Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Un-American Lies of Antonin Scalia

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It's time the American people fired the man who thinks himself 'too smart for the (Supreme) court'. Scalia has done it again. The architect of Bush v Gore, the disingenuous decision that stuck us with Bush, has stooped to yet another low. Scalia will tell bald faced lies to prop up his bullshit 'opinions'.
To bolster his argument that the Guantanamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false.

According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN. CNN, in turn, named the DoD as its source. The '30' number, however, was corrected in a DoD press release issued in July 2007, and a DoD document submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim entirely."

--Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent
Neither logic nor the 'rule of law' is among Scalia's strong suits. How did he manage to get a law degree? Until this latest outrage, Scalia had said that the high court's decision restoring Habeas Corpus would 'almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed’. Hey! Scalia! Debate me on that one. I need fresh meat.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, however, is outraged. In his dissenting opinion, he devoted an entire section to “a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today,” a procedure “contrary to my usual practice,” he admitted. Scalia adopted extreme rhetoric about the impacts of the decision, calling it a “self-invited…incursion into military affairs” that would “almost certainly” kill Americans. Some lowlights:

– “America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

– “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

– “Today the Court warps our Constitution.”

– “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

It is unlikely that the Supreme Court’s decision will have the impacts that Scalia claims. As Kennedy explained, “Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.” Discussing the restoration of habeas at Guantanamo last year, Colin Powell noted:
The concern was, well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too many people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system.

--Scalia: Court’s Decision Restoring Habeas ‘Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed’»
I am still amazed that a court whose job is to measure the nation's statutory laws against the 'supreme law' of the land could have ruled in Bush's favor on any issue. One had hoped SCOTUS would redeem itself for a bone-headed decision styled Bush v Gore, a disastrous, politically motivated decision that replaced the rule of law with political expediency.

Later, by ruling that habeas corpus protections apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, the high court held out the promise that it might yet rise above the muck left us in Bush v Gore and by Bush's war on the Constitution!

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “We hold these petitioners do have the habeas corpus privilege”. For an administration that thought the fix was in, that it had sufficient ringers on the court, the decision must have come a shock.

Scalia's 'war on logic' is even older. In Bush v Gore, the 'decision that made no law', Scalia argued that 'continuing the recount' would be harmful to Bush. Well, I would hope so! That's the very purpose of elections. The candidate who gets the fewer number of votes is supposed to lose!

Being a disingenuous, snake oil salesmen is one thing. But telling a bald face lie in support of an argument in a decision of the high court is 'intellectual dishonesty' of the highest order.

It's time to impeach Scalia! Scalia doesn't like his job anyway. He thinks himself 'too smart' for it. Let's oblige him by firing his sorry ass.
According to news reports, Scalia, speaking to the ultra-conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute, read from the Lawrence opinion in mocking tones. Ironic, inasmuch as the 50-year-old institute has says its mission is to "enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles - limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and Judeo-Christian moral standards." The organization, like its famed speaker, draws the line at your individual liberty. They get theirs, you don't get yours if it is contrary to theirs. And there is only one Judeo-Christian moral standard--their own.

Scalia is not alone in his condemnation of his colleagues on the high court. Clarence Thomas has repeatedly talked about the cold and lonely place that is the Court. He shows his contempt for oral arguments by generally refusing to participate.

Why is it that the right, especially the religious right, represented by the likes of Scalia on the court, are so totally unaccepting of another's point of view? Do they truly believe that they have all of the answers to all legal, legislative, and social issues? This week I gave a legal seminar to attorneys in a part of Virginia where Rev. Pat Robertson seems to have a lock on "truth." A couple of religious zealots in the seminar derided other attorneys who tried to talk about life and death issues such abortion, end-of-life treatment, stem cell research, and health care for all Americans. We were supposed to be talking about legal conundrums and challenges.

--ELAINE CASSEL, Antonin Scalia's Contempus Mundi
Let's take the longer view. This government has become illegitimate by every definition of that term. Therefore, according to sound principles practiced by the Barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and, more recently, the principle espoused by such disparate figures as Thomas Jefferson and Che Guevara, it is the right of the people to abolish the government.

It's time to start all over. And when we've done it, when we've plugged up the loopholes that even the disingenuous Scalia can't slither through, then a new government should give Scalia the notice that his 'services' are no longer required. He should have no complaints. After all, Scalia has said that he is 'too smart' for the court!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are at least 4 people whose presence on the court makes a mockery of law. Two them, the two most recent and the ones who appear most likely to shape court opinion in the long term, are chief architects behind the Unitary Exective Fiction. If Democrats weren't locked in on abortion as their litmus test, it would have been child's play to dismiss such outrageous nominations. Now the much more complicated process of impeachment is necessary - and we've seen how effective the Dems are at that.

Anonymous said...

You called it, EC: The Government, under the GOP, has consistently represented the interests of one political party and its cronies -- not the people. It is illegitimate and we have to stop pretending otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Scalia is a bloated museum of treachery -- this pompous asshole looks (and acts) like he's better suited for hot dog eating contests rather than any serious profession. Scalia should not only be removed from the bench immediately, but also tarred and feathered and horse-whipped in front of Independence Hall. I'm no fan of Al Gore, but Bush v Gore demonstrated a thorough corruption of the Supreme Court and thus rendered itself illegitimate as an arbiter of the Constitution and the law.

Anonymous said...

Scalia and Thomas are thought to be members of the arch-reactionary "secret" Catholic society, OPUS DEI. Am I alone in thinking that this is wildly imappropriate for a Supremo and a cause for impeachment?
Tony Vodvarka Hartly DE

Anonymous said...

he's a greasy douchebag. just because he's too stupid to know it.

Anonymous said...

