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US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Has Died (theguardian.com)
clovis writes: US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died in his sleep while on a hunting trip near Marfa, Texas. Justice Scalia was a Constitutional originalist and textualist. He did not believe the Constitution was a living document to be interpreted with the evolving standards of modern times.
I, for one, am very interested to see what happens next.
I, for one, am very interested to see what happens next.
Time to infringe on some rights... I can't believe that president Obama's legacy is about to get even dimmer.
What is going to happen next is this: Obama will nominate someone and the Senate Republicans will do everything in their power to block it. Already, Cruz and Rubio have said as much -- that the next President should be the person to make the nomination, not Obama. Obama could nominate Rush Limbaugh and Senate Republicans would object. The only hope that there is for a reasonably speedy confirmation is for moderate -- or reasonable -- Republicans to, you know, do their jobs.
"Textualist" is how Scalia portrayed himself, but if you look at Shelby County vs Holder, where the Supreme Court struck down most of the Voting Rights Act, Scalia's arguments basically came down to the idea that he was a mind-reader about what Congress really wanted to do, but was not politically able to do, never mind the text. Other times, he disregarded the clear intent of the lawmakers in favor of the strict textual reading. But he was hardly consistent. He was a textualist when the text favored him, he ignored it when it didn't. And maybe that's not unique to him - I'm not saying he was unique in that respect, but let's not pretend he was intellectually consistent.
In the end, he was a Republican justice. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is how every justice should be nominated.
Scalia was very controversial and much of the left will be likely happy about this. But he was a human being, and by most accounts he was a decent one and a smart one. His best friend on the Court was Ruth Bader Ginsburg who is one of the most liberal justices. We should all take a lesson from them on being civil and friendly even with those we disagree with.
In all honesty they need to start by filling it with extreme left wings loonies to counter balance the extreme right wing loonies in the supreme court!
He poisoned our Democracy with Citizens United. And just recently undermined Obama’s ground breaking Climate Change treaty.
I can’t believe people here are concerned about "his large family left behind” If he cared about his family, he would have supported the Climate Change regulation. If he cared about the voters in this country, the wouldn’t have shit on our democracy with Citizens United
He did not believe the Constitution was a living document to be interpreted with the evolving standards of modern times. And he was wrong. Then again, he pretty much made whatever argument that served his desired outcome, even if the argument contradicted his earlier opinions.
To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
I agree that it is not necessarily a racist comment, although it does have significant dog-whistle value.
The experience in New Zealand around affirmative action type quotas is that the students who get in on these quotas are equally capable with respect to completing their degree course. i.e. the grade average requirement is simply a way of filtering students, and is set so high that you can actually have lower grades and still pass the degree programme.
Scalia was a typical right-winger - strong on beg-the-question thought experiments, but a lightweight when it comes to actually doing the research *before* forming an opinion.
It's good luck to be superstitious
It was long in coming, but in the end, I see the quail got their revenge.
These quail were raised in coops, with plenty of human contact, and then released right before the "hunt". They have little fear of humans, and killing them is hardly "sport". He should have just gone to the local animal shelter, adopted some kittens, and then taken them home and drowned them.
Nah.. The majority leader could just refuse to bring the confirmation up on this calendar and then do the same on the next. It is what Harry Reid did with legislation the house passed that he didn't want to bother with.
Every justice should be apolitical and politicians should focus on making sure there's judicial independence. It never seizes to amaze me how politicized the SCOTUS appointments are and how grave effects they can have for decades to come.
-SR
Everything is a 'dark day' when you're a silly reactionary lunatic.
I'm actually expecting republicans to claim it's an Obama assassination job and try to impeach him.
No chance of a replacement till next year. The GOP won't settle for anyone less then scalia 2.0
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
He did not believe the Constitution was a living document to be interpreted with the evolving standards of modern times. And he was wrong.
To the extent that he actually believed what you think he believed, he was right. If you can't muster support for a constitutional amendment, you have no business change the constitution in the name of reinterpretation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're either ignorant of the topic, and falling for the inflammatory press coverage, or you're intentionally distorting the subject, yourself.
Scalia was merely making reference to a specific brief that had been submitted. The brief in question makes "mention of academic records" and discusses the favorability of various outcomes (for African American students, specifically) in-detail.
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
If he had said, "What's the name of that book, you were reading, about that black guy who killed somebody?" would you be calling him a racist, who apparently thinks all African Americans are murderers? It's absurd and utterly disingenuous.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That said, it's important that all sides are represented in a democracy, even if that means your side cannot always be solely in power.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The Constitution evolves by amendments. It does not evolve because you want it to mean something entirely different.
-- Will program for bandwidth
He was certainly famous for claiming to do that. The actual doing, not so much in some cases.
Modern civilization overall is dumber, and more diseased than it has ever been.
Can we get a source?
Well McConnell has said Obama can pound sand on getting that replacement
http://thehill.com/homenews/se...
I'll lay odds that the usual suspects demonstrate they neither know or care about the constitution by throwing tantrums and shouting "They can't do that"
The answer is of course "YES WE CAN"
From Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution:
He [The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The one that just died was famous for digging through the historical records to try to determine what the authors of the Constitution might have thought instead of going by whichever way today's wind is blowing. What exactly do you have in mind when you want 'apolitical'?
When it suited his beliefs, yes. Scalia used historical records like a drunk uses a lamppost -- for support, rather than illumination.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
The real question i see nobody addressing is this. Why are all liberals so insistent on appointing a new justice before obama is gone?
Obama has almost a full year until the end of his term. If he were to agree to the argument in delaying his appointment, he'd be agreeing in deferring all major decisions until next year and would set himself up as an early "lame duck" president for a full year.
The argument might make sense if the vacancy had opened up after the election, but to agree to the Republican's demand now he'd be agreeing that he's lost the authority to make major presidential appointments and decisions for the whole year.
What you call liberals, or really illiberal-progressives only support democracy and the right of citizens self-determination with regards to government is when things come out in their favor... otherwise they are quick to head to court and demand that a judge fix things the way they want.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
Scalia was part of the small band of people in power who respected the system and sought to uphold it... RIP.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Indeed, as much as I disliked Bush, Roberts is the type of pick a president should make. I'm liberal so I disagree with Roberts a lot, but I respect his work and believe he thinks through each case carefully instead of having an immediate partisan reflex and working backwards starting from a conclusion, unlike a Thomas or a Scalia.
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You are wasting time playing with an obvious and flaming troll, but if you want to do that over Scalia, then you should start with Bush v Gore, a decision that was SO bad that even at the time they wrote it, they said that it should NOT be regarded as a legal precedent. As if setting precedent wasn't the main job of the so-called Supreme Court.
There are two aspects of Scalia that I find most interesting. One is how he became his own enemy. At least he claimed that "judicial activism" was a bad thing, only to become one of the most activist judges in the history of the court. His creative work on the Second Amendment was especially amazing in abusing and even destroying the intentions of the Founders he claimed to admire.
The other aspect was his voting power. As far as I know, there has never been a justice who had a shadow second vote like that of Clarence Thomas. Actually, this would be an easy topic to research, though the last part of it will have to wait until Thomas dies. (Gee, now there's a reason to hope Thomas lasts for at least a short while longer?) The votes of all of the Supreme Court justices could be correlated to see which justices vote the same way most often. It's probably already been done, now that we have these computer things, eh? I'm pretty sure that the correlation between Scalia and Thomas will be one of the highest ever recorded.
However, I can go farther and make a new prediction for Thomas without Scalia to tell him how to vote. I think Thomas will attach himself to some other justice, probably Alito if he is the most conservative replacement available, and now correlate extremely highly with that justice's votes. Whatever voting pattern signifies judicial leadership, I'm confident that Scalia's votes showed that pattern (even if he was leading in the wrong direction) and the votes of Thomas will never show such a pattern.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Wow. Could you at least wait for the body to reach room temperature before insulting the man?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It looks to me like Democrats/progressives/liberals are sitting pretty. The Republicans are down one Justice - let's call a spade a spade here - so as long as the seat remains empty the other side is that much better off. And ISTM that there's not much prospect that the next president will be Republican, and the Democrats may pick up a few Senate seats as well. So the smart Republicans may be well advised to get the best deal they can get now rather than putting it off. But the reactionary caucus will ensure that that doesn't happen.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Why? Centrist doesn't mean "most reasonable" or "most fair". We want a judge who will respect human rights, the constitution, and bring a brilliant mind and a good heart. Someone who isn't afraid to be a voice of dissent.
We need to stop pretending centrists are somehow morally superior, when they are mostly morally equal (or in some cases simply liberals or conservatives who haven't the guts to stand up for what they really believe in). It is also dismissive of the validity of the policy differences represented. Liberals and conservatives have real differences that matter, and sometimes only one side is correct. Saying "just pick the middle for the middle's sake" is wrongheaded. Pick the middle when the middle is correct.
The position has to be filled eventually. Hopefully it's not 9 years in the future. This current congress is more intransigent than any congress we've had and they appear poised to get worse as they continue kicking out moderates (also known as people willing to govern rather than be controlled by ideology).
No, it's because there's literally no reason to wait for nearly a year to appoint a replacement. Literally none. IF a Justice died after the election when the president is already on their way out I can see an argument for waiting for a few months, but it's nearly a year until the new prez gets sworn in. Why should a position be held empty for almost a year?
The Republicans did not wait. They already jockeying for position and basically tell the current President that he has no right to nominate a replacement. This is the pot calling the kettle black.
And why does something that people thought 200 years ago matter today? These constitutional traditionalist totally ignore that things have changed in the past centuries.
And this is the worst that any Senator could have said. That is a total disqualification of being a Senator and utter disrespect towards the current President.
Now if only the constitution provided some mechanism for modification.. Some kind of amendment process...
Yeah those laughable arguments also included making sure that video games are a viable medium, and granted them 1st amendment protections under the law. You know, when Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, and company were all railing against them as "the evils causing kids to do bad things..." along with music.
Om, nomnomnom...
If you think his picks were moderates you must consider Bernie Sanders a far right fascist!
> No, it's because there's literally no reason to wait for nearly a year to appoint a replacement. Literally none.
I can think of several. Embarrassing President Obama is one of them. Getting hung Supreme Court decisions helps preserve existing law until the case can be resolved, which helps protect existing conservative law, especially if it has more money for long court cases. Such cases are typically better funded on the conservative side, so the result is a de facto finding for the side with more lawyers, even if the lack of a finding does not set precedent. Refusing to accept a candidate who is even slightly less than radically conservative helps protect the power of the conservative members of the Supreme Court to rule conservatively.
To a liberal, all other political viewpoints are right-wing. They generally believe they are moderate. They also tend to believe outright Fascism is right-wing, hence the confusion.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If judges had to appeal to the public we would still have Jim Crow laws and laws against miscegenation.
Ah yes, political hacks so upset because someone doesn't make decisions exactly the way that they want.
Om, nomnomnom...
they're very friendly, helpful and charitable with people who they think of as equals but anyone else it's open season on. It took me a long time to piece this behavior together since it's so nonsensical. One minute they'd be giving you the shirt off their back the next they'd be laying into the poor with all their might.
The mark of a truly good man is that he cares for folks outside his class. Churchill seemed to be. Obama is definitely. Scalia was just another in a long line of borderline psychopaths who seem nice when they're around their own kind...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So then the 4th amendment doesn't apply to a telephone conversation because that doesn't fall under the category of "papers" or "effects"?
Give me a fucking break.
There are several months left and anything can happen. Hillary in jail, Trump going in as independent and the Democrats have to either back Sanders or throw in someone new.
Looking at the Republican field there's a whole lot of crazy going on there.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The real question i see nobody addressing is this. Why are all liberals so insistent on appointing a new justice before obama is gone?
Obama has almost a full year until the end of his term. If he were to agree to the argument in delaying his appointment, he'd be agreeing in deferring all major decisions until next year and would set himself up as an early "lame duck" president for a full year.
The argument might make sense if the vacancy had opened up after the election, but to agree to the Republican's demand now he'd be agreeing that he's lost the authority to make major presidential appointments and decisions for the whole year.
I'm pretty sure that's the political reason. Judicially, though, it's unheard of for the Supreme Court to go so long understaffed. It'd be setting all the wrong historical precedents. Fully two thirds of the US government would be weakened.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Except for the 2nd Amendment. Since he believed it held for more than just muzzle-loaders.
"Suspicion Breeds Confidence"
Hilary will win.
Trump doesn't really want it (he's only there for his ego), the rest of the Republican candidates are loons and the establishment won't allow Sanders (even though he'd be the best thing for America in more than half a century).
On the miracle Sanders does somehow make it through to nomination, he'll be lucky to survive to election day.
(Disclaimer: I am not an American. Purely watching from the outside in.)
The Framers' intentions are important, but should not override every consideration. They were not gods, and a constitution that rigidly locks itself tight is doomed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The best memory I have of Scalia is that when Stephen Colbert gave his infamous White House Correspondents Dinner address, Scalia was laughing his ass off when he was lampooned. I might not agree with the man, but he had a great life lived on his own terms.
and is set so high that you can actually have lower grades and still pass the degree programme
Ahh the value of the modern education. The "attaboy" degree.
