So, is there anyone out there who still thinks that it was a complete coincidence that during the daring hostage rescue down Colombia way in which three Americans and former Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt were rescued, that John McCain just happened to be in that country? If so, Al Giordano strongly suggests that you think again, and also suggests that Uncle Sam’s sticky fingers are all over this one and that the timing of Sen. McCain’s visit to Colombia is all part of the staging. While this sort of thing does bespeak some level of competence on the part...

Wells Dixon is a staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, and in that capacity represents a number of current and former prisoners of the United States military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On July 1, 2008, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Dixon by telephone. What follows are my interview notes, corrected as appropriate by Mr. Dixon. The Talking Dog: You have recently commented that the government’s answer to the depression it is causing by subjecting its GTMO guests to near-total isolation is to involuntarily medicate them. Can you comment on this, and...

No, not any of the usual myriad goods, often inexpensive, imported from China, but Communist China’s interrogation methods were evidently imported for use at Guantanamo Bay, according to the Grey Lady. Specifically, a chart shown to interrogators at GTMO was derived from a report by Alfred D.Biderman, a sociologist then working for the U.S. Air Force, which discussed how the Communist Chinese would obtain false confessions from American military personnel. Of course, this is…yesterday’s news… today! We give you this snippet, from my July, 2007 interview with Michael Otterman: The Talking Dog: Can you comment on the recently disclosed to...

Yes, we know stupid is also usually good politics in the United States. Which is why Sen. Obama is unquestionably on his way to becoming our President, as he has shown the ruthlessness to adopt the evidently expedient (“tough sounding”) position on three troubling issues of the day, damn how I feel about them…: (1) FISA telecom immunity, (2) the Supreme Court child rape caseand (3) the Supreme Court gun ban case. The point… if there is one… is that no one who can get themselves elected to any office in this country (let alone Senator… or President) can divorce...

“It” is the Grey Lady’s account of the resurgence of al Qaeda strength in the form of training camps and evident operational capacity now located in the tribal areas of Pakistan (a distance of perhaps 100 miles or so from their previous epicenter in Afghanistan) as a direct and inevitable result of the Bush Administration’s diversion of assets from The Hunt for bin Laden (TM) to The Excellent Iraq Adventure (TM). The conspiratorial among us will say things like “oil is thicker than blood…” or, well, things like that. The more realistic will simply point out what Sen. Obama has...

Daddy’s breaking all the rules and letting me do a mid-week V.P.P., since tomorrow is the last day of school (and only a half day at that!) Today was pajama day, which sounds more fun than it is, since mostly, we all lie down on the floor with our blankets and pillows and stuffed animals and read to ourselves, because by this time of the school year, the teacher has had it. Oh yes… that’s Demi Lovato up there, from “Camp Rock,” as if I’ve seen it, which I haven’t. Anyway, Daddy (supernatural? alien? just plain mean?) cut off the...

It seems like its going to be a big week for U.S. District Court Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C. Bruce the Veep sends us this from TPM in which Judge Bates, handling the litigation from the House of Representatives to enforce its subpoena against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten, asks the logical question “why are you running to court to enforce your subpoena by litigation when you already have the power to arrest?” Judge Bates, appointed by George W. Bush, who has already ruled in favor of the Administration in the lawsuit brought over disclosure of records of the...

It’s hard to put enough superlatives on comedian George Carlin, who passed away at 71 of heart failure. He took “edgy” comedy all the way to mainstream. Most famous for “the seven dirty words” that was just one bit of an infinite variety that basically came down to the theme of how absurdly hypocritical our entire social order is, and how, when it is called out, the only rational response is laughter (albeit often uncomfortable laughter). One bit, for example, concerned a suggestion “by the government” that Mohammed Ali “change jobs”. The government said “we want you to kill people...

Rebecca Dick is Counsel to the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of Dechert, LLP. Ms. Dick represents four Afghan nationals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two more previously detained there but transferred to a prison in Afghanistan, and two more released home to Afghanistan. On June 20, 2008, I had the privilege of interviewing her, by e-mail exchange. The Talking Dog Where were you on September 11th? Rebecca Dick: I was at work in law offices on the banks of the Potomac River. We could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon, and I remember thinking, “this...

That would be the incomparable Cyd Charisse, who passed away at 86. IMHO, she was the fireballer of American cinematic dance… just wham, down the middle, often at 100 m.p.h. or more. While one can understand NBC’s interests in touting the late Tim Russert, who untimely (and most unfortunately) passed away at 58, one does wonder why other media outlets are in full hagiography mode. Danny Schechter comes pretty close to mirroring my own thoughts on Russert. I will just say that Russert had the most intimidating wind-up in the game, after which the ball would invariably cross the middle...