Antonin Scalia, Republican Justice on the Supreme Court, Dies at 79

Justice Antonin Scalia (1986-2016) was found dead Saturday at 79, (Liptak, NYT).

After proper institutional plaudits and expressions of sympathy to the family, the political world has burst into a frantic posture.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and other Republican senators and presidential candidates are calling for President Obama to abdicate his power and responsibility under the United States Constitution to appoint Supreme Court justices, and vow to stop any nominee the president appoints. The Party's only principle is its power.

This is an ironic position from so-called strict constructionists, originalists, textualists—a faux jurisprudence masquerading as a method of judicial policy-making.

Scalia

Scalia was a hyper-activist and embittered ideologue who in his later years became more troll and open bigot than serious jurist, as his influence faded to a "Justice of One," (Murphy NYT), as a dogmatic and alienating "Scalia emerged as an Old Testament–style Jeremiah, often hollering alone in the wilderness."

Individual rights were few and weak in Scalia's alleged jurisprudence and Scalia's radical views reveal a racist and contemptuous conception of the American citizen, explaining in part why Scalia never achieved a stature beyond a smirking Republican political operative on the Court.

Power

As the Republican Party now openly uses the Court as a means of inflating its power and decimating the rights of the citizenry, it is no surprise Republicans senators believe the president has no right to nominate a justice and the U.S. Senate has no duty to consider a nominee.

Rights and Liberty

Power is what the Republican Party is after, and the diminished rights of the American citizen are simply a necessary objective.

This absurd conception of liberty so championed by Scalia and the New Right jurists such as Robert Bork was eviscerated by the late Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) during the 1987 Bork confirmation hearings.

As Ethan Bronner writes in his brilliant chronicling of the Bork nomination, (Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America; Ethan Bronner. 399 pages. W. W. Norton):

What [Sen.] Specter wanted to know was this: If executive power could undergo organic development, if press freedom had to be interpreted for the modern era, why not the rest of the Bill of Rights? Why not liberty? Why couldn't liberty be an organic concept? Why should judges interpret liberally when faced with the vague concept of press freedom but be held back when confronted with the equally vague concept of liberty? 

The Republicans had no answer in 1987 to this question as the American public, pushing the U.S. Senate, rejected Bork, and the Senate voted 58-42 against the Republican vision of Americans with frail rights.

The Republicans have no answer today as they stand naked, revealed as a fascistic underground movement with no fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and the vast liberties of the American people against state power, save the right of citizens to own weapons of mass destruction.

Battle to Come

The high ground on Constitutional rights is a hill Republicans can never hope to take and Scalia's nominated successor will stand for the liberties of the Constitution in an epic political battle these next nine months.

The Republican political rejoinder to 'I got my rights,' is 'no, you don't,' no matter the slick, Luntz-crafted formulations Republicans will use. This truth will stare Americans in the face this spring and summer.

Republicans will defame, scream, and warn the Republic is coming to an end if the Senate confirms this black president's nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Personally, I'm hoping for Prof. Diane P. Wood, Chief Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, or perhaps a rabbit out of the hat with the nomination of Alex Kozinski, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, or a dream appointment of Richard Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Speculations abound.

As for the Republicans, let 'em scream. The result will be an aroused electorate realizing their liberty is at stake and there is very little Republicans will not do to achieve One Party rule in their project of unsurpassed ugliness.

Robert Bork was a fascist

Robert Bork - After citizens
mobilized, the U.S. Senate rejected
Bork 58-42.

America lost a radical authoritarian nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court by Ronald Regan in 1987.

Human being, yes, we had better believe it.

Marine, yes.

Fascist, who has no business on our nation's top appellate court? Yes.

For a great read, check out Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America by Ethan Bronner.

Bork is the perfect jurist for the Tea Party and the Republicans: Long on wind, short on liberty.

GOP Outraged by ... Whatever

Republicans see Obama's nomination of ... anyone ... for Justice Souter's seat as outrageous, divisive, activist, pick a negative adjective.

The merits of this summer's choice are irrelevant. Facts, law, intellect, these things don't matter. Republicans want to attack anything that is not Republican.

As Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny write today:

The nation’s capital geared up Friday for a battle over a Supreme Court vacancy that appeared likely to test President Obama’s success at skirting divisive social issues, with conservative groups saying they viewed the opening created by the retirement of Justice David H. Souter as an opportunity to regroup after a series of political setbacks.

Obama need not fear the Republican attack machine regrouping. Or be cowed into nominating someone who is only sort of into the rule of law and protecting liberties.

He should appoint a Laurence Tribe, Diane Wood, Kathleen Sullivan, or Cass Sunstein.

Obama ought to antagonize and declare war in effect with the GOP slime machine.

It doesn't matter. Republicans are dogmatic bad actors and will attack anyone. So stick up for liberty and intellect and have some fun.

By the way, the coming fight will see many of the same actors in the last spectacular Supreme Court fight that saw the nominee bite the dust, Robert Bork in 1987.

Joe Biden, who was the ambitious Senate Judiciary Committee Chair in '87 is vice-president now. Sen. Arlen Spector who crossed party lines to vote against Bork and engaged in some of the most dramatic and substantive examnation of a nominee ever, has now crossed party lines again.

Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy and all those civil rights-loving women and blacks and Hispanics will be back.

Some works on Supreme Court fights and rightwing judicial dogma: The New Right v. the Constitution by Stephen Macedo and Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America by Ethan Bronner.

From Macedo:

"When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."

Israeli Troops: 'Thirst for Blood in Gaza'

Ethan Bronner has what should be a blockbuster in the NYT, excerpted below.

[Shot at right shows Israeli humanism at work, an all too typical photo from the Gaza Strip.]

How long are we going to support this hyper militarism and continuing war crime?

JERUSALEM — In the two months since Israel ended its military assault on Gaza, Palestinians and international rights groups have accused it of excessive force and wanton killing in that operation, but the Israeli military has said it followed high ethical standards and took great care to avoid civilian casualties.

Now testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property that is sure to inflame the domestic and international debate about the army’s conduct in Gaza. On Thursday, the military’s chief advocate general ordered an investigation into a soldier’s account of a sniper killing a woman and her two children who walked too close to a designated no-go area by mistake, and another account of a sharpshooter who killed an elderly woman who came within 100 yards of a commandeered house.

When asked why that elderly woman was killed, a squad commander was quoted as saying: “What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. The order was to take down the person, this woman, the minute you see her. There are always warnings, there is always the saying, ‘Maybe he’s a terrorist.’ What I felt was, there was a lot of thirst for blood.”