SUPREME COURT: JUSTICE SCALIA DEATH AND SCOTUS CHANGES

[HairOfTheDog]

My first thought was...who the fuck declares someone dead over the phone?

Bizarre, isn't it. I've never heard of such thing. You would think it would be standard procedure to at least see the body FFS. I read he was declared dead and there was found to be no reason for an autopsy, yet it was reported that he didn't have a heart attack, simply that his heart stopped beating. How do they know this?

As I understand it, it's allowable to declare someone dead without seeing the body if all evidence points in the direction of natural causes; it sometimes happens in rural areas where it would take a justice of the peace some time to get to the location.

Scalia's family reportedly wanted his body removed from the rural hunting resort and returned to Washington asap. I don't blame them. So, the pronouncing judge called Scalia's doctor who confirmed that he had several chronic conditions, but was too weak for surgery. She also interviewed U.S. Marshals who'd arrived at the resort, by phone, and determined there was no sign of foul play. The family declined an autopsy.

I'm glad the news wasn't leaked and he was removed before a swarm of media arrived at the scene, though it did open the door for a lot of speculation.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest that a liberal gun-grabber sneaked into the resort and smothered staunch second amendment supporter Scalia, probably on orders from Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton!

He riled people up in life, and he's riling people up in death. But, Scalia appears to have been a very loving and loved family man and friend. It's been interesting reading the tributes and stories from those closest to him. RIP.

Refs:
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/texas-ra...ias-death/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...rgery.html

[Duchess]

On thing I read, which I found interesting. They said a Priest came to perform Last Rites (consider it a last Confession) over his dead body. Now, I realize I have not been a Catholic in a while, but it was always my understanding they were done JUST before death..last confession, as it were, so you can die peacefully and without guilt or sin. ANy current Catholics out there? I know Google is my friend, but lets face it, it is late, I am stressed and do not feel like chatting with Google. So sue me.

Last rites ARE for the living but it does raise some question on how someone near death could recite an Act of Contrition. Anyway, there is some thought, depending on who you talk to, that the soul lingers in the body until rigor mortis sets in so maybe that's how some priests get by in delivering last rites to someone who has already passed but it would have to be done in a very timely fashion. Having said all that, I am a lapsed Catholic and catechism was a looooong time ago so I could be wrong.

[Blindgreed1]

My first thought was...who the fuck declares someone dead over the phone?

Bizarre, isn't it. I've never heard of such thing. You would think it would be standard procedure to at least see the body FFS. I read he was declared dead and there was found to be no reason for an autopsy, yet it was reported that he didn't have a heart attack, simply that his heart stopped beating. How do they know this?

As I understand it, it's allowable to declare someone dead without seeing the body if all evidence points in the direction of natural causes; it sometimes happens in rural areas where it would take a justice of the peace some time to get to the location.

Scalia's family reportedly wanted his body removed from the rural hunting resort and returned to Washington asap. I don't blame them. So, the pronouncing judge called Scalia's doctor who confirmed that he had several chronic conditions, but was too weak for surgery. She also interviewed U.S. Marshals who'd arrived at the resort, by phone, and determined there was no sign of foul play. The family declined an autopsy.

I'm glad the news wasn't leaked and he was removed before a swarm of media arrived at the scene, though it did open the door for a lot of speculation.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest that a liberal gun-grabber sneaked into the resort and smothered staunch second amendment supporter Scalia, probably on orders from Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton!

He riled people up in life, and he's riling people up in death. But, Scalia appears to have been a very loving and loved family man and friend. It's been interesting reading the tributes and stories from those closest to him. RIP.

Refs:
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/texas-ra...ias-death/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...rgery.html

It gave them time to get any "hookers and blow" evidence out of the room before the media got wind of it.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah, I've seen that ^ comment under a few news articles too.

Maybe there's more to the story than has been told. Could be.

But, for now, it seems just as likely or more likely to me that he was internally sicker than people outside the family were aware, he died in his sleep, and his family wanted him removed so they could see him as soon as possible and pictures of his dead body didn't end up on the front page of the National Enquirer.

[HairOfTheDog]

The funeral of Justice Scalia is being covered by CNN now.

The Basilica of the Natural Shrine of Immaculate Conception in DC is gorgeous.

Aside from his wife, nine children, and 36 grandchildren, 6000 people are expected to attend. Among those will be Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Ted Cruz, and his fellow Supreme Court justices.

Justice Clarence Thomas will speak at the service and Scalia's son Paul, a priest, will conduct the homily.

