I don’t know about you. But I’m sort of bored with the Holder v. Rahm fight over torture and Gitmo. My hope is they’ll start a military commission trial, it’ll get delayed and challenged, and Holder will be able to demonstrate in terms even Rahm understands that civilian trials are not just a question of [...]

Congratulations to Craig Becker, who has finally gotten his recess appointment to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. As well as 14 other people who were similarly recess appointed today. Not on that list? Dawn Johnsen. Any more questions about why Johnsen hasn’t assumed her role as Assistant Attorney General yet? Update: I asked [...]

You would think confirming Dawn Johnsen would be a priority for the Obama White House, but clearly you would be wrong. What is even more startling is, given the heavy exposure of the problems in the OLC, and inability of OPR to regulate it, the last few days that no one in the press and media are asking the Obama White House why they have so hung their own nominee out to dry.

In a conference call focused closely on the possibility of moving health care through reconciliation, Arlen Specter invoked Justice Jackson’s comment to justify his support for putting health care through the reconciliation process. He said Jackson’s comment–that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”–would be considered applicable to stale-mated government. He later said he’d like [...]

Apparently, Obama told Mitch McConnell that if the GOP didn’t start releasing their hostages, he would recess appoint the whole lot of them. And, as a result of a direct threat, McConnell and his buddies released 27 of their hostages. But Obama is calling for the Republicans to release all their hostages. Today, the United [...]

The failure of the Obama Administration to support the Dawn Johnsen nomination, a far less than good faith effort that finally resulted in Johnsen’s nomination being killed by operation of Senate Rule, was not due to a lack of 60 votes for cloture on the nomination, but instead was to permit the abuse of the OLC, just as the Bush Administration before them, in order to cover up governmental illegality.

Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to lead the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ has been killed in the Senate. It is over unless Obama renominated her and the process starts anew. How did it come to this? The only rational explanation is that it is exactly what Barack Obama wanted; Johnsen’s nomination was never more than another Obama political trick on his liberal electoral base.

Barack Obama first announced his intention to nominate Dawn Johnsen, a distinguished lawyer, professor of Constitutional law and former AAG in the Office of Legal Counsel for the DOJ, to be his head of the supremely critical Office of Legal Counsel nearly one year ago on January 5, 2009. Ms. Johnsen is imminently qualified and one of the best selections Obama has made for any position in his administration. In spite of that fact, Barack Obama and Harry Reid have callously and shamelessly left her twisting in the wind and have refused to put any emphasis or effort in forcing her confirmation. It is one of the greatest unpublicized scandals of an increasingly feckless Obama Presidency.

Dawn Johnsen is being considered in SJC today. When the Republicans start making incendiary claims about her, call them and remind them that, unlike John Yoo, she has promised to use a non-politicized method to put respect for the law back in OLC memos.

Why won’t the Appeals Court let Obama try to broker a deal between Harriet Miers and the House Judiciary Committee?