Bring Me the Severed Head of Antonin Scalia!

I do think its amazing that the supreme court nightmare that people were predicting on Bush's first term didnt happen. Its almost inevitable if he wins in '04, however.

Whether Scalia and Cheney never spoke on the hunting trip or whether they fellated each other nightly doesn't make any difference. In the first case there's a 100% chance he votes in Cheney's favor, in the second case the chance rises to 100%. Big deal. It's the same with Clarence Thomas, same with JP Stevens and Breyer. My guess is that O'Connor's the only one who needs to read this case beyond the title to decide how she's voting.

interestingly, this reminds me of my immediate thoughts after bush v. gore -- that justices breyer and souter were the only two justices who really approached the case in a non-partisan manner. (i've always been of the opinion that o'connor is just rehnquist in drag, anyway.)

Subsection (a), the provision at issue here (of 28 USC § 455), was an entirely new "catch-all" recusal provision, covering both "interest or relationship" and "bias or prejudice" grounds, see Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847 (1988) - but requiring them all to be evaluated on an objective basis, so that what matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice, but its appearance. Quite simply and quite universally, recusal was required whenever "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

haw haw haw

especially not in that order

Is it just me or is Rehnquist's whole thing with the racing stripes a bit strange? It isn't a part of the standard chief justice appearal, William just thinks they look bitchin.

(* -- we've gotta be optimistic, folks!)

You have a much higher opinion of Justice O'Connor than I have, and a higher one than the facts warrant.

Stories I have heard from a couple of his former clerks indicate to me that Scalia is truly, deeply weird, and my one brief ecounter with him was hardly impressive or pleasant.

his disregard of legal precedent is really audacious, and stupid

he's really the textbook example of an 'activist judge', you know, that kind bushco are always complaining about

sigh i wish more people cared about their country, if they did this guy's prescence on the supreme court would be enough to send his coconspirators packing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62514-2004Apr8.html

the 1st amendment is for me, but not for thee.

remember, folks, that whatever john kerry's other faults may be ... at least he won't choose scalia to be the next chief justice, or put more scalia clones into the federal courts.

"She is always very careful in her remarks," Rodgers said. "I've never heard her address cases that are in front of the court. So I don't see any evidence of her violating her impartiality."

Um, yeah. I guess "impartiality" is a reliably liberal vote.

If Justice Ginsberg were taken on expenses-paid vacations paid for by NOW, or flying to her vacations for free on an airplane provided by NOW, I would demand that she recuse herself from any cases in which NOW figured as the plaintiff or the defendent. By gum, I surely would! After all, certain principles are far more important to uphold than the outcome of a single case.

The point is that the goalposts are moveable for many, when they shouldn't be. I'm pretty certain that the only people defending Ginsberg's actions are those who are sympathetic or supportive of her votes on the Court. I am suspicious of this.

People like you point out that Scalia's refusal to recuse himself is not the same as Ginsberg's relationship with the NOW defense fund. I disagree. To me, there is either impartiality or there is not. There is no good reason for Ginsberg to associate with this group given her position. None. Why invite the appearance of impropriety?

Start switching names around...let's say change NOW with the NRA and Ginsberg with Scalia. Would you feel the same way if you read this quote?

"Two weeks before the event, the Supreme Court voted unanimously with women's rights advocates in a case that tested a state's duty to provide medical screening for low-income children. The legal defense fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on what turned out to be the winning side"

Uh, yeah. Exactly. I'm not and didn't condone Scalia. He has no excuses. But neither does Ginsberg. Just because Scalia was more egregious doesn't mean I'm going to watch a pass be given out to Ginsberg. We should hawk over all Justices, not just the ones we are idealogically (or otherwise) opposed to.

Here's the lead paragraph from the linked article:

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lent her name and presence to a lecture series cosponsored by the liberal NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that often argues before the court in support of women's rights that the justice embraces."

The crux here is "argues before the court". I suspect that means that NOW files briefs in cases that it finds of interest, rather than that NOW is the plaintiff, defrendent or official legal representative of either principal. My reaction is, so what?

If Scalia belongs to the Elks and a case against the Boy Scouts falls under his review where the Elks express an interest in the outcome and file a brief, I DON'T CARE if he recuses himself.

Large segments of the population have a stake in the outcome of most US Supreme Court cases, since they settle general precedents on broad legal issues. It would be crazy to expect a justice not to have predispositions and opinions already formed on these issues. We don't want idiots for justices.

Nor would I be bnothered by a social connection as simple as belonging to the Elks. Heck, I wouldn't care if Scalia had been a Boy Scout himself or a troop leader. In that case, he'd give a better-informed decision.

But, if Scalia were a board member of the Boy Scouts, or a close personal friend or relative of a board member, or was in the habit of getting substantial gifts from the Boy Scouts he had better recuse himself. The idea is that strong ties (family, money, close friendship) create such a strong partiality that society must presume it will affect one's judgement for reasons having nothing to do with social good and everything to do with personal connections.

This sort of article is just shit, don. It purposefully clouds what is a very clear issue. Impartiality doesn't consist of a blank mind. If Justice Ginsberg believes NOW promotes the good of society by strengthening values she believes in, that is not partiality in the sense of the Scalia case, and comes nowhere near to harming society.

Scalia Apologizes for Recording Erasure

Now it all becomes so clear...

new biography http://wamu.org/programs/dr/ (can't figure out how to permalink today's show!)
i don't think i'd be interested in reading this though tbh

Scalia's novel interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

I think "die in a fire" is an overused expression, but Scalia should go die in a fire.

Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.

Please go back to 1789 so that you can be dead by now, OK?

Funny argument upthread about Scalia duck hunting with Cheney. I cared less about it after learning how intimate FDR and William O. Douglas were (poker playing drinking buddies, and Douglas was one of FDR's picks for veep in '44).

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/tristero-not-shocking-at-all.html

by tristero

Apparently, some folks are genuinely shocked that a Supreme Court justice could so profoundly misread the crystal clear words of the Constitution. I don't see why. Scalia doesn't understand the Declaration of Independence either.

I realize that this flies in the face of widely held conventional wisdom but I can't escape the conclusion that when it comes to understanding the founding documents of the United States, Scalia is a mediocre intellect. If that.

On the other hand, if we were to agree that this man really is as brilliant as Everyone says. then that can only mean that Scalia is deliberately misreading these documents to make them say the very opposite of what Jefferson, et al, clearly wrote. Furthermore, it can only mean that a justice of the Supreme Court is, for reasons we can only guess at, consciously adopting a distinctly un-American, if not blatantly anti-American, bias both to his judiicial philosophy and to his rulings. In other words, to believe that Scalia really is smart enough to understand the founding documents, and therefore deliberately misread them, is to believe that he is an activist, a reactionary, and a royalist openly seeking the destruction of this country.

And I certainly wouldn't want to think that was possible of anyone with such authority or power.

It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

Or at least two.

can't we slip this asshole some arsenic already or something

I friggin' dare all those grizzly mamas to call for the Republicans to pass one of those law things in those state legislature things in whatever number necessary add an amendment to the Constitution banning discrimination on the basis of gender so that Toni can start living in the early 20th century instead of the 18th.

Um, he already does: he's got 10 kids, smokes in his SCOTUS office, and belongs to Opus Dei.

I dunno what's worse, the loose canon arrogance of Scalia or the more insidious Roberts.

so tell me SCOTUS nerds, is Alito generally the most palatable four cons?

No.

I don't follow the Court as closely as I should to have an informed opinion but my kneejerk reaction of Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts is that by process of elimination Roberts has to be the least awful.

Roberts seems to be the sneakiest to me--he smiles while quietly deciding to see how he and his majority can push things. I don't find any of the 4 acceptable, and I'm not crazy about A. Kennedy who often votes with them.

i guess i know the least about Alito.

anyway, that digbysblog post upthread otm (from my admittedly ignorant vantage point).

Reporting from Washington—
The justice was served.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was ticketed by U.S. Park Police after being found responsible for a four-car traffic accident on his way to the high court Tuesday morning.

The incident occurred just before 9 a.m. on the southbound George Washington Parkway across the Potomac River from Washington in Virginia. Scalia reportedly rear-ended another driver who had stopped in traffic, and two other vehicles followed behind. No one was injured.

Scalia was handed a $70 fine for the infraction of following too closely. The justice, in his 25th year on the nation's highest court, can appeal the fine to a U.S. magistrate if he chooses, according to a Park Police spokesman, while acknowledging that was unlikely.

"He probably hasn't a clue how to contest a traffic ticket," David Schlosser, the spokesman, joked.

