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Quote For The Day
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — ... "We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it," - Scott Horton. ...

Well lookie there Liberals right again
Rising Hegemon — Although there's little satisfaction in how the Bush Administration used the Bill of Rights like toilet paper (two-ply so it had the side-benefit of wrecking the environment too). ...

2001 Bush legal memo allowed ‘First Amendment speech and press rights’ to be ’subordinated.’
Think Progress — ... ,” President Bush said in May 2008. After reading the memos, Harpers’ Scott Horton wrote, “We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship.” ...

What Bill of Rights?
The Mahablog — Be sure to read “Extraordinary Measures: A new memo shows just how far the Bush administration considered going in fighting the war on terror” by Michael Isikoff. See also “George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution” by Scott Horton and “The newly released secret laws of the Bush administration” by Glenn Greenwald.

The OLC Memos and State Secrets
Daily Kos — Yesterday's release of some of the infamous OLC memos (the ACLU has requested 41 memos via FOIA) reaffirms just how dangerous the Cheney/Addington/Yoo unitary executive was--and is. Scott Horton calls it George W. Bush's Disposable Constitution, which I'm quoting at length: John Yoo’s Constitution is unlike any other I have ever seen. It seems to consist of one clause: appointing the President as commander-in-chief. The rest of the Constitution was apparently printed in disappearing ink. We need to know how the memo was ...

The viper at our breast
The Sideshow — Scott Horton on George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution: Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United ...

The Disposable Constitution
Suburban Guerrilla — Scott Horton on the nine OLC memos written to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush that were released this week: John Yoo’s Constitution is unlike any other I have ever seen. It seems to consist of one clause: appointing the President as commander-in-chief. The rest of the Constitution was apparently printed in disappearing ink. We need to know how the memo was used. Bradbury suggests it was not much relied upon; I don’t believe that for a second. Moreover Bradbury’s decision to wait to the very end before repealing it suggests that ...

John Yoo: More Shredding of the Constitution
Pacific Views — The name of John Yoo should go down in history as one who not only hated the foundations of our Constitution, but actively tried to undermine it. Many of Yoo's deeply flawed, corrupt, and frankly anti-American rulings which defined the powers George W Bush had have been known for quite sometime. Indeed, one of the more surprising and depressing facts of our time is that John Yoo continues to have a bully pulpit to spread his treasonous garbage. Just last month, the Dean for Chapman University School of Law in Orange County defended his decision in bring John Yoo on board thusly: ...

Pragmatism on Torture Another 'Sorry Kind of Wisdom'
Daily Kos — ... Alas, prosecution now has been taken off the table. So what's left? We're unlikely to get a full-bore investigation like those conducted of the intelligence establishment by Otis Pike and Frank Church in the mid-'70s. Even the lowest rung on the accountability ladder hasn't made any headway. The last time Senator Patrick Leahy mentioned the much-criticized "truth commission" was April 3. He is still seeking support for the idea, he said. As Scott Horton wrote when the previous secret memos were released in March: "We may not have ...