RIP Scalia

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Fiveyearlurker

Bork was rejected in a bipartisan manner. Do you see that happening here?

I wasn’t talking about Bork. I was talking about Scalia.

A unanimous vote in the past means nothing about the future.

[DeepLiquid]

@leftfield6

A bigot whose opinions/votes have made life demonstrably worse for women, people of color, gays, immigrants, and almost every other minority group has died, and you wankers want to argue about his wacko Shakespeare beliefs??

I don’t buy into the whole “every man’s death diminishes me” crap. I’m glad he is fucking dead, since he was obviously not going to retire. The judicial stage is better without him on it.

Well said!

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

I wasn’t talking about Bork. I was talking about Scalia.

A unanimous vote in the past means nothing about the future.

No, but a unanimous vote says that this person is qualified, and a subsequent attempt to portray such a person as unqualified would come across as undeniably political.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Fiveyearlurker

No, but a unanimous vote says that this person is qualified, and a subsequent attempt to portray such a person as unqualified would come across as undeniably political.

Because nominations to the Supreme Court aren’t political.

[Icerigger]

What a guy.

“Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as ‘discrimination’ which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously ‘mainstream.’”

[Miller]

@septimus

I have one good thing to say for the late Injustice: On at least one matter he was far more open-minded than most Dopers.

Scalia joined Justice Stevens in concluding “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” that Edward de Vere, and not Shakespeare of Stratford, wrote the famous plays and sonnets.

Okay, now I’m glad he’s dead.

[Colibri]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Because nominations to the Supreme Court aren’t political.

:dubious:

If you actually believe this, it’s difficult to take anything you say on the subject seriously.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Colibri

:dubious:

If you actually believe this, it’s difficult to take anything you say on the subject seriously.

Sarcasm is hard to convey on the Internet. I thought it was obvious, given what it was responding to.

[Colibri]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Sarcasm is hard to convey on the Internet. I thought it was obvious, given what it was responding to.

It’s actually pretty easy. Just use a smiley.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Because nominations to the Supreme Court aren’t political.

Of course they are, but they aren’t supposed to be. The GOP has to try to politically block Obama’s appointment without appearing to be be politically blocking Obama’s appointment. Appointing an undeniably qualified relatively moderate candidate makes it much more difficult to maintain the appearance that it isn’t political.

[GrumpyBunny]

@Snarky_Kong

Fuck that bigoted piece of shit. This is a good thing for all of us.

Yeah, I don’t feel any sorrow at all at his death. Sure, he was a fellow human being, but barely. Fuck him, his bloated corpse, and his invasive political rulings. I hope he doesn’t rest in peace.

[jayjay]

@Fiveyearlurker

Of course they are, but they aren’t supposed to be. The GOP has to try to politically block Obama’s appointment without appearing to be be politically blocking Obama’s appointment. Appointing an undeniably qualified relatively moderate candidate makes it much more difficult to maintain the appearance that it isn’t political.

You’re still applying some kind of rational person protocol here. The rabid base of the GOP senators is going to consider any attempt to block anything Obama does as perfectly valid and reasonable. And the GOP establishment (which the vast majority of Republican senators are members of) is absolutely terrified of their base at this point.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Fiveyearlurker

Of course they are, but they aren’t supposed to be. The GOP has to try to politically block Obama’s appointment without appearing to be be politically blocking Obama’s appointment. Appointing an undeniably qualified relatively moderate candidate makes it much more difficult to maintain the appearance that it isn’t political.

Especially if all they get by so blatantly putting party before country is a Democratic Senate (if necessary, with the SC nomination clause removed from the filibuster rule) and a fresh Democratic President, with less reason to nominate a moderate than a progressive than Obama has. The best result they can get is to work out a deal with Obama for a moderate.

Unless they cling to this fantasy that the next President will be a reactionary partisan Republican, of course. And they may indeed have to take that position publicly for electoral purposes.

[D_Odds]

@Fiveyearlurker

This sounds like one of those things that we’re supposed to say, but is not in any way true.

I’ve always felt the same way, and it’s a good thing. Lots of people die every day. How long before we’ve diminished to nothing? Still, I could stand to lose some weight, so maybe some tiny amount of diminishing per death might be beneficial, at least for a little while.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@jayjay

You’re still applying some kind of rational person protocol here. The rabid base of the GOP senators is going to consider any attempt to block anything Obama does as perfectly valid and reasonable. And the GOP establishment (which the vast majority of Republican senators are members of) is absolutely terrified of their base at this point.

Point taken.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@Fiveyearlurker

Of course they are, but they aren’t supposed to be. The GOP has to try to politically block Obama’s appointment without appearing to be be politically blocking Obama’s appointment. Appointing an undeniably qualified relatively moderate candidate makes it much more difficult to maintain the appearance that it isn’t political.

No they don’t. They don’t even have to pretend. Nobody who pays any attention to this sort of thing has any illusions about the nature of it.

The reality of the situation is much less clear, though. While everybody knows that the Republicans will try to obstruct the nomination, the length of time is much too long and it will extract a massive political toll if they don’t put the nominee up for a vote, whatever their justification may be.

I think they’ll delay for a while and then put the nominee to a vote. They have the numbers so they can simply outright reject the nominee under some sort of pretense and maintain the barest of political coverage by saying the nominee was unqualified for whatever reason, even one they unanimously approved previously for a lower court.

Or, I suspect, they’ll make a token attempt at obstruction and then let the nominee through, especially one like Srinivasan. Of all the candidates they’ll potentially be facing he is now and will be the most palatable one, even in February of next year.

[John_Mace]

It would be one thing if the election were over, and the Republican candidate won. But we’re almost a year away from when the new president takes office. Hard to imagine that refusing to vote on a nominee for almost year is going to be good for the GOP. But they’ve done a lot of stupidly self-destructive things in the past, so you never know…

[Miller]

@D_Odds

I’ve always felt the same way, and it’s a good thing. Lots of people die every day. How long before we’ve diminished to nothing?

Well, there’s 7.4 billion people in the world, so I guess that many? Percentage-wise, Scalia can’t be that much of a hit.

[Pantastic]

I heard that Scalia’s will asked for him to be cremated, but instead we’re going to convene a committee of unrelated women to decide what’s best for his body.

[Ukulele_Ike]

@jsgoddess

I was hoping he would change. People do change.

I suppose were still close on to the winter holidays and the annual Dickens overdose. When I read the above I had an instantaneous yet fully developed fantasy of Scalia’s ghost coming to haunt Clarence Thomas as he sat hunched over his mug of gruel…

“I bear with me the chains I forged in life…MANKIND was my business…you will be visited by THREE SPIRITS…”