Home
Creators
Search Recent Missing Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

John Yoo Wrote the Torture Memos and Never Paid for It. At All. (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-30 08:36:36
Imported:
2026-10

Downloads

Content

VR45 - Today on Vapid Response: 25 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we look back on the Forrest Gump of monstrously bad legal takes: former DOJ lawyer and current UC Berkeley law professor (!) John Yoo. We go back to the primary sources to show how the Office of Legal Counsel explicitly authorized torture, indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay, and warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens before giving Secretary of State Marco Rubio a chance to explain why the world should never hold the United States accountable for any of it.

Cases and sources discussed:

“Time to Think About Torture,” Jonathan Alter, Newsweek (11/4/2001)

“Is There a Tortuous Road to Justice?” Alan M. Dershowitz, LA Times (11/8/2001)

Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting Counsel for the CIA, DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (August 1, 2002)

Possible Habeas Jurisdiction Over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Patrick Philbin & John Yoo (December 28 2001)

Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose " Standard for Searches, John Yoo (9/25/2001)

“Why We’re Dismantling the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio (July 14, 2026)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Files

Comments

David in Brooklyn

Haven't heard the episode yet but THANK YOU for remembering and covering this.

Phoebe needs coffee

I have a very important addendum to the Smith going to the UMD/Iowa State thing which is “go Terps!”

Matt Barber

Spencer Ackerman's book "Reign of Terror" is worth revisiting to see just how insane 2001-2016 actually was

Hoping congressional Dems are ready to rumble

Wow. What an episode! Literal LOL at the Bad Legal Takes song taking 😂 And I'm glad I'm not the only one still angry about the crimes of the Bush administration. AI could never replace yinz ❤️

Hoping congressional Dems are ready to rumble

Oh ALSO thank you VML for making our names work, I didn't see your comment on the other thread til late last night!! I have an idea for next time, email me? carol.nichols@gmail.com 🤩

General Contact Unit Problem Child

When 9 11 happened I remember being annoyed my list of world’s tallest buildings was now out of date because that was one of my autistic special interests when I was 8

Kristen Leist

The immorality of lawyers using their legal minds to justify child rape and torture is appalling. The flagrant disregard for the meanings of words by people whose livelihoods depend on word specificity is infuriating to me. For instance: Dershowitz claiming that a blood draw is an “injection,” Yoo writing that a caterpillar is a nonvenomous insect, Yoo writing that oxygen deprivation is harmless when water does not enter the lungs. And most of all ignoring the well established fact that information gained under torture is not reliable. Fuck these monstrous, immoral people.

Xentac

I'm sad, after making so many references to The Verve Pipe "Freshman" in the last episode, Thomas didn't realize that "A Shoeful of Rice" is a reference to that song. Do better. 🤣

Golden Mantled Howler Monkey

Thank you! That was me! Anyway, back to phrases with the same syllable pattern as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

Ryan

I've been soaking in the glorious stupidity that was Schmitt's failed takedown attempt since it came out yesterday, but I think there is one (not terribly important) fact that people are getting wrong. I don't think Schmitt, et al, confused the Hawks and the Hawkeyes; the team was never named in the text messages on the poster. Instead, when Schmitt went on Charlie Kirk's (Rest in Piss) show after the hearing (because of course he had a "victory lap" scheduled after his planned moment of glory), he said that there weren't any other NBA or men's college games at that date and time. He and his team probably took Smith's seized texts, plugged them into an AI and had it look for any dates, times, locations, etc, and compared them to the same about Trump's impeachment. When one date (along with a reference to stadium seating) landed pretty close to Fani Willis' announcement, they looked to see if there was a way to connect the two and ran with the Hawks game bullshit. And of course their misogynist asses couldn't fathom that Jack Smith would have gone to a women's college game. I think the Hawks/Hawkeyes thing that Amy Klobuchar brought up might have been coincidental, but still pretty funny.

Ellen Berman

John Yoo was my Con Law professor at Berkeley in 1997. He was a douche bag then too. He gave his friend my roommate's phone number without her permission {his friend had met her at a party). He had her number because she was his student. Yuck.

Gmork

I was seconds away from pausing to explain the Weyoun reference before Matt stepped in. He's the fucking Schroeder's cat of getting all nerd pop culture and getting none of it . . .

David in Brooklyn

That is revealing and I hadn't heard it mentioned before. Thank you. Plus let's all notice how the Senator mispronounces "Fani" (which rhymes with "tawny") to make it sound like a synonym for someone's rear end

David in Brooklyn

The explanation for why there was a new hearing with Smith (you wondered this out loud) was that this was the Senate's Judiciary Committee; the last previous hearing had been on the House side.

David in Brooklyn

Thanks for the recommendation. I just went to libro.fm and bought the audio book version, which is narrated by the author. -- Somewhere on my shelves, unfortunately still unread, I have a copy of "Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation" by Shane O'Mara, which also looks to be on an important side of the topic.

Matt Barber

Yes, I've been going through the audiobook version as well. I listened to it once when it came out, but now it seems even more pressing than ever to know this history

David in Brooklyn

On November 6, 2001, just two months after 9/11, FOX started broadcasting the counter-terrorism action thriller series _24_ starring Kiefer Sutherland. I've never seen it, but millions of American TV viewers evidently did. Does anyone here have a comment on what the show was like? I get the impression that it influenced a lot of people's attitudes.

Weyoun 13

The 'bad legal takes' jingle has reminded me to make this suggestion: doesn't the world need a musical episode of Opening Arguments? Like how Buffy did! I cannot explain how this would work, I know only that I want it.

beebah in boston

As I recall (it's been a while) we all learned about the torture memo during the Abu Ghraib trials, specifically the Lynndie England trial. And this is why Bush Jr is tied with Trump for worst modern president as far as I'm concerned

beebah in boston

David, I'm going to try to be brief, but it will be hard. I was hired into a foreign policy records job with a federal agency at about the same time 24 started (I applied pre Sept 11, was hired in the fall, started after the holidays). So, I was working in a SCIF during the entire run of 24. I watched the first season, starting because I had a crush on one of the cast members, ending in pure hate watch. You probably already know that 24 glorified torture and vigilantism. They also made no effort to make any part of it jibe with the mundane reality if having clearances etc. For example, at that time, you couldn't bring your own cell phone into a secure location (I think this is still true). A major plot point that I blessedly can't remember hinged on someone making calls or taking pics or some such in a SCIF. Anyway, I became one of those annoying people who blurted "That would never happen" 10 times an episode. The same producers made Homeland. Same experience.

beebah in boston

As far as whether it influenced people's opinions, well, it certainly juiced them emotionally. Torture, anti-Arab bigotry, pro-fascist ideology were constants. However, all but the biggest dumbasses recognized that it was full of plot holes.

Matt Cameron

I was struggling to decide just how much detail was necessary to provide for the Weyoun joke, which has since continued to develop through subsequent patron names to my ongoing amusement! I would like to believe that my record of getting all nerd pop culture references ever raised on this show remains unbroken, but I am open to hearing otherwise!