Posted on 06/27/2012 11:48:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Justice Antonin Scalia needs to resign from the Supreme Court.
He’d have a lot of things to do. He’s a fine public speaker and teacher. He’d be a heck of a columnist and blogger. But he really seems to aspire to being a politician — and that’s the problem.
So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial. He’s turned “judicial restraint” into an oxymoronic phrase. But what he did this week, when the court announced its decision on the Arizona immigration law, should be the end of the line.
Not content with issuing a fiery written dissent, Scalia offered a bench statement questioning President Obama’s decision to allow some immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay. Obama’s move had nothing to do with the case in question. Scalia just wanted you to know where he stood.
“After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the secretary of homeland security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants,” Scalia said. “The president has said that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the administration’s proposed revision of the immigration laws. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind.”
What boggles the mind is that Scalia thought it proper to jump into this political argument. And when he went on to a broader denunciation of federal policies, he sounded just like an Arizona Senate candidate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Although I agree with what Scalia said, I “concur” with Dionne partially. I worry that Scalia’s mouthing off about current events may result in his having to recuse himself in a forthcoming case about immigration.
I thought the Italian hand gesture was the fingers under the chin flicked forward. That picture looks more like the “Darn...I could have had a V8” gesture.
I am so angry at this write up in the Washington Post. I tried to put my comment in, but their system is having problems and won’t let me post.
Grrr... I want to post!
Since I can’t - here it is!
I think you have a problem! The President took an oath of office that was to protect and defend its citizens. He has become a President that decides which laws he will and will not obey. If you have a President that can just say we will ignore illegal entry into our country and then also give them preferential treatment, then you are breaking the law. If you agree with him, then you are an idiot!
Immigrants (legal) should be given preferential treatment. Illegal - no matter how they got here, should not be brought to the front of the line. Especially when you are talking about 800,000 to 1.3 million people. This is not fair to those legal immigrants that have waited to become citizens. Once these legal immigrants become citizens, then they have the right to bring their family here as well to begin the process of citizenship.
Our President has decided to break the law and grant people who illegally cross more rights than it’s own citizens which should be condemned. I agree with Justice Scalia in his anger towards this corrupt government! E.J. Dionne Jr. you should be ashamed at yourself for going after a man who has the integrity to state it how it is.
Uhh, not that one. I think the call was for the Italian Salute, right arm extended, left hand slapped firmly on top of the elbow of extended right arm.
Usually executed with the expression “Ba fongul”or “bafungul”
which means in Italian just what you think it means.
EJ Dionne needs to go play in rush hour traffic.
E.J. Dionne, a man on a mission to prove that brainwaves are not necessary to write for the WaPo.Good one.
Scalia’s argument is not a political argument it is a constitutional argument. The Arizona ruling was conditioned on the idea that the requirement to protect the borders is a federal duty not a state duty and the state must therefore yield to the federal government. But that argument assumes the federal government will uphold the law. Scalia was pointing out that that the argument of federal supremacy does not make sense when the federal government willingly fails in it’s duty. Are the states and the people to be left defenseless against roving bands of invaders if the occupant of the white house sees some political advantage in allowing such raids? The correct constitutional position that sovereign states must yield to federal execution of the laws protecting the border but have every right to establish laws that protect their people when the federal government refuses to act. The constitution is not a suicide pact.
It has become clear that federal enforcement priorities—in the sense of priorities based on the need to allocate “scarce enforcement resources”—is not the problem here. After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30. If an individual unlawfully present in the United States . . . [under specified conditions] then U. S. immigration officials have been directed to “defe[r] action” against such individual “for a period of two years, subject to renewal.”6 The husbanding of scarce enforcement resources can hardly be the justification for this, since the considerable administrative cost of conducting as many as 1.4 million background checks, and ruling on the biennial requests for dispensation that the nonenforcement program envisions, will necessarily be deducted from immigration enforcement. The President said at a news conference that the new program is “the right thing to do” in light of Congress’s failure to pass the Administration’s proposed revision of the Immigration Act.7 Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.Justice Scalia's comments on President Obama'sThe Court opinion’s looming specter of inutterable horror—“[i]f §3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every State could give itself independent authority to prosecute federal registration violations,” ante, at 10—seems to me not so horrible and even less looming. But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws?
