Reported Today, Associate Justice Scalia Passed Away . . .
The significance and impact on the nation and SCOTUS of his passing goes without saying. If President Obama can appoint a more liberal Justice on the Court, the balance could shift and perhaps some of the nonsense of the court’s previous rulings could be overturned. Thinking of United Citizen, etc. Of course this happening with a Republican controlled legislature will be extremely difficult. Not sure what happens when there are only 8 until a new Justice is appointed.
Here is the article: Senior SCOTUS Associate Justice Antonin Scalia Found Dead at West Texas Ranch. David Atkins at Washington Monthly reported this just moments ago.
Bill, this is just breathtaking. I just got back from running errands, turned on my laptop and went to AB to see whether there were any new comments to my most recent post, and … saw this.
I do hope everyone takes a deep breath before commenting, here or elsewhere, on this. It’s such huge news. But I just think today isn’t quite the day to comment. A day or even two of pause would extend a small courtesy to those who are our ideological polar opposites.
Seriously.
Baloney Bev. How many people has this man allowed to go to their death in prison by execution? He has been mostly a blight on the justice system.
Ditto. Good quick catch.
Michael Bennett D Colorado. Trade McConnell a Senate seat for a Justice.
Uhhhhh…. People can be kind, people can be considerate, but asking the Internet to wait is…
“silly.”
I will respect our kind hosts wishes and refrain from commenting or speculating.
AS:
Scalia has been a blight on the justice system since he was appointed by Reagan. His departure from SCOTUS will not be missed. Say what you need to say and it needs to be said especially now.
I will not wait. The conservatives are already suggesting that we leave a seat vacant on SCOTUS for a year. Nonsense! Ginsburg has had one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel for years . If the GOP can not vote in An intellectually honest Justice–something Scalia was not– then POTUS should be out every single F***** Day calling them out on their inability to govern. Of course that is just MHO
Citizens United has always been fine with me as long as union density reconstitutes and we have equal money with the (soon to be poorer) oligarchs, equal lobbying and all the votes. In the abstract the Court may have been be right. But the Court should have taken into account that, in the current political/economic state of the United States, their decision just handed the country over to the oligarchs. The Court may perfectly correctly be situational.
I just saw on the news Scalia explaining that he judges by what the writers of the law said — rather than what they mean. I think that is exceptional (unusual).
I now feel safe about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Whew (nothing personal Anthony)!
Labor has a real chance here with Bernie and new liberal justice — and the millennials waking up. To follow on from my comment the other day, the millennials look like 75% black politically — more power to them!
Could be hell if Hill wins and picks a slip-past-the-Republicans half-baked liberal. Of course that is exactly who O will appoint. Fingers crossed.
” Could be hell if Hill wins and picks a slip-past-the-Republicans half-baked liberal. Of course that is exactly who O will appoint. Fingers crossed. ”
One good thing; the Republicans wont approve any O nominee — meaning we will get a Sanders nominee. Things just keep looking up.
Denis:
If there is anything worse than have a Republican Pres coupled with a Repub Legislature is to have it happen because we split and allowed it to happen. Do you really think the Repubs will approve a Sanders appointment? “Oh look its Bernie, he is a good guy so lets do as he says!” Oh BS, this is not going to happen so get ready for a full fledged fight now.
Antonin Scalia, a Constitution originalist. What that means in his case is that he was able to interpret the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution in his, Scalia’s, own original way. I find it peculiar that so many discussions of the original authors’ original meanings and intentions in regards to the Constitution rarely make any reference to the Federalist Papers. Those books, usually published in two volumes, presents the original authors’ thoughts regarding their original words as used to construct an original Constitution. No where have I been able to find any evidence that Justice Scalia had any special means of communication with those original authors that would allow him some special ability to divine their original intentions when having written that original document. I assume that he has at some time in the past read the Federalist Papers, but I could find no such references in his word product. How then did he come to develop his original ideas about the original intentions of those original authors of the Constitution?
“I assume that [Scalia had] at some time in the past read the Federalist Papers, but I could find no such references in his word product.”
Try the Heller decision. It has twenty-seven such references:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/07-290/#writing-07-290.ZO
“Scalia refers to the Federalist Papers… in at least fifteen of his own opinions on subject matters ranging from separation of powere, Morrison v. Olson (1988); interest group politics, Norman v. Reed (1992); state sovereignty and sovereign immunity, Tafflin v. Levitt (1990); and judicial power, Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). In these opinions he cites Federalist 7, 10, 47, 48, 49, 51, 70, 78, 81, and 82, using Federalist 47 through 49 the most often, especially to support the importance of separation of powers to the framers. Scalia also invokes Federalist 78, especially to support his belief that the Court should stay away from certain policy issues such as abortion.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=PMfxdwoO1aAC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=scalia+references+to+federalist+papers&source=bl&ots=MgzEC7UR-h&sig=f724pByWlKCqx9tlrm1K-gFpGAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDxqb4nvvKAhUDLB4KHfdUDcEQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=scalia%20references%20to%20federalist%20papers&f=false
Really? The Federalist Papers specifically mentions abortion? That is amazing. I guess it should be applied to all courts, state and otherwise. In which case there would be no problem if SCOTUS stayed away from the topic, heh? You know what? When courts disagree, those disagreements end up in SCOTUS because some moron thinks their rights are being impinged by someone else . Kind of a weak argument you got going there.
If you want to take this up somewhere else, then troll somewhere else. Don’t do it here as I do not have time for such nonsense.
Jack was incapable of finding where Scalia refers to the Federalist Papers. I found them for him. What’s the problem?
Warren,
My reply to your elucidating information is posted as a comment on Beverly’s new post, “Eric Posner’s Spot-On…..” It is truly amazing how much distortion is provided in a Supreme Court Justice’s summation of the Court’s decision of a case. In this case the Heller v DC decision. Talk about obfuscation of the historical record. It only proves again that if one is going to build a straw house one need only to include enough minutia in the brick mix in order to mislead the rubes.
We were talking about Scalia’s referencing the Federalist Papers, Jack; nothing more.