusblog reports here,...

Guantanamo detainee Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi successfully moved to dismiss his own habeas corpus proceeding, on the ground that he did not want to participate in the process that he believed is entirely a sham. My interview with his now former attorney Robert Rachlin is here. BTW… given the astounding results to date… after over seven years, exactly three detainees have been released pursuant to habeas corpus order (while around two dozen more have been ordered released at one time or another, but are still at GTMO… with still over 200 in the hopper…), Mr. Al-Sharbi may have a point. Al-Sharbi,...

O.K… five GTMO “high value detainees” including Ron Jeremy Khalid Sheik Mohammed have long tried to confess their role in planning the September 11th attacks, as they did once again in a joint five-way document submitted to the now halted military commissions supposedly trying them for their terrorist acts. And of course, regular readers know that the horrifically inhumane conditions at GTMO include extreme isolation where, other than the occasional gloved hand of a guard, the prisoners have no human contact at all. Which is why it seems so curious that the “high value detainees” are permitted to meet among...

The Grey Lady gives us this reminder that the mafia consigliori lawyers in the Bush Administration who crafted the “legal opinions” nominally permitting other government officials to commit torture and other war crimes… are still out there. Some, like John Yoo, have tenure at a major university in the San Francisco Bay Area. Others, like Jay Bybee, had good timing, and have lifetime tenure on a federal court, also in the Bay Area. Jim Haynes, it seems, got a job with Chevron. Others, however, such as arch-villain David Addington and arch-stooge Alberto Gonzales… are having trouble finding jobs. As time...

Good news, bad news, from the U.S. Supreme Court in the tortured (pun intended) case of Saleh Al-Marri: the Court declined review of the case as moot, but vacated the loathsome Fourth Circuit case that held, as a matter of law, that the United States is a dictatorship. [You will recall that Al-Marri, a legal resident, has been detained for years in the brig in Charleston in isolation condition without charge as “an enemy combatant”.] What’s that TD… an American court held that the US of A is a dictatorship? Well, yes: the Fourth Circuit in Richmond held that there...

This blog devotes many of its column inches to discussing the collapse of our nation’s moral authority and the ongoing collapse of its adherence to its own laws… we do occasionally take a break to discuss… its economic collapse. And so today… Joe Nocera gives us this column in the Grey Lady walking us through the AIG fiasco, noting the various ways in which the denizens of world’s largest insurance company American International Group, or AIG, gamed the system and gamed its own sterling AAA credit rating via regulatory loopholes and everything else it could think of in order to...

In the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court handed the Bush Obama Administration a set-back in its assertion of state-secrets privileges to try to stymie a suit brought by an Oregon-based Islamic charity over illegal wire-tapping of it. The Obama Administration asked for a stay to further consider its privilege assertion, but after its recent backsliding into imperial mode in the Binyam Mohammed torture case against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen, it appears that the Ninth Circuit was having no more of it from the the Bush Obama Administration. Admittedly, much of the case still presents an uphill climb for...

Reuters reports that a lawyer for Guantanamo detainees contends that day-to-day abuse of prisoners (beatings, force-feedings and the like) has actually increased since President Obama took office. Sayeth Reuters: Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike. The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo, but had concluded...

The President addressed a joint session of Congress and gave his remarks concerning the budget he will be presenting shortly. Not sure what to think of this one; it seemed disjointed, especially from a rhetorical master like President Obama. This could be the nature of the current crisis. Still, it might have been more “confidence building” if more specifics ($__billion to re-build roads, $___ billion to ensure that schools are adequately funded, etc.) made there way in there (there were some specifics, like $15 billion a year in energy research)… but the stimulus bill was one of the biggest progressive...