When I graduated as an engineer I did so with the knowledge that one of the kids in my class repeated several core subjects 3 times, didn't know basic engineering concepts much less those related to his discipline, and couldn't solve basic equations or even derive equations from problems. Makes me sad to see employment requirements that say "must hold a relevant degree" as the concept itself has no value.
University education was once the hallmark of the academic elite. Now it's just another 4 years of school to get a piece of paper that every company puts on their requirements whether they need it or not.
Republican freedom: Personal liberty for all and no government running your life! Except for abortion, federal funding for abstinence campaigns, strict regulation of broadcast profanity and indecency, criminalisation of pornography and prostitution, a strict war on recreational drugs, frequent government proclamations to make it clear that real americans worship Jesus and heretics are lesser citizens, and taxation to fund continued military buildup and corporate subsidies.
Democratic freedom: We'll still tax the hell out of you to pay for ill-managed social programs and micro-manage your life to meet our ideology, but at least we'll be honest about it.
And to a conservative, all other political viewpoints are left-wing. That's just how it works.
This is why when the rhetoric gets heated liberals often compare conservatives to Hitler, and conservatives often compare liberals to... still Hitler.
The funny thing about this comment is that Scalia was well respected, like Justice Thomas and Robert Bork, for being a very good Constitutional scholar. And yet, because left wingers don't like being held to what the law actually says, they complain.
But because Roberts rewrites a left wing law, in violation of all previous Supreme Court precedent, suddenly he's OK.
No, that's how *you* interpret it. Nobody who can read interprets it like that. Read it again, this time note the punctuation. That's an example of one such reason as to why the amendment is significant. Fortunately, the evidence is all pointing to you being wrong. That's why ownership is lawful. The reason is not exclusionary and the right is ours.
That said, I'm not sure why folks get into an uproar about it. They're not taking our firearms away. I own a whole stack of 'em, an obscene number of them, and they're not taking them. It will not happen in my lifetime. It will not happen in your lifetime. Firearms are here to stay and I'm grateful for it. Cowardice is not an acceptable motivation for the creation of regulation. It's pretty simple and freedom comes with risks and liberties or rights are based on acceptable risks.
Yes, bad things might happen to good people but the odds are vanishingly small. There's no reason to get your knickers in a knot over firearms. They're not going anywhere and they won't hurt you without a human in the loop. Use commonsense and be aware of your surroundings and know how to safely operate your tools. They're inanimate, they don't just randomly run around killing folks. They need an idiotic human for that.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Wait... are you seeing polls and demographics the rest of the country doesn't have access to? Curious how you came up with the notion that "Republicans... know they have a pretty good chance of getting a Republican President..." Is Faux News showing "unskewed *wink wink* polls" again?
I ask because if the SAME proportion of demographics show up to vote as in 2012, the election goes to the Dems. The population change among demographics has shifted further in favor of Dems in 4 years as well.
Here, you can play with the sliders yourself and see what t'd take for Reps to win. It's not going to be easy for them:
http://projects.fivethirtyeigh...
Now, I get that there's this myth of the swing voter out there, but polls and statistics show there are very few of them as the nation is largely polarized. It's just a matter of voter turnout for each demographic. There is a slight possibility that the younger demographic and the African American demographic may not have as large a turnout as with Obama's second term, but it's unlikely.
The Framers' intentions are important, but should not override every consideration. They were not gods, and a constitution that rigidly locks itself tight is doomed.
There is a process for altering the constitution. If you don't like the constitution, use the process. If you don't like the process, well, you're still going to have to use the process to change it if you want to promise to love the law. Re-interpreting the constitution or its amendments when the authors left copious writings to explain what they meant and why they meant it (which will have been reflected in the actual arguments used to get it passed) is scandalous bullshit and nobody should be giving it a pass, let alone encouraging it. Strict constitutionalism is the job of the Supreme Court. It's Congress' job to change the Constitution, not the Supremes.
We are not rigidly locked to the constitution we have today. We have an amendment process, and if you want to change the constitution, you should use that process. If your changes to the constitution do not merit a constitutional amendment, then you should not be making them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How about you stay the fuck out of the rest of the world then?
No, the United States has two socialist parties that need to go.
But only socialism-for-the-rich: public bears the losses, profits are private. Wars for oil. Lavish government spending for defense contractors.