REVOLUTION is the Solution!!!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you americans should waterboard this scalia bum.

Now that would be taxpayer money well spent!

SourDove said...

He wrote that Bush would suffer "irreparable harm." This may be his acknowledgment that Bush's closet was already bursting with skeletons that would make 2000 his last, uh, shot at the White House. How many people who voted for Bush realized he was a convicted felon? That he stood up for branding on behalf of his beer-soaked frat? That the only man he pardoned had confessed to over 600 murders? That he was AWOL? That his dad was a narcoterrorist ringmaster and his granddad Hitler's sugar daddy? Had Bush been forced by the voters to wait four years before trying again, he could not have run again. Hence the term "irreparable."

SourDove said...

In 1980 a classmate told me that now that Reagan had broken his promise not to run with Poppy, she would vote for them, because this was our big chance to get the CIA in the White House. "Let's face it, if I were starving, and Lenin promised me food, I'd fight for him too." She explained that because Congress wants to be popular, it wastes the president's time with debate over scruples, and can't be counted on to do the unpopular things necessary to maintain our standard of living. "With his CIA connections, he can become president, and when he does, three Supreme Court justices will be too old to serve much longer. When he appoints replacements, those replacements are for life, and that's the beauty of this plan, because that leaves his mark for the next generation, when one of his sons might be eligible." From an eighteen-year-old in 1980, a succinct outline of the next thirty years, starring the CIA, the Supreme Court, and the Bush Dynasty. This wasn't something one voter could do. She was talking about a voting bloc, and when some people voted for Ollie North, we saw that bloc was no fantasy. In 1998, AP published a wire item saying that officials who helped prosecute Ramzi Yousef were "very concerned" about "foreign-born terrorists" training at US flight schools, including "secure US military bases," and that these people wanted to fly hijacked planes into the WTC and the Pentagon. I thought we'd never hear the end of it, but when a year had passed without another mention, I knew someone was keeping a lid on the story. Then Shrub announced, I looked at his record, and I knew he'd have to cheat. If he did, the theft would be exposed, and he would need a disaster. I figured it would take about six months to prove the case, and about half that long to sink in, which would put us a couple months before the anniversary of the stolen election. US citizens don't do math very well, so there weren't very many dates with meaningful numeric values, and the one exception fell right around the time we would learn that he really wasn't our president. That's when it all came together for me. As it happens, the networks scheduled the final recount results for 9/11/2001.

Big Dan said...

I find it odd that Scalia is always talking to corporate news people. Anyone find that odd? No other Supreme Court justice is ever on TV, except Scalia...in interviews, etc...I think that's really weird! It seems to me, Supreme Court justices shouldn't be on TV all the time giving their personal opinions and personal life. And no other justice I've ever heard of, past and present, does this!

PatriotsImpeach said...

scalia may have committed a felony violation of the USA Patriot Act by providing false information on terrorism. scalia should be arrested for felony violation of the USA Patriot Act.

It is a felony violation of the USA Patriot Act to provide or disseminate false information on terrorism, and I believe this was a conspiratorial effort amongst the parties involved.

You folks are suckers, I’m sorry, but you really are.

Unknown said...

PatriotsImpeach said...

It is a felony violation of the USA Patriot Act to provide or disseminate false information on terrorism, and I believe this was a conspiratorial effort amongst the parties involved.

Great point and --by that standard --the liars of the Bush administration are all prosecutable under their own frickin' "Patriot Act". The problem is not catching them in a lie; the problem is one of catching any one of them telling a single 'truth' about terrorism.

It will be DELICIOUS irony when such a clause --designed as it was to crack down on dissent --comes back to bite these lying sonsobitches in the ass!!!!

A problem: given the roll over and take it attitude in Congress, who's gonna bring charges?

The fascists have simply taken over the US and Scalia was among its enablers. His complicity via the very worst, disingenuous and, in fact PHONY decision in Bush v Gore was America's death knell.

This lousy lyin' fucker and sorry excuse for a 'justice' has much to answer for.

Anonymous said...

Fuzz sez...

Geez, whaddya know, Exxon Valdez spills its crude oily guts into a pristine sea, destoys an ecosystem and Scalia&Co say hold the $2 BILLION Your Unctiousnesses, just fork over a lazy few hundred $Mill. for appearance's sake and everything will be hunky dory.
No fucken worries!!

Like George Carlin said,
"It's a Big Club and you ain't in it".
That's you and me podners.

Cilice twister Anton Scalia and the fat fucks at Exxon, dey in Da Club, man, dey in Da Club!!

Unknown said...

Fuzz sez...

Like George Carlin said, "It's a Big Club and you ain't in it".

That's you and me podners.


I miss George already!

I look forward to missing Scalia.

Re: the club! There are reasons that is so and most of them are crimes.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Anonymous said...

Whats the chances that McCain and Obama are tied in electoral votes in november and the election is decided by the supreme court again a la 2000?
McCain's own right hand man was caught on tape saying that another attack on US soil would surely make McCain president.
Anybody willing to set the odds on another stolen election?

Anonymous said...

Antonin Scalia: Hack, sellout, neocon loon, bootlicker of the "haves," boot-stomper of the "have nots," enabler of a coup, does not give a damn about the Constitution or Rights, and, a firm believer and follower of Social Darwinism - where the little people (like us) were preordained to be stomped upon.

PatriotsImpeach said...

Just for kicks and giggle, type in the following three words into google.com and see what it says about scalia.

scalia patriot act

OR

scalia felony

OR

scalia felony violation

Marjorie Cohn is all over the phrase :

scalia false information

anybody looking for what scalia thinks about the patriot act, any lawyer researching, will find this.

It's too good, thanks for all the help from the blog community.

PatriotsImpeach said...

Cowboy,

You ROCK, you rate !