Fresno Famous

Yesterday the NYT Online published a timid editorial that bemoaned two facts about Justice Antonin Scalia of our compromised Supreme Court.  In my opinion, the NYT didn't go nearly far enough in condemning this narrow-minded rightist bigot who has no excuse for being on the Court.  As you know, the Court has tilted to the right in the last few years, infamously begun by the decision in 2000 that handed the presidency to the nearly moronic George W Bush despite evidence of massive fraud by the Republican Party in Florida (and Mr Gore's incidental popular majority, which doesn't count because of the Electoral College's antiquated setup).  The worst proponent of this rightism, Antonin Scalia, is the subject of yesterday's editorial, and the Times timidly bends over backwards in an effort to be mild in its criticism. It uses the words "outlandish", "antiquated", "jarring", and "direspects the Constitution".  It omits the more appropriate words "corrupt", "narrow-minded bigot", and "unfit to be a Supreme Court Justice."

Mr Justice Scalia's most recent outrageous gaffe is to say that the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to women, despite multiple Court decisions since 1971 that have affirmed that the "Equal Protection of the Law" does indeed give equal rights to slightly more than one half of our citizens.  Even principled "conservative" judges have affirmed this position.  Only Antonin, with his "originalist" (read: "my way or the highway") interpretation of our most sacred political document, stands against this almost universally accepted doctrine.We already know that Mr Justice Scalia is corrupt.  He refused to recuse himself from a case that involved the Vice President, Richard Cheney, despite the fact that Mr Cheney is a close friend and duck hunting partner.  

Remember, Mr Cheney in February 2006 accidentally shot a man while quail hunting; the victim, a Mr Whittington, caught birdshot pellets in the face and chest, with one penetrating into his heart. Mr Cheney was shooting towards the setting sun at about 5:50 pm, possibly actually after sunset (in February in south Texas, sunset is around 5:30).  His victim was said to be 30 yards away, but was probably much closer given the small gauge (28) of the shotgun, the large amount of shot received, and the apparent deep penetration of the tiny (size 7-1/2) shot (normally, the closer the target and the larger the shot, the deeper the penetration).  

The victim volunteered to take the blame, for not announcing himself when he returned to the hunting party (a total of four men walking abreast), but to surmise that he somehow put himself between Mr Cheney and the game he was seeking, at sunset, after he had fallen behind to pick up a downed bird, is to surmise that Mr Whittington was a fool.  Mr Cheney didn't give a statement to the sheriff until 8 AM the next morning.  Luckily for Mr Whittington, an ambulance always accompanies Mr Cheney wherever he goes. This suggests that hunting partners of Mr Cheney, like Mr Justice Scalia, may not have the best judgement and discretion (or even eyesight).

Another, parenthetical, fact about Mr Cheney: he has survived over 20 years past the usual lifetime of a person with his variety of heart disease.  This is tribute to the ability of cost-is-no-object medicine to sustain life.  After his fifth heart attack or cardiac arrest, depending on the source, he was recently implanted with a supplementary pump to ease the workload of his failing heart.  Now he faces a heart transplant, and the donor is likely to be young, healthy, and "accidentally" shot in the head by the Secret Service.  Oh, yeah, that's really paranoid.

On the other hand, if money is no object, what is a man's life worth when someone else needs his heart?  A million dollars?  A billion?  Well, Mr Cheney probably has the wherewithal (and the credit rating) as well as the motivation to spend a billion dollars just to live a couple more years.

Why this digression?  Mr Cheney is and was a close friend and political ally of Mr Justice Scalia.  Just because he's out of office doesn't mean he's not still a corrupting and degrading big-money influence on politics and on his hunting buddy.

To get back to our evil man of the day: Mr Justice Scalia is corrupt, as we know from his decision in the Bush vs Gore case and his refusal to recuse himself from judgement on his friend Mr "Bionic Man" Cheney.  He is also either ignorant or dismissive of abundant precedent in the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to women, as well as to gays and other minorities.  I'm not a woman, but if I was, Mr Justice Scalia would be Public Enemy Number One.  He certainly deserves be impeached and removed from office, but I do NOT advocate his assassination.  That would only complicate things.My political philosophy: majority rules, minority rights, and big money gets big taxes.Here is a copy of the editorial, so you don't have to surf for it:

EDITORIAL

There He Goes Again

Published: January 4, 2011

Justice Antonin Scalia has a knack for drawing unflattering light to himself and the Supreme Court. Recall, for example, when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving the energy task force run by Dick Cheney, his friend and duck-hunting companion, when Mr. Cheney was vice president.
Justice Scalia is now getting attention for his outlandish view, expressed in an interview in the magazine California Lawyer, that the promise of equal protection in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment does not extend to protecting women against sex discrimination. Legislatures may outlaw sex discrimination, Justice Scalia suggested, but if they decided to enact laws sanctioning such unfair treatment, it would not be unconstitutional.
This is not the first time Justice Scalia has espoused this notion, and it generally tracks his jurisprudence in the area. Still, for a sitting member of the nation’s highest court to be pressing such an antiquated view of women’s rights is jarring, to say the least.
No less dismaying is his notion that women, gays and other emerging minorities should be left at the mercy of the prevailing political majority when it comes to ensuring fair treatment. It is an “originalist” approach wholly antithetical to the framers’ understanding that vital questions of people’s rights should not be left solely to the political process. It also disrespects the wording of the Equal Protection Clause, which is intentionally broad, and its purpose of ensuring a fairer society.
Fortunately, Justice Scalia’s views on women are not the law of the land.
In a slew of rulings since 1971, often with conservative justices in the majority, the Supreme Court has consistently rejected Justice Scalia’s constricted view of what the Constitution requires. It would be nice if he underscored that fact the next time he spoke out on the subject?