And the shredded pieces of the Constitution are being reclaimed from the latrine where BushCo dumped them. Next, they will be carefully steam-cleaned and woven back together.

OT

George Mitchell may be joining the team as special envoy

http://www.washingtontimes.com…..dle-east-/

I think we’re quite likely to see another round of (supposed) torture accountability. With that in mind, it’s instructive to watch the Errol Morris documentary, “Standard Operating Procedure,” to see how the scapegoating worked the last time around.

The documentary is worth renting just for Lynddie England. I was surprised to find myself becoming sympathetic to her.

Attribution: I stole those Maine slogans from Brad Delong’s Blog

I guess we should all know that fleeing the police inherently puts the public at danger.

Oh. Sorry. I was referring to this:

This Article accepts the unusual invitation to “see for yourself” issued by the Supreme Court in Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769 (2007). Scott held that a police officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment when he deliberately rammed his car into that of a fleeing motorist who refused to pull over for speeding and instead sought to evade the police in a high-speed chase. The majority did not attempt to rebut the arguments of the single Justice who disagreed with its conclusion that “no reasonable juror” could find that the fleeing driver did not pose a deadly risk to the public. Instead, the Court uploaded to its website a video of the chase, filmed from inside the pursuing police cruisers, and invited members of the public to make up their own minds after viewing it. We showed the video to a diverse sample of 1350 Americans. Overall, a majority agreed with the Court’s resolution of the key issues, but within the sample there were sharp differences of opinion along cultural, ideological, and other lines. We attribute these divisions to the psychological disposition of individuals to resolve disputed facts in a manner supportive of their group identities. The Article also addresses the normative significance of these findings. The result in the case, we argue, might be defensible, but the Court’s reasoning was not. Its insistence that there was only one “reasonable” view of the facts itself reflected a form of bias — cognitive illiberalism — that consists in the failure to recognize the connection between perceptions of societal risk and contested visions of the ideal society. When courts fail to take steps to counteract that bias, they needlessly invest the law with culturally partisan overtones that detract from the law’s legitimacy.

Which is from a link to an article from the HLR you posted. And to come full circle the jurisprudence Yoo practiced seems to be of the same ilk of a kind of jurisprudence steeped in the projection of politics. I don’t know. And a factor like a “Sicilian lament” heard in my head certainly runs astray of objectivity. It might nevertheless be a valid “tell.” This is where I have been communing.

Finally I regret my pith characterization but you know this subjective certainty grates on me. And I think that is what you are saying about privatizing jurisprudence.

the debate over torture prosecutions leaves out one important consideration

The Nuremberg Court hearings

bmaz can teel us what has gone before

but we’re dealing with new stuff here

in 1945, the idea of a group of nations usurping German soverengity to hold criminal hearings was unheard of

but it happened

when the law fails us, We The People have a right to enact GOD’S LAW

and in case you didn’t notice, the people arguing against this are gonna be defending WAR CRIMINALS

I don’t think anybody is gonna have a problem with george facing the bar of justice

From the Judges Cases at Nuremberg, the Alstoetter case:

We concur in the view expressed by the first International Military Tribunal as quoted above, but we observe that the decision was supported on two grounds. The Tribunal in that case did not stop with the declaration that it was bound by the IMT Charter as an exercise of sovereign legislative power. The opinion went on to show that the IMT Charter was also “the expression of international law existing at the time of its creation.” All of the war crimes and many, if not all, of the crimes against humanity as charged in the indictment in the case at bar were, as we shall show, violative of preexisting principles of international law.

And farther along in the decision:

This universality and superiority of international law does not necessarily imply universality of its enforcement. As to the punishment of persons guilty of violating the laws and customs of war (war crimes in the narrow sense), it has always been recognized that tribunals may be established and punishment imposed by the state into whose hands the perpetrators fall. These rules of international law were recognized as paramount, and jurisdiction to enforce them by the injured belligerent government, whether within the territorial boundaries of the state or in occupied territory, has been unquestioned. (Ex parte Quirin, supra; In re: Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1, 90 L. ed.) However, enforcement of international law has been traditionally subject to practical limitations. Within the territorial boundaries of a state having a recognized, functioning government presently in the exercise of sovereign power throughout its territory, a violator of the rules of international law could be punished only by the authority of the officials of that state. The law is universal, but such a state reserves unto itself the exclusive power within its boundaries to apply or withhold sanctions.