Antonin Scalia

The Troy Davis Case: Capital Punishment On Trial, And The Supreme Court Disgraces Itself!

Ronald 1 Comment

The decision of the US Supreme Court to allow the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia tonight is a legal travesty, and makes the Supreme Court look more than ever what it is rapidly becoming–a total disgrace!

It is shocking to the author that the decision of the Court was unanimous! How could it be that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan could sit by and allow themselves to be bullied by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and that Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy could not see the virtue of allowing a lie detector test; would not consider that a number of prison wardens called for clemency because of doubts about the evidence, none of which was physical and with no gun found; would not take into account that seven out of nine witnesses in the trial recanted; would not listen to five jurors in the case who said they regret their decision to convict and give the death penalty; and would not listen to a witness who said one of the other witnesses confessed that he had been the murderer of the police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989!

This execution puts capital punishment on trial, and it is barbaric that a country that prides itself on democratic virtues and values allows the death penalty when there is evidence so often that innocent people are being executed, many of them minorities in Southern states that have always been “excellent” in utilizing the death penalty against the racial minority that they exploited in slavery and segregation! This is an enhanced way to utilize racism and justify it!

One would like to believe that the “Old South” has passed into history, but actually it has NOT in any sense! Not only do Southern states use the death penalty very often, but also they seem to revel in the fact that seven of the “Old South” states–all but Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Texas–joined with border states Kentucky and West Virginia, to be nine of the ten poorest states, according to the US Census of 2010!

The “Old South” is great at executing people, and keeping them ignorant and in poverty, and by no coincidence, they tend to be RED states, those that tend to vote Republican!

Is this something the GOP should be proud of? And is it conscionable that Republican candidates tend to ignore poverty, never mentioning the disgrace of it in 21st century America, and this including millions of poor whites, as well as minorities?

This is a sad moment for America, but hopefully, it will start up the fight to end capital punishment as against American democracy, making us look terrible in the viewpoint of our friends, European countries, that do not allow the death penalty, and do just fine without it!

Gay Marriage And The Supreme Court: Anthony Kennedy The Crucial Vote!

Ronald Leave a comment

In 1967, the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Loving V. Virginia, declaring interracial marriage constitutional. At the time, there was still widespread feeling among the American people, particularly whites, that interracial marriage should not be allowed, with three out of four in a 1968 poll so declaring. And nearly the same percentage, 73 percent, of all races felt the same way in 1968.

It is clear, also, that a majority of people, particularly whites, were not supportive of the Supreme Court decision in 1954, Brown V. Board of Education, which mandated the end of segregation of the races in public education.

Often, the Supreme Court is ahead of the country in formulating change, and of course, conservatives resent that. But without the Court intervening, progress would be slower or completely halted.

Therefore, with the decision of New York State to allow gay marriage, it is time for gay rights advocates to bring a case to the higher court!

But, of course, there is fear that the conservative Court would rule against it, but that is seen as highly unlikely.

No one can be sure how Justices would vote, but even if one considers that Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts might vote against, the odds are that Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg would vote in favor.

That leaves Justice Anthony Kennedy, the true centrist on the Court, who more often votes with the conservatives, but often sides with the liberals. And when one considers that Kennedy was the decisive vote in Lawrence V. Texas in 2003, granting privacy rights to gay couples, one has hope that he would continue to support gay rights, including marriage.

Kennedy also supported the rights of gays to stop being treated as a group deserving discrimination in the Colorado Constitution in Romer V. Evans in 1996, and also in a Circuit Court case in 1980, he showed concern about mistreatment of gays.

The timing is crucial, as Ruth Bader Ginsberg may leave the Court soon, and in the next term in office, if a Republican won the White House, both Ginsberg and Kennedy might be replaced, based on their ages, and the opportunity for a Supreme Court decision in favor of gay marriage might have passed!

And remember, unlike interracial marriage, a majority of Americans in a recent poll support the concept of gay marriage, a massive switch from just a few years ago!

So bring on a Supreme Court case and soon!

The Walmart Supreme Court Case: A Blow Against Labor And Women’s Rights!

Ronald Leave a comment

The Supreme Court, becoming more right wing and reactionary by the year, has again struck at the heart of democracy, and promoted corporate rights and plutocracy at the expense of labor and women’s rights in its Walmart decision this week!

