Every four years I remind others about how vital it is to elect the Democrat because of the potential threat of the Republican to appoint right-wing ideologues to the Supreme Court. And every four years, for some reason the press never picks up on how absolutely critical this is as a factor in choosing whom to vote for. (On the off chance that potential court appointments do come up, it is always cast as a "litmus test" for the Democrat on abortion, but never the other way around, although the right wing is far more strident about ensuring that the Republican meets their "litmus test.")
Now we have a ruling today that legitimizes photo IDs as necessary for voting, even if it creates a huge impediment. This a week or so after the court tells us that a little pain is OK when conducting executions. We get rulings like this because the press fails in its duty to inform the public of these potential consequences when electing a presidential candidate (yet another way in which we are poorly served by the press).
Just because Bush will be gone next year doesn't mean the damage he can cause will be over. His asshole court selections will ensure that we'll have pro-corporate, anti-individual rights rulings (and potentially an overturning of Roe v. Wade) for years.
One huge, yet usuaully neglected, reason to vote for the Democrat against McCain.
HuffPost Blogger Scoops 60 Minutes
On April 10, 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia was given an award at the University of Virginia. Scalia was a founder of the Federalist Society; while he was at the school, he spoke at a lunch for UVa Fed. Soc. members.
Guess what? I'm a member. I went.
When he was done speaking, I was able to chat him up a little bit. And, what do you know? It looks like this lil' ol' blogger scooped 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl.
Here's the audio:
Some comments on the rest of the audio...
As you heard, Scalia suggested the Court's credibility wasn't hurt because if it came out the other way, partisans from his side would have been just as contemptuous of the institution.
Unfortunately, that argument is betrayed by the reasoning he used in explaining that the decision was just fine. He said that if the the Court had not stepped up, the Florida legislature or United States House would have decided the election and the result would have been the same.
Well... the truth is that if Scalia and the rest of his band of usurpers had applied the law, the decision would have favored Gore. After that, he's probably right - the Republican House or Florida's Republican legislature would have determined which slate of electors to seat.
And that is exactly how it should have played out.
The House and Florida legislature are designed to be political - the Court is not. We elect our legislators - if we don't like what they do, we replace them. We cannot replace a Supreme Court Justice. In deciding a political issue, the Court clearly went far beyond its proper bounds.
I would have liked to have asked him about the recusal process - with a family member working on Bush's transition team, shouldn't he and Thomas have recused themselves? Ah... but it isn't often that a law student gets to argue with a Supreme Court Justice and even I possess limits to my audacity... Maybe another time...
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I confess that i couldn't watch the love fest on 60 minutes. I don't really care anything about the "upclose and personal" BS that passes for journalism.
But Leslie forgot to ask him about his opinion that pretty much sums up this legal "genius."
The one where he says innocence is no defense against execution. According to Scalia as long as the process was 'fair" the state can wack your ass. Even if the evidence shows that you are innocent.Once you had your chance that's it.
Masterful legal reasoning.
I saw part of it too, he couldn't connect the dots between cruel and unusual punisment, and torture.
If Americans want more of this vile type of Supreme Court Justice, than McCain's your boy. He DIDN'T deounce torture or stealing of the presidency, but brushed it aside as old news or "so" like VP Cheney did to ABC's Martha Raddich. Americans must think before they cast a ballot in November whether or not they want McCain who says Scalia is an ideal judge of whom he'd appoint more just like him to the bench.
Now, how did this neo-fascist gumba know what the eventual 2000 Florida vote count would have been if the counting continued? Another neocon embued with devine inspiration!! Watch out, they're comin' for our white women!
Scalia's charm and brilliance escape me. I see a smug, self-satisfied, contemptible sophist, a tragic character like Colin Powell or Clarence Thomas. Deep religious conviction and absolute certainty about right and wrong have given the world some evil characters, like Bush, Scalia, and the Saudi Arabian terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center.
Scalia is scary but I guess we can do like Roosevelt threaten to do during his administration is when we finale get tired of being run over by the fringe right we can elect enough congress man and women to pass increasing the size of the court and appoint some judges to balance the court.
Can't wait to see the "60 Minutes" spin on him. He's scary. About the time he uttered "get over it, the vote was 7 to 2, blahblahblah"..I swear that all I could hear in my head was "fahgetta 'bout it!" I would have been outa' there in a heartbeat! What a thug! Glad you got out alive...
