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Is Torture a Leading U.S. Export?

How did Bush-era torture policies affect our allies in the war on terror? Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former director of MI5, made stinging remarks yesterday suggesting that the torture dilemma…

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Roberts’s Rules

Chief Justice John Roberts embodies the values of the Court he heads. And public opinion polling shows that those values don’t sit well with most Americans. In Roberts’s world, law…

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Unfair to Bradbury?

David Cole, reviewing the Department of Justice ethics reports on the torture lawyers, says that the almost exclusive focus on John Yoo and Jay Bybee is inappropriate. The report lets…

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Outed Al Qaeda Lawyer Fesses Up

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel David Frakt, a JAG defense counsel who has been representing Gitmo prisoners, having been outed by Liz Cheney, confesses at Salon that he’s working for Al…

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The Alternate Reality of Karl Rove

It’s not surprising—indeed, it’s even somewhat admirable—that Karl Rove’s new book focuses on burnishing the reputation of his boss, George W. Bush. The 608-page book covers a lot of turf,…

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Thiessen and the “Al Qaeda Lawyers”

Former Bush Administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen used his space at the Washington Post to defend the McCarthyite smear campaign that Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol have launched against a group…

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Waterboarding for Dummies

At Salon, Mark Benjamin reviews a cache of internal CIA documents giving directions on how to waterboard prisoners: Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned…

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Incompetent McCarthyism and Shared Beliefs

Back in 2008, Michael Goldfarb and others on the right tried a typically McCarthyite tactic against candidate Barack Obama. Obama was assailed for a supposed relationship with Columbia University professor…

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Kapsberger – Che fai tu

Che fai tu, vita mia, che fai tu lontan da me? Che fai tu, chi ti desvia? Torna, ahi, volgi il piè, Toma mia com’eri pria! Che fai tu, vita…

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Solon – Doing the Right Thing

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Rahm’s Masterstroke

Meet Barack Obama’s new attorney general: Rahm Emanuel. The Associated Press reports: In a potential reversal, White House advisers are close to recommending that President Barack Obama opt for military…

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The Bloody White Baron: Six Questions for James Palmer

James Palmer, a British writer who lives in Beijing and has a fascination for all things Mongolian, has produced a captivating biography of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, a Baltic nobleman…

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Opening for the Defense at a War Crimes Trial

How exactly did Dick Cheney’s speechwriter Marc Thiessen come to write a book justifying waterboarding and other torture techniques–and insisting, moreover, that President Obama is putting the country at risk…

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A Transformation Underway in Turkey?

The developments in the last several weeks in Turkey strike me as extremely significant. They could have lasting consequences for the nation’s self-understanding and its role in the Western Alliance,…

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Why Has WaPo Become the Voice of Rahm Emanuel?

Not long after the tiresome bootlicking recently furnished by Dana Milbank, Jason Horowitz steps in to report that a “contrarian narrative is emerging” about the heroic Rahm Emanuel: Emanuel is…

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Doctors Without Morals

In the torture memos, medical professionals pop up repeatedly. They define and refine torture techniques, and sometimes they are even in the room to be sure that torture procedures are…

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Stuart Taylor’s Stuck Record

Writing behind the paywall at the National Journal, Stuart Taylor makes a sustained effort to defend Jay Bybee and John Yoo. He expresses his support for the analytical approach that…

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The Party of George Wallace?

In the wood-paneled chamber that was the scene of Friday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I listened to Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, the Republican ranking member, drone on in his soft…

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Borges – The Conjectural Poem

… Yo, que estudié leyes y los cánones, yo Francisco Narciso de Laprida, cuya voz declaró la independencia de estas crueles provincias, derrotado, de sangre y de sudor manchado el…

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Dr. Johnson–Dishonesty and the Craft of Lawyers

“But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not…

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Where are the Yoo and Philbin Emails?

This morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, convened by Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), quickly came to a focus on the critical evidence that disappeared into the recesses of the Justice Department…

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More Investigations for the Torture Lawyers

I am just back from the Alliance For Justice’s panel discussion on the OPR Report, at which I spoke, at the Washington office of Wilmer Hale. The show-stealer was the…

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Roberts’s Idea of Oversight

It’s reasonably clear now that between 2002 and the beginning of 2007, congressional oversight of the intelligence community simply went out of business. While there have been signs of life…

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The Margolis Memo

Legal ethicist David Luban delivers a coup de grâce to the Margolis memorandum in a piece at Slate entitled “David Margolis is Wrong”: Margolis’ critique got Yoo and Bybee off…

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Justice, Texas Style

Texas is in the process of declaring itself a judicial ethics-free zone. Adam Liptak reports on the latest courthouse embarrassment to emanate from deep in the heart of crazy: Charles…

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Quid Pro Quo

A critical question in examining the criminal culpability of the torture memo writers goes to what lawyers call mens rea or “guilty mind.” With respect to a joint criminal enterprise…

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Poland Discloses Collaboration on CIA Black Site

The Polish Government today released official flight records documenting a pattern of collaboration with the CIA relating to the operation of a CIA black site close to Szymany Airport, in…

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The President’s Power to Exterminate Villages

Q: I guess the question I’m raising is, does this particular law really affect the President’s war-making abilities… A: Yes, certainly. Q: What is your authority for that? A: Because…

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