Walmart, the largest retail corporation in the world, has been discriminating in pay and benefits and promotions of women for many years, and everyone who pays attention knows that fact!

But the company claims there is no conscious effort to discriminate, and the Court ruled that the class action law suit was too large and complex, covering more than a million workers all over the nation.

So the Court gave this giant corporation, which has become a monster which eats up all small business everywhere it goes, a free ride, and shown once again that the “little people” do not matter, and that only wealth and the top few percent of the population have any real input to what the Court does!

The conflicts of interest of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are legion, and they have no shame! They have both proved to be corrupt in their dealings, but the only way to get them off the Court, impeachment, is not available with the House of Representatives Republican majority ready and willing to back these two conservative Justices if they were ever in danger!

The idea of “Equal Justice Under Law” has been damaged, and the concept of constitutional law ruling has become a mockery!

Supreme Court Issues Surprising Decision On California Prisoners: Release 30,000 Inmates Within Two Years!

Ronald Leave a comment

The Supreme Court, in a surprise decision by 5-4, ordered California yesterday to release 30,000 inmates in its prison population due to improper care and attention to the medical and mental problems faced by many prisoners.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the Court, again surprised people in that he joined the four liberals–Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginseberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan–in arguing that the living conditions of many prisoners were unacceptable under the 8th Amendment’s banning of “cruel and unusual punishment”!

The case, Brown V. Plata, drew an oral condemnation from Justice Antonin Scalia, and an equally scathing written attack by Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts also joined the minority.

California, in the midst of a horrible economic crisis, will need to find solutions within two years, and possibly gain an extension, and can utilize new construction, out of state transfers and utilizing county facilities to resolve the issue. Otherwise, up to 30,000 inmates could be unleashed on the general population, a security issue of horrifying proportions if it actually comes to be!

While the future seems grim, Justice Kennedy can be applauded for recognizing the concept of human dignity and a minimal condition of medical care and basic sustenance, and Kennedy has long been a critic of long and harsh sentences.

Realize that not all of the inmates of California state prisons are murderers or rapists, as many are in prison on drug convictions, and there have been laws in California requiring a three strikes concept that puts a prisoner under a life term, no matter how small the infractions on later legal issues.

Key solutions that will arise over the next few years under Governor Jerry Brown will be financing, meaning the need for more taxes to support keeping more people in state prison; making sure that violent criminals do not walk the streets in the future; and overcoming recidivism by promoting real job training and mental health intervention to assist parolees in finding work and going straight, rather than returning to prison through a “revolving door”!

It is clear that America has never been very good at promoting change in felons, whether younger or older. The tendency has been to “throw the keys away”, but in reality, that is not a solution long term, and we must work as a nation on improving the odds of prisoners learning from their incarceration, and hopefully not having to return to prison after having created new victims!

Focus On Bullying: Schools, State Governors, Tea Party Congressional Republicans, And A Supreme Court Justice!

Ronald Leave a comment

It is very sad that this nation is witnessing so many examples of bullying as a method of taking advantage of others.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama held a White House Conference on Bullying Prevention today to draw attention and concern to the growing bullying problem faced by young children, teenagers and early 20s youths in schools and colleges, either because of social pressures, or their sexuality, physical characteristics, or ethnic or religious heritage, often leading tragically to suicides. President Obama even said he had been bullied as a child because of his big ears. A lot of this bullying also occurs on the internet.

But it is not just an issue of young people being bullied. It manifests itself in so many other ways in our political system today, with bad manners and rudeness becoming endemic!

We have Governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida, Chris Christie of New Jersey, and John Kasich of Ohio, among others, who are bullying public servants who have dedicated their lives to working for their communities as teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, prison guards, social workers, librarians and other fields of public service, and now are facing the loss of basic labor rights to collective bargaining that have been long held.

Workers having basic rights of organizing is a human rights issue for anyone in a democracy, and for Wisconsin to bypass the Democrats in their State Senate and strip workers of their basic rights in an unethical and slimy way is despicable beyond belief! Scott Walker is clearly a bully and a political thug, and the other Governors are no better, as they all proclaim, as do Republicans nationally, that we all have to “share the pain”, with the wealthy and corporations however not part of that equation, just the middle class and the poor. There is no sense of morality or decency in these men and their party as they take us back to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, when labor was first trying to organize to protect the rights of workers.

