Why is this man walking free? - updated with h/t

Report: Bush Lawyer Said President Could Order Civilians to Be 'Massacred'

How is that for a headline? Michael Isikoff reported the following at Newsweek:

The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

So I ask you: giving a president unlimited dictatorial powers violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, no?

Then why, in the name of all that is holy (and the rule of law), has John Yoo not been disbarred for violating his oath to uphold the Constitution? Why is he allowed to teach at the University of California? The question of why is he not behind bars for war crimes is related to his justifications for torture, not this.

(All that is ignoring what a smug bastard he is.)

What is wrong with this nation?

When will the rule of law be restored to the United States?

I am just seeing the Bush Crime Regime being given one pass after another.

And I have a few words for the President:

Yo, Barry! Your oath to support, uphold, and defend the Constitution involves enforcing the laws. Laws have been broken. When the hell are you going to start enforcing? Why do you hamper your DOJ? Get with it. Or do you want to go down in history as yet one more sorry-ass lawbreaker? Just saying.

Update:
I forgot the h/t to ImpeachKingBushII

--the BB

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals speaks

From AL-KIDD v. ASHCROFT

All seizures of criminal suspects require probable cause of criminal activity. To use a material witness statute pretextually, in order to investigate or preemptively detain suspects without probable cause, is to violate the Fourth Amendment.

...

CONCLUSION

Almost two and a half centuries ago, William Blackstone, considered by many to be the preeminent pre-Revolutionary War authority on the common law, wrote:

To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.

1 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS oF ENGLAND 131-32 (1765).

The Fourth Amendment was written and ratified, in part, to deny the government of our then-new nation such an engine of potential tyranny. And yet, if the facts alleged in al-Kidd’s complaint are actually true, the government has recently exercised such a “dangerous engine of arbitrary government” against a significant number of its citizens, and given good reason for disfavored minorities (whoever they may be from time to time) to fear the application of such arbitrary power to them.

We are confident that, in light of the experience of the American colonists with the abuses of the British Crown, the Framers of our Constitution would have disapproved of the arrest, detention, and harsh confinement of a United States citizen as a “material witness” under the ircumstances, and for the immediate purpose alleged, in al-Kidd’s complaint. Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence
that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.

I commend these portions of the decision to your attention. The author of this decision is a George W. Bush appointee confirmed in 2006. As Jay Elias, who brought this to my attention at Daily Kos, comments:

This is what honest evaluation of the legality of the methods of the Bush administration looks like.

Can you believe this crap?

["Sweet suffering Jesus on a stick!" for new readers]

OK, Mad Priest is busy cleaning up the language at his blog. I am sure Susan S. will come to the rescue to keep this one potty-mouthed.

Anyhoo....

How would you feel if your tax dollars were used to promote creationism among the Air Force as part of a "suicide prevention" program?

Ticked? Horrified? Disgusted? Outraged? All of the above and a few more?

You can read about it at Chris Rodda's post "Creationism: The Latest In Military Suicide Prevention." It's really sickening.
--the BB