[Duchess]

The Basilica -

[HairOfTheDog]

Now that he's been laid to rest, I think we'll start seeing more pundit pieces covering what many see as Scalia's destructive and regressive impact on the country.

I think the vacant Justice chair is now one of the most important factors in the 2016 presidential race. If Democrats win the White House and replace Scalia with a progressive or even moderate Justice (and especially if Ginsburg, Kennedy and/or Thomas also leave the court during the Democratic president's term), it would likely be at least a decade before a majority conservative-leaning court would be a possibility.

Scalia's critics opposed the obvious influence his religion played in his decisions, his orginalist interpretation of the Constitution, and his aggressiveness. His fans, like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, praise him for those very attributes.

[HairOfTheDog]

From The New Yorker, op/ed by Jeffrey Toobin



...it was in his jurisprudence that Scalia most self-consciously looked to the past. He pioneered “originalism,” a theory holding that the Constitution should be interpreted in line with the beliefs of the white men, many of them slave owners, who ratified it in the late eighteenth century. During Scalia’s first two decades as a Justice, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist rarely gave him important constitutional cases to write for the Court; the Chief feared that Scalia’s extreme views would repel Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court’s swing vote, who had a toxic relationship with him during their early days as colleagues. (Scalia’s clashes with O’Connor were far more significant than his much chronicled friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.)

It was not until 2008, after John G. Roberts, Jr., had succeeded Rehnquist, that Scalia finally got a blockbuster: District of Columbia v. Heller, about the Second Amendment. Scalia spent thousands of words plumbing the psyches of the Framers, to conclude (wrongly, as John Paul Stevens pointed out in his dissent) that they had meant that individuals, not just members of “well-regulated” state militias, had the right to own handguns. Even Scalia’s ideological allies recognized the folly of trying to divine the “intent” of the authors of the Constitution concerning questions that those bewigged worthies could never have anticipated.

His revulsion toward homosexuality, a touchstone of his world view, appeared straight out of his sheltered, nineteen-forties boyhood. When, in 2003, the Court ruled that gay people could no longer be thrown in prison for having consensual sex, Scalia dissented, and wrote, “Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”

Scalia helped gut the Voting Rights Act, overturn McCain-Feingold and other campaign-finance rules, and, in his last official act, block President Obama’s climate-change regulations. Scalia’s reputation, like the Supreme Court’s, is also stained by his role in the majority in Bush v. Gore. His oft-repeated advice to critics of the decision was “Get over it.”

Full op/ed piece: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/0...g-backward

[Duchess]

His oft-repeated advice to critics of the decision was “Get over it.”

Sounds like a dick.

[HairOfTheDog]

Immigration and Affirmative Action Rulings

Republicans continue to refuse considering Judge Garland to fill Scalia's seat, leaving the Supreme Court with only 8 Justices until after the election in November.

As a result, the court deadlocked with a 4 to 4 vote on a ruling related to President Obama's immigration Executive Order yesterday, leaving millions of American immigrants in limbo for now.

“It’s heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who’ve made their lives here, who’ve raised families here,” Obama said in a press conference Thursday about the court’s ruling. Dreamers — undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children — are “Americans in every way except on paper,” he said.

“This is part of the consequence of the Republican failure so far to give a fair hearing to Mr. Merrick Garland, my nominee to the Supreme Court,” Obama said. That the justices couldn’t reach a decision is “a very clear reminder of why it’s so important for the Supreme Court to have a full bench.”

Obama also jabbed at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling it “factually incorrect” to say the U.S. can deport 11 million undocumented immigrants or build a wall along the southern border without spending tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. “It’s a fantasy,” Obama said. “That demeans our tradition of being both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” he added.

The Court did rule in favor of allowing universities to maintain Affirmative Action policies in order to promote diversity yesterday. Justice Kennedy's ruling in favor of Affirmative Action was a surprise to many. The Court vote was 4 to 3 (Justice Sottomayer removed herself from the vote in this case when it was filed years back to avoid conflict of interest; she had worked on Affirmative Action policy previously).

Refs:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obam...1e?section=
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...story.html

[Duchess]

Republicans continue to refuse considering Judge Garland to fill Scalia's seat

I hope they live to regret that. There isn't one damn thing wrong with that choice and when pressed there was no one on that side to present what they thought made him a bad choice. According to all I've read he actually leans a little more to the right than to the left. They are just being the group of old pricks they have always been.