Corporate welfare is estimated at in the vicinity of $125 billion a year. This rough figure is supported both by the Cato Institute (formerly the Koch Institute) and Bernie Sanders, so this seems to be a matter of general agreement.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Hillary is not going to jail - that's not even a remote possibility. She may not win the nomination - and yes, batshit like this may be part of why. But Hillary's not under indictment - or even suspicion - of a crime. The FBI is looking into whether any secrets were compromised - not whether stuff that later became classified was sent to HRC via email. The private email server wasn't even against regulations when she was in office. There was a recommendation to only use the government email - but it wasn't codified into a regulation until Kerry got in. And yes, for the zillionth time Powell and Rice both used personal email addresses - and both received emails that were later classified. And neither leaked any classified info to anyone who wasn't supposed to have it. Neither did Hillary. General Patraeus - yep, gave stuff to his journalist girlfriend. That's a crime - not a double standard.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
It feels more like for a number of Congressmen it is distasteful for any President to appoint a lifetime nominee to such an important position if they don't agree with his/her politics. Sadly that's been the state for some years. The fact is President Obama is the President and will remain so for a year so it's not like he's making an selection in the last few days of his Presidency.
It really doesn't matter who is the President. Congress should respect his/her choice and approve the nomination unless they can find strong grounds to reject a candidate.
But only socialism-for-the-rich
Those would be the evil rich people who pay almost all of the country's income taxes? Yeah, Socialism - where success is indeed punished, and the stuff that's taken is given to other people. That's socialism for everybody, because it's socialism doing what it likes to do: taking from the most productive/successful, and giving to the least. Half the country pays no income taxes at all (or pay's negative income taxes, getting "refunds" and cash credits on taxes they don't even pay), and the vast majority of the income taxes that are paid are paid by a small portion of the other half.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The only way to fix this mess is term limits...and those ought to apply to supreme court judges as well who should be voted into office by the public. There are way too many religious extremists in the SCOTUS for decades ruining the US. Congress is toothless, the real decisions are made in the Supreme Court and people are not even allowed to vote. What kind of democracy is this?
The only idea worse than lifetime appointed judges is judges who are up for election. A good portion of states have electable judges which turns application of the law into political points.
This is why there are so many ads with, "as a judge I gave maximum sentence to thousands of drug offenders to keep them from molesting your kids. Vote for me to keep you free!" and "I only give maximum sentences and when possible go above and beyond maximum sentences because I am tough on crime."
The whole reason for lifetime appointments is so that shit like that can't happen in the supreme court of the land. It also means that they are more-or-less untouchable by politicians who want to have them replaced by someone more sympathetic to their views. For better or worse, they are free to practice the law instead of petty politics.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Unfortunately American elections affect far more than just the American people due to it still being the de facto leader of the West. So, foreign people are going to get involved and try to push their issues. Deal with it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I actually had vomit come up my throat when I read this. The amount of complete untruth and ignorance was bad...even for the current slashdot.
To say that Sotomayer is not but arch-liberal is beyond dishonest. Kagan actually published work that was pro-socialism http://dailycaller.com/wp-cont.... To call these two moderates is like calling the HULK mildly temperamental.
It's exactly this limited, short sighted, team-sport type thinking that is making the US and the world the mess it is in. People have ideology so far up their ass, that they can't judge or think straight. It doesn't matter if someone is unqualified or incorrect. For this sort of human filth, they will go to any length to make excuses and twisting reality to fight whatever petty agenda of the moment that they have. They just want their team to win. It is sickening.
Btw, Reagan appointed O'conner. He wanted a conservative. In practice, she was a moderate, conservative. To replace her with a conservative justice is not incongruent.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Those would be the evil rich people who pay almost all of the country's income taxes? Yeah, Socialism - where success is indeed punished, and the stuff that's taken is given to other people.
There's two extreme positions here which pretty much sums up a lot of opinion coming out of the US right now. Either "fuck the rich" which would result in a meltdown of your economy, or "fuck the poor" which also ends up in meltdown since you need poor people to do the work and pay taxes.
Somewhere in the middle is what you are after. A rich sector to create new industry and innovation, a healthy middle class to do the work and pay the taxes, and a small group of lower class who have fallen through the system and need a little help.
This prefect world needs subsidies for big companies, and it also needs welfare for those less fortunate. Is it really that hard to accept that welfare, when applied appropriately, can provide a net benefit for society as a whole?