Buried in a White House proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at Guantánamo Bay, is a provision that calls on Congress to "acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans."

With the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is not backing down from oil drilling. Palin is a champion for drilling, the Bush-Cheney approach to energy policy that brought us $4-per-gallon gasoline and the rising threat of global warming.

Barack Obama's choice of Joseph Biden, the veteran Delaware senator and head of the Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate is a depressing capitulation to conventionality that dangerously undercuts his much-hyped theme of "change"—especially given his telling flub at a Springfield, Ill., rally: "Let me introduce to you, the next president—the next vice president of the United States of America: Joe Biden." (Reuters, Aug. 23) Don't look now, Obama, but your Freudian slip is showing. Biden is not merely a pillar of the Beltway establishment, but has his own disturbing flirtation with the now almost universally hated neocons—the very people Obama has thus far successfully positioned himself in opposition to...

A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia last week denied a request made by six ethnic Uighur Guantanamo detainees to be transferred to less restrictive facilities within the base. The petitioners argued that their solitary confinement in a higher security section of the base caused them mental suffering, but the court ruled that the detainees did not sufficiently demonstrate that they would suffer irreparable harm if they were not moved. Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled:

After days of Republican attack ads that compared him to Britney Spears and Moses, Barack Obama celebrated his 47th birthday Aug. 4 by releasing his own TV spot accusing John McCain of being "in the pocket" of Big Oil. The ad came as Obama unveiled his energy plan to combat the US "addiction" to foreign oil, "one of the most dangerous and urgent threats" the country has ever faced. McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds responded that the ad "shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy" because Obama has also received $400,000 in campaign contributions from oil companies. (CanWest, Aug. 4)

Canadian lawyers for Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr filed suit with the Federal Court of Canada Aug. 8 demanding that Prime Minister Stephen Harper intervene on behalf of the 22-year-old Canadian citizen, who has spent the past six years at the military camp. Lawyers are asking the court to require that Harper demand Khadr's release before his military tribunal begins in October. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in a 2002 Afghan firefight. He is alleged to have thrown a grenade during that battle that fatally wounded a US soldier.

Salim Hamdan was convicted Aug. 6 by a panel of six US military officers at Guantánamo Bay of "providing material support for terrorism," but acquitted of "conspiracy." The sentencing hearing is due to begin immediately. He faces a maximum term of life imprisonment. However, the Pentagon confirmed beforehand that Hamdan would remain in indefinite detention as an "enemy combatant" regardless of the verdict.

Five years ago we were told the Justice Department had a "short list" of suspects in the 2001 anthrax attacks, with indications of a sinister intersection of high-level military research and the neo-Nazi ultra-right. Now we learn the name of the man the government was apparently ready to indict—when it it is too late to learn anything more useful from him. From AP via the New York Times, Aug. 1: