Scalia And Ginsburg

Ginsburg and Scalia’s Supreme Court complaints: Do they agree about what’s wrong with the Roberts court? - Slate Magazine:

...Which brings us to how real their respective fears really are. In spring Nathaniel Frank suggested that Scalia’s arguments about moral opprobrium and approval in the law have been disproved by time, and also overtaken by history. Whereas Ginsburg’s prediction in the Voting Rights Act dissent–that the assumption that the law works and is thus no longer needed “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet”—has proven prescient, as Richard Hasen recently noted. The speed with which states like Texas and North Carolina sprinted to make voting more difficult in the weeks after the decision suggests that Ginsburg was correct in her assessment: The court badly misread the status quo.

The true nature of their grievances is more subtle, and reflects all the interesting ways in which both Scalia and Ginsburg are of an era that is rapidly coming to an end: Scalia longs for a time in which the courts stayed out of it. Whereas Ginsburg longs for a time in which the court could properly redress social injustices—in matters of race and of gender—with a real-world understanding of how that plays out on the ground. To put it another way, despite the fact that only three years separate them chronologically, Scalia seems to want to reinstate the legal worldview of the 1980s and Ginsburg wants to reinstate that of the 1970s. With the exception of perhaps Clarence Thomas, they are the last two sitting justices who are so completely of another era—in each case an era whose legal hopes were never fully realized. No wonder they’re both feeling so frustrated. And no wonder they’re both so willing to say it so loudly.

SCOTUS Rules For Gay Rights

Gay Marriage: Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA, Avoids Prop 8 Ruling - WSJ.com:

The Supreme Court delivered the history-making decision sought by gay-marriage supporters, striking down a 1996 federal law that denied benefits to same-sex couples and effectively clearing a path for gay marriage to resume in California...

Women Win One

Texas abortion bill killed by filibuster, 'unruly mob' in Capitol - San Jose Mercury News:

Despite barely beating a midnight deadline, hundreds of jeering protesters helped stop Texas lawmakers from passing one of the toughest abortion measures in the country...

SCOTUS Juveniles

Dana Milbank: Justice Samuel Alito’s middle-school antics - The Washington Post:

The most remarkable thing about the Supreme Court’s opinions announced Monday was not what the justices wrote or said. It was what Samuel Alito did.

The associate justice, a George W. Bush appointee, read two opinions, both 5-4 decisions that split the court along its usual right-left divide. But Alito didn’t stop there. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, Alito visibly mocked his colleague...

Big Pharma Loses One

Supreme Court says human genes cannot be patented - CBS News:

The Supreme Court says companies cannot patent human genes, a decision that could profoundly affect the medical and biotechnology industries.

In a unanimous decision, the court struck down patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer...

Scalia Goes Stupid

No, Justice Scalia, the right to vote is not an ‘entitlement’ — MSNBC

Today in the arguments over the Voting Rights Act, Justice Scalia called the act a racial “entitlement.”

Got that? “Entitlement”? The right to vote is an “entitlement,” like Medicaid or food stamps.

No, it’s not.

Under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” That amendment was ratified in 1870 under the administration of President Grant, one of my heroes.

As we all know, it was put into effect–after a century of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other gimmicks to keep blacks from voting–only because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965...

Supreme "No" To GOP

Supreme Court declines to hear Republican voting challenge | Reuters

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a legal challenge by the Republican National Committee to dissolve a 1982 decree designed to stop the improper suppression of voting by particular groups.

Old Judge Defends New Judge

Sandra Day O'Connor defends Roberts on health care ruling - CBS News

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Chief Justice John Roberts' deciding vote to largely uphold President Obama's health care law doesn't mean the usually conservative Justice or the Court are moving left. "I see it deciding a very sensitive case with political connotations," she said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation..."

How Roberts Becomes An Almost Liberal

I've known several former conservatives, and sorta conservatives, including myself, who have undergone this metamorphis.

