The Mass Shooting buck stops at the Conservative Activist Supreme Court's 2008 2nd Amendment Decision!!!

While raving gun hobbyists push their "rights" on everyone else, their old argument that guns would make America safer has proven to be false. Even more frightening, the freedom to carry a gun is now canceling out the freedom to not carry a gun, like the push to end "gun free zones" and allow guns in schools, colleges, parks, streets, sidewalks...etc..

Again, the only way we can be a safe society is to be an armed society. But as Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wrote recently:

Freedom in America also means that we are free to wake up every morning hoping that it’s not our kid who gets shot with a weapon of war, and free to wake up hoping it’s not our kid who shoots someone, and free to wake up praying it’s not our kid, or our spouse, or our neighbor who shoots herself. In this freest country on earth, we also happen to be in a perpetual hostage situation, in which one false move—or merely the choice to go to class, or to dance with friends—means you may wind up dead. What does all this have to do with freedom?

But the gun crowd's rejection of this argument, in the face of mass shootings and random executions in neighborhoods all across America, is driving our once civil society off a cliff.

If you remember Saturday Night Live's competitor, Friday's, then you might remember this great bit featuring Larry David (Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Michael Richards (Seinfeld), playing the founding fathers trying to write the Constitution and Bill of Rights. David's take on the 2nd Amendment is especially ironic:



Slate's Lithwick continues...

The Second Amendment says this: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” For most of U.S. history, that was understood to mean that the freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment was precisely what it said: the right of the people of each state to maintain a well-regulated militia.

So clearly and unequivocally held was this worldview that no less a liberal squish than Richard Nixon Supreme Court appointee Warren Burger said after his retirement in 1991 that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Perhaps most famously in a 1939 case called U.S. v. Miller. That ruling said that since the possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” had no reasonable relationship to the “preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” the court simply could not find that the Second Amendment guaranteed “the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Period, full stop. And that was the viewpoint adopted by the courts for years.

Forgetting over 2 century's of history, in 2008, and after decades of special interest money and propaganda, Justice Scalia and Thomas took the leap...:

The larger fabrication is the idea that the Second Amendment—unlike other provisions of

the Constitution—cannot be subject to any reasonable restriction Constitutional rights are subject to every sort of condition and limitation, and as Scalia himself noted in Heller, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” He even went on to list some reasonable limits. It is a sick joke of our democracy that after every mass shooting we must tell our children that the Framers gave us this precious gift of liberty, more valuable than their lives, and that we are stuck with it. This is the opposite of freedom. It is slavery by choice.

No definition or redefinition of what constitutes an assault weapon can erase the fact that an AR-15 is an assault weapon, period:

Family of AR-15 Inventor Eugene Stoner: He Didn't Intend It for Civilians. "Our

father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47," the Stoner family told NBC News late Wednesday. "He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more by these events."

The ex-Marine and "avid sportsman, hunter and skeet shooter" never used his invention for sport ... he never even owned one. And though he made millions from the design ... it was all from military sales.

His family said Stoner was "focused on making the most efficient and superior rifle possible for the military. What has happened, good or bad, since his patents have expired is a result of our free market system," Stoner's family said. 'Who now is benefiting from the manufacturing and sales of AR-15s, and for what uses?'"

In all, an AR-15 style rifle has been used in at least 10 recent mass shootings.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Huffington Post: Constitutional theory is the debate platform that conservatives have been playing on for decades while progressives get frustrated and lose ground. The remarkable irony is that the wording and intent within the Second Amendment is actually on progressive’s side. In fact, the Second Amendment is a progressive’s dream: the third word in the amendment is “regulated” for heaven’s sake.

No matter the interpretation of every other word and phrase after the first three words, the entire context of the amendment is that it will be a regulated right. Through this lens, the Second Amendment is barely even comparable to the First Amendment in terms of what rights it enables. There is simply no language in the First Amendment that regulates the right to free speech... and yet we still regulate speech despite the unassailable strength of the the First Amendment constitutional language.

