This is just great. Antonin Scalia’s grenade-tossing editorializing in the Gitmo decision contained wingnut nonsense and urban legends.
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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Scalia or a Right-Wing Blogger
El Cid
Scalia was correct. Since the entire globe is now part of the battlefield in the Warronterra, any place on the Earth to which detainees were released counts as “returning them to the battlefield.” So there.
Elvis Elvisberg
Scalia is a right wing blogger. Particularly in affirmative action cases.
“Why bother mentioning originalism, much less applying it? No, let’s just call set-asides for minority-owned contractors the exact same thing as Plessy v. Ferguson. Good enough for government work, or the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.”
jibeaux
Man, ObWi is top notch.
4tehlulz
BREAKING: Sky is blue!
Zifnab
Scalia? Spouting right wing talking points and taking a monster crap on the Constitution? Le Gaspe. Say it ain’t so.
If he didn’t have Thomas sitting next to him, he’d be the biggest hack on the bench.
RSA
I also don’t see much difference in his views on torture:
Nice parsing there.
rob!
i think we need a President Obama, just so he can pack the court with more liberal judges, who can then be the “cool kids” in the SC chambers, talking amongst themselves, pointing and giggling at Scalia.
El Cid
rob! for the win.
Gregory
You were expecting maybe well-founded reasoning and unassailable logic?
mark
OT, Nader accuses Obama of “talking white”.
Teak111
Hang on Stevens, just 7 more months. There was a reason Scalia was passed up for Chief. Probably some heroics inside the Admin that we will never know about, some tiny pocket of resistance that managed to get Roberts.
Incertus
I’ve seen a very good argument, made by Publius I believe, that Scalia is the bigger hack. Apparently, Thomas actually believes his own rhetoric and sticks to it, even when it means he winds up ruling against his interests. Scalia just comes up with what he wants the result to be and then finds a way to bullshit. Lately it seems like he’s not even trying anymore.
slippytoad
Scalia long ago gave up any claim intellectual, legal, or moral credibility.
He also committed an impeachable offense, IMHO, by going duck-hunting with The Face-Shooting One when a judgment on his company was pending.
He’s a whore, nothing more.
jrg
If reality has a liberal bias, and half of what Scalia wrote was true, that means that Scalia’s opinion is fair and balanced.
Calling a lie a lie is stifling dissent. Therefore, by telling the truth, you are an anti-American Nazi who wants more Americans to die in a terrorist attack.
If these right-wing lies were not so dangerous to the Constitution, the rule of law, and our way of life, they would be downright funny.
Partisan hacks like Scalia are trying to turn this country into a dictatorship where anyone can be imprisoned, for any amount of time, without the ability to face their accusers or the charges against them.
Why is that so fucking difficult for the right wing to understand?
Shygetz
But Scalia is a serious scholar, you guys! He’s super serious!
Fastest way to know you’re dealing with someone who has no idea what they are talking about is to hear them describe Scalia as having any consistent legal philosophy. He’s an ends-justify-the-means guy, through and through, and has been for a long, long time.
RSA
What gets me is Scalia’s undeserved reputation of basing his arguments on principle. Saying, “If we release anyone from Guantamo, Americans will die,” is pure pragmatism. (That is, it’s a judgment call based on probabilities.) So, what’s the principle? That x number of people incarcerated without possibility of challenge is worth y American lives? Please show your work.
El Cid
Once I made the mistake of believing all those who assured me that Scalia, though right wing, had some keen legalistic mind. I went to a speech of his, and it was a huge pile of inane straw-man crap.
After that I concluded that the right wing view of a keen legal mind was one that could, you know, like, quote books & sh*t, and like, you know, mention a case by name — in other words, if a right wing Supreme Court justice knows more about Supreme Court cases than, say, a random sample of people encountered in a shopping center, then he’s a keen legal mind.
Andrew
No, Scalia is quite principled. Ir’s just that the principle is, “Fuck you, dirty hippies.”
The Moar You Know
Ralph Nader showed his true colors as a bought and paid for GOP operative back in 2004.
Wilfred
Scalia is just reflecting the opinion of the people
Scott H
I could never understand the appeal of Scalia. Okay, I lie. Scalia speaks to the authoritarianism so deeply craved by so many people and so devoutly wished by the self-styled plutocracy. Scalia may be well-versed in the Constitution, but, obviously, everything he knows, he despises.
Also, not that it has anything to do with qualification for a seat on the Court, Scalia has all of the gravitas of a sweated bowling shirt.
Frank Jacobs
So is it fair to say that if you’re being
torturedharshly interrogated for the amusement of a sadistic asshole, you aren’t being punished by the strict “constitutional” definition of the word?TenguPhule
The keen mind of the Right Wing Justice is as sharp as a knife made out of butter.
Brachiator
A. The role of a Supreme Court Justice is not just to reflect the opinion of the people.
B. The majority in the piece you cite reject the use of torture.
OT, but keeping to the theme. A Headline I Love:
Dems tell Justice Department to probe Bush on torture
I agree that Bush should be probed early and often.
DBrown
Scalia is the sickest, most pervert looney to sit on the bench since pre-jim crow law days; the man is a nutcase to end nutcases. The shit head believes in the devine right of kings -really, the ass wipe thinks that kings were better than ‘sicko-voting’ because god (little g intended) selected a king to rule people. The man (Scalia) is an enemy of the US and should be put in GITMO and tortured until he confesses – hell, add a few months after he confesses for being such a sick, worthless pile of shit with brains more worthless than shit.
Calouste
So Justice Scalia, considering you are on the Supreme Court, I assume you weigh your words carefully?
So when you say “returned to the battlefield” you imply that these 30 prisoners were guilty of fighting against the US army? So why weren’t they convicted by the court system you are suppossed to be the pinnacle of? Or does innocent until proven guilty no longer apply in your rotten little mind?
Chuck Butcher
The Seton Hall paper which I used makes more points than just that Scalia’s argument was based on discredited info.
mcmillan
Really? I hadn’t heard that claim about Scalia before, anybody got a link to where that comes from?
Wilfred
Americans should be ashamed of the results of that poll. The fact that enough aren’t is why we deserve pigs like Scalia.
Brachiator
Yawn. The average of the 19 countries surveyed came out to 57% against torture. While some countries clearly did better than the US on this score, others were worse. And I have to wonder about a result that shows that 66% of Chinese oppose torture, even though that country savagely represses Tibetans and its own people.
This comes close (though it’s not just Scalia). Even though Bush gets derided as an idiot, you have to note the disciplined consistency with which the Bush Administration has expanded the power of the presidency, and has selected officials and jurists who are on board with their agenda. Here is a bit from a Boston Globe story (Scalia’s dissent gives ‘signing statements’ more heft):
gypsy howell
who will rid us of these meddlesome priests?