The Mystery of John Roberts - NYTimes.com

...Readers of this column know from my regular references to Judge Richard Posner of the federal appeals court in Chicago that he is one of my favorite judges. A pragmatic libertarian and prolific author, Judge Posner has the enviable quality of being willing to say out loud exactly what he thinks. So his comment on what may lie ahead for John Roberts, in a July 5 interview with Nina Totenberg of NPR, was perhaps not surprising, but I still found it amazing. Here is what he said:

“I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All of a sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, ‘What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics.’ Right? Maybe you have to reexamine your position.”

Whiney Scalia

Scalia critics say justice too political last term | Politics | The Seattle Times

..."Okay. Extraordinary," Scalia said.

The next day, he said the court should not have to go through each and every page of the massive law to sort out what stays and what goes should the justices invalidate the requirement that people carry insurance.

"What happened to the Eighth Amendment?" Scalia asked, referring to the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. "You really expect us to go through 2,700 pages?"

Dude, you are very well compensated for very little actual work. Do your job.

ACA Tax Issues

The Wall Street Journal: A Vast New Taxing Power - WSJ.com

...It's an elegant theory whose only flaw is that it is repudiated by Chief Justice Roberts's own language and logic. His gambit substitutes one unconstitutional expansion of government power for another and rearranges the constitutional architecture of the U.S. political system...

The Dissent Is Right

Justice Breyer: Montana Case Shows Citizens United Was Wrong | TPM2012

The Supreme Court sided with a conservative group on Monday to invalidate a Montana law restricting corporate spending on elections that had been on the books for 100 years, saying it clearly conflicted with their ruling in Citizens United...

Supreme Corruption

Meme Alleges Clarence Thomas's Wife Got $1.5M From Healthcare Act Foes - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

A new meme is making its way around the Internet, showing a photo of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with the caption: "This [man's] family received $1.5 million from health care opponents... And is about to rule on health care reform..."

McCain Flogs Supremes

McCain to Supremes: Corporations are NOT people | Strange Bedfellows — Politics News - seattlepi.com

Sen. John McCain used a TV appearance Friday to take out after the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling, which removed all limits from campaign spending.  McCain criticized a $10 million donation to Mitt Romney’s “SuperPAC...”

SCOTUS Pegs Outrage Meter

Supreme Court OKs police tasering pregnant women

...Unfortunately, this is where what happened to Malaika Brooks at the hands of the police—behavior that should be roundly condemned and prohibited—becomes yet another example of the cowardice of our justice system and the corrupt nature of life in a police state. Even though the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals recognized that Malaika posed no threat to anyone, nor did she pose a physical threat to the officers, that none of her offenses were serious, and that officers clearly used “excessive force” against her, the justices granted qualified immunity to the officers—a ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court ostensibly upheld when it refused to hear the case. In doing so, the courts have essentially given police carte blanche authority when it comes to using tasers against American citizens.
Indeed, this case highlights a growing trend in which police officers use tasers to force individuals into compliance in relatively non-threatening situations. Originally designed to restrain violent criminals, tasers are now used with impunity against individuals who pose no bodily harm to the police. Rowdy schoolchildren, the elderly, and mentally ill individuals are increasingly finding themselves on the receiving end of these sometimes lethal electroshock devices. Cops who have been shocked in the course of their training have described being tased as “the most profound pain,” and “like getting punched 100 times in a row...”

Supreme Bad News

44 Percent of Americans Approve of Supreme Court in New Poll - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing and three-quarters say the justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News...

Supremes v. The People

I don't think the law stands a chance --- the Supreme majority is a bought and paid for Republican entity, though the insurance industry is still crunching the numbers on how they will or won't profit. That's what will decide if the law stays or goes, not such niceties as the Constitution.

US health law partisans read high court hearing both ways | Reuters

The Supreme Court is not expected to rule on the U.S. healthcare law's contentious individual mandate for another three months.

But that did not stop partisans on both sides of the political battle from claiming - or at least trying to salvage - an early victory in the court of public opinion on Tuesday...

Sueing Corporate People

Supreme Court to decide if corporations can be sued for human rights abuses | The Raw Story

The Supreme Court will weigh next week whether corporations can be sued in the United States for suspected complicity in human rights abuses abroad, in a case being closely watched by businesses concerned about long and costly litigation...