Federal judge Richard Leon recently ordered the release of five detainees in our torture camp on Guantanamo Bay. They arrived there January 20, 2002, and it is exceedingly unlikely that federal prosecutors will exhaust their options to appeal Judge Leon's ruling before the last day of the Presidency of George W. Bush, January 20, 2009.

A lawyer for one of the defendants has published a brief description of her client's confinement.

For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying.

Gail Collins in The New York Times:

"Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. . . . Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. . . Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she'd defer to her party's incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing. . . Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinio n/22collins.html?_r=1

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan and Co-Chair Jo Ann Davidson will make several campaign stops in Georgia on Monday, November 24 and Tuesday, November 25 to benefit Senator Saxby Chambliss as he battles Democrat Jim Martin in advance of the December 2nd run-off election.

The announcement that the RNC Chair will hit the trail for Chambliss comes a day after former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid a visit to Atlanta to urge voters to keep the two-party system alive in the nation's capital [Source:  Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Romney visits Atlanta to stump for Chambliss", November 21, 2008].

Also, next week, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to make a campaign appearance in the Peach State on behalf of Saxby Chambliss [Source:  WSB Radio, "Chambliss Win 'Essential'", November 21, 2008].

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, former Vice President Al Gore will hold an Atlanta fundraiser for Jim Martin Sunday evening.

Read more for an editorial note...

It may seem like the economic contraction has been one long slide into the pit, and to some extent this is true, but there was a tipping point in September and the sickness is accelerating and becoming more out of control, both on Wall Street and on Main Street.  Leadership may be required before inauguration.  Obama may need to govern before he is in office.

This may not be politically practical, logistically possible, or legally do-able.  But it is economically essential.  The financial system is broken and the damage to Main Street is to the bone.  Two more months of this will turn a severe recession into a global depression.  The lives of millions, tens of millions, will be badly impacted unless we stabilize the economy soon.

George Bush and his team of clowns are leaving town with the economy on fire.  Their final contribution is to bar the men with hoses from reaching the scene.  Paul Krugman, NYT columnist and Nobel Prize winner, wrote on Friday under the head, "The Lame Duck Economy" on the parallels between Hoover/Roosevelt and Bush/Obama:

In an article entitled "Equal share in land, property for women urged" by Sikander Shaheen in The Nation (Pakistan) details a campaign by ActionAid within Pakistan, urging equal property rights for women.  (ActionAid is an international anti-poverty organization that has been in operation for over 30 years.)

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

On C-Span 2’s post election Presidential Election Analysis Panel by the Smithsonian Associates. That's how Howard Dean put it. See below.

“Washington doesn’t get it. They always get it last. This is the most underwritten story of this campaign… by the press… by the media.”

“Women my age, in my generation felt this really acutely. Because they were the ones that suffered all of the indignities that you suffer when you fight to win the battle for equality. As they did.”

“Nobody understood the agony that women, particularly of my generation, were undergoing about this…issue…and to this day, it has been swept under the rug and been forgotten because she didn’t win.”

"We thought we were past all this stuff and we weren’t. We weren’t surprised about the degree of racism or lack of it or whatever, that was endlessly examined. We did not examine the fact that we didn’t get, we haven’t gotten nearly as far ahead as we thought we were about equality between the sexes. And that ought to be revisited as a result of what happened.”

"and it happened to Sarah Palin too. All the stuff that happened to Sarah Palin, and I know God knows I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her political points of view, but a lot of the stuff that happened to her, as she pointed out, would not have happened had she been a man.”

Do you think an honest discussion of this topic is possible yet?

In spite of the somewhat puerile and inflammatory reporting of every little ebb and flow of the protracted negotiations surrounding Senator Clinton's imminent appointment as Secretary of State it seems the main actors in this unfolding development, Obama, Hillary and Bill, have conducted their respective roles with sobriety, meticulous attention to detail and unflinching good will which is at once apparently 'out of character' and yet indicative of a serious common purpose.

And while we are presented with commentary, much of it dissenting, from both the Obama and Clinton camps, it seems increasingly clear that the 'political' aspects to this unexpected appointment are not the motivation nor the cause of the lengthy deliberations in this process.

