January isn’t even half-way over, and I think we already have a chutzpah winner for 2012. It’s war-criminal former Bush administration lawyer, John Yoo, who thinks the president has gone just too darn far with his recess appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Board (an appointment by the way, required under law).
Yoo, who as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, wrote the “torture memo”, which gave legal cover for waterboarding, hooding, stress positions, and other techniques that had been until then, been associated with the Third Reich or Pol Pot, rather than the United States, writes,
“Obama goes beyond anything any president has before…”
Mr. “unitary executive” had this colloquy in 2005, with Notre Dame law professor Doug Cassel:
Cassel: “If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”
Yoo: “No treaty.”
Cassel: “Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...”
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.”
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