He added that it's not unusual for area law enforcement to handle infractions like this involving high profile government officials.

"It was a busy traffic area," Schlosser said. "It just happens."

The incident further snarled the area's already notorious rush-hour gridlock. But Scalia ultimately reached the court on time for arguments in a gender discrimination case against shopping giant Wal-Mart.

a bit surprised he has no driver, but i guess it would be harder to honk and tell people to f off from the back seat.

would love to get a few quotes from the person he rear ended

they should sue

sounds like the beginning of a readers digest mail-in joke tbh

was the person he rear-ended homosexual?

a bit surprised he has no driver, but i guess it would be harder to honk and tell people to f off from the back seat.

― this country is domed (Hunt3r), Wednesday, 30 March 2011 06:31 (5 hours ago)

maybe he did have a driver and he was getting all fw murnau on them beforehand

Wish the police would have handcuffed him and brought him in. It would have served him right re his recent vote as part of a 5 to 4 majority taking away a financial judgment to an exonerated person who was on death row wrongly because the New Orleans DA office hid evidence.

His sarcastic comments in the Walmart oral arguments yesterday bugged me too.

noooo not sarcasm

scalia is often admired for his wit even by those who generally disagree w/him, tho imo regardless of how funny he is you cant really argue that the world wouldnt be a better place today if he had died yesterday

scalia is often admired for his wit even by those who generally disagree w/him

i've read some of his decisions and i think his wit is highly overrated. maybe you have to be there.

yeah i cant say ive personally encountered hit famous wit, but people do talk abt it ime, he seems more like just the worst guy to me

scalia writes some gangster decisions... maybe it wouldnt occur to me to praise his 'wit' but whatever, he owns

Pretty sure nothing in the Constitution says anything about giving out tickets after a car wreck.

what i find most noticeable about his decisions is he seems like one of those guys who, when someone disagrees with him, his immediate response is "hey, i have a theory as to why you disagree with me, it's because you're a fucking idiot."

funny that's my immediate response to most of his rulings

i've met one of his kids. dude was exactly the type of prick you'd expect.

9 kids.

Justice Scalia was an only child with no cousins. “I had a very secure feeling,” he said. As an adult, he took a different tack. Maureen and Nino Scalia had nine children, whom Stahl characterized as “all conservative, all successful.” How she defined those traits we really don’t know, besides her listing some of their careers. But what did become clear is that the justice did not appear to be an active daily presence in his kids’ activities. Scalia “didn’t go to the soccer games and the piano recitals and things,” Stahl said. “You know, my parents never did it for me,” Scalia said. “And I didn’t take it personally. ‘Oh Daddy, come to my softball game.’ No, I mean, it’s my softball game. He has his work. I got my softball game. Of course, (Maureen) was very loyal. She went to all the games.”

Description refers to a '60 Minutes' tv show piece

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/04/28/nine-kids-but-no-soccer-games-for-justice-scalia/

what i find most noticeable about his decisions is he seems like one of those guys who, when someone disagrees with him, his immediate response is "hey, i have a theory as to why you disagree with me, it's because you're a fucking idiot."

In oral argument I find Roberts' dry quips a lot funnier than Scalia, who craves attention so badly that he'll talk over anybody (including his fellow conservatives).

As for his opinions, clear evidence exists that he permanently alienated Sandra Day O'Connor after he said about one of her own opinions "this is not to be taken seriously."

Put them up in front of Strom Thurmond (83 years young in this clip) and anyone's going to appear charming.

And the hits just keep coming...

Many Americans think badly of the government because of “gridlock” in Washington. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not one of them.

Americans “should learn to love gridlock,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “The framers (of the Constitution) would say, yes, ‘That’s exactly the way we set it up. We wanted power contradicting power (to prevent) an excess of legislation.' ''

And that was in 1787, he added. They “didn’t know what an excess of legislation was.”

Scalia, the longest-serving justice, contrasted the American system to those of governments in Europe, and he said this country’s Constitution is better because it provides for an independent president, an independent judiciary and two independent branches of Congress.

"I hear Americans nowadays ... talk about dysfunctional government because there’s disagreement,” he said. If they understood the Constitution, he continued, they can “learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love gridlock, which the framers believed would be the main protection of minorities.”