. . . .
As is often the case, discussion of the dry legalities that are the proper object of our attention suppresses the very human realities that gave rise to the suit. Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem,and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.
Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent. (Emphasis added, internal citations omitted.)
I wrote about the decision here, noting that the Majority Opinion also commented that the illegal alien problem Arizona faces is quite different and worse than faced by other states, yet the Executive Branch has chosen to focus its efforts elsewhere.
E.J. Dionne, a man on a mission to prove that brainwaves are not necessary to write for the WaPo.Good one.
Neither did the grounds Kagan and company used in their ruling. They are on common ground there.
You mean that WaPo can't find an American to criticize the U.S. Supreme Court ... or can't E.J. find something to criticize in Canada ??
EJ, piss off
An assassination could easily change the balance of the Federal court, to the benefit of who ever happens to be president and in control of the U.S. Senate.
But on the same level and in the same act it will also politically polarize the federal court in the minds of the people thus undermining the self-destructive blind faith in that body’s presumed dictatorial athoirty over the Federal Constitution.
That is in fact a real goal we should be looking to accomplish as it is essentially that Federal agents are not blindly trusted with the power to define the limits of their own power. A restoration or even retention of Federalism requires a veto on the other(state) side.
What? Is Canada experiencing a shortage of brain-dead liberals, such that Canada needs this one from you? Keep it!
I couldn't get past the 3rd sentence. Dionne is a punk-ass liberal twerp. Funny how he doesn't think that Ruth "Bad Girl" Ginsberg doesn't legislate from the bench.
From growing up in an Italian neighborhood, THAT was the one I was thinking of!
I'm only 53 - just a kid!
William O. Douglas was a flaming Lib who was appointed by FDR and was on the court until 1975. (He was on the court for over 36 years). As bad as some of the Libs on the court today, none are as bad as Douglas. If you look up "activist judge" in the dictionary, you'll probably see a picture of Douglas. Although I was only a high school student at the time, I celebrated his retirement. Unfortunately, Gerald Ford nominated Stevens to replace him...
The name in the title is the implicit barf alert.
Hilarious!
EJ Dionne needs to spit out the semen next time before he swallows . . .
I guess lifetime appointments should only apply to liberals!
“Although I agree with what Scalia said, I “concur” with Dionne partially. I worry that Scalia’s mouthing off about current events may result in his having to recuse himself in a forthcoming case about immigration.”
Given that he was talking about this particular case I don’t see that being a problem. His example was quite appropriate and insightful in-regards to the implications of the Federal court edict on the Arizona law..
The Federal court was effectively giving the President the discretionary to decide not to enforce Federal laws, by prohibiting the States from using their own resources to enforce the laws themselves.
From the prospect of one who wishes to see Federal laws enforced the edict was rather disappointing. Insolently it was also disappointing from the prospective of those who believe in the text of the Constitution and the promise that the States are still sovereign.
I agree with Scalia in that this edict was in the ironic position of being a blow to both Federal law and State sovereignty, two sides not usually allied. His example served to make that point quite well.
Some attorney may correct my perception, but there appears to be no legal authority over supreme court recusal. Specifically, both Kagan and Sotomayor could have lost their jobs if the Kerchner case had resulted in the removal of an ineligible Obama. Kagan was solicitor general, working for the executive branch, when a half dozen eligibility cases were appealed to the Supreme Court.