One hundred fifty years of progress is being wiped out by these right wing fanatics who will stop at nothing to give tax breaks to the rich and the corporations and harm the masses of the nation, who are facing attacks both on their homes and their employment, and being expected to pay more and get less, squeezing the middle class down into poverty!

But the same tactics of confrontation, arrogance and belligerence are also demonstrating themselves in Congress, as the Tea Party freshmen in the House and a small band of Tea Party supporters in the Senate are showing their disdain for civility and rational thought!

And even the Supreme Court is witnessing bullying, primarily by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, becoming more contemptuous of his fellow Justices when they go against his views. As he nears the 25th anniversary of his elevation to the Court, he is becoming more obnoxious and insufferable than ever!

When will civility and decency return to America in its schools, its government leaders, and even the Supreme Court? Unfortunately, it seems not anytime soon!

The Westboro Baptist Church, The Supreme Court, And Free Speech

Ronald 2 Comments

What the author feared would happen has indeed occurred!

The Supreme Court of the United States has, by an 8-1 vote, decided that the hateful, anti gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, headed by the Reverend Fred Phelps, and consisting of about 50 people, almost all his relatives, have the right to disrupt military funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan to protest the fact that gays have rights, and that America is going to the devil because gays are allowed to exist in America!

The fact that a military funeral is a time of mourning and stress for those connected to the dead soldier apparently had no effect on the Court, except for Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who, somewhat surprisingly, was the only dissenter.

So the Westboro Baptist Church can continue its evil deeds and disrupt funerals and promote hate, and the right of privacy of funeral attenders, including the family of the deceased, does not matter!

This despicable group not only has done this dastardly deed to families of soldiers, but also were present at the funeral of the nine year old girl murdered when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded in Tucson, Arizona in January. The only difference there was that a large group of sympathizers of the parents of the young girl formed a wall of resistance to these characters, and kept them much further away from the funeral procession.

This is not, in the author’s mind, freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or freedom of assembly. To call the Westboro Baptist Church a church is a mockery of the whole concept of religion!

All decent people will deplore this decision, and be embarrassed that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined with Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and even the ultimate swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, in writing this reprehensible decision!

This is not a victory for free speech, but rather a victory for hate, and insanity, and lack of respect for the dead, and lack of patriotism regarding the military, who sacrifice themselves every day in far off lands!

Surprising, but the author must commend Samuel Alito for having the courage to go against the tide, a man that the author has not highly admired. So I salute Alito for his brave stand for decency!

The GOP War On Women and Children: Despicable And Disgraceful! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, appointed by President Ronald Reagan 25 years ago, and arguably the most conservative Justice in more than half a century, recently stated that women were not protected in the Constitution.

That shocking statement seems to be working itself out in the attack of the Republican Party, in Congress and in the states, on the rights and freedoms of American women and children.

Witness the following:

Republicans are trying to reduce women’s access to abortion care, and have been also trying to redefine rape, so as to lessen the opportunities or reasons for abortion.

A South Dakota legislator proposed a bill to make the murder of an abortion doctor justifiable homicide.

The party in Congress is trying to eliminate one billion dollars aid, including food, to low income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and children.

The party in Congress has proposed that hospitals be able to reject an abortion for a woman in danger of dying as a result of medical problems from the pregnancy.

Head Start, started under President Lyndon Johnson nearly fifty years ago, has been marked for a billion dollar cut in funding, eliminating spots for 200,000 children.

The Republicans want to cut spending on employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens, with two thirds of them being women.

The GOP called on Friday for elimination of all federal funding for Planned Parenthood health centers, which promotes responsible family planning.

And this series of actions against women and children are sponsored by people who profess to be “good Christians”, religious people who demonstrate absolutely no concern for life once it is born, and are mean spirited and nasty in their vicious attacks on women’s rights! 🙁

The Republican women in Congress, as a group, make one wonder how women could be so uncaring and lack compassion for those less fortunate, whether poor, young, or elderly. In many ways, they are actually worse than the Republican men! There is no way that Jesus Christ would approve of these “true believers”, who he would consider hypocrites in the extreme! 🙁

The Koch Brothers And Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia And Clarence Thomas

Ronald Leave a comment

Charles and David Koch are billionaire brothers who are against environmental regulations and any government regulation in any area of the economy, and they have a close relationship with Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

Both Justices attended a conference sponsored by the Koch brothers and were paid expenses, and the Citizens United Case which allows unlimited corporate political contributions was the result in January 2010, which had a dramatic effect on the midterm elections this past November, leading to the addition of 63 new seats in the House of Representatives for the Republican Party.