Scalia discounted the importance of the Bill of Rights and its protection for freedom of speech and the press. “Every banana republic has a Bill of Rights,” he said. Those are “just words on paper.” It depends on the “structure of government,” including independent courts, to enforce the rights of individuals.

The Senate committee invited Scalia and Justice Stephen G. Breyer to talk about the role of judges, and the two carried on a two-hour conversation about their views of the Constitution and the law.

In recent years, they have conducted their own debate over whether the justices should rely on the original meaning of the Constitution in deciding cases. Breyer said judges needed to start with the “values” set in the Constitution, but need to update them to take account of modern times.

Scalia said he wanted no part of it. “I’m hoping the living Constitution will die,” he said.

He's such a tool.

Many Americans think badly of the government because of “gridlock” in Washington. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not one of them.

Americans “should learn to love gridlock,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “The framers (of the Constitution) would say, yes, ‘That’s exactly the way we set it up. We wanted power contradicting power (to prevent) an excess of legislation.' ''

And that was in 1787, he added. They “didn’t know what an excess of legislation was.”

So by the principle of substitution, "The framers (of the Constitution) would say, yes, ‘That’s exactly the way we set it up. We wanted power contradicting power (to prevent) something we've never heard of.' ''

Eh, he's right in the abstract: the Framers did want a republic that relied as much on the tension between the three branches of government* as it did on the participation of the ruling class. But dismissing the Bill of Rights as an extra-constitutional superfluity dovetails so nicely with Scalia's views.

* Two, really, since SCOTUS was a joke the first ten years of the Republic.

have scalia or thomas ever commented on the fact that judicial review isn't actually in the constitution?

"Judicial" is a rather complicated word for Thomas to spell.

Nino has a new book out.

Justice Scalia writes, for instance, that he has little use for a central precedent the Obama administration has cited to justify the health care law under the Constitution’s commerce clause, Wickard v. Filburn.

In that 1942 decision, Justice Scalia writes, the Supreme Court “expanded the Commerce Clause beyond all reason” by ruling that “a farmer’s cultivation of wheat for his own consumption affected interstate commerce and thus could be regulated under the Commerce Clause.”

That position is good evidence, particularly when coupled with Justice Scalia’s skeptical questioning at the arguments in the health care case in March, that the administration will not capture his vote.

Justice Scalia’s treatment of the Wickard case had been far more respectful in his judicial writings. In the book’s preface, he explains (referring to himself in the third person) that he “knows that there are some, and fears that there may be many, opinions that he has joined or written over the past 30 years that contradict what is written here.” Some inconsistencies can be explained by respect for precedent, he writes, others “because wisdom has come late.”

“Worse still,” he writes, he “does not swear that the opinions that he joins or writes in the future will comply with what is written here,” for the first two reasons “or because a judge must remain open to persuasion by counsel.”

btw peeps be prepared to hold your breaths when the U.S. Supreme Court is revived in the next two weeks

bumping in preparation for thursday

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/scalia4.jpg

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/writing-with-antonin-scalia-grammar-nerd.html

On his dissents.

i'm so gonna read that DFW essay mentioned in my link

Garner, unlike Scalia, identifies as pro-choice and favors legalizing gay marriage. He’s against prayer in public school, favors gun control, and, as he states in “Reading Law,” “deplores the Second Amendment.” ...

"And yet,” Garner said, “Justice Scalia and I have not yet found a case that we would decide differently. We begin and end with the words of the text.”

what a sad existence

"And Justice Scalia gives very good text," Garner said, blushing.

What about the cases where Scalia changed his mind?

What he said to Piers Morgan.

I can see why he's considered formidable if you don't agree with him. I watched the full hour, and the truth is, he's very engaging.

"The press did extensive research into what would have happened if Al Gore had wanted done had been done, county by county, and he would have lost anyway.”

Pretty sure this is not true.

He's alluding to that consortium of newspapers which said that Bush would have won if he and his lawyers had pursued Gore's Florida strategy – not the same thing, Mr. Justice.

An excerpt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNaBmQaNm0g

Justice Scalia and I have not yet found a case that we would decide differently. We begin and end with the words of the text.”

Oh, pleeez.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2012/07/19/piers-scalia-im-not-king.cnn

http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf
^^^Tense Present

"The press did extensive research into what would have happened if Al Gore had wanted done had been done, county by county, and he would have lost anyway.”

Pretty sure this is not true.

