Can’t let those meddling do gooders in Congress get in the way of Dear Leader’s efforts to protect the Fatherla… Homeland. After all, it is all about Unitary Executive Power. Thank you, Herr Alito.

“Congress doesn’t have the power to “tie the President’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique. It’s the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture.”
- Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo; Interview with The New Yorker, 2005

“The Fuehrer must have all the rights postulated by him which serve to further or achieve victory. Therefore–without being bound by existing legal regulations–in his capacity as leader of the nation, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, governmental chief and supreme executive chief, as supreme justice, and leader of the Party–the Fuehrer must be in a position to force with all means at his disposal every German, if necessary, whether he be common soldier or officer, low or high official or judge, leading or subordinate official of the Party, worker or employee, to fulfill his duties.”
- Greater German Reichstag; Resolution on the legal powers of the Fuehrer April 26,1942

Might be a good time to remember the words of Judge Robert Jackson right about now.

“While the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness… While this law is first applied against German aggressors, if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men (sic) answerable to the law.”
- Judge Robert Jackson, Chief Judge of the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal Court

‘Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a ’state of public emergency’) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.’
- Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, Feb. 9, 2000, para. 6.

So just how do they actually explain that its all legal? Or have I simply forgotten the new maxim that its not fascism when we do it, and its not against the law when the President does it.