[Maggot]

So you think Garland would have voted in favor of the immigration policy?

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Maybe he would have, maybe not. No way to know.
At the least it stops at least for now this BS amnesty for all the illegals.
Get them out, I am tired of paying for them

[Duchess]

So you think Garland would have voted in favor of the immigration policy?

I don't know what he would have done but he's not a Liberal judge by any stretch. When all this first started going down I heard a few Democrats on some of those nighttime news programs say he was a little too conservative for their taste. I also saw some Republicans put in the position of elaborating on what they found fault with and they all said nothing, but they weren't going to confirm him because it wouldn't be fair to the American people. Pfft. Like they know what's good for us.

You already know what I think of politicians working for me. I don't believe they do.

[Maggot]

I only said that because people especially illegal immigrants will blame Republicans for the decision.
But you know what? I could give a Fuck because they're freaking ILLEGAL

[HairOfTheDog]

New Supreme Court Justice Nominated by President Trump



Last night, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, an appeals court judge in Denver, to fill Scalia's seat.

If he's confirmed, that would bring the Supreme Court back to 9 justices and fill the deceased justice's seat with another conservative judge with reportedly similar views as Scalia.

What conservatives would reportedly really like to see happen is for Judge Anthony Kennedy, 80, to retire.

Kennedy has personally worked with Gorsuch and there's hope in conservative circles that Kennedy's high opinion and good relationship with Gorsuch will inspire Kennedy to feel comfortable leaving the court so Republicans can appoint another younger and more conservative justice, thus pushing the Supreme Court to a right-leaning one. If that doesn't happen, the hope is that Gorsuch will pull Kennedy to the right in rulings.

[HairOfTheDog]

The Democrats don't want to see that happen, of course. And, many Democratic politicians are incensed that the Republican Congress refused to even consider President Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, for over a year. They consider it an unconstitutional partisan move.

Republicans contend that it was their right not to even consider Obama's nominee in the last year of his final term and they wanted to leave such an important decision with long-term national impacts in the hands of the voters, and that the voters chose Trump partially based on his Supreme Court views/potential nominees.

[HairOfTheDog]

So...........this Supreme Court nomination is gonna be a big political fight. Democrats can filibuster Gorsuch's nomination by dragging out the interviews, hearings and confirmation process past the deadline in April and demanding a Senate super-majority (60 votes) rather than a simple-majority approval. The Senate is currently 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats; so the Republicans would need to convince 8 Dems to confirm Gorsuch.

If Dems don't give up the 8 votes, Senate Majority Leader McConnell can choose to exercise what's called the 'nuclear option'. My understanding is that means McConnell could change the voting rules to eliminate the filibuster via simple majority approval of the rule change on the senate floor.

But, McConnell is not one who typically likes to violate tradition. So, it's unknown whether he would invoke the very rare nuclear option and eliminate the filibuster (a rule change which could benefit the Dems in the future) in order to get Gorsuch confirmed. If not, Trump would instead be required to nominate his second pick.

But, who knows, maybe Gorsuch was Trump's second pick because he foresees a filibuster? The Trump administration reportedly also likes conservative judge Thomas Hardiman a lot. And, if the Dems tried to filibuster two picks, I think it might cost them politically in the 2018 midterms. Then again, maybe not. Maybe it would get more Dems out to vote in the 2018 mid-term elections in hopes of gaining seats and taking over the Senate majority (thus opening the door for a more mainstream Supreme Court Justice nomination).

[Maggot]

One thing is certain that nothing is certain. It will be months before one is secured for the position.

[HairOfTheDog]

Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing



I just watched some clips from today's Senate confirmation hearing on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  What a contentious shitshow, but very interesting.

Given the significance for the country (likely for decades to come) and the Republican Senate's refusal to hold a hearing for Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, I expected it to be loud and passionate.  That turned out to be an understated expectation.

Anyway, based on what I've read and heard:

For the Senators who oppose Kavanaugh, the likelihood that he'd be the deciding conservative vote in overturning or severely restricting Roe v. Wade is a big concern.  There's also major concern that Kavanaugh would be  hesitant to restrict Executive powers or hold a president accountable for alleged crimes if a case was brought to the Supreme Court (based on his statements in the years after he assisted in impeaching Bill Clinton) .

For those who support Kavanaugh, the likelihood that he'll always rule in favor of pro-religious based policy, conservative positions,  and corporate interests appears to make him an ideal nominee.

Here's a live-blogged summary of today's proceedings:  http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/09/live-b...g-day-one/