Brian Tamahana explains exactly how atrocious the legal reasoning is in the OLC memos authored by Yoo, Bybee and (to a lesser extent) Delahunty. Here's an example: Some of the arguments veer into the bizarre. Consider this concluding passage from a Yoo-Delahunty memo arguing that the president can o...

Republican Senator Arlen Spector is opposed to investigating any alleged Bush administration abuses and crimes and I am not surprised. Maybe Spector is reluctant to investigate because he cannot... [Want to read the whole piece? Visit atlargely.com for full links, other content, and more]...

The Obama administration decided to release the DOJ OLC memos relating to the war on terror that the Bush administration had previously fought to keep secret. Unsurprisingly, the nine memos claim vast and sweeping powers on the part of the President to deal with any matter related to terrorism. Esse...

I’ve wanted to write something about John Yoo and the torture memos, but it’s depressing and secondly I don’t like to write things that the more well-read political junkies already know, and I’m not sure how to sum up the intricacies of the entirety of Yoo, Bush, and the law in a way that wi...

Let me begin by saying I have respect for John Yoo.  Before 9/11, his presidential scholarship was uniformly thought to be of the highest academic standard.  He is still greatly respected by his colleagues at Berkeley and elsewhere.  In person, he is unfailingly polite and intellectua...

[Dawn Johnsen] I am tempted to join the fray over VP Cheney's filing of the D.C. guns brief, flatly at odds with the Bush administration's brief, begun by David Barron. Perhaps more later, but I can't resist now a quick response to Adam White's attempt to defend Cheney's consistency, by repeating wh...

An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, officials confirmed yesterday....

An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, officials confirmed yesterday....