The upshot? The Constitution itself provides the guidance — and mandate — to not just regulate militia (i.e., groups of people) and arms, but to regulate them well. Seeing as the right to bear arms has been implemented pretty effectively in America, perhaps now it’s time to start implementing regulation well too, as the Constitution also mandates.

Gun defenders often point to general homicide rates, which don't give the actual total number of guns deaths. Interesting note: Republican opposition to health care kills more Americans than guns. Nice party huh? So here's what they want to deny, at the risk of putting everyone else in the line of fire:

  

Dumb Ron Johnson says the American People should pick the next Supreme Court Justice? Can't find that in the Constitution....

Dumb Ron Johnson and his authoritarian power mad pals in the Senate hope to shut down once and for all any discussion about Obama's nomination for the next supreme court justice. It's done. It's finished. Get over it. Let's move on!

Republicans know they're this close to one party rule in this country, and keeping the conservative activist court intact is a major priority.

So here comes Dumb Ron Johnson, in another breathless panic over the possibility of discussing a change in the courts political leanings. Remember when Scott Walker ordered then Gov. Jim Doyle not to negotiate a contract with the public unions before he left office? Here we go again:

Asked whether pausing the Supreme Court nomination process could delay business in the Senate, Johnson said he hopes it won't.

"I think that's one of the reasons Leader (Mitch) McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Sen. Grassley came out and said, 'This is what we're going to do, now get over it.' Let’s move on. The Senate has spoken, a coequal branch of government. We’re not going to consider the nomination. We’re asking the American people to decide that and the next president. So now let’s start moving on with the other important things we must do for the American people."

"Let’s start moving on with the other important things," because having the proper balance on the nations court isn't a priority? Of course nothing else seems to be important enough in the Senate either.

"We're asking the American people to decide that..." wrong, since that misleading line is nowhere in the Constitution. And like everybody's been saying, the American people already decided when they elected Obama...twice. Here's the mind numbing nationalistic ad Johnson is running. Nothing shows contempt for his voters more than something like this:

According to a poll released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling, 62 percent of Wisconsin voters want to see the seat filled this year.

Wisconsin Assembly rams Scalia Resolution down throats of objecting Democrats.

The way I see it, is Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority decisions are now costing people their lives (guns), and costing the nation its representative democracy (Citizens United). And I'm just scratching the surface. Scalia’s now legendary minority opinions proved he was an activist and partisan Justice, picking and choosing when to use his "originalist" partisan bias. Anyone who’s caused so much harm to so many people is not worthy of my admiration, that's for sure.

And yet, not surprising, Walker’s Republican legislature decided Scalia deserved “a resolution honoring the life and service of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scali.” Republican Rep. Jim Steineke even tried to put his Democratic colleagues names on the resolution, which didn’t sit well with Rep. Cory Mason:

But some Democrats weren’t happy about the gesture. “I would be remise if I did not also acknowledge the harm that his words have caused to many of the people I represent,” complained state Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) who went on to cite a laundry list of Scalia’s opinions that he disagreed with. “Certainly his words and messaging around marriage equality are deeply disturbing.”

In the subsequent voice vote that followed, Democrats could be heard shouting “nay” to the passage of the resolution. The measure now heads to the Senate where it is likely to pass.

Impartial Judiciary? Are you Kidding? Republicans have been upfront about appointing conservative judges and justices. They're acting as if their activist "originalist" philosophy isn't already politically charged? Yet they'll tear down the idea of living Constitution that assumes the founding fathers didn't think of themselves as all knowing gods who could see into the future. I wonder if they knew of their infallibility? 

Democratic skepticism of the resolution centered around its closing clauses and the judicial philosophy of the jurist:

“Whereas, Justice Scalia forever impacted the law of the United States of America by eloquently explaining his philosophy in countless judicial opinions, including his majority opinions in D.C. v. Heller and Printz v. United States as well as his dissenting opinions in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Atkins v. Virginia, Obergefell v. Hodges, and King v. Burwell; now, therefore, be it “Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the members of the Wisconsin legislature commend the ardent and remarkable service Justice Antonin Scalia gave to our country through his fundamental belief in the rule of law and for preserving the lasting consistency of our Constitution.

