Scalia’s reputation among his supporters was that of an originalist and an arch-conservative. This is not true. He was a reactionary, right-wing radical that blithely discarded any precedent or bit of originalist interpretation that didn’t suit his agenda of the moment.
I take no glee in his death, but I’m deeply glad that he’s no longer a part of the Supreme Court. Good riddance to a bad jurist.
A Pun Involving Travel 
And that he died under a Democrat. We can replace one of the worst of the bunch.
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You should read the book The Nine
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I hope Obama has someone lined up. This is going to be one mother of a fight.
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It doesn’t matter if Obama has someone lined up, no-one he nominates is going to be confirmed by the current Senate, sadly.
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I don’t think the senate can rightly get away with not confirming a new justice for a full year.
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Peter Moody I definitely think this senate can, though not rightly, and I definitely think this senate is going to try.
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They will try but it’s preposterous to claim that it’s tradition to leave the nomination to the next president in an election year. Perhaps after the election but not nine months before an election and 11.5 months before the inauguration. No way.
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Heather Berson Wanna bet they’ll try? They’ve held up literally hundreds of his other judicial nominees for years.
That said, I think the vacancy will focus the election somewhat. I think, on balance, it’ll increase turnout, which generally favors the Democratic party.
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I agree that they’ll try, but to Colm Buckley ‘s point, a supreme court justice is different from circuit court judge. if they do hold up the confirmation long enough for there to be a recess appointment, I suspect republicans will end up getting murdered in the general.
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“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” –Clarence Darrow
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To be clear, I’m not going to dance on the man’s grave – Tonight a woman lost her husband, and 9 people lost their father. By all accounts he was an intelligent, charming individual and he will be missed.
That said, I’m also not going to sit here and not celebrate the retirement of the most hypocritical, reactionary, right-wing activist jurist of my lifetime.
It’s too bad that his retirement and his passing had to coincide. It would have been better for the former to have preceded the latter.
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he had nine kids? dear lord.
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Peter Moody oh yes, and it’s much worse than that makes it seem. When he joined the majority in Bush vs. Gore it was never discussed, and indeed he never deigned to mention that two of his sons were working for law firms that were working for the Bush campaign.
As I said above, good riddance to a bad jurist. May we never see his like again.
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