Free Republic

“It is plainly true that in our society blacks have suffered discrimination immeasurably greater than any directed at other racial groups.” These were the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, written in his concurring opinion in the 1989 Supreme Court case Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. The city of Richmond, Va., was sued over its policy of requiring that a certain percentage of city contracts be set aside for minority-owned businesses. Do these words written by Justice Scalia in the Croson case sound racist? Obviously, they are not. Yet, somehow Justice Scalia has been deemed a racist for... Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/3/a-slur-against-scalia/#disqus_thread#ixzz2SEcZLdox...

Has Justice Scalia resigned from SCOTUS? The Borowitz Report @ the New Yorker website published a report that Justice Scalia resigned SCOTUS over same sex 'marriage'. I don't see this headline one any other news source. The New Yorker does not allow FR to carry their content, so you will have to Google 'Borowitz' and 'Scalia Leaves' to find the article.

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Tuesday over the constitutionality of a California law that reserves marriage as a union between one man and one woman, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the effects on children who are raised by same-sex couples is not confirmed by experts or science. “There's considerable disagreement among – among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a – in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not,” Scalia said during the exchange between the justices and Charles Cooper, the attorney representing the petitioner in Hollingsworth...

During oral arguments today at the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia and attorney Ted Olson had a pointed exchange over whether same-sex marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Scalia's argument, which was advanced by Chief Justice John Roberts before him, was that when the institution of marriage developed historically, it was not done with the explicit intent of excluding gay and lesbian couples. "We don't prescribe law for the future," Scalia said. "We decide what the law is. I'm curious, when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868? When the Fourteenth...

Why are liberal activists exerting themselves so fervently to attack the points made by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia last week during the oral arguments in the Shelby County v. Holder case? Perhaps the justices’ critics are desperate to retain the unconstitutional preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which have given the Obama administration political and legal leverage in redistricting and other election-law challenges. The chief justice provided some reason last June, in his decision in NFIB v. Sebelius, to believe that such attacks might cause him to change his mind. But the recent attacks are...

Liberals have accused Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia of being the court's resident bully, but when two liberal female Suprem Court Justices--Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan--this week tried to browbeat Scalia and lawyers arguing against the Voting Rights Act's Section 5 pre-clearance requirement, the mainstream media hailed their efforts. In oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder on Wednesday, Scalia made the point that members of Congress have no reason whatsoever to vote against the extension of the Voting Rights Act and that he was "fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless--unless a court can say it does...

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia “a troll” on tonight’s edition of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Maddow was referencing Justice Scalia’s declaration that the Voting Rights Act was evidence of the “perpetuation of racial entitlement,” a remark he made during a Wednesday’s hearing, at which Maddow was present. …

I'm sure it's happened before, but I can't recall any previous State of the Union speech where justices refused to attend based on disagreements with the president. From Politico: "The conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court was absent from President Obama's Tuesday State of the Union address. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia declined to join their six other colleagues at the prime time address to Congress. During Obama's 2010 address, Alito was seen whispering the words "not true" during Obama's speech. Obama used his address to blast the court for their 2010 Citizens United case which...

<p>Scalia: State of the Union "has turned into a childish spectacle"</p> <p>WASHINGTON While his colleagues got ready to go to the Capitol, Justice Antonin Scalia sat on a stage across town and held forth about why, for the 16th consecutive year, he would not be joining them for the State of the Union.</p>

Kevin Walsh of the University of Richmond School of Law writes:The twitterverse is alive with tweets about Justice Scalia’s headgear for today’s inauguration. At the risk of putting all the fun speculation to an end . . . The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner.Wearing the cap of a statesman who defended liberty...

At most inaugural events the sartorial buzz is about what designer dress the First Lady is wearing. But yesterday everyone was more interested in a Supreme Court Justice’s hat. Many people were left wondering: Why is Antonin Scalia wearing a renaissance era painter’s hat?

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went to head to head Monday night with a gay student at Princeton University over the jurist's opinions about homosexuality. Duncan Hosie took issue with Scalia equating laws banning sodomy to laws against bestiality and murder. "It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the 'reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia said, according to the Associated Press. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?" The high court's most outspoken justice stressed he wasn't equating sodomy...

Contemporary opinions, including those of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, say the idea of a state’s right to secede died with the hundreds of thousands of bloodied victims of the Civil War, and that the sentiment behind the dozens of petitions on a White House website seeking permission for most of the 50 individual governments to leave the union will be fruitless. But historians would note that even Thomas Jefferson, a “pole star among political philosophers because he based his politics on the eternal, self-evidence, fundamental truths that all men are created free and equal and that they are endowed...