Impartial Judiciary Dead, GOP Proudly Promises Activist Conservative Justices!

The thirst for power and a one party authority is unmistakable, and apparently knows no limits. 

What is antithetical to the intent of the founding fathers, and to the idea of having a nonpartisan independent judicial branch of government, is the Republican plan to replacement Antonin Scalia with a originalist conservative. And they'll block any attempt to supposedly poison the Supreme Court with a "liberal," a judge not on the same page as the Republican Party. Heck, they even got another chance to discredit Obama, by condescendingly telling him to wait for the next president. If this were President Romney, think they would wait till after the election?

Here's a clip that starts with Hillary Clinton's comments about the GOP's scheme to politicize the judicial branch, followed by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer.



But its always been about political philosophy.

Scalia even bragged that he was an "originalist," a form of political conservatism that "believes" the Constitution's language is fixed to the time it was enactment. But that would require interpreting what the founders meant, which leaves it up to the imagination of the ruling party. Crazy?

Originalism, in all its various forms, is predicated on a specific view of what the Constitution is. Justice Scalia accepted this problem: "It's not always easy to figure out what the provision meant when it was adopted…I do not say [originalism] is perfect. I just say it's better than anything else". 

The Constitution contains no waiting period, no election year ban, no set "standard practice" to uphold, like the one Sen. Chuck Grassley claimed has been in place for the last 80 years. Real "originalists" huh? Here's Scalia on Fox News trying to make sense of his own philosophy:



Check out the discussion here between Scalia and Justice Stephen Breyer. You be the judge. Which form of constitutional reading sounds right?

Wikipedia: Any originalist or even a strict constructionist might apply the canon of construction, which presumes that when an author includes one example he intends to exclude others ... 

Contrast this with a "living constitutional" interpretation (liberal), which might find that, although the text itself only prohibits certain methods, those methods are examples of particularly unpleasant methods of execution; therefore, the text invites modern readers to extend its principle to those forms of punishment we now find particularly unpleasant.

I'm going with the living constitution, and here's the logical reason why:

Justice Breyer has) that constitutions are meant to endure over time, and in order to do so, their interpretation must therefore be more flexible and responsive to changing circumstances than the amendment process.

The Ninth Amendment is the exception in that it does establish a rule of constitutional interpretation ("The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."). When interpreted using original intent or original meaning, it clearly protects rights which the founders had not thought to list explicitly—this could be interpreted as a direct rebuke to all Textualist or Formalist legal schools including originalism.

Justice Antonin Scalia...Dead.

The weak GOP presidential candidates just got a gift...

If there ever was a moment of Republican honesty, this was it. They are now admitting how they've been politicizing the judicial branch with partisan activist conservative justices for years, and intend to make it even worse by delaying Senate approval.

They never intended to defend the Constitution, but transform what it means by the conservative activist court.

The flurry of right wing tweets pictured here says it all, and shouldn't be forgotten during the campaign. In fact, a number of surreal pointblank promises to nominate the most extreme conservative candidates were made in tonight's GOP debate, but that's perfectly acceptable. Can't make that promise about nominating a "liberal" justice.

The absolute balls to think we should wait till we have a new president. Anybody falling this stuff:



The Huffington Post reports....

It took only a few minutes after news broke of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death on Saturday for conservatives to demand that Senate Republicans block any replacement nominated by President Barack Obama. The most prominent reaction came from Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who sits on the Judiciary Committee -- through which any Supreme Court nominee must go.

The haste with which Scalia's death was reduced to a political battle was a bit alarming. What is perhaps more telling is the immense political importance that one man's death could have on our system of governance. Beyond the president, the death of a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has possibly the greatest ripple effects.