Just keep repeating:
"It made no difference to America"..
"It made no difference to America"..
"It made no difference to America"..
O.K...I just watched "60 Minutes" and I was wrong! I didn't intend to color Italian-Americans, even him, with that stereotype. It's an image he has clearly sought to vanquish in society-at-large.
So, I WAS wrong..he's not a thug, just an arrogant bully! And, I still think he's scary, ( & dangerous) as a Supreme Court Justice!
And he kept repeating:
Get over it.
Get over it.
Get over it.
The kicker was that the Court made it's decision based on a fourteenth amendment "equal protection" argument. They bought the argument that allowing hand counted votes would "dilute" the votes of others that were not contested. But that was a throwing the baby out with the bathwater approach. Those who cast the votes unreadable by machine were completely disenfranchised. There was more than enough time for the Court to set a standard and let judges, as ordered by the Florida Court, count the disputed votes. If the concern was really that the will of voter was the ultimate goal of the process, they would have not ordered the counting stopped. And they did not order the votes that had already been hand counted in a couple counties to be disqualified. They were recognized as legal votes.
"We elect our legislators - if we don't like what they do, we replace them. We cannot replace a Supreme Court Justice."
But we can have our legislators remove a Supreme Court Justice. Since at last count Mr. Justice Scalia has at least 3 decisions where he had a significant conflict of interest, and each time he acknowledged the conflict but refused to recuse himself, then it's time for our elected officials to replace him. Preferably after we elect a new Democratic president.
If they don't want to replace Scalia, we can always replace them.
One of great summary postings to Huffington Post.
EVERYONE party to the rampant national and international criminality by, for and of the Bush Administration must be fully investigated, and as warranted, prosecuted to the fullest extent of national and international law.
------------------------------------------------------
"But as anyone with a brain knows, Scalia wasn't about to let anyone other than himself and his 4 outlaws decide who was going to be president. And then to state in writing that this particular SCOTUS case, for the first time in history, should not be considered a precedent only confirmed the worst suspicions of anyone paying attention.
Like the rest of his kind, Scalia the Scourge should be in impeached and imprisoned for what he's done to this nation. The fact that he and they aren't is a telling indictment in itself as to what the U.S. has become."
"We elect our legislators - if we don't like what they do, we replace them."
Yes, and if "we" don't like independent US Prosecutors, the Justice Department replaces them with Federalist Society lap dogs loyal to CheneyOilCo. I'm guessing that you're not on the "invite list"...?
alienated in Seattle
The Electoral college could have proceeded with or without the Florida electors. See in other words the Electoral college could have said: Florida is too confusing and we will just exclude their slate and proceed. The President would be chosen by the remaining Electors, (quite enough for a quorum). Check out the process from 1864 when MANY states were excluded. Remember that the Confederacy was not recognized by the US government as legitimate and therefore still part of the Union. As such, they should have had the opportunity to send Electors in 1864. Now, as those states chose not to, the College proceeded without them.
Imagine: Allowing Constitutional processes to work themselves out in the 2000 election? Unthinkable!
Not when the majority of the Supreme Court could intervene and assure their political preference was chosen.
Just goes to show how much contempt Scalia, and other so called "conservatives" have for our Constitution.
But of course the 2000 election was only the start of the overthrowing of our Constitution. Which was written to specifically prevent the actions taken by Scalias favorite Fortunate Son.
screw scalia,thomas roberts,and the other neocons on the kangaroo court
God job on the article. Scalia was bought and paid for. How many $s did it take?
Supreme Court Justice or not, he's still JUST a man. It may have been your only time to ask and you chickened out. For shame.
He needs a vacation in gitmo and a little waterboarding to get his mind right. ya think so boss?
Scalia knows that he will be ridiculed and reviled in the future, when American scholars look back on the atrocities wrought by Bush and Co. Scalia and friends are the cause of our first four years of the Bush horror. So like all the neo-cons, Scalia is trying to restore his reputation for future generations. Too bad it's a lost cause.
Scalia will go down as one of the most worthless, political hacks in legal history. There was no legal basis for what the Supreme Court did. And Scalia was asking leading questions to pad the record of the argument before the Supreme Court so that he could attempt to justify their foregone decision. He should be tried for treason!
No legal basis for forcing Florida to follow its own election laws?
