Guess who could be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court if Willard Mitt Romney becomes the 45th president of the United States of America?
How's about fellow lifelong Mormon Jay Scott Bybee, age 58, currently sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, just a stepping stone below the Supremes.
Judge Bybee's creds are impressively LDS and Republican:
Magna Cum Laude, with Highest Honors, Brigham Young University, 1977
Juris Doctor Cum Laude, BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School, 1980
Editorial board of BYU Law Review
Law clerk to Judge Donald S. Russell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Service in the U.S. Justice Department under Reagan, Bush and Bush
Law prof at various learning institutions around the U.S. of A. since
But, most of all, most of all folks ... and this spews forth small beads of sweaty lust on the broad forehead of Richard Bruce Cheney, formerly Vice:
John Yoo and Jay Bybee were the two Justice Department lawyers responsible for the memos authorizing the Bush Administration's use of torture. Torture is illegal under United States and international law. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids the government's use of cruel and unusual punishment. Under Article Six of the Constitution, treaties signed by the U.S. are the "supreme Law of the Land". Two international human rights treaties outlawing torture, the Geneva Convention and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, were signed by the U.S. In addition, the U.S. Criminal Code and the Army Field Manual prohibit torture, war crimes, and degrading treatment of detainees. The legal memoranda (see the original "Torture Memos" here) authored by Yoo and Bybee advised Bush Administration officials that the U.S. and International Law regarding torture did not apply to Taliban detainees or others with suspected links to Al-Qaeda and terrorism.
Oooh! Once again contravening the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Convention, the UN Convention against Torture, international treaties, the U.S. Criminal Code and the Army Field Manual.
You know that could only gladden and bring great joy to the heart of Willard, fierce cutter of long blond gaylocks, slammer of the blind into glass doors, pushers of the faces of sons into dishes of butter, imprisoner of frightened dog into pen upon station wagon, lawless impersonator of traffic cop to terrify the unwary, etc., etc.
One can but breathlessly await the looming, dooming justiceship of the Bybee.