With a possible tie on the court, I wonder how many challenges we'll see from the lawsuit crazy GOP now that they don't have their sure thing anymore?

Hillary Clinton's strongest suit is her ability to take the fight the Republicans. Clinton's statement on Scalia frames the argument perfectly, using the Constitution against the conservatives.



This absolute nonsense was a crowd pleaser during the GOP presidential debate:

"It’s been standard practice over the last 80 years to not confirm Supreme Court nominees during a presidential election year,"said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Saturday.

Not quite, according to Voxdotcom:

Igor Volsky, a staffer at the liberal Center for American Progress, responded with a tweet listing justices who have been confirmed in election years:

Strict Constructionist activist Justice Scalia points to imagined "Constitutional traditions?"

Feeling free now to be as activist as he wants, Justice Antonin Scalia stepped out into Constitutional fantasy land again, this time imagining its implied religious "tradition." And not one peep out of tea party pocket constitutional Republicans?

Republicans have always pushed the theme that "tradition" is the essence of our founding document, a kind of see what you want to see flexibility built in to push their agenda.  

Except now, we're talking about a Supreme Court Justice strolling around in crazy land. A strict constitutionalist, really? Remember this:

In December he came under fire for comments he made during an affirmative action case, questioning whether some black students would benefit from going to a "slower-track school" instead of Texas' flagship campus in Austin.

Big surprise he voted against the Voting Rights Act. 

Scalia now sees religion, specifically God, as an American "tradition" that gives the Constitution its true meaning: 

AP: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was speaking at a Catholic high school said Saturday the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country's constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him ... that there is "no place" in the country's constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.

"To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from? To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion? God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways. There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that."

Only when in the minority, Justice Scalia wonders, "Do you really want your judges to rewrite the Constitution?"

It's more than a religious tradition. Marriage is a complicated governmental process that sets up property, personal and monetary obligations, backed up by law. If the government decided that certain Americans were blocked from accessing these laws, then we’ve got a problem with equal protection.

The majority held that state same-sex marriage bans are a violation of both the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause.

The conservative Justices pretzel logic never got that concept, and wanted to continue to treat gay Americans differently: 

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote Addressing the Equal Protection Clause, Roberts stated that same-sex marriage bans did not violate the clause because they were rationally related to a governmental interest, preserving the traditional definition of marriage.

“Governmental interest” doesn't include equal protection? I’m sensing a massive amount of BS.

  

I’m bringing this up again because in a recent article featuring Justice Scalia’s crazy rants against the decision, he never even mentioned “equal protection.” In fact he spouted the same talking points as tea party flame thrower Sen. Ted Cruz (ironically, Cruz served as a law clerk to  William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States in 1996), arguing the justices are just a bunch of unelected lawyers telling us all what to do. I have deeper, more thoughtful conversations with my conservative friend in Milwaukee.

Here are the low-lights from conservative activist Justice Scalia. What is this guy doing on the bench?  

At a Tuesday speech at Rhodes College the justice blasted the decision, calling it the "furthest imaginable extension of the Supreme Court doing whatever it wants" … "threat to democracy" … “Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast. Saying that the Constitution requires that practice, which is contrary to the religious beliefs of many of our citizens. I don't know how you can get more extreme than that. I worry about a court that's headed in that direction. Do you really want your judges to rewrite the Constitution?" 

He bemoaned that the court was made up of no more than "lawyers" who are "terribly unrepresentative of our country. What is it that I learned at Harvard Law School that makes me peculiarly qualified to determine such profound moral and ethical questions as whether there should be a right to abortion, whether there should be same-sex marriage, whether there should be a right to suicide? It has nothing to do with the law. Even Yale Law School doesn't teach that stuff."

Justice Scalia sides with saving Big Energy Money, rules against bigger Savings protecting American Lives.

The Supreme Court ruling, by the conservative activist justices, struck down Obama’s new EPA clean air standards.

Let's start with the first problem: Republicans always weasel out of answering questions by refusing to address “hypothetical's.” In this case though, Justice Scalia turned the tables.

