Demolished tape via INDEED. Great shot!This just in from the ACLU (via e-mail): Late yesterday, a federal judge said he is considering holding the Central Intelligence Agency in contempt for destroying videotapes depicting the interrogation of al Qaeda detainees. Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York ordered the CIA to identify everything that it had destroyed and also catalogue all summaries, transcripts,

Something unusual has happened in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Via the Center for Constitutional Rights: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an extremely rare order that the case of Canadian rendition victim Maher Arar would be heard en banc by all of the active judges on the Second Circuit on December 9, 2008. For the court to issue the order sua sponte, that is, of its own accord without either party submitting papers requesting a rehearing, is even more rare....

Just when you think you cannot feel more sick to your stomach:...Ron: Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it--not from the president?
Rob: No, no, no. What I remember is George saying, 'we got this from'--basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'
Ron: Which is the White House?
Rob: Yes. But he did not--in my memory--never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now--he may have hinted--just by the way he said it, it would have--cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president....

Murray Waas argues that George Bush--and the Republican party--will regret Bush's efforts to claim absolute immunity to prevent Congress from getting testimony and documents pertaining to the US Attorney purge.

With Republicans, especially Chimpy, it’s always ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ Case in point, here's a sample of the finger-wagging lecture the Decider is going to deliver at the Olympics (links added for illustrative purposes).“We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights not to antagonize China’s leaders but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."

Well, well. Look who allegedly spent a little time under oath in front of a federal grand jury: it's Mr. Hiding the Sockpuppet, Hans Von Spakovsky. Via Murray Waas: The grand jury has been investigating allegations that a former senior Bush administration appointee in the Civil Rights Division, Bradley Schlozman, gave false or misleading testimony on a variety of topics to the Senate Judiciary Committee....

News has hit that Hamdan was just found guilty of the lesser charge of material support for terrorism by the military tribunal in Gitmo. Hamdan was acquitted on the more serious charge of conspiracy by the same jury.

This is a proposal put forward at the rule of law roundtable to form a “Church Commission” like body to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by the Bush administration.

Leonard Pitts writing in the Miami Herald zeroes in on the inanity that chapped my ass from the OIG/OPR report. To wit:"What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?'' Is it me, or doesn't she sound less like a job interviewer than like an adolescent girl splayed out on her bed, giggling with her girlfriend about some hottie actor they both adore?

Two weeks ago, Attorney General Michael Mukasey tried to tempt Congress into blocking justice for the men in Guantanamo yet again.  Enough already. The Supreme Court has chastised Congress on it’s several eleventh-hour attempts to deny the men access to federal courts by passing the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA). This June, the Court called “strike three” on these unlawful policies by upholding the detainees’ right to have access to federal courts for a third time – in Rasul v. Bush in 2004, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in 2006, and Boumediene v. Bush in 2008. Congress should be a part of the solution this time by simply letting the courts do their job....