The fallacy of petitio principii involves circular logic. There is no circle in that corruption stems from the nexus of legislation/campaign finance and corporate graft. It’s the direct causal connection.

Corruption is caused by improper influence on the system usually through graft and bribery although coercion is not unknown.

If you want to reduce corruption, you must reduce the influence of money on the systems.

The system flaw described is circular in nature, but the causation is linear.

If you have a problem with that logic, that’s be your problem, Mr. Doesn’t Know His Basic Terminology. But if you think there is an error in my logic, I’ll be glad to feed you your face.

It was one of only two times I’ve ever been actually angry when posting.

And I don’t mean a little bit either. Screw Obama and his torture endorsing fascist bullshit. He’s now a bigger joke than even Bush. Why? Because at least Bush stole his elections. He was a fraud from day one. This jackass is doing the exact opposite of why people voted for him.

At this point I wish the birthers weren’t manifestly insane.

The Obama White House gets . . . the finger.

I’ll be dying a citizen of another country at this rate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My loyalty to this country ends when the Constitution ends. If you don’t hold those who ordered torture (and those who backed them) accountable and ACTUALLY punish them, you might as well go set a match to the original Constitution.

Go on. Burn the damn thing. You just drove a stake through it’s heart, so finish the job. Cut off the head and desecrate the corpse. Oh, I keep forgetting. Washington’s road to Hell isn’t just paved in corporate greed, but done by people with a half-assed work ethic.

Bush put the Constitution in critical condition. Obama seems intent on smothering the patient to death. Fascism is fascism no matter what party is driving it. I hope the bastard chokes on his corporate campaign contributions (just like EVERY ONE OF YOU GRAFT SWILLING ASSHATS IN DC).

Thanks for killing the document my family has bled for and died defending, Mr. Not A Valid President Any More Than Bush. If I knew the Prof. wouldn’t delete it? I have a tapestry of profanity for you that would melt your monitors and put Darrin McGavin to shame. And it’s got Obama’s name all over it.

It’s time for BOTH parties to go. Sitting pols from both parties should be stripped from the system along with their lobbyist paymasters like a cancer. Isolated, excised and discarded like the out of control trash they are.

This worse, as due process was really shortcircuited.

To get an idea of what immunity jurisprudence is like, a government actor can do just about any outrageous faux pas, and as long as he he did was pursuant to furthering an act under his job description, it is immune.

Absolute judicial immunity is even more outrageous.

“… all “matters of war and national security” that are beyond judicial authority.”

That argument is profoundly anti Constitutional. The executive and his minions are not a law unto themselves. They are subject to our laws and I hope the court slaps them down very hard on the matter. I also hope all the victims of torture receive justice.

The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/08/MN061AVC89.DTL

How do you establish Yoo’s bad intent. Under Ex parte Quirin in WWII and more recent terrorist cases under the AUMF the law of war is applicable and Padilla is an unlawful enemy combatant who may be detained without trial so long as a competent tribunal makes a determination of his enemy combatant status.

Ex parte Quirin also established that unlawful enemy combatants need not be captured on the battlefield. None of the eight Ex parte Quiring defendants were. It also established that US citizens may be classified as unlawful enemy combatants. Two of the eight were US citizens. All were initially sentenced to death by a military commission. Two of the sentences were later changed to long terms of imprisonment.

It is also perfectly clear that an unlawful enemy combatant may be subject to coercive interrogation short of torture. Yoo’s definition of torture appears to follow the dictionary definition.

How do you make that into what you suggest is “garbage”?

webrand

The facts alleged:
“military agents entered a civilian jail, seized a citizen from the civilian justice system, transported him to a military brig, detained him there indefinitely without criminal charge or conviction, deprived him of contact with anyone, including attorneys or family, removed the basic ability to practice his religion, and subjected him to a program of extreme interrogations, sensory deprivation and punishment over a period of three years and eight months.”

Yoo did none of these things, nor did he authorize, order or supervise them. He merely gave a legal opinion. He did not have the power or authority to order these things. Perhaps, his client, the U.S., could sue him for malpractice, but a third party malpractice lawsuit seems a bit over-reaching. Besides, Padilla wasn’t tortured. If you want to see torture, watch an Al Qaeda video while they saw through a prisoner’s neck. You wins on qualified immunity …

Miguel, Esq.

