We also recommend that the government should immediately carry out an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques on the basis of such information as is publicly available or which can be supplied by the US.

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9894.html

Scroll down and take a good look. When it comes to an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques, I think it's pretty definitive, don't you? And by-gosh-and-by-golly, it's right there on the Internet in living and dying color - bright splashes of red - and you don't even need to sign in!

Either we've gone down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass, or we're a much more vicious and depraved nation than I - still suffering the delusions imparted by my 9th-grade Civics class - could ever have envisioned.

Looking at those pictures, I find myself trying to imagine what it must be like being one of those savagely tortured people, and worse, what it must be like being one of the savages.

These photographs have changed my life; I just cannot scrape the nightmare from my eyes.

In the scheme of things a small but important point: The problem with Hagel is not that he's pro-life. Most everyone is pro-life, a notable exception being the Bush administration. The problem is that Hagel is anti-choice.

The issue is not one of pro-life and anti-life; the issue is one of choice, a woman's right to have control over her own body. I can't imagine anyone actually being for abortion per se; what they're for is a woman's right to choose whether or not to remain pregnant and give birth.

The anti-choice crowd has dubbed themselves "pro-life," and the idiot media have adopted that name, but it's not an accurate one. A large contingent of "pro-lifers" is notable, in fact, for fanatically promoting life before birth and either neglecting it after birth or actively seeking to end it via the death penalty and war. That is not pro-life; it is anti-life. And when it comes to reproductive rights, it's anti-choice.

OK. Carry on with your tireless defense of our rights. The good you do cannot be overestimated.

Or to being an American? When we have a president, vice president and speaker of the House complicit in torture and illegal domestic spying?

When our two presidential candidates believe the Fourth Amendment isn't worth the parchment it was inscribed upon?

What's the point of our country? When we have doctors and psychologists, oath-swearing members of the healing professions, participating in torture?

Maybe I need some reminding, because I believe we've gone past the point of no return. This appalling history - violent, bloody, vicious, unthinkably evil - is now with us forever, and rather than be repudiated - which would imply a rigorous reckoning and consequences for all who created it - this history will be built upon as we continue down this path. It may be awhile before we engage in torture again - if we aren't torturing right now - but with Barack Obama supporting warrentless searches, it's a certainty that the Fourth Amendment has been permanently abrogated. What's next? Does anyone think that the expanding war in Afghanistan, no matter which president is leading it, is going to make things better at home? Does anyone think Obama will do the right thing?

Somebody remind me. Tell me why we as a nation make any sense anymore. Describe for me the logic of our existence.

Obama Supporters on Far Left Cry Foul, in today's New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/us/politics/13liberal.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Does the usual hatchet job of marginalizing those who would defend the Constitution - like we're all out on a far left limb all by our lonesomes, whining and pouting.

I wonder if this reporter and his editor know just how FISA could interfere with their jobs - like if they're talking on the phone or through email to sources outside the U.S. Apparently not.

It's unfortunate that this meme defining those opposed to FISA as "far left" has infected even some it seeks to pigeonhole:“You realize,” Ms. Shade said, her voice fading with resignation, “that you’re talking to somebody who’s pretty far out of the mainstream.”

Sorry, but that's not pretty far out of the mainstream. It's 100-percent American. What's out of the mainstream is trying to undermine the liberties granted us in the Bill of Rights.