guantanamo

If four politically-motivated young men with left-wing (or Muslim), rather than right-wing ties, broke into the office of a senior Senate Homeland Security Committee member and gained access to her computer files -- do you think we'd be hearing less about hijinks and more about Guantanamo? The story of the break-in at Senator Landrieu's office gets weirder and weirder by the day.

Jan. 11 marks eight years since the Bush administration transferred the first prisoners to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Ever since, human rights groups have pushed for the closure of Guantanamo, and they're pushing harder now for the Obama administration to implement its plans to transfer or release detainees and shut the place. Close Guantanamo and we'll restore the rule of law and American standing in the world, some human rights advocates say. Unfortunately, it won't be that easy. Prolonged detention in criminal conditions is not only happening in Gitmo.

Fahad Hashmi is an American citizen being held in solitary confinement in Lower Manhattan, facing several years in prison for the crime of providing and conspiring to provide material support and making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to Al Qaeda. The conditions under which he has been held, for two and a half years, are frightening: he is allowed only one visit every other week from one of his parents, and has been punished for shadowboxing alone in his cell.

Think things have changed in Washington? You might be surprised. The U.S. Senate approved a $636 billion defense-spending bill, a few billion less than what the Obama administration actually requested and significantly more than the Bush administration's last appropriation bill. The LA Times reports that the administration probably won't meet its deadline to shut down Guantanamo. Politico reports that during the president's visit to the United Nations Senior Advisor David Axelrod met with Fox CEO Roger Ailes over coffee.