Here is a possible scenario which refutes or avoids most of the 'pros and cons' being debated publicly on the subject, and while it draws a long bow it has some inherent logic which may go a long way to explain both the motivations and issues surrounding this otherwise counter-intuitive offer.  It is premised on the following assumptions, that:

1.  Unravelling the Gordian Knot of a durable and lasting Israeli/Palestinian settlement is the key to resolving the global conflict between Islamic militancy and the worldwide trend toward liberal democracy.

2.  The differences between Senator Obama's and Senator Clinton's foreign policy, and that of their respective camps, while seeming to lose their distinctions in the posturing of the latter stages of the primary campaign are genuine and represent a clear schism in Democratic policy.

3.  The conservative hard-line positions and concerns of the Israeli right and AIPAC, which arguably has a disproportionate influence in both nations with which it is affiliated, must be assuaged and that only trusted actors would be acceptable to achieve a serious and permanent settlement

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that a Israeli/Palestinian solution is at the heart of this appointment there could be a powerful pressure brought to bear on Israel with Hillary's bona fides as a relatively conservative but powerful voice for American constituencies who might come to understand that a settlement there is our best chance to a successful prosecution of the 'war' on terrorism, as Hendirk Hertzberg notes:

The team of Barack "Grandpa Was a Muslim" Obama, Hillary "I'm a Clinton" Clinton, and Rahm "Israel" Emanuel (that's his real middle name! and he was a volunteer with the I.D.F. during the 1991 Gulf War!), with Joe Biden and Bill Clinton pitching in as necessary, would put the new Administration in an extremely powerful position to apply the kind of pressure that would give Israeli politicians the political cover they need to reach a settlement with the Palestinians. Everyone knows what the deal would look like, including Ehud Olmert. It's a question of having the political strength and exerting the will to make it happen.

Of course, the path could get awfully bumpy if the Palestinians can't manage to get their act together, and if, as seems probable, Bibi Netanyahu wins the next Israeli election. On the other hand, a settlement to which Bibi was a party would likely be as durable as Menachem Begin's peace treaty with Egypt.

Hendirk Hertzberg - The 'A' Team The New Yorker 20 Nov 08

One might further assume that that this overarching policy initiative was part of the challenging offer formally made to Hillary from the outset and that the conditions for her appointment include agreement that this is a prize for which the setting aside of 'political' considerations is worthwhile and that the uniting of their respective reputations and political allegiances in common cause pays significant dividends.  It may even be argued that neither could achieve such an ambitious outcome without the other.

In this context much of the speculation, leaked opinions and mundane political machinations publicly aired in the past week seem petty and unimportant.  One can easily understand the difficult choice presented to Hillary and admire her for rising to the occasion, along with her husband, to take the opportunity presented to genuinely share the accomplishment, clearly on her own merits, of such a momentous objective.

And while this is clearly supposition it does seem consistent with President-elect Obama's long standing theme of putting aside 'old' politics in the interest of pragmatic solutions to the challenges facing the US and resolving them for our mutual benefit using all the myriad resources at our disposal, irrespective of partisan positions, mundane ambitions and ideologies.

What is this constant need to depict Rodham-Clinton as some kind of super-woman? Haven't you seen a recent, untouched-up, sans-makeup pic of ORC?

Does she strike you as the most "powerful" woman in the world?

Of course Barry O can control her.  If she doesn't do what HE wants, he'll fire her!!!  

Won't that be a sight?  3 months after Rodham-Clinton gives up her senate seat to be Barry's secretary, they have a disagreement on policy, Rodham-Clinton resorts to form and insists she knows best.

To be a fly on the wall for that meeting between ORC and BarryO:

Rodham-Clinton:  "Barry you're being naive if you believe Iran will give up its nuclear reactor if you play nice with them."

Barry O:  "Rodham-Clinton, I'm the president here, you're just a new hire!"

Rodham-Clinton:  "Yea, but that's only because the blacks all voted for you, if it wasn't for the blacks, I'd already moved back into MY living quarters..."

BarryO:  "Rodham-Clinton, I'm sorry you can't move back into your old bedroom with the leader of the Clintonistas, however, at least you and he will get to spend more time together in your other old bedroom -- back in Chappaqua!!!

Rodham-Clinton, YOU'RE FIRED!!!!!!!!"

Hahahahahahahaha.... also, Hussein apparently found the perfect way to get ORC out of the senate!

Remember where you read this first lefties:  I give ORC 6 months before she's ousted!!!