Evangelcal leader James Dobson is on the warpath. He has targeted six Senators who are facing reelection in 2006 and threatened that if they block conservative judicial appointees, he'll use his muscle to remove them.

In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees.

The six are: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida.

Who does he think he is, Popeye? Someone ought to think up a ditty about him we can spread around -- "I'm Dobson, the ________man."

What did the interrogators at Guantanamo do when they thought they had "a live one"--someone with information about al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks?: According to new details published today in the New York Times, this is what happened to Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was imprisoned at Guantánamo early in 2003 and suspected of being a future hijacker:

...his interrogation was not yielding much, so they decided in the middle of 2003 to try a new tactic. Mr. Kahtani, a Saudi, was given a tranquilizer, put in sensory deprivation garb with blackened goggles, and hustled aboard a plane that was supposedly taking him to the Middle East.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist gave his annual speech on the state of the judiciary the other day. His message: We need to preserve the independence of our judiciary.

Ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said today that judges must be protected from political threats, including from conservative Republicans who maintain that "judicial activists" should be impeached and removed from office.

"The Constitution protects judicial independence not to benefit judges, but to promote the rule of law: Judges are expected to administer the law fairly, without regard to public reaction," the chief justice, whose future on the court is subject to wide speculation, said in his traditional year-end report on the federal courts.

A judge in Washington state has refused to grant a divorce to a pregnant woman. What's even more absurd about the judge's ruling is that she left her husband two years ago after he went to jail for beating her. The father of the child is her current boyfriend, who she wants to marry.

Shawnna Hughes' husband was convicted of abuse in 2002. She separated from him after the attack and filed for divorce last April. She later became pregnant by another man and is due in March.

Her husband, Carlos, never contested the divorce, and the court commissioner approved it in October. But the divorce papers failed to note that Hughes was pregnant, and when the judge found out, he rescinded the divorce.

"There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitimized," Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine told The Spokesman-Review newspaper on Thursday.

Women are allowed to divorce even under Sharia law, which is the strictest law we can think of. What's wrong with this Judge?

Happy New Year to all, we hope it rings in justice and peace.

For those of you spending New Year's by a computer, here's an open thread for you.

Update: Some End-of-Year lists

Media Matters: The Top Ten Most Outrageous Statements of 2004

Fafblog: Thing of the Year : the Blog

President Bush has increased the amount the U.S. will pledge to the Tsunami relief effort to $350 million. He's not putting a ceiling on it, and says the U.S. will continue to revise the amount as needed.

Smart move. Good move.

Here's a profile of James Rogers, president of the union representing Legal Aid Society staff. He did a yeoman's job this year.

In negotiations concluded this month, Legal Aid reached a deal to stave off bankruptcy after financial mismanagement had brought it to the brink of collapse. The agency settled with creditors, negotiated budget cuts with employees and received an unusual $9 million donation from dozens of private law firms. It means the country's oldest and largest defense group for the indigent will stay in business.

The New York Times profiles columnist Robert Novak and recaps the investigation into who leaked the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

It costs $10k for tickets to all of Bush's inaugural events. Many of his younger supporters, including those that raised $50 and $100k for his campaign, are finding the price too steep for them to attend. What did they expect? They supported an elitest and that's what they got.

The Justice Department tries again to define "torture," and in so doing, expands the definition.

The Justice Department published a revised and expansive definition late yesterday of acts that constitute torture under domestic and international law, overtly repudiating one of the most criticized policy memorandums drafted during President Bush's first term.

In a statement published on the department's Web site, the head of its Office of Legal Counsel declares that "torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and international norms" and goes on to reject a previous statement that only "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law.

Just a coincidence that the new definition comes less than a week before the confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General? Doubtful.

Oscar Jones is a sex offender who completed his criminal sentence but is being held pending a decision on whether California can continue to hold him as a sexually violent predator under California's civil commitment laws. He filed suit to challenge the conditions of his confinement. The 9th Circuit ruled this week Jones can bring his lawsuit. In so ruling, the Court noted, "Purgatory cannot be worse than hell."

With his hearing pending, Jones charged, among other things, that he was strip-searched unreasonably, blocked from practicing his religion and denied access to the courts. The case was tossed in September 2002 on the grounds Jones was late in filing his lawsuit.

In its ruling Monday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a "civil detainee" such as Jones who exhibits a good-faith pursuit of his claims, as a matter of fundamental practicality and fairness, isn't barred by the statute of limitations.

It's the tax man...coming after Tennessee drug dealers. Beginning January 1, dealers of illegal controlled substances will have to buy tax stamps. Tennessee becomes the 22nd state to enact such a law. The tax isn't cheap to create or enforce:

Drug peddlers will be required to pay state excise taxes on illegal substances — from marijuana to moonshine, from cocaine to the often illegally obtained prescription painkiller OxyContin — under a new law that goes into effect Saturday.

A 10-person tax agency has been created at a one-time cost of $1.2 million to assess the taxes and collect them. The annual cost to enforce the drug tax will be $800,000...

What a stupid idea.

''It's patently ridiculous. Legal nitwittery,'' said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington nonprofit that calls itself the largest, oldest group devoted to legalizing marijuana for responsible adult use. ''On the one hand, it says you can't own a substance. And on the other hand, it creates a taxing scheme … The law on its face makes no sense.''