In another Salvador Dali moment of logic, Justice Scalia came up with a hypothetical that’ll blow your mind: What if wind and solar did more harm than burning coal? He really said that.

Scalia: "The government concedes that if the agency were to find that emissions from power plants do damage to human health, but that the technologies needed to eliminate these emissions do even more damage to human health, it would still deem regulation appropriate. No regulation is 'appropriate' if it does significantly more harm than good."

But it doesn’t? It was a wretched twist of reality.

It’s an argument that defies logic, and is never addressed by the press either. Republicans have always said environmental standards must balance the cost to business with the cost to human health and lives.

Not even close, right, who would not try to save lives by cleaning up energy production? The fact that most utility companies are already moving in the clean energy direction anyway makes this whole question a moot point.  But not to our clueless conservative jurists stuck in the 20^th century.

The cost to energy company’s vs peoples worthless lives? That’s easy for Scalia. Saving lives…is unreasonable:

Just in case you didn't see this...

"We hold that EPA interpreted unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court's majority opinion … The Obama administration argued that the costs were only a fraction of the industry's profits. The EPA eventually did (look at the costs) and determined that the benefits far outweighed the costs.

The new regulation could add almost $10 billion in annual costs. But the EPA countered that the economic benefits could reach as much as $90 billion per year, based on health benefits and saved lives. The plaintiffs countered that the maximum benefit could reach no higher than about $6 billion.

There was no mention of saving lives. And you wonder why the national debt keeps going up; Republicans won’t let it come down unless it has a tax cut tied to it.

In a fiery dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the EPA acted "well within its authority" in imposing regulations that could save "many, many lives."

Saving many, many lives is such a "liberal" thing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flipped reality inside out about the actual cost of doing nothing:

"Middle-class families in Kentucky and across our country … are often the first to suffer." 

From Republican policy, yea. 

Majority of Conservative Activist Justices okay with a few botched Death Penalty Executions, that doesn't prove anything.

The idea that Justice Antonin Scalia is a good practicing Roman Catholic who uses his faith to inform his judicial decisions is bullshit. Oh sure, that works for his argument against redefining marriage, but not the death penalty, right? Anyone else notice the contradiction?

And the very idea that those opposed to the death penalty overall, not just lethal injection, couldn't prove their case is also preposterous.

In a 5-4 decision, the court concluded that petitioners didn't adequately prove that midazolam violates Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The graph to the right shows the percentage of botched executions across the board, whether it's lethal injections, gas chamber or electrocutions. 

After reading through Scalia's tantrum like dissents filled with nonsensical words that disrespects all professional norms, Scalia made it clear "the people should decide." You know, like the thoughtful rumblings of an angry mod fixin' for a lynchin.'

Scalia made the leap that our current government sanctioned death penalty is an offshoot of the Age of Enlightenment.  Or it could be holdover of those more brutal medieval times?

The two more liberal justices posed a more "enlightened" question based on the percentage of botched executions; is the death penalty itself unconstitutional:

Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called on the Court to reassess whether the death penalty was constitutional at all, and said they had both come to believe that it "now likely constitutes a legally prohibited 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"

That's when "Scalia wrote a separate concurrence, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, which said not only that Breyer was wrong, but that he was rejecting the entire Enlightenment." This is what passes for conservative intellectualism:

Innocent People are being Executed:

At least 4 percent of people who receive death sentences in the United States are likely innocent, a 2014 study finds … (and they) would ultimately be exonerated if their cases were closely examined for the next 21 years.  

The false conviction rate of people sentenced to life in prison to begin with is probably higher than the false conviction rate in death-penalty cases — especially because jurors tell researchers that the biggest factor in deciding to give someone a life sentence rather than a death sentence is lingering doubt that the defendant is guilty at all.

Hypocrite Justices protected by free speech zones around their Ivory Towers.

