"has anybody referred to torture as punishemnt?"

shit; this longer comment is the equivalent of Cheney's "So?"

except that Scalia will be in position long after Cheney's gone.

Arrrrgh!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7376741.stm - so far I have only found this article on the BBC site.

"If I'm the president, we will attack Iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them," she told TV network ABC.

except that Scalia will be in position long after Cheney's gone.

And yet there remains a high percentage of Hillary Clinton supporters and a small percentagage of Obama supporters who would rather vote for John McCain or some third-party candidate if their chosen candidate is not elected and allow yet another right-winger get appointed to the Supreme Court..

sigh..

If I'm the president, we will attack Iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them," she told TV network ABC.

Yep, if HIllary gets elected, she be elected on the backs of the "Bubbas" and they'll expect her to represent their views.

She'll get us into a war with Iran and she'll outlaw flag burning.

Last month Justice Antonin Scalia was politely quizzed by Norman Pearlstine, the outgoing Time Inc. editor in chief. The event, held in Time Warner's New York headquarters, was supposedly off the record, but so much of it has already been reported that it will not hurt to add Scalia's views on flag burning. He explained why it was constitutionally protected speech. It's a pity Hillary Clinton was not there to hear him.

so Hillary Clinton is more conservative than Scalia on this issue.

And hell, she didn't just vote for the ammendment, she helped to introduce it!

Along with Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, she has introduced a bill that would make flag burning illegal.

This guy, along with four other members of the Supreme Court, belongs to an organization that is essentially a front for child rapists.

His views on torture are about what one should expect.

The good news is, he's older than he looks: he's 72. Alito, alas, is only 58.

"Get over it" was all he had to say about one of the most significant Supreme Court cases of this era? Torture is OK because it´s not punishment?

I don´t get it. They said Scalia was first in his class, got all As, etc. yet he seems like a dumb fuck to this less -than-straight-A student. The really, really bad part is that Thomas is even more of a right-wing moron.

Except, Leftbanker, he is very intelligent and his statement refers to legal interpretation of the issue, which you choose to ignore simply based on your ideological orientation. If there is to be any meaningful debate on any issue left and right disagree on, underestimating your opponents intelligence and demeaning them in light of your own ignorance is hardly the right approach. Scalia might be a fence jumper, when he voted liberal on Gonzales v. Reich, but he is hardly an idiot.

Torture is OK because it´s not punishment?

Yeah, for those keeping score, Torture is punishment for not cooperating.

Scalia thinks he is smart.

I agree with Scalia. Interrogative torture is not punishment, it's a means to an end, not an end in itself. It's silly to say otherwise.

While his comment about torture did make me laugh out loud because the way it was phrased seemingly contradicted itself, he's actually right in legal terms. "Cruel and unusual punishment" refers to just that - the punishments handed out as sentences. That's why people aren't stoned to death by the state today as a form of capital punishment.

Not to say that torture is right or justified, but if we're looking to show that it's illegal the term "cruel and unusual punishment" isn't the way to go.

Not to say that torture is right or justified, but if we're looking to show that it's illegal the term "cruel and unusual punishment" isn't the way to go.

It is punishment, just punishment executed without a trail. A right to trial is the primary right being violated by domestic torture.

But internationally it isn't the US constitution that is being violated. Its the Geneva conventions.

I don't know the whole comment, but Scalia is right that torture in interrogations is not related to the 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Punishment is a remedy for a crime, whereas torture in interrogations is aimed at getting information.

In the case of Abu Ghraib torture is a war crime; in the case of police torture it's simply aggravated assault.

"It is punishment, just punishment executed without a trail. A right to trial is the primary right being violated by domestic torture."

I still don't think this is a good way to look at it, because you're looking at offending officers as agents of the state which legitimately punishes crime. But torture (in interrogations) is more than a lack of due process and a violation of the proper scope of punishment, it is itself a crime against the person, for which all the offending officers and their complicit superiors are guilty.

Re: "Bush v. Gore"

This is always what Scalia says about it. He's been saying "get over it" for a long time. He's never given a legal defense of the opinion. Sandra day O'Connor's best attempt at a defense was "Bush ended up winning in the best estimates of the Florida vote anyway". She, too, had no legal argument. It's really outrageous.