True for the case before the court. If the counties Gore wanted recounted had been he still would have lost, but if the entire state had been recounted (Gore wasn't asking for that) then he would have won.

The URL I guess says it all:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/29/scalia-handheld-rocket-launchers-could-be-constitutional/

I think to be safe, he should just allow us to keep and bear muskets (but only if we're part of the militia).

in his defense I understand him waffling about a case his court may get.

Doesn't he regularly talk about all kinds of cases, even ones the court may get?

Digby:

Head ax's are out because the founders thought they were too frightening, but any weapon invented since then that can be carried (in your arms!) is fine because they didn't know they were going to be invented and so didn't think ahead.

He should be impeached for this "originalist" claptrap. But I take it back that he isn't brilliant. He is. To be able to get away with this sort of logic actually requires a very lively mind.

http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/books-and-arts/106441/scalia-garner-reading-the-law-textual-originalism

Long Posner review of Scalia's book

He's back!. Interviewed by Peter Robinson.

Nino thinks NYT v Sullivan was a mistake.

http://youtu.be/yTLUGyzFgaI

shocker

Charlie Rose thinks sobriety a mistake

i'm stunned

can't believe it

Speaking at Priceton University to promote his new book, Justice Antonin Scalia defended his previous controversial writings on gay rights, and explained to a gay student why he drew a legal analogy between laws banning sodomy to murder and bestiality.

"I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective," Scalia said in response to a student's question, according to The Associated Press.

"It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd,'" he said. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?’"

When the student continued to press him, the justice reportedly responded, "I'm surprised you aren’t persuaded."

Next spring, the Court will take up cases on the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8.

When the student continued to press him, the justice reportedly disrobed and fingered his areolae, "I'm surprised you aren’t persuaded."

Scalia himself is something of a reductio ad absurdum.

Clip with interview of Princetonian who confronted Nino:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/12/a-justice-from-a-past-era.html

http://i.usatoday.net/communitymanager/_photos/on-politics/2010/12/16/scalia-1216x-large.jpg

I'm a fat man. I am sad and I am fat --

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdr449FBoB1rgokmco1_500.gif

Two-hundred dollars.

What bugs me is when people say about Scalia, "He's a genius, you just don't happen to agree with his politics." There's nothing genius-like about his analogy here, or much of his writing.

I mentioned this recent speech on the Supreme Court thread too btw.

he's a genius and very consistent but believes some real bullshit

the problem is that people think he's a genius because they lol at his dissents. Casual observers of the Court (who are 99.9% of the "Scalia genius" people) do not have the expertise to somehow deduce that he has more intellect than Souter, Breyer, Stevens etc.

I don't think anyone on this Court -- including the retired O'Connor, Souter, and Stevens -- is a genius.

Hurting and the rest of you lawyers: other than an excellent writer and mustache grower and contributor to pragmatism like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., or a Cardozo or Brandeis, has SCOTUS ever been a locus of far-seeing jurisprudence? With all due respect to Marshall, Story, Bradley, Black, Warren, Brennan, etc.

Being smart, facile and verbal are not the same thing as genius.

he's a genius smart guy, probably smarter than most of us, and very consistent but believes some real bullshit

I think it was in one of Toobin's books that among the Justices themselves Stevens was considered the smartest.

who do you consider to be a genius, Alfred?

Oscar Wilde.

lol that was just what I was going to post for realz

you know who's a genius? roberts

Shakey!

throughout the early half of the 20th century tons o' southern preachers invoked the Curse of Ham and the story of Phineas from the Bible to rail against integration, but also interracial marriage. so i guess...

“If we cannot have moral feelings against interracial marriage, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against these other things?”

how this fucking clown maintains his rep of jurisprudential genius is just beyond me.

or perhaps he's totally cool with states having anti-miscegenation laws?

i think he is actually

can someone really smart play devil's advocate here and please explain to me how that can scan as even remotely Constitutional?

you see anything about miscegenation in the constitution?

yeah i don't see anything about AR-15s either.

alfred can correct me but it's my understanding that even if scalia thought federal anti-miscegenation laws were not permissible, he wouldn't interpret the 14th as applying to the states and would let a state have such a law

so would Scalia view a federal law, eg DOMA to be unConstitutional? afaict the Constitution mentions marriage exactly 0 times.

alfred can correct me but it's my understanding that even if scalia thought federal anti-miscegenation laws were not permissible, he wouldn't interpret the 14th as applying to the states and would let a state have such a law

if you believed Nino was the Strict Constructionalist he claims to be, sure.

haha yeah he has a strict and coherent legal philosophy it is called 'being a republican'

Slobbo is a stricter "constitutionalist.

haha yeah he has a strict and coherent legal philosophy it is called 'being a republican'

^absolutely. so why all the grudging respect or outright genuflecting by folks who (should) know better?