What does free speech have to do with protecting citizens from verbal and physical harm? These zones were established because of past abuses and deaths caused by anti-abortion zealots, not some arbitrary ban. 

As Rachel Maddow and others have pointed out, there have been free speech buffer zones established for other groups too, like the Supreme Court itself. Conservatives didn't complain, in fact liked it, when "free speech zones" were set up a blocks away from Bush/Cheney events. But Justice Scalia seems to be missing the point:

“Today’s opinion carries forward this Court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents. There is an entirely separate, abridged edition of the First Amendment applicable to speech against abortion. Because, like the rest of our abortion jurisprudence, today’s decision is in stark contradiction of the constitutional principles we apply in all other contexts, I dissent.”

 Here's Rachel Maddow with examples of other buffer zones:



Here's a nice piece on a new book about Scalia, and just how unacceptably "activist" this guy is, especially about the Second Amendment:

Activist Conservative Supreme Court Takes Wrecking Ball to Voting Rights Act. Big Surprise.

Come on, let’s admit it; there’s a reason all of these conservative wedge issues are making it to the Supreme Court, it’s packed with activist conservative justices. The media refuses to bring this topic up, even while this activist rogue court keeps racking up the victories. It’s so weird to hear those embarrassing brain dead Republican politicians and low information voters say, “I told you so.”

Huffington Post

And these conservative activist Justices struck again, just like they did in Citizens United and the Heller Second Amendment gun rights case, by overruling Congresses decision to guarantee the right to vote and uphold the Fifteenth Amendment. Of course limiting who votes is an odd defense of our “republic,” where we are dependent on that vote to pick our “representatives.” How often do Republicans remind us we are not a democracy?

Here's Eric Holders comment today, offering why this decision is jaw dropping:

The ruling is your typical “state’s rights” decision, saying pre-approval of election changes in area’s known for past discrimination, is congressional overreach, and needs to be updated to reflect current conditions. It sounds like the judicial branch of government is telling the legislative branch what to do.

Either the Justices are completely ignorant of the current political climate, or they’re keenly aware of it and intend to game the system, knowing congress has been taken over by rabid tea partyers who hate government and will agree to nothing. Either way, voter protections are gone.

John Nichols wrote this:

What the United States Supreme Court has done, with its decision to strike down essential elements of the Voting Rights Act, is wrong … the court's conservative majority has taken advantage of a gap in the Constitution that must be addressed.

Nichols is talking about the fact that the constitution does not guarantee our right to vote:

The court's 5-4 ruling lifted the requirement that changes to voting laws, procedures and polling place locations in all or part of 15 targeted states be approved in advance by the Justice Department or a panel of federal judges. The ruling says that Congress went too far in seeking to prevent racial discrimination in voting, when it reauthorized of the historic act in 2006, with votes of 98-0 in the Senate and 390-33 in the House.

Check out Ginsburg’s opinion:

Business Week: It fell to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a scathing dissent, to note that: “After exhaustive evidence-gathering and deliberative process, Congress reauthorized the VRA, including the coverage provision, with overwhelming bipartisan support. In my judgment, the court errs egregiously by overriding Congress’s decision.”

Congress can and should come back at the issue. But that won't be easy … the Voting Rights Act earned the scorn of Republicans who object to its use in legal efforts to strike down restrictive "Voter ID" laws.

Can the act be updated, like the court advises? Are you kidding:

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the judiciary panel, said in an interview that he’s doubtful a legislative response is needed. He said the court’s ruling reflects that the nation has changed. “It proves that after 45 years that the Voting Rights Act is working,” Grassley said of the court’s ruling. “The situation in those states that were covered by the act, they don’t have discriminatory voting anymore, so the act is not necessary."

Nichols like so many liberals thinks we can change things for the better. Get rid of the rose colored glasses guys, we're getting killed out here:

Mark Pocan and Keith Ellison want to do something about that … unveiled a proposal to explicitly guarantee the right to vote in the Constitution. If approved by the Congress and then ratified by three-fourths of the states, it would add to the founding document this declaration:

SECTION 1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Uh, guys, I didn't see the phrase “shall not be infringed” tacked onto section 1. Let’s see if Republicans like the unlimited right to vote as much as the unlimited right to bear arms.

Oops! Scalia offers up the right to privacy regarding Gay Marriage and procreation.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought conservatives didn't believe the Constitution had a broad guarantee of privacy.

Yet in this comment made yesterday by Justice Scalia on his question: 

"I guess we could have a questionnaire at the marriage desk, when people come in to get the marriage, you know, are you fertile or are you not fertile..." 

he offers what appears to be a off-the-cuff broad reading of the right to privacy :

Opponents of Roe v Wade feel privacy rights should not have been extended to protect a woman’s choice to have an abortion because of the their First Amendment rights. They feel like their religion should be extended, in violation the First Amendment rights of other people’s religious beliefs, to apply to everyone else.

Here’s a great look at what the Constitution does say about privacy:   

umkc: The Burger Court extended the right of privacy to include a woman's right to have an abortion in Roe v Wade (1972), but thereafter resisted several invitations to expand the right.  The choice of a woman to have an abortion was found in Roe v Wade to be the sort of fundamental personal decision deserving privacy protection under the Fourteenth Amendment's liberty clause (Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law).

In what respects is abortion a private matter, and in what respects might it not be?  If you don't believe that the Constitution protects the decision to have an abortion, do you believe that it would prevent the government from forcing a woman to have an abortion and, if it would, what is the constitutional basis for that protection?

The future of privacy protection remains an open question.  Justices Scalia  and Thomas, for example, are not inclined to protect privacy beyond those cases raising claims based on specific Bill of Rights guarantees.  The public, however, wants a Constitution that fills privacy gaps and prevents an overreaching Congress from telling the American people who they must marry, how many children they can have, or when they must go to bed.  The best bet is that the Court will continue to recognize protection for a general right of privacy. 

I thought this statement kind of summarizes my own feelings about our right:

The most frequently quoted statement by a Supreme Court justice on the subject of privacy comes in Justice Brandeis's dissent in Olmstead v. U. S. (1928): "The makers of our Constitution understood the need to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness, and the protections guaranteed by this are much broader in scope, and include the right to life and an inviolate personality -- the right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. The principle underlying the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is protection against invasions of the sanctities of a man's home and privacies of life. This is a recognition of the significance of man's spiritual nature, his feelings, and his intellect."

The Justices, Gay Marriage and the Off Ramp.

Check out the legal analysis regarding the Supreme Courts arguments for and against gay marriage.

First, this long back and forth from Justice Kagan and Scalia over procreation and a 55 year old couple. NYU Constitutional Law Professor Kenji Yoshino with Rachel Maddow:



I liked this from Alex Wagner because of here guests, Jonathan Turley, Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson, and NY AG Eric Schniederman. Great bunch of Supreme Court clips too.

Justice Scalia redefining Judicial Activism/Legislating from the Bench on Voting Rights Act!!

Regardless of how the Supreme Court decides the Voting Rights Act, the comments made by the conservative majority is so repugnant, so ideologically driven, that despite the Affordable Care Act squeaker, this court has hit new heights of activist legislating from the bench.

This is Republicans call "legislating from the bench," the one thing conservatives dread most. Justice Scalia wants to overturn the legislative branches 25 year extension of the act in 2006, that passed the senate 98-0, and the house 390-33. Why? Because he thinks it's not the kind of question you can leave congress, and that's it's some kind of "racial entitlement." The terminology of right wingers.

This is jaw dropping stuff, or should be, even to conservatives who believe in the constitutional framework that makes the three branches of government independent and equal. Rachel Maddow explains in detail the history and implications:



Here's Ed Schultz with libertarian legal pundit Jonathan Turley, who is almost breathless at the reasoning and direction the court is taking.

Scalia's advice to our health care problem cruel and sick.

