Pa. must disbar war criminal John Yoo -- NOW!
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Pa. must disbar war criminal John Yoo -- NOW!
Believe it or not, there's actually a significant contribution that we here in Pennsylvania can make towards wiping some of the stain of torture off of our tarnished national soul. In addition to all the other various crooks and liars in the Pa. political pantheon, now it turns out that a bona fide war criminal still has a license to practice law in the Keystone State.
His name is John Yoo, not so proud alum of Episcopal Academy here, and when he's not spouting off on his seriously warped, dictatorial views of presidential power in supposedly respectable venues like the National Constitution Center, Berkeley Law School and op-ed pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was inside the Bush White House devising the bogus legal justification for the disgraces that were perpretated in our names from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib.
Now, a Justice Department report has suggested the bare minimum -- and I mean minimum -- for Yoo and his legal co-conspirator Jay Bybee -- promoted to federal appeals court judge. That would be disbarment hearings against two men. And it turns out that Yoo is a member of the bar here in Pennsylvania, the state where he grew up:
Neither Yoo nor Bybee is likely to face criminal prosecution, a step that is nearly unprecedented for lawyers providing advice to clients. But they are expected to face inquiries from state legal authorities after the Justice Department report is made public. State bars have the power to disbar lawyers and suspend their licenses, among other steps.
Yoo is a member of the Pennsylvania bar, and Bybee is a "judicial member" of the Nevada and D.C. bars, according to spokeswomen and public records on the bar Web sites. Their attorneys declined to comment yesterday, citing a confidentiality agreement they were required to sign with the Justice Department.
Pennsylvania needs to move on disbarment hearings against Yoo as soon as the Justice Department report is made public. As this article in the Washington Post notes, state bar panels are notoriously slow and sometimes inept, and dealing with the complexities of the war crimes alleged here is a big leap from the type of cases -- lawyers absconding with clients' cash, for example -- that they normally deal with.
But this would be a great time for Pennsylvania to rise to the occasion for a change. That will depend to some degree on us -- regular citizens who care about the torture issue ought to apply pressure on the Bar Association and political leaders where they can, for example. Newspaper editorial-page editors should be pushing aggressively for Yoo's disbarment rather -- than printing his noxious op-eds.
And while it's unlikely. it would be great to see the state's top lawyer -- that would be our governor, Ed Rendell -- take a stand for once on something a little more consequential than whether the Eagles should draft an all-purpose back or a tight end. Rendell was frustratingly laid back about the abuses of the Bush-Cheney years, even after burying a number of his National Guard troops in their politically fraudulent war, but the fate of John Yoo is a rare chance for this state to actually do something good in the global arena. We should jump on it.
Well, the evidence-free zone that the marginalized minority inhabits seems alive and well. I really love the phrase "indirectly thwarted" and then backing it up with nothing but hearsay. We have no evidence that torture did anything - except from people who approved of and created the torture policy. That doesn't stop the Hate Americans First crowd, though. No, they don't need things like "evidence" entering into their distorted view of "reality" where waterboarding is "sprinkling water on the face" - and, of course, we need no "evidence" that the "terrorist" actually *is* a terrorist, just the hearsay accusation of The Leader. Which then makes anyone who believes in American values into "fascists." Put your analyst on danger money, baby.— E.Plebnista
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- LOL! Taxmemore - The unemployment figures show that a negative trend that began while Bush was in office is beginning to turn around. That is, unambiguously, a positive sign. I hate to tell you, but thinking that we'd go from a high rate of losing jobs to an immediate circumstance of actually adding jobs is insanely unrealistic and it would defy the expectations of anyone who knows anything about the way economies work. That you would even attempt to hold Obama to such a standard is nothing other than further proof that you're a Republican toady.— Talking point sleuth
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"Anyone else hope that these Bleeding Heart Liberals come face to face with a terrorist some day?.....after the pee themselves, I'm sure they would have different views on splashing water in someon'es face." Nice job, so called Genius, hoping your fellow Americans are attacked by terrorists. That's worse than hoping your fellow Americans lose their jobs.— one_eyed_jack- TPS, when the unemployment rate begins moving the other way for at least 2 quarters in a row, that will constitute a negative trend beginning to turn around. a bad monthly jobless claims number being a little less than last months bad number doth not a trend make. Besides, if you knew anything about what you were talking about you would know that they re-state these things the following month, so the REAL results could easily be much worse than this. All that said....I am glad the new unemployment apps dipped last month. I hope it continues. But its not the story. The story is that we while new apps have slowed, the unemployment rate is still on its way to double digits. unless of course you want the BHO approved MSM version......which TPS can provide for anyone on here, should they want it— taxmemore
- So Will, are you going to now condemn the Obama Admin and call Eric Holder a war criminal as well? http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NjRhNWQ2YTRlYWI2NzU0Yjc0NmFlN2FjMmI2YzYyODU= The Justice Department’s Torture Hypocrisy Investigate Bush lawyers’ torture analysis one day, cite it favorably the next. By Andrew C. McCarthy The Obama Justice Department is engaged in the worst type of hypocrisy. Its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is nearing completion of a 220-page report which will recommend that Attorney General Eric Holder refer former Bush administration lawyers to their state bar disciplinary committees over purported ethical lapses in the legal analysis those lawyers drafted to justify harsh interrogation techniques that critics — including President Obama himself — have labeled “torture.” The draft report, which is not public, was nevertheless reported on last night by the Washington Post and New York Times — apparently based on leaks from the Justice Department (in an ethics case, no less)… Yet, even as the OPR report is being finalized, even after Obama declared himself open to the possibility of criminal prosecution against the Bush officials, and even after Holder promised to conduct an investigation that would “follow the evidence wherever it takes us, follow the law wherever that takes us” (emphasis added), the Obama Justice Department is relying on the very same legal analysis in order to urge a federal appeals court to reject torture claims. In fact, as the Obama Justice Department argued to that appeals court a little over a week ago, the torture law analysis in question has already been adopted by another federal appeals court...Yet, this very theory is now being advanced by the Justice Department under Attorney General Holder.— db_cooper
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- Will, you need to stop frothing at the mouth. Your obsession has made you even more crazy.— CD75
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- "Does anyone else find that, odd?" From most on the left, no, I don't. They are silent about Obama's actions that mimic actions taken by Bush that had them all in a complete twist. In other words, most of their attacks were political in nature.— db_cooper
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