Obomber is yet to meet a USA war criminal he would not protect.

I believe the statue of limitations has run out in some justice venues where Yoo could be held accountable, so any still viable venue is vitally important.

But Obomber is still prosecuting environmentalist Tim DiChristifir, for disrupting an oil lease auction deemed by Obomber's D. of Interior to be an illegal auction in the first place.

"Chains we can believe In"

Obama expends more energy protecting Bush-era war criminals than he does in producing jobs, saving the homes of victims of sub-prime crime and protecting the environment.

Obama's words are as empty as they are eloquent.

Define Obama by his deeds.

The executive appointed Yoo and is responsible for the bad advise it received and acted upon. Yoo is responsible for giving bad advice.

As far as I can see, now minions and masters are blaming each other, while saying they did nothing wrong anyway, as children in the play ground.

Torture is criminal. It was and perhaps still is being used in a concerted way by US military and intelligence services and this was authorized from the highest levels of the executive, including the levels of President and Vice President and the deeds were executed by persons who must be shown and held responsible, all the way down to using foreign and private mercenary agents. Following illegal orders to torture has never been an excuse as documented at Neurenberg. Using a foreign country to do so is even worse.

Until America undertakes to prosecute the criminal elements within its own government and military, as a people and as a country, America remains acquiescent to these criminal activities and that not only again allow themselves sometime in the future to use these methods if some new tyrant feels it necessary, but it must also haunt vain and hypocritical attempts the US makes hereafter to represent human rights or justice anywhere in the world.

The arrogance and stupidity of treating this as an internal matter to be quietly swept under the carpet with a few symbolic wrist slaps here and there, puts American policy and politics beyond the pale.

To Bush, Cheney and the rest: “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct”. Whatever made these people think of themselves as superior to Saddam Hussein?

To Obama : Obfuscating the duty to apply the law goes beyond implication of your acquiescent but makes your administration a willing participant in these crimes, by protecting the criminals.

This is good stuff from Obama's "justice" dept.

The courts, Obama says, have no business dealing with an American citizen, arrested in Chicago, held for years without charge, and tortured.

That is "war" says Obama. And as you guys know America is at war, with people, some of whom are yet to be determined. This war will end, well when Obama or one of his heirs says it is over.

The really funny thing is that The comedians that the Democrats sent to the supreme court bench more than likely will side with the government again on this and similar cases.

I'm just glad I live in a democracy that got rid of the "divine right of kings" long ago. I feel for you guys,...but you can see the humour in it, can't you?

Whiskey
Tango
Foxtrot
?

Obomba cares no more about Yoo than he does about you. This is about the same thing last year's FISA (telecom immunity required) bill was about ...

... putting up a firewall between Rule of Law and the Cheneybush Unitary, which Obama has inherited with all its attendant perks and privileges. Besides, he's just following orders.

Obama and his cronies seem possessed by the same evil demons that possessed Bush and Cheney, et al.

I am very disappointed and fear that President Obama won't do the right thing but that the use of torture is still going on and that is why the war criminals will not have to worry about going to prison. I know I am not explaining my thoughts very well.

Why is President Obama and the Congress not doing the morally right thing in making sure that these government officials who gave permission for prisoners to be tortured are tried and punished for those actions?

I may be wrong but here are two reasons why I think that the President and the Congress refuse to do the right thing.

For President Obama it is 1. That they are guilty of the same crimes or they want to commit the same crimes during their watch so they just want to drop any thought of arresting and trying them for war crimes. You know the concept of I will keep your secret if you keep mine. 2. That President Obama has no courage and is doing what he is told. That the President has no real power but is just a mouth piece. That there are others behind the President who have the real power and he has to do what he is told.

What is the Congress's excuse for taking it off the table? I think that it is because they knew torture was being used and they kept silent. Their silence makes them just as guilty because they knew but did nothing to stop the use of torture. Or like President Obama they are just following orders of the people who really have the power because they are the ones who have the large sums of money to corrupt our government. Who knows it might be a combination of both?

I do believe it is a combination of both of those reasons.

It always comes back to the question what are we the people going to do about this hijacking of our government and the evil corruption of that government that would use torture?

I'm for renditioning this George Wanker Bush wanna be to a third world country where he can receive some of that good old fashioned torture he believes in. No trial, no habeas corpus, no rights, no time limits on how long he is held and tortured. Just like the kind of law this little fuck believes in.

Why doesn't the article state the opposing viewpoint? Evidently the government arguments were rejected by the U.S. district court judge -- why?

And why does Yoo get a federally funded defense? This isn't a criminal case, in which representation is guaranteed. Besides, Yoo is a professor at Berkeley. He makes enough to hire his own attorney.

I would have expected this type of reporting from Fox.

I would just like to remind people that the "justice" department is still full of W appointees. Seen anything recently about any of them quitting or being replaced? That is because they HAVEN'T been replaced, and they REFUSE to quit. And so they continue to lie, cheat, obfuscate and obstruct where real justice is concerned.