And you thought the presidential debate crowd that cheered the death of a poor and needy person who couldn't afford health care was cruel, check out the ultimate inhumanity pouring from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Daily Show came up with the audio:



When Scalia was presented with the reality that our society felt obligated to help even those who needed medical help, but didn't have insurance, he had this response:

Scalia: "Well don't obligate yourself." 

I'll bet most Americans probably never thought society would take this kind of ugly turn. The movie "Road Warrior" doesn't seem as fictional or impossible anymore.

We've got a Supreme Court filled with Tea Party Justices, folks. They protected us from government mandated broccoli.

Wow, Chris Hayes said everything I've been saying here for days about the rhetoric used by the Supreme Court Justices, and how it mimics the brainless ranting of tea party extremists.

I've been in a funk for the last few days, just barely cranking stuff out here, after feeling stunned by the arguments used by the highest court in the land. I'm still in disbelief.

Thankfully, this ten minute piece is on the cathartic side. Edited slightly, you will feel better knowing you weren't the only one shocked by the four vocal conservative activist justices cluelessness.

Yeah Justice Scalia, the Affordable Care Act is 2,800 pages long. Big Joke?

Tea Party Justice Antonin Scalia spouted loony right wing rhetoric about how many pages were in the Affordable Care Act the other day, on top of claiming the government will soon require people to buy broccoli if "Obamacare" stays in place. This is a Supreme Court Justice, remember?

Even more pathetic? After he got a few laughs from fellow conservative partisans over his reference to the 2,800 pages (real funny stuff), it jazzed him up, and encouraged him to pile on even more. Is this an adult professional, or an arrogant irresponsible elitist a little too comfortable in his position?

I predict this court will throw out the entire law, legislating from the bench essentially, as a form of penalty and message to the congress; behave or else. Jefferson warned of the potential power of the judiciary; "The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please."

Rights for Women not specifically in Constitution. Joan Walsh Has a Message for him.

Ed Schultz and Joan Walsh:

Alito's Anti-Constitutional No Show Planned, and Wrong Headed Originalism.

In this short update on the Supreme Court, these two pieces stood out:

AP - When Supreme Court justices enter the House of Representatives in their black robes for the president's next State of the Union address, Samuel Alito does not plan to be among them. He reacted to Obama's unusual rebuke of the court for its decision in a campaign finance case by shaking his head and mouthing the words "not true." The better course, Alito said, is to follow the example of more experienced justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the recently retired John Paul Stevens. None has attended in several years.

At least one justice, Stephen Breyer, has said he was not bothered by Obama's criticism and believes justices should attend so that viewers can see the three branches of government represented in the same room.

Gee, all three branches of government in the same room, what a thought. Breyer’s perspective appears to respect the intended concept of the founding fathers. (I do love writing this stuff like a tea partier.)

Justice Steven’s has this amazing example of how wrong originalist interpretations are of the Eight Amendment…the whole Constitution for that matter:

In a recent speech in Washington, Stevens reached back to 1991 to take Scalia to task for his opinion in Harmelin v. Michigan, a case that upheld a life prison term for cocaine possession against a challenge that the sentence was cruel and unusual.

Scalia, Stevens said, concluded in his opinion that the Eighth Amendment prohibited specific kinds of punishments, including drawing and quartering and disembowelment, "but contained no requirement that the punishment fit the crime."

Even a life sentence for a parking ticket would not have violated the Constitution under that reasoning, Stevens said. The real issue, the 90-year-old retired justice said (and not for the first time), is Scalia's faulty reliance on originalism to interpret the Constitution.

In Scalia's view, judges should give a fair reading to the words of the Constitution as they were meant when they were written.

But Stevens said that "reliance on history, even when the interpretation of past events is completely accurate and undisputed, provides an insufficient guide to the meaning of our Constitution." Instead, he said, the Eighth Amendment "responds to evolving standards of decency in a maturing society."

If you have no standards of decency, than you’re a Republican. Enough said.

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• SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: State of Union no-show (seattletimes.nwsource.com)