They're Republican.

or they are just searching for a token republican to say something good about

why not say condoleeza rice can play the piano instead

Also: we're more willing to reward a Beltway veteran for outrage and confuse it for wit. I mean, we hear no stories of Breyer yuking it up in think tanks or Georgetown salons.

or they are just searching for a token republican to say something good about

^yeah... it seems like i've heard more than enough moderate and even lefty types oh-so-nobly big up this clown

Still aggrieved, I see.

Can someone put some of his obnoxious quotes together and make it a book--"For Some Reason They Call Me a Genius--The Wit and Wisdom of Antonin Scalia"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A79-IGry-ZQ

Still aggrieved, I see.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, August 20, 2013

but he's smiling!

The rictus of propriety

^^ future law review article title

xp Rictus mortis.

The one thing I did think, as [the pope] said those somewhat welcoming things to gay men and women, is, Huh, this really does show how much our world has changed. I was wondering what kind of personal exposure you might have had to this sea change.
I have friends that I know, or very much suspect, are homosexual. Everybody does.

Have any of them come out to you?
No. No. Not that I know of.

that's from this btw http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/index.html

with this thread and the SCOTUS one groggy readers will think Nino died or retired

ah fuck, should have checked new answers first

nah it's all good! We need the blood rush!

The rictus of propriety

^^ this is genius, if Ned will pardon my saying so

Has your personal attitude softened some?
Toward what?
Homosexuality.
I don’t think I’ve softened. I don’t know what you mean by softened.

Opposite of hardened.

that interview is solid gold. the stuff about the devil and posession is just cretinous.

oh my goodness

I can easily imagine Scalia asking someone who questioned his position or his reasoning, "if you're so smart why aren't you an associate justice of the Supreme Court?", then sitting back and looking smug. The man is tenured for life, has sycophants galore and doesn't even have to make sense if he doesn't feel like it.

a Supreme Court justice seriously expends intellectual energy on why the devil isn't possessing herds of pigs anymore

I can easily imagine Scalia asking someone who questioned his position or his reasoning, "if you're so smart why aren't you an associate justice of the Supreme Court?", then sitting back and looking smug. The man is tenured for life, has sycophants galore and doesn't even have to make sense if he doesn't feel like it.

Oh my goodness. My God! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil!

just joe average over here on the Supreme Court

I am mostly appalled by Scalia and his wholly unjustified intellectual arrogance. The whole Devil thing is for people who cannot think abstractly to save their soul, but Scalia's belief in him is more pardonable than the shoddy intellectual habits he slips into his legal arguments.

http://extremeliberal.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ginny_thomas_clarence_thomas_25.jpg

the shoddy intellectual habits he slips into his legal arguments

you mean like that whole "words have meaning!" schtick? I wonder if Scalia has ever slipped a "the Oxford English Dictionary defines ____ as..." into a legal argument

using dictionary definitions (sometimes dictionaries from the period in which the legislation was passed!) is a pretty standard part of scotus jurisprudence now

Literally.

i'll give you a guess as to why they started doing this tho

does it depend on what the meaning of "is" is

i'll give you a guess as to why they started doing this tho

http://www.yardbird.com/images/Reagan_with_Meese.jpg

:)

too soo--- nah.

Jars of applesauce and bouquets of broccoli were left on the steps of the Supreme Court on Friday as part of a makeshift memorial for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The unusual items became symbols of the ObamaCare debate following colorful comments from Scalia, who was the court’s leading conservative.

In his dissenting opinion last year in King v. Burwell, Scalia called the majority’s reasoning for upholding ObamaCare subsidies “pure applesauce.”

And in 2012, during oral arguments in the first case challenging the healthcare law, Scalia questioned whether the administration could force people to buy broccoli if it required people to have health insurance.

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/270032-applesauce-broccoli-left-at-supreme-court-in-memory-of-scalia

what about florets of broccoli?