Granted, Obama isn't doing what he should be to clear out the scum from the dept, but it's not HE who is doing this, it's W's lawyers. And I am very disappointed that he doesn't seem to realize just how important cleaning out the closets really is. But let's get real, do you think for one minute that he would have a chance of getting any replacements through the idiot process? Just think of all the "I'm going to filibuster" calls he would get from EVERY GD republican in congress, as well as a few morons in his own party.

No, the system is so totally screwed up all the bribery and collusion payments going on that NOTHING will happen until we get rid of it. NO private money in elections, PERIOD. Until that happens, we are doomed to be completely disappointed with who we get in office. And big business and private wealth will LOVE that. After all, it's THEY who put these losers up for nomination in the first place. That is why Kucinich (my personal choice) never had a chance. He's not a big business ass kisser, and that's why I was all for him.

Fix the election process, remove the money and THEN we will talk about what is good for the country. Until that happens, nothing will EVER change, no matter WHO they put in office.

For you Democrat apologists, just when is Obama supposed to stop supporting the Bush Administration and carrying out its policies?

I've heard your excuses that Obama needs more time, he is better than Bush, you can't have another Republican in power even though Obama is carrying out Republican policies, and you have to lower your expectations. On health care, Obama is doing worse than Bush did. It is better to do nothing than enshrine into law that Americans will be forced to be ripped off my private insurance companies.

" federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues." - Obama White House

"Hitler didn't want to do things my way. I wanted things done legally. After all, I am a lawyer." - Frick, Wilhelm Minister of the Interior. Nazi Germany

(4/24/46).... "The mass murders were certainly not thought of as a consequence of the Nuremberg Laws, [though] it may have turned out that way." Frick drafted, signed, and administered laws that abolished opposition parties, and suppressed trade unions and Jews (including the infamous Nuremberg Laws). Frick knew that the insane, aged, and disabled ("useless eaters") were being systematically killed, but did nothing to stop it.

He said he drafted the Nuremberg Laws for "scientific reasons": to protect the purity of German blood. Frick was one of eleven defendants sentenced to death.

Frick was hanged on Oct. 16, 1946.

Human garbage!

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

So basically, screw the Constitution, federal law, and all treaties down to the letter and punctuation: It's government by lawyerly whim and whatever they advise the president to do becomes "legal" the instant he does it for whatever reason or criterion the president him- or herself asserts for it--or keeps secret on the grounds of "national security."

Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, "First, kill all the lawyers,"?

Remember the empty hope for reform of all this sickness because President Obysmal was a Constitutional lawyer?

We need no more lawyers in Congress or the White House ruling by subjective secretive dictats and legislative sell-outs whose only purpose is to satisfy the insatiable, selfish desires of plutocrats. We need a democratically selected global panel of scientists from all the nations of the world to use objective science and Baysian ethics to solve our problems now.

Just one more example of what an absolute fraud Obama is. This turncoat miserable disaster of a president, has adopted the exact language of the Bush DOJ in asserting Cheneyesque plenary executive powers dreamed up by neocons at the Federalist Society. Not satisfied just to merely cover up Bush Administration crimes and move on, he is leveraging that cover up, to assert plenary executive powers, by essentially advocating torture.

SAN FRANCISCO - 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.

Hey, Barry . . . I'm "demeaning" you! You're a disgrace! Rot in Hell! Am I going to get a phone call from you?

Sounds like the Bomber is trying to be an accessory after the fact!

Allowing the Yoo lawsuit to be heard would raise "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict". So goes the Obama Justice Dept argument. At first I thought, "What a load of specious crap!". Then, upon reflection, I decided that Holder and Obama were right. My question is, why is it a bad thing to deter lawyers and government officials, who are sworn to uphold the law, from advocating torture and other gross violations of the law, privately, in the White House?

Let Yoo mount his own defense, without help/obfuscation from his buddies in the WH, DoJ and UCB.

As signatory to the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture, ratified by our Senate in 1994, the United States is required to promptly investigate any allegation of torture (Articles 12 & 13), and victims of torture must have an enforceable right to compensation (Article 14). Parties must also ban the use of evidence produced by torture in their courts (Article 15), and are barred from deporting, extraditing or refouling people where there are substantial grounds for believing they will be tortured (Article 3).

George W. Bush's refusal to obey this law, since 1994 a part of the Constitution under Article Six, The Supremacy Clause, was a clear violation of his oath of office and, therefore, an impeachable offense. Obama's refusal is the same violation of the oath he took and also an impeachable offense.

The "unitary executive", which Obama continues, is not only unconstitutional, but incompatible with a true democracy as well as our Constitutional government. It completely destroys the separation of powers and the checks and balances our Founders established to prevent one of the three branches from having more power than the other two.

Unfortunately, our country ceased being a true democracy long ago, and our corrupt Congress and Supreme Court are content to keep things as they are.

And the corporate media, intentionally filled with trivial distractions such as "The Balloon Boy" and Tiger Woods' many mistresses, is content to serve as the highly-paid propaganda arm of the ruling class.

Obama will obstruct any investigation and legal proceeding which may lead to the unraveling of this hidden and illegal Global ruling-elite corporate/financial/militarist Empire which Obama 'fronts for'.

Global Empire now preempts US law and the ultimate US law, the Constitution, that Obama is supposed to be an expert on.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine