Free Republic

On December 20, 2023, US District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued an order granting a preliminary injunction against the defendants (the State of California government). The injunction stopped the state from enforcing the blatantly unconstitutional SB-2 law declaring most of California as “sensitive places” where even licensed concealed carriers were forbidden to carry arms in public. The state asked for an order to stop the injunction from going into effect on December 22, 2023. The stay was granted on December 30, 2023, by an administrative three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. The stay was appealed to the Ninth Circuit three-judge...

SAN FRANCISCO — A divided U.S. appeals court late Friday refused to immediately allow the Trump administration to enforce a ban on asylum for any immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The ban is inconsistent with an existing U.S. law and an attempted end-run around Congress, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 decision. "Just as we may not, as we are often reminded, 'legislate from the bench,' neither may the Executive legislate from the Oval Office," 9th Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, a nominee of Republican President George W. Bush, wrote for...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will hold a hearing Friday to examine a report that allowed two Bush administration officials to escape any formal punishment regarding their role in drafting the legal justification for the harsh interrogations of detainees. Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two former high-level Bush administration officials who drafted the legal basis for the Bush administration’s treatment of overseas terror suspects, escaped any formal punishment in a long-awaited Justice Department report released Friday evening. Leahy also called on federal appeals court judge Bybee to step down from the lifetime appointment over his role in the...

What they’re saying • “The law prohibits us from making such fine utilitarian calculations to balance the smelt’s interests against the interests of the citizens of California. — Federal Judge Jay Bybee • “These regulations have harmed farmers and farmworkers in the Central Valley ... by diverting vast quantities of water away from human use and out to the Pacific Ocean, all to try to improve the habitat of ... a 3-inch fish on the Endangered Species Act list. — James S. Burling, director of litigation for the Pacific Legal Foundation The Supreme Court on Monday steered clear of a...

For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), clears the Bush administration lawyers who authored the “torture” memos of professional-misconduct allegations. While the probe is sharply critical of the legal reasoning used to justify waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, NEWSWEEK has learned that a senior Justice official who did the final...

When Barack Obama released Jay Bybee’s 2002 memos on enhanced interrogations, the Washington Post reported that Bybee recently expressed regret for his work. The New York Times today says that the Post got it wrong. Bybee stands by his work, even though it has cost him friends and prompted credential investigations:

Liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill, including some of its most powerful members, are pressing for the impeachment of a federal judge over the Bush Administration's "torture memos", an aggressive move President Obama has no official power to stop. The growing calls for the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee, who as a senior Justice Department lawyer in 2002 approved and signed a legal opinion that said harsh interrogation techniques, including the simulated drowning method known as waterboarding, did not constitute torture. Mr Obama has made clear that he wants to move on from the issue of alleged Bush-era abuses, but constitutionally...

John Podesta, the head of a left-leaning think tank who ran the Obama transition team, is calling for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, a federal judge and former Bush administration official who wrote one of the “torture memos” made public last week. In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-Mich.), Podesta says that since he has "issued opinions that violate the Constitution and concealed relevant aspects of his legal views and professional conduct from the Senate, Bybee has neither the legal nor moral authority to sit in judgment of others."...

The laws of war, as subscribed to by most civilized nations -- even if adherence can be spotty -- draw an important distinction between uniformed prisoners of war and irregulars who wear no recognizable uniform, the better to meld into the general populace of non-combatants in order to act as spies or saboteurs, blowing up military installations behind the lines. Once uniformed prisoners are taken, the rules call for them to be treated in a humane manner. Not so plainclothes spies, partisans and irregulars. In part because their activities blur the line between the military and the civilian populace, leading...

Mark Levin provided a lecture on history last night to President Barack Obama about the law and the decisions made by Lincoln, FDR, and others when American lives hung in the balance. "If we get hit again, that blood is on Obama's hands." It makes no logical difference that Bybee could have foreseen that the result of his incorrect legal advice would be the commission of a crime. Gorelick could have foreseen that the consequences of her incorrect legal advice would permit the commission of a crime (just read her memo ... and you will see that the warning signs...

The four memos on CIA interrogation released by the White House last week reveal a cautious and conservative Justice Department advising a CIA that cared deeply about staying within the law. Far from "green lighting" torture -- or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees -- the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation. Interrogations were to be "continuously monitored" and "the interrogation team will stop the use of particular techniques or the interrogation altogether if the detainee's medical or psychological conditions indicates that the...

former Army colonel says President Obama gave all the terrorists planning to do "bad things" to the United States a huge assurance today when he released memos from the Bush presidency regarding interrogation techniques for such suspects. The actions were "bad form, bad tactics, bad strategy until this war is over," according to retired U.S. Army Col. Bob Maginnis.

Polls at the site as each aspect of the "Torture Memos" is discussed. Decide for yourself - is this torture? But what of the acts discussed in these memos? Do the acts constitute torture in the minds of most Americans? In my view, most of them sound like activities that fraternity pledges willingly submit themselves to during Rush Week each and every year in our schools of higher learning. Decide for yourself... Let's look at the ten techniques noted in the first memo: 1) The Attention Grasp (It sounds more fearful if you say it in a hushed tone.) The...

The U.S. Justice Department released four memos last week that show the agency’s lawyers approval of the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of such techniques as sleep deprivation, slapping, nudity and waterboarding. The memos also discussed how far interrogators are allowed to go. Almost an outline of what terrorists have to train for. It has been reported the release was made over the objections of CIA director Leon Panetta. The purpose of the interrogation methods has nothing to do with gaining confessions for some military or civilian trial. The CIA used those methods to get information and prevent future terror attacks....

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but I can't find anything on FR in terms of defending Judge Jay Bybee from the unrelenting assault from the Left; see the editorial below by the NY Times and a related article by the Washington Post. == From the NY Times: The Torturers’ Manifesto Published: April 18, 2009 To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity. Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar...

The US Senate confirmed conservative Jay Bybee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the same court that declared the pledge unconstitutional. Bybee will certainly help turn that court in a more rightward direction. The vote was 75 yes to 18 no.