Think Progress

DOJ official reportedly clears torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee. - Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee were two of the main architects of the Bush administration’s torture program. As Bybee’s deputy, Yoo “was the author of much of the legal rationale for using waterboarding and other severe interrogation techniques.” He argued that interrogators who harm a prisoner would be protected “national and international [...]

ThinkFast: January 26, 2010 - Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Forty senators are supporting the reconfirmation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and 17 are opposed, according to a tally by Dow Jones Newswires. The rest have not disclosed their positions. The vote is “now expected Thursday or Friday.”
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) has introduced a resolution that could end the filibuster, instead allowing the [...]

Torture Advocate John Yoo Justifies Need For Radical Legal Paradigm By Citing Death Toll Of Terrorist Attacks - Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

One of the most tragic legacies of the Bush administration was its endorsement of harsh and inhumane treatment of terrorism suspects. One of the chief advocates for these policies was former Justice Department official John Yoo, who authored legal memos that authorized the use of torture on suspects.
Last night, Yoo appeared on the Daily [...]

ThinkFast: August 18, 2009 - Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Leading Democrats are objecting to signals from the Obama administration that it may back away from the public option in health care reform. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) said that “without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system.” Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) said that a public option is [...]

Report: Cheney wanted to illegally deploy American troops in U.S. cities. - Saturday, July 25th, 2009

The New York Times reports that in 2002, Vice President Cheney and his administration allies urged President Bush to deploy American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to apprehend a group of terrorist suspects (the “Lackawanna Six”) and declare them enemy combatants. The Times notes:
A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make [...]

In Op-Ed Attacking IG Report, John Yoo Never Mentions That He Refused To Cooperate With The Investigation - Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Last week, the Inspectors General of five separate intelligence agencies released a congressionally-mandated report on the Bush administration’s post-9/11 surveillance programs. The report focuses much of its criticism on John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, who wrote “legal memos undergirding the policy.”
In the Wall Street Journal [...]

Inspectors General Confirm Bush Admin Carried Out Massive Illegal Surveillance, More Than Previously Known - Saturday, July 11th, 2009

A congressionally-mandated report by Inspectors General of five separate intelligence agencies confirms that the Bush administration carried out “unprecedented,” massive surveillance activities beyond the warrantless wirteapping program that had previously been revealed. The Bush administration authorized the program without fully notifying Congress:
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of [...]

John Yoo ordered to testify on torture. - Saturday, June 13th, 2009

The New York Times reports that a federal judge in California has ruled that former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo will have to testify in court about accusations that his work led to the torture of a detainee:
The government had asked Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco to dismiss [...]

Rove claims that Sotomayor’s judicial decisions are led by ‘emotion.’ - Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Even before President Obama announced Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, former Bush adviser Karl Rove began attacking her credentials. Since then, Rove has claimed that she’s “not necessarily” smart and has acted “like sort of a schoolmarm” on the 2nd court of appeals. Today, in [...]

Matthew Yglesias discusses how the right-wing strategy on torture is backfiring. - Monday, May 18th, 2009

Today, ThinkProgress’s Matthew Yglesias (who is celebrating his birthday today) wrote a column for the Daily Beast arguing that the right wing’s sideshow on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) only furthers the case for a full investigation into torture. When host Norah O’Donnell asked him about Newt Gingrich’s call for Pelosi’s resignation, Yglesias reminded her [...]

Will Specter vote for cloture on Dawn Johnsen? - Friday, May 15th, 2009

On the day that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) announced that he was becoming a Democrat, he also reaffirmed his opposition to President Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen (though he never explained why he opposed her). Greg Sargent reports that Specter’s office has left the door open for the senator [...]

Philadelphia Inquirer hires John Yoo as a columnist. - Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

The Philadelphia Inquirer already has a long line-up of conservative columnists, including Michael Smerconish and Rick Santorum (who reportedly makes $1,750 per column). Attytood’s Will Bunch reveals that the Inquirer now has one more: torture architect John Yoo. The Inquirer hired Yoo in late 2008, but according to Bunch, didn’t give him a byline [...]

Bybee’s ‘remoteness from the actual torturers’ increases his ‘degree of responsibility.’ - Monday, April 27th, 2009

Jon Eisenberg, one of the lawyers who is representing the plaintiffs in a case challenging Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, writes in the Philadephia Inquirer today that Jay Bybee’s “remoteness from the actual torturers increases his degree of responsibility”:
Bybee did not write the torture memo he signed; it was written by John Yoo, then at the [...]

ThinkFast: April 21, 2009 - Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Congress is launching the “mother of all climate weeks” today, where 54 witnesses will “testify on climate change legislation in three full days before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.” Among the witnesses set to testify are former Vice President Al Gore, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. [...]

GOP threatens Obama’s legal nominees over release of torture memos. - Monday, April 6th, 2009

Harper’s Scott Horton reports that the Senate Republicans are determined to protect the Bush torture legacy, “promising to ‘go nuclear’ and filibuster [President Obama's] legal appointments” if he releases legal memos regarding the previous administration’s torture policies:
A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of [...]

Conservatives Holding Up Increasing Number Of Key Obama Nominees - Saturday, April 4th, 2009

Conservatives in Congress and in the media are attempting to block or delay a growing number of critical nominees for what amount to ideological witch hunts and self-interested horse-trading. As the President attempts to deal with the significant legal and logistical questions surrounding two wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, and caring for our nation’s veterans, the [...]

Spanish court agrees to consider criminal case against former Bush administration officials. - Saturday, March 28th, 2009

A Spanish court “has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials…over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay.” The officials include former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo [...]

Ignoring Fox’s own reporting, Fox News Watch claims Biden’s AFL-CIO meeting was ‘closed to the press.’ - Monday, March 9th, 2009

Last week, when Vice President Joe Biden addressed AFL-CIO leaders in Miami, Fox News claimed that the White House was denying the press access to Biden’s speech. Fox backtracked on Thursday when it was informed that a transcript would be made available and pool reporters would cover the event. Despite this report, Fox’s media analysis [...]

Yoo: I wouldn’t change the substance of my torture memos, but they do ‘lack a certain polish.’ - Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Yesterday, the Orange County Register released an interview with John Yoo, the former Bush Justice Department official who took the lead in crafting the legal justifications for the the former president’s torture policies. Despite the fact that Yoo’s “sloppy” memos were subsequently withdrawn by the Justice Department, Yoo told the Register that he doesn’t believe [...]

2001 Bush legal memo allowed ‘First Amendment speech and press rights’ to be ’subordinated.’ - Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder released several Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel memos, which show the astonishing extent to which the administration expanded its wartime powers. An October 2001 memo from John Yoo, for example, states that the “Fourth Amendment would not apply” for domestic military operations. The memo also restricted basic First Amendment [...]