Kagan and Sotomayor refused to recuse themselves from the vote to determine whether the court would hear the Kerchner case. We don't have access to the vote, but there was an announcement that the "rule of nine" resulted in the court's decision not to hear the case. Had Kagan and Sotomayor recused themselves there would have been a "rule of seven", and even Roberts, who seems likely to be one of those protecting Obama, and not the Constitution, couldn't have rejected the case. This probably holds for other cases, including the several Donofrio cases. Any case which could remove their patron, and thus his lifetime appointments are a patent conflict of interest. These justices were voting themselves millions of dollars in benefits by protecting Obama. Grounds for impeachment of justices?
Touche!
E. J. Dionne thinks this nation can run itself without laws. He has always been an hysterical, panty-wetting moron; but this is a new low.
'nuff said...
You are right that there is no way to enforce recusal rules as against SCOTUS Justices. (There is some dispute whether Justices, as opposed to lower federal judges, are subject to the recusal STATUTE at all, enforceability aside. So I’m going to focus on the ethical rule: Recuse if your impartiality might reasonably be questioned ... and refrain from public pronouncements about matters reasonably likely to come before your court.)
Kagan surely should have recused herself from the ACA case, for example, and she didn’t. Now I worry that Scalia may fall under the rule later when a new immigration case comes along. Whether or not he recuses himself in fact, I worry — and that is why I would have preferred that he maintained his neutrality, publicly, on any “issue likely to come before the court.” I don’t want us to start saying, “Well, Kagan got away with it, so we can too.”
Which goes to explain why "conventional wisdom" inside the Beltway is so ill-informed and unreliable.
I think E.J. Dionne is interfering with the independence of the judiciary.
That's only one of hundreds of Italian hand gestures. That one is a mildly contemptuous gesture meaning, roughly, "nothing." You can use it to express what you got when you were expecting more (like, "Geez, could you spare it?"), or how little you care about a situation ("I couldn't care less.").
Ditto. He's a dipstick and his face matches.
Scalia to E. J. Dionne: “Bite me!”
It is so obvious, that any justice is wrong if he happens to be conservative...that seems to be the message.
The lockstep of Sotomayor and Ginzburg and Marshall and Brennan et al. - all that leftist boilerplate never seemed to bother him. That these leftist judges vote in a very predictable block on all these issues never seems to compel Dionne to ask the question if ‘they have any interfering political views’. The putrid problem is that leftists think that their whacked-out mindset dovetails perfectly with the Constitution and that any votes that their robots make are the right votes and needs no examination. (It is why Thurgood Marshall stopped reading and participating in the Court but told the clerks to sign on to anything William Brennan wrote! He didn’t need to think he had a leftist master.) If a judge is conservative - then he is automatically an ideologue and therefore not credible to serve on the Supreme Court. The arrogance of this astounds me.
Canada may well be oversubscribed in the category of brain dead liberals, but we have no need for this one at all. He needs to be there ~ not here!
E.J......eat me!
Mr. Dionne is off my reading list. He’s a wanker.
I think the suggested hand gesture involves the open hand being drawn accross the underside of the chin....and I think the gesture can mean anything from “go pound sand” to “go commit fornication upon yourself” to “drop dead!”
That's the wrong place to dispose of garbage. It stops up the sewer.
Man????
EJ Dionne needs to find a real job suitable for his pea brain like digging ditches
Love it when the flamingest of flaming morons reveal themselves. It leaves the rest of the afternoon free.
Leni
So EJ, alone, decides what a Supreme Court Justice is?
What a F’ing arrogant prick.
I hope he dies a horrible, painful death. Seriously.
I have zero tolerance for the left. Take that back, I have negative tolerance.
Nope it wouldn't; precisely because the Constitution talks about laws for a uniform law of naturalization, if such law is not being applied uniformly, how can such be Constitutional?
For instance, is he even aware that Justice Joseph Story wrote an entire work entitled, "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States"? That volume concludes with the following assertion:
"§ 1907.
"If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of fife, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."(Underlining added for emphasis)
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