They are not judged under the principles of criminal law but under the law of war. Two of the unlawful enemy combatants in ex parte Quirin were US citizens. Before Judge White denied Yoo’s motion to dismiss, he should have found that Padilla’s rights under the law of war, as an unlawful enemy combatant, protected him from aggressive interrogation. He could not because the Geneva convention only protects “lawful enemy combatants” from questioning other than name, rank and serial number, not unlawful enemy combatants.

It seems to me that Judge White has to find at the very least that Yoo was wrong on the law, under lAW of war principles not criminal law principles, before denying his motion to dismiss, but moreover he should find for Yoo’s lack of personal liability unless Yoo,in giving his legal opinion, was disingenuous. I think the ruling will be reversed on appeal.

That’s okay, I guess because Padilla was only abused and not “T’ed”

For Glenn’s detailed analysis:
_________________________________

NPR’s ombudsman: Why we bar the word “torture”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/22/npr/index.html
_________________________________

In this inquiry, it will not be a question of innocence, but rather one of legal discretion.

With all the political pressure here, that may bring it along some judicially, that is why it is amazing that this case went beyond preliminary dismissal “failure to state a claim to which relief may be granted”.

This issue about “innocently” given advice on the legality of war crimes is addressed in detail and up front in the film: “Torturing Democracy”. It has also been addressed by a group of legal scholars whose opinions can be found on AfterDowningStreet.org.

Yoo may not claim immunity.

Additionally, in your example it appears to have a colorable claim of factual fraud, not a matter of discretion.
Yoo may have been mistaken in his legal analysis, but that is a matter of legal argument, not a misrepresentation of provable facts – and even then he still might have QI, if his bad facts were mixed with discretionary legal opinion.

Thanks again for the explanation.

Likewise, the job description of Yoo, was to provide legal counsel to the White House. If he provided legal counsel, even if that legal counsel was based upon improper legal reasoning, then he would have qualified immunity for that counsel.

In other words, if a police officer, while arresting a non-violent individual decides to torture, rape and kill that person, can said police officer claim immunity merely because he was making an arrest which is part of his job description?

The funny thing here is though, the defense of QI is usually raised in the very preliminary proceedings, under 12(b)(7) FRCvP.
For the judge here to have ruled the case could go forward, he would have apparently seen, and ruled on that immunity, which is similar under Bivens or the FTCA.
So the case may go forward, unless the defense can petition for an interlocutory appellate decision, and go to trial, and most likely be reversed on appeal.

I certainly hope not, but the law seems rather clear.

Sotomayer will most likely be on the Supreme Court if the Yoo case gets there, and I expect her to take the same position she did in the case cited above.

In other words to the right of Souter.

But she could have felt constrained by 2nd Circuit case law, which she will not be constrained by as a Justice.

The Yoo case is in a San Francisco federal court and on appeal will be in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, whereas, the Sotomayer (Fitzgerald) case was in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

9th Circuit panels in these scenarios have sided a bit more with plaintiffs than the Sotomayer panel did IMO.

That means a Supreme Court petition sometime in the future if the 9th Circuit upholds the District Court (assuming the District Court rules the same way at the summary judgment phase, which may not be the case).

Good points.

Procedurally the Yoo case was in a Rule 12(b) motion posture, and the Sotomayer (Fitzgerald) case was a Rule 55 summary judgment posture.

Big Difference.

I am in total agreement that Yoo should be liable, as well as the others who did what he did.

I also feel that Fitzgerald and the other DOJ and F.B.I. fellows should also not have qualified immunity in the Sotomayer case because the First Amendment was clear then that government cannot suppress the press because they do not like the content of the speech.

My statements above predict what will happen to the case in the summary judgment phase, and then the case on appeal.

And I will add this:

If you think that you are “safe from unjust government authority” because you are law-abiding, patriotic and a good citizen, “think again.”

Information on ordinary citizens is being stored in a governmental database known as “Main Core.” Refer to the “Democracy Now!” interview of Tim Shorrock by Amy Goodman on July 25th, 2008.