This obnoxious bastard says to "get over it". We would like to, but his decision has ruined this country, and we will pay through the nose for years to come. How much education do you have to have, to become totally ignorant?
How can you get over treason by a Supreme court Justice?
The fact that you didn't ask him an important and obvious question damages your credibility.
And where on the web can I find your questioning of Scalia?
Slay the messenger?
Scalia should be working for the Mafia. He probably would be making more money and his job would be secure for his lifetime, however long they decided that would be. Perhaps they decided that he did not have the grasp of the law which they need.
Mike Stark is only giving us half the story. He's surely right that political decisions should be made by political bodies, not by the SCOTUS. And he's right that Scalia has spoken out of both sides of his ugly mouth.
But what the SCOTUS did was more than political, it was unconstitutional. The Electoral College reserves for states (not Uncle Sam) the right to decide all elections within their boundaries, including federal elections. In case of a dispute, the highest legal authority with jurisdiction over the merits is the STATE Supreme Court. There is no precedent for the SCOTUS to intervene after a state court has ruled, nor should there have been. When the SCOTUS intervened in Bush v. Gore, and then cravenly declared their decision was not a precedent, it effectively broadcast its own venality.
If Scalia is as brilliant as his supporters claim and as he clearly believes, he must know this. If he does, he knows he's guilty of misconduct, along with his four partisan colleagues. A guilty conscience might explain his ongoing blather...as the Bard said, "Methinks he doth protest too much."
Right.
Florida law anticipated the controversy and gave a method to resolve it. Count every vote, where the intent of the voter could be discerned.
Furthermore: The Constitution provides for close votes being decided by the House of Representatives. Scalia says the out come would have been the same. And that justified the SC unconstitutional interference.
Utter Nonsense.
The House has decided at least 3 elections. And as messy as that might have been,and as dangerous to the outcome Scalia sought. The Supreme Court of the United States had a DUTY and OBLIGATION to assure that Constitutional process be maintained.
Get Over it?
Fat chance. Until Scalia and his co-conspirators are impeached how can justice be served?
http://www.censurethefive.org/
The one thing none of the Five has explained or can explain is why they didn't remand the case to Florida for action consistent with their majority opinion. As Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw pointed out in the Florida Supreme Court's (otherwise pro forma) opinion following Bush v. Gore, the only real deadline was January 6, 2001. It was outrageous for the Five to attribute to Florida a preference for protecting from Congressional challenge a partial and inaccurate popular vote count over an accurate and complete popular vote count (and correspondingly accurate electoral vote award). With activist David Harnden-Warwick I authored the proposed Congressional resolution above, but we couldn't get any support for it following 9/11. Better late than never. (It is also not too late for Justice Shaw, the unsung hero in the Bush v. Gore debacle, to receive the official recognition he deserves; his firm, cool and collected rejoinder to the Supreme Court coup d'etat should be retrieved from Orwell's proverbial memory hole and memorialized in a Hollywood feature film. Shaw's name deserves to be remembered when Scalia's is long forgotten.)
Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California
I believe the Atlanta Appeals Court also backed the FL Supreme Ct and refused to stop the counting?
So does that mean that we can send Scalia & Co. half the bills for the Iraq war? We can surely send the other half to Fox news!
Scalia shows himself to be the pig we have long suspected. I know small claims court judges with better ethics. He should have recused himself then and he should resign now. He's not up to the job, either morally or ethically.
Scalia is a contemptible Neo con Parasite that couldn't make a pimple on a gnats ass compared to the Founding Fathers who fought and died for the same United States Constitution these Neo con Parasites are Gutting, Usurping and Crapping on.
AGREED! We can only hope that these NEOCONs get exposed after the election...we know it won't happen before since the Dem's are too afraid to pursue. The shoe will drop....eventually!
I really don't know how they can pursue anything when they don't have the 2/3 to over ride a veto and the Senate is equal so it is not a matter of to afraid, we would have had to elected a 2/3 majority to over come Bush and his gang of thugs on anything, and when he has the Justice department under his wing well we have really a dictatorship and will continue this with McCain if he gets elected, how I don't know maybe the same way Bush did just rig the voting box's it seems pretty easy.
There's no next time for wannabe moral cruscaders like yourself who lack the balls to make the most of once in a lifetime opportunity to confront real corruption like Scalia. Shame, shame, shame on you.
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Posted April 26, 2008 | 07:30 PM (EST)