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...

It seems a classic case of synergy: the formerly sainted Sen. John McCain has changed his once (for a Republican) strong pro-environmental stance calling for American energy responsibility, and now joins the Bush Administration in suggesting that the ban on offshore oil drilling be lifted. As a result: oil industry campaign cash has gushed in to McCain. On this one, I’ll accept McCain’s campaign people’s saying that this is about McCain trying to pander to the voters (a la the gas tax holiday he and Hillary touted), rather than about attempting to pander to the oil industry for campaign cash....

Steven Wax, a graduate of Colgate University and Harvard University Law School, is a former assistant district attorney in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, where, among other prosecutions, he worked on the “Son of Sam” case. Mr. Wax is currently in his seventh term as the Federal Defender for the District of Oregon. He is the author of “Kafka Comes to America: Fighting For Justice in the War on Terror, a Federal Defender’s Inside Account” documenting his work on behalf of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield, accused of a connection to the 2004 Madrid bombings, and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese national...

And so, having been established to have committed the heinous crime of embarrassing the Bush Administration before the Supreme Court, it seems that the show-trial must go on, and Salim “OBL’s driver and auto-mechanic” Hamdan’s military commission trial has commenced at Guantanamo Bay, with a selection of military jurors. Hamdan has a fourth grade education, and basically claims he was doing a menial job for a better paycheck than he could get in Yemen. Although the rules are being made up as they go along, it seems that the current military judge, Capt. Keith Allred of the Navy, isn’t totally...