Over the past eight years, the surveillance of ordinary citizens has been stepped up to a point that would challenge the assumptions of most, if known. Good, solid Americans are being targeted and the targeting goes way beyond ordinary surveillance.

We need a few more whistleblowers to get this thing out into the open. Thank God for Thomas Tamm (and others like him). He got the ball rolling. Someone else needs to get “the whole truth” out into the open.

I would be interested to hear your opinion of the legal issue raised by Dredd above.

Nice catch, but clearly settled isn’t the issue here. Waterboarding is without question a violation of Federal law and international treaty. It’s a topic well covered here. If you are using this case as a lynch pin, what it will come down to arguing a reasonableness standard because a “reasonable official in the defendants’ circumstances would necessarily have understood that his or her actions were unlawful.” That’s going to be a hard row to hoe for Yoo given what he advocated was made with the special knowledge of a trained professional, advised action that is prima facie illegal by the terms of the Constitution and illegal by statute in effect at the time Yoo rendered his cover, er, um, opinion. Unless Yoo has an iron clad way to avoid that, he could be in trouble intent regardless. Were not talking about the nebulosity of free speech in the case against Yoo but rather the black and white world of torture is prohibited – period. You cease to be the good guys when you torture. That being said, given the recent huge sucking sound coming from the Obama administration, I suspect he’ll get a walk. There is the possibility Yoo is the goat to keep the angry citizens from wanting Cheney, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.

Actually both qualified and absolute immunity cover intentional as well as negligent constitutional torts.

The defense turns on whether or not the constitutional law involved was “clearly settled” at the time of the alleged violation.

The Sotomayer case discusses the doctrine:

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/2nd/055250p.pdf

Most significantly: “In October 2008, 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston became public.[12][13] The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation and lack of stimuli were causing fellow prisoner Yasser Hamdi mental anguish at one point. The memos also state that Padilla and a third prisoner, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, were held in similar conditions at the Brig.” (wikipedia)

What is wrong with this picture? Everything. To those who believe they are safe from unjust governmental authority because they are citizens, think again. Citizenship did not protect Padilla pick up and torture by our own govt.

Once a person has been tortured, (and the evidence that Padilla was tortured is ironclad), then no charges may rely on any evidence given by anyone who was tortured. There is no cleaning up testimony after torture. It should not be admissible.

Further, Yoo and his fellow lawyers in the Bush administration knew full well that Padilla was being tortured and how it was being done. Yoo’s own memos both approve torture and specific acts that he found acceptable to use on Padilla and others. Yoo was confronted on his legal “reasoning” by military lawyers, whom he dismissed as raising meaningless objections. So claims that everyone in the executive branch was on board with torture are a lie.

The fact that Obama’s DOJ is justifying/affirming the actions of the Bush adminstration is morally and legally depraved. The US has been and continues to engage in systemic acts of torture, which we continue to justify “legally”. This is evil and as citizens we should be up in arms. The ACLU has a group of actions to take to hold those who committed torture accountable. It’s at their website: aclu.org.

Not if his actions are beyond what reasonably falls within his duties. If he however acted/opined in an unreasonable manner (that is, way beyond the fringe of what is considered standard legal procedure/precedent) I wonder if he can hide behind any kind of immunity.

A recent Sotomayer case in the 2nd Circuit deals with that defense in another egregious soap opera situation composed of government coups, Patrick Fitzgerald, and Big Brother.

She was compelled to hold for Big Brother.

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/06/sotomayer-case-on-military-coups.html

The Fools in Charge are saying that he does not have to resign. The reasoning: When he was elected he was a licensed attorney so he can sit until he has to rerun. He has to rerun in 2010 hoping that he can get his license back by then.

selection criteria:

Requirements: A district judge must be a citizen of the United States and of Texas, be licensed to practice law in Texas, and have been a practicing lawyer or a judge for four years before election.

So the question comes down to can a non licensed attorney sit on a case when they do not meet the minimum qualifications to obtain the office.

I am sorry, I feel that If he lost his license he should resign from office. His Problem, Alcohol on and off the bench,