Many people have already noted a key takeaway from Scott Shane's article on the CIA's arbitrary torture regime: it didn't work. A couple things about it are also worth noting. First of all, remember this old scam?In March 2002, when Abu Zubaydah was captured in...
the arbitrary executive
When the final list of "Chuck Schumer's Biggest Sell-Outs" is released, this will have to rank near the top. At least when he does stuff like vote to make the.
As Steve says, it's a mixed news day; it's good that Obama is releasing the torture memos, bad that CIA operatives who carried out torture won't be prosecuted. Admittedly, the.
I have a piece about the newly released memos over at Comment is Free. Meanwhile, it's pretty amusing to see a guy responsible for what might be the least plausible "originalist" argument in history now wash his hands by saying that he was just giving...
I can't add much to what Greenwald says here and Wheeler argues here, but the Obama administration's use of Yoovian theories of arbitrary executive authority are indeed appalling.
I strongly endorse Dahlia Lithwick's position in the debate in the Sunday Times about the prosecution of Bush administration war criminals. Making Lithwick's argument stronger are the embarrassingly weak conclusions.
Judge Richard Leon -- an appointee of George W. Bush -- issued a major ruling following the wake of the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision yesterday, ordering five Guantanamo detainees released "forthwith." He also added comments that echoed Souter's Boumediene concurrence: The judge, in an unusual...
Apparently, arbitrary executive power can be abused and exercised in ways that have little relationship with its stated justifications. Shocking!
Rule of law!"But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."But I was informed by the highly serious priests of High Contrarianism that Mukasey's need.
I generally agree with Mark Tushnet that Robert Jackson's much-cited and lauded concurrence in Youngstown is overrated, in the sense that it effectively describes the puzzles of evaluating the constitutionality of presidential action without providing any useful way of resolving the most interesting and important...
Lederman: "It is an extraordinarily thorough, scholarly and thoughtful opinion -- surely one of the best opinions ever written on questions relating to executive/congressional disputes. It is also, IMHO, correct.
I agree with Turley and Bazelon that it will be pathetic if Monica Goodling ends up taking all of the responsibility for the frequently illegal cronyism and ineptitude at the.