She clerked for Thomas . . .

. . . and a member of the Federalist society to boot! Quel surprise.

Two years out of law school and writing memos about the president's limitless power, unconstrained by quaint relics like the constitution.

Outstanding!

I've just decided I won't be retaining Kirkland any time soon.

"Sure"

Why not?

The problems with Yoo's patently ridiculous comparison to Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

1) Previous to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949, there was no treaty against targeting civilians. So, at the time, it would not have been unlawful for the president to order the "massacre of a civilian village". It would have been wrong, but not unlawful.

2) The means of production of weapons is - sadly - a legitimate target in time of war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military staging areas and major industrial centers producing munitions. The only reason targeting them is questioned is because people are squeamish about the use of nuclear weapons. If they had been fire-bombed it would have been just another epic tragedy, no more or less noteworthy than any other firebombing perpetrated by McNamara or Churchill.

The real issue is this: Yoo and his boss told the president he is not bound by U.S. law.

A little more color on the torture memo . . .

Margolis overruled OPR, the bastard.

Late update:

If I have lost my job, and am short on funds, context dictates that I am justified in knocking off the liquor store down the street. I'm sure the authorities will understand. You see, this would be an unprecedented situation never experienced by me before - one which threatens my very survival.

Anything is justified, by Mr. Margolis' reckoning.

National Monuments?

Not sure this is a good idea. Not sure I want to see bus tours to Cedar Mesa . . .

Not sure I want wheel-chair ramps here . . .

So much for Justice . . .

These boys got off light, given the extent to which they betrayed their fundamental obligations as lawyers:

The report said “situations of great stress, danger and fear do not relieve department attorneys of their duty to provide thorough, objective, and candid legal advice, even if that advice is not what the clients want to hear.”

Sadly, the Obama White House's timidity in the face of so enormous a betrayal of our most basic concepts of justice does not come as a surprise.

And of course, this was the tip of the iceberg - the three detainees involved happened to be bona fide al qaeda. There were also innocents who were caught up in this travesty, who were subsequently released.

Another sad day for lawyers who give a shit about the constitution.

Next up . . .

. . . more good times ahead.

Gotta love our sophisticated risk management models.

Cry me a freakin' river

I'm not ordinarily given to emotional excess but, oh, how this guy gets me going . . . every time I see him now on the tee-vee I feel like Mr. Furious transforming into a "ticking timebomb of fury":

"rage . . . taking over . . ."

Yes, Alastair, the poor dear, has been through a lot - it's a real tragedy how this sensitive soul has been "vilified" those who are only out to "settle scores".

I wonder if Alastair includes the 300,000-600,000 Iraqi dead in that particular calculation. Well, at least he can take comfort that someone will offer a shoulder to cry on - after Dubbya, Dick, Wolfie and Rummy, no one provided a better recruiting tool for al qaeda than Alastair and Tony. It's the least they can do.

Late Update:

This article puts a little more precision around the number of Iraqi dead, which may be of interest to some, though I continue to struggle with who in the west those people who care might actually be. Not very popular dinner party conversation, I guess.

From TPM . . .

The red bars are the accelerating rate of job loss during President Bush's last year in office; the blue bars are the decelerating rate of job loss during President Obama's first year of office.

The chart was put together by the House Democratic leadership. Click the graph to see the full image.

Same old story . . .

If the left-wing media lost the Viet Nam war, and etc., how does Pajamas Media explain this?