Radical Right Wing Republican Antonin Scalia, Says Torture Not Punishment
Torture loving Antonin Scalia is at it again.
Saint Ronnie gave us this man who, like Reagan, cannot tell fact from fiction. Scalia thinks Jack Bauer is real.
As the ABC blog reminds us, "Scalia mounted a spirited defense of Bauer during a judicial conference in Ottawa last year when a Canadian judge said, 'Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?'
"Scalia shot back: 'Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles . . . . He saved hundreds of thousands of lives…Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.' "
"Last night, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted his first broad-based television interview, to Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes. There he explained that the torture of detainees does not violate the 8th Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” because, according to Scalia, torture is not used as punishment:
Scalia is the crude, rude, face of Republican partisan politics on the Supreme Court bench.
Existentialist Cowboy refreshed short memories, "If historians are honest, history will record that it was Antonin Scalia who finished off the American republic by sticking us with George W. Bush, a ne'er do well who aspired to dictatorship and with Scalia's help, got one! Scalia now sweats his legacy in an unseemly manner in public. Historians will say of his bone headed efforts to bully other justices into complicity was not not based in anyway on the Constitution, law or precedent. Scalia is what happens when justices give up law for partisan politics. Scalia's scholarly retort: 'get over it'.
"Lately, Scalia has blamed Gore for Bush v Gore, ignoring the fact that Gore had already won his case in the Florida Court. A recount of all the votes was, in fact, underway but stopped when Bush made of a local election a federal case. The case is styled Bush v Gore. That means Bush brought the case.
"The best damning criticism of Bush v Gore is found in Bush v Gore --the opinions of the dissenting judges. Clearly --they state even better than other legal scholars the UNCONSTITUTIONALITY of the Supreme Court overturning a decision of a State court with regard to the state court's own rulings, a state's own elections!!! Scalia is trying to rewrite history. Not surprising for an idiot, a crook, a Republican."
Scalia's obscene gesture to photographer
Courtesy of Existentialist Cowboy
Saint Ronnie gave us this man who, like Reagan, cannot tell fact from fiction. Scalia thinks Jack Bauer is real.
As the ABC blog reminds us, "Scalia mounted a spirited defense of Bauer during a judicial conference in Ottawa last year when a Canadian judge said, 'Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?'
"Scalia shot back: 'Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles . . . . He saved hundreds of thousands of lives…Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.' "
"Last night, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted his first broad-based television interview, to Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes. There he explained that the torture of detainees does not violate the 8th Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” because, according to Scalia, torture is not used as punishment:
STAHL: If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized, by a law enforcement person — if you listen to the expression “cruel and unusual punishment,” doesn’t that apply?SCALIA: No. To the contrary. You think — Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.STAHL: Well I think if you’re in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody–SCALIA: And you say he’s punishing you? What’s he punishing you for? … When he’s hurting you in order to get information from you, you wouldn’t say he’s punishing you. What is he punishing you for?
"Scalia’s parsing of the 8th Amendment blindly ignores reports showing that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was about humiliation and punishment, not information-gathering. In 2004, theWashington Post reported MPs involved in the abuse “said detainees were beaten and sexually humiliated as punishment or for fun.” A recent New Yorker profile of one of the soldiers there confirmed that “mostly what interrogators wanted when they asked for ’special treatment’ was punishment: take away his mattress, keep him awake, take away his clothes.”
Scalia is the crude, rude, face of Republican partisan politics on the Supreme Court bench.
Existentialist Cowboy refreshed short memories, "If historians are honest, history will record that it was Antonin Scalia who finished off the American republic by sticking us with George W. Bush, a ne'er do well who aspired to dictatorship and with Scalia's help, got one! Scalia now sweats his legacy in an unseemly manner in public. Historians will say of his bone headed efforts to bully other justices into complicity was not not based in anyway on the Constitution, law or precedent. Scalia is what happens when justices give up law for partisan politics. Scalia's scholarly retort: 'get over it'.
"Lately, Scalia has blamed Gore for Bush v Gore, ignoring the fact that Gore had already won his case in the Florida Court. A recount of all the votes was, in fact, underway but stopped when Bush made of a local election a federal case. The case is styled Bush v Gore. That means Bush brought the case.
"The best damning criticism of Bush v Gore is found in Bush v Gore --the opinions of the dissenting judges. Clearly --they state even better than other legal scholars the UNCONSTITUTIONALITY of the Supreme Court overturning a decision of a State court with regard to the state court's own rulings, a state's own elections!!! Scalia is trying to rewrite history. Not surprising for an idiot, a crook, a Republican."
Scalia's obscene gesture to photographer
Courtesy of Existentialist Cowboy
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