One must hand it to the Obama campaign, which is evidently printing several versions of bumper stickers with different veep candidate names, just to keep things stirred up, and the feckless press interested in something besides celebrity obsession. We may know… tomorrow? Notwithstanding my own extensive experience in both the private and public sectors (including experience in the executive, legislative and judicial branches), and for federal, state and local governments, and being in Barack’s college class (and IIRC getting a better grade than he did in political theory)… and most importantly, demonstrating my ubiquitous knowledge of everything with this blog…...

The “rock-solid” go-to guy in the Bush Administration’s grandest of grand strategies… our-man-in-Islamabad… Generalissimo Presidentissimo Pervez Musharaf of Pakistan… has just tendered his resignation in the face of an almost certainly-successful impeachment initiative in Pakistan’s newly resurgent democratically elected parliament. While the machinations in Georgia are of concern to Americans, events in Pakistan, for those who haven’t been paying attention, are the freaking ballgame. Pakistan is the tip of the hub of the axis of the axis of evil: it is Pakistan that has been at the center of nuclear proliferation to North Korea, Iran, Libya, and God knows where...

I’ve kind of held back in discussing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Russian incursion into the Georgian separatist territory of South Ossetia (and now, evidently, the other Georgian separatist territory of Abkhazia), which has been met with “condemnation” from the United States. One wonders what might have happened if we had a less solipsistic President who didn’t “look into the soul” of former KGB agent and Russian strongman (now from the position of prime minister) Vladimir Putin and see “someone I could do business with” and instead saw simply… a former KGB agent, who at a minimum would be duplicitous,...

What can one say about the amazing outcome of “The War Crimes Trial of the Century” (seriously, the only American “war crimes trial” since right after World War II, and the only one so called in this 21st century), that of Hitler’s OBL’s personal chauffeur motor pool driver and mechanic, Salim Hamdan. Yesterday, Hamdan was convicted of the made-up charge of “material support of terrorism” and acquitted of the made up charge of conspiracy to commit a war crime. Today, the same herd of kangaroos magically sentenced Mr. Hamdan to a term of 5 1/2 years, which, since it amazingly...

And so it’s time to bask in reflected glory of some of our friends… Ron Suskind’s new book (which I just bought) “The Way of the World” has just comes out, and though Candace mentions it prominently, she is too modest to mention that she is featured prominently in dozens of pages of Suskind’s latest work for her tireless dedication and service on behalf of her GTMO-detained clients. And kudos to our friend Mad Kane who was just awarded the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Prize for Humor (the grand prize, none of this first runner-up stuff for our Mad)… the...

Literary giant, Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away at 89, in Moscow. His ground-breaking works including A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch and The Gulag Archipelago duly pissed off the powers that be in the former Soviet Union, who responded with various forms of ostracism, including attempts to ban his work and eventual exile. Solzhenitsyn outlived the U.S.S.R. by around 17 years; in later life, he was a fan of national greatness Republicans Vladimir Putin and the resurgent Russia. His death now reminds us that he was actually still around… when our own government, albeit...

Could we have come to the coda of the FBI’s oft-bungled anthrax investigation? Greenwald comments on broader implications of the apparent suicide (just ahead of impending indictment) of the prime suspect, Bruce Ivins, 62, a civilian researcher at the Army’s bio-weapons research facility, Ft. Detrick, Maryland, including the extraordinarily interesting issues surrounding media-generated hysteria in the aftermath of 9-11 attempting to link the anthrax attacks to Saddam Hussein (amidst literal White House denials!) while the only actual evidence showed that the source of the anthrax was not only domestic, but from our own military’ research facility. One of many ironies...

Thomas Nephew writes in to note that we are up against something that is no laughing matter. Attorney General Michael “Good Fascist Soldier” Mukasey is quite literally asking Congress to declare a permanent war and an all time amnesty on Bush Administration law breaking. This is not out of the pages of The Onion. It seems clear that just as Mukasey was serious in refusing to pronounce waterboarding as torture (hey, maybe Torquemada was just using “enhanced interrogation” on those heretics… you can’t call it “torture,” right?)… there is no reason not to believe he is deadly serious on this....

Candace sends along a note about this item, a mention from the opening remarks at Gitmo of the prosecutor on the trial of Hitler’s chauffeur OBL’s driver and auto mechanic, Salim Hamdan. “If they hadn’t shot down the fourth plane it would’ve hit the dome,” Stone, a Navy officer, said in his opening remarks. Draw your own conclusions; Candace asks “slip or mistake?” It’s one or the other. I thought the “let’s roll” explanation had to be preserved at all costs; apparently, securing a show-trial conviction of a bit player may be more important. Stay tuned, and try not to...

While many of us marvel at the disaster that the Bush II Administration has been with respect to American foreign policy and with respect to our Constitutional values, we sometimes forget just what an unmitigated disaster the Bush II Administration has been with respect to the national economy and American fiscal integrity. Well, no more… because today it is announced that the President who inherited a budget surplus from his predecessor appears on track to break his own record for budget deficit with a staggering $482 billion deficit predicted for the coming fiscal year. Revenues would be expected to be...