In 1988 he signed the Convention Against Torture, which was then ratified by Congress and made the law of the land by Article III of the Constitution:

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made . . .

The Convention states clearly and unequivocally:

. . . the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person . . . No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture . . . An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

What part of no exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture do Elephantman and others fail to understand?

Go get fu**ed right after asking how the 750,000 dead Iraqi civilians feel about yer Republican family values.

At his first cabinet meeting in late February 2001, all George Bush wanted to talk about was invading Iraq. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, but the retard was fixated on getting the US into a war in the Middle East to prove George W's dick was bigger than George HW's.

How do we know this? It was reported by Republican Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and by Richard Clark, the National Security dude.

Warrantless wiretapping? Again, it started BEFORE 9/11. As for 9/11, had Bush or Cheney or Condi Rice done jack shit after reading a memo saying Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside US, indeed, had Condi merely read the stack of intelligence sitting on her desk while she talked football with Bush in Crawford, perhaps the 3,000 deaths in NYC could have been avoided.

The Republicans are CRIMINALLY responsible here, so how about you can it with your revisionist fascist prattle?

and post at Salon: terkoy and steveiek, it was nice of you, because we didn't have to go out on the campaign trail and spend months listening to retards, political naivete and buckets of lies in person, we could just sit at the keyboard letting you provide the moronic commentary so representative of the 30% of functional imbeciles that ARE the Republican base.

Just for the record's sake, could we identify the political enemies FDR threw in jail, or are you just spouting the preposterous revisionism of Thomas Fleming? Broaden your reading habits.

. . . and if the old geezer can't pay, then you can go to the county prosecutor and file criminal charges . . . that'll show him. And your Mom will be a lot happier with Dad in the hoosegow.

GREAT ADVICE, Cary. Call that lawyer tomorrow!

when she did her first surgical rounds at UCSF, she called me and said: "Do not let anyone cut your skin unless it is medically necessary! REALLY necessary."

The idea that plastic surgeons routinely subject their patients to the same risks of infections, bad anesthesic reactions, flesh eating bacteria and superimmune bugs as, say, kidney transplant patients boggles my imagination.

In my view, it is per se medical malpractice.

And the fact the patient often takes those risks not in a truly informed manner, nor, ultimately necessarily in the best interests of the patient, but rather in order to subsidize the plastic surgeons life style, is abomination.

There are plastic surgeons doing breat augmentation on 15 year old girls. They don't even know yet how big their boobs might get.

A well-meant caveat to women: If any male in your life, boyfriend, fiance, husband, asks you to get a boob job, you just say you'll be happy to just as soon as he gets a penis augmentation job from the same surgeon.

I have never seen a more pathetic attempt to foment international turmoil. Can anyone point to one empiric piece of evidence suggesting Iran would be any more dangerous than any other country, including the US, with nukes??

We're the only country that has ever used them. We've had them since 1945, and so far the well-recognized existence of Mutually Assured Destruction has stopped anyone else from using them. We've got 'em. England has them; France, Russia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China, India, Israel . . . etc.

This is a manufactured controversy so that asshole like Perle can foment for more war and for continued obeisance in foreign policy to the dictates of Israel's far right.

Israel has its own nukes, its own army, and it can take care of itself. Case closed.

US military personnel at Bagram AFB have no or very few constitutional rights. Why would prisoners?

. . . they seem to have left you punch drunk!

We are not at war with Afghanistan. We never did declare war. We invaded their country, a stupid mistake of the Bush Administration, and did NOT accomplish our goal: catching bin Laden. They may have been Taliban. They may have opposed the Taliban but just been pissed off we invaded their country, as they were when the Soviets invaded.

Some of these detainees may have been held for 7 years. We are engaged in a bogus War on Terror, that could arguably last for 100 years . . . or forever. How long then is it proper to hold them without any review of their status by anyone other than their military captors?

We have no way of knowing what the facts are that led to the detention of these people. Some may be guilty, some may be innocent. Who the fuck knows? Or apparently cares?

Each step the Obama Administration takes down the road of state secrets, extraordinary rendition or denial of detainee rights takes us a step closer to preservation of the status quo: that is, the US as the premier torturer and abuser of detainee rights on the planet.