Now Thomas is being asked to recuse himself from any Supreme Court review of the Health Care law passed last year, as his wife is involved with a pressure group working to undermine the law, along with the Koch brothers trying to overturn the law as well.

The Supreme Court is becoming a center of conflict of interest, and really a high level of corruption, as both Justices Scalia and Thomas are arrogant and have no sense of propriety in their behavior. When on the Supreme Court, Justices are supposed to avoid conflicts or influences that may poison or pollute the whole concept of fair justice.

Thomas and Scalia need to change their behavior, or they bring the reputation of the Supreme Court down into the gutter! 🙁

The Obama Health Care Legislation Under Attack! It Could Stand Or Fall On Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Decision! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

The Obama Health Care legislation has come under severe attack from federal district court judges in Virginia and now Florida, with the Florida judge declaring the entire act unconstitutional! 🙁

26 states have petitioned the courts to undermine the legislation, and the purpose seems to be to destroy the entire law, even the parts that any sane person would support, such as keeping children on to age 26, ending a lifetime ban on coverage over a set amount, allowing a company to drop coverage once someone becomes sick, and preventing coverage for the millions of people with pre-existing conditions!

To think that a piece of legislation could be negated by a body of unelected, unaccountable judges, instead of an elected body of legislators is, to say the least, very disconcerting! 🙁

It is now obvious that the legislation will come up for review by the Supreme Court during the election campaign of 2012. And it is assumed that Justices Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts will vote against it, and that Justices Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will support it, leaving Justice Kennedy with the swing vote, as is often the case.

Years ago, conservatives complained that the Supreme Court is really the Kennedy Court, as his vote decided most cases by a 5-4 vote, and there was anger when Kennedy went with the liberals on the court on several cases, including Lawrence V. Texas, the gay rights case in 2003.

However, in recent years, Kennedy has more often joined the conservative side than the liberal side, so indeed the future of the health care law may hang on what he, a singular human being, determines is constitutional! 🙁

The Supreme Court Image Being Destroyed By Inappropriate Actions By Three Of Its Membership! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

The Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter of the Constitution, and its members have a responsibility to pursue appropriate behavior in statements and actions outside of their direct work on the Court.

But now we are witnessing totally unprofessional, unethical behavior and open bias on the Court by its three most conservative members: Antonin Scalia, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986; Clarence Thomas, appointed by George H W Bush in 1991; and Samuel Alito, appointed by George W. Bush in 2006!

All certainly have a right to their views of the Constitution, but all three have by word or deed acted inappropriately, and in so doing, have undermined the image and respect of the Court, which is so crucial for its continued stature.

Never in history have we seen Supreme Court Justices be so openly political! 🙁

Justice Scalia allowed himself to be exploited by the Tea Party Movement and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, in agreeing to speak about the Constitution at an openly political meeting on Capitol Hill. This is not the role for a Supreme Court Justice, as also it is not appropriate for him to speak before conservative groups and attack liberal doctrines, as for instance claiming that women and gays are not protected by the Constitution in an interview published in a legal magazine. How can he be seen as being objective and open minded when cases on such matters come before the Court in the future? Should he come into cases with preconceived notions? 🙁 The answer is NO! 🙁

At the same time, Justice Thomas also openly speaks his mind in public events, even though he never asks questions in oral arguments. Additionally, his wife, Virginia Thomas, has been openly involved in Tea Party and conservative causes, including the group Liberty Central, which benefited from the Citizens United Case last January, allowing corporations unlimited rights, for the first time in a century, to contribute to and fund political causes.

Finally, Justice Alito openly mouthed “not true”, when President Obama criticized the Citizens United Case in his State of the Union address a year ago, and has spoken before conservative fundraisers, as has both Scalia and Thomas.

The dignity and prestige of the Court are at stake, as the Court becomes politicized, not part of the purpose of the Founding Fathers, when they decided we needed a Supreme Court in Article 3 of the Constitution, and in the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789.