God bless Scalia. If he can hang in there for two more years, we have a chance. Here's the bottom line -- Scalia is a brilliant and patriotic conservative. But he's not a spring chicken any more. If he retires from the Supreme Court, then there's only thing stopping Obama from appointing another Kagan -- the Senate. This next off-year is 2014. We'll feel pain from now until then -- you can bet. But here's the bright side -- pain = votes [unless your candidate fails to rally conservatives]. It's a terrible way to gain ground, but America chose'em, not...

(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said recently that--"especially after last term"--he does not know if he is confident the Constitution can be restored to its original meaning. He likened his own efforts to do so to the character "Frodo" in the Lord of the Rings, who fights the good fight not certain he will win. While discussing his new book Reading Law at Stanford University on Oct. 19, the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson quoted to Scalia a passage from Scalia's book, Reading Law: "Originalism does not always provide an easy answer, or even a clear one. Originalism is...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia visits Uncommon Knowledge for a wide ranging interview including the living constitution, Roe v. Wade, Congress' relationship to the court, and to discuss his new book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

Piers Morgan Interviews Justice Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve. Scalia calls himself a "textualist" and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them. So Scalia parts company with former colleagues who have come to believe capital punishment is unconstitutional. The framers of the...

Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve. Scalia calls himself a ‘‘textualist’’ and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them. So Scalia parts company with former colleagues who have come to believe capital punishment is unconstitutional. The framers of the...

Jeffrey Toobin's latest book portrays Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as increasingly cranky and partisan — and infuriated with Chief Justice John Roberts over the court's recent decisions on healthcare and immigration. Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and also covers the court for CNN, credits Scalia for a sea change in how both sides of the political spectrum think about the law. But he says the justice's bombast has become off-putting to more even-tempered colleagues.

Jeffrey Toobin's latest book portrays Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as increasingly cranky and partisan — and infuriated with Chief Justice John Roberts over the court's recent decisions on healthcare and immigration. Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and also covers the court for CNN, credits Scalia for a sea change in how both sides of the political spectrum think about the law. But he says the justice's bombast has become off-putting to more even-tempered colleagues. Toobin's latest book, "The Oath," chronicling the Roberts court and the Obama presidency, is being released today. Here are 5 key takeaways: Scalia...

The Constitution is as clear as the nose on your face. According to Article II, Section 1, to be eligible to be president or vice president of the United States one must be a “natural born citizen.” That means born in the United States to two American citizen parents. The framers, concerned about destructive foreign influences at a time of the founding of the nation, were wary that the foreign biases of parents could tragically influence the country’s leadership, especially during its formative years. Being largely from England themselves, with British parents, the framers also knew and lived among Tories...

[SNIP]Last week, I had the occasion to cross paths with “revered” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia has been for many years the darling of conservatives, a judge who they believed had the guts to enforce the Rule of Law and the Constitution in the face of corrosive influences, foreign and domestic. I took the occasion to ask him a simple question, one he would be able to answer. I asked the “constitutionalist” Scalia what he believed to be the definition of “natural born citizen,” without asking him to render an opinion on whether Obama was eligible to be president,...

This week on Q & A, our guest is Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a shocking statement made this morning on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said he believes the U.S. Constitution allows states to regulate firearms. In a response to a question about the Second Amendment from Wallace, Scalia said the following: ... there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned some weapons. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried. --They had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne. This statement will be perceived as a bolt of lightning in conservative circles...

Scalia on Obama: 'What can he do to me?' By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/29/12 10:29 AM EDT Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said he did not “view it as a threat” when President Barack Obama in April predicted his signature healthcare overhaul “will be upheld because it should be upheld” and that anything less would constitute “judicial activism” by the high court. Scalia conceded in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Obama’s forceful comments on a pending Supreme Court case were “unusual, but as I say I don’t criticize the president publicly. And he normally doesn’t...

ustice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most vocal and conservative justices, said on Sunday that the Second Amendment leaves room for U.S. legislatures to regulate guns, including menacing hand-held weapons. "It will have to be decided in future cases," Scalia said on Fox News Sunday. But there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned frightening weapons which a constitutional originalist like himself must recognize. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried, the justice noted. When asked if that kind of precedent would apply to assault weapons, or 100-round ammunition...

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most vocal and conservative justices, said on Sunday that the Second Amendment leaves room for U.S. legislatures to regulate guns, including menacing hand-held weapons. "It will have to be decided in future cases," Scalia said on Fox News Sunday. But there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned frightening weapons which a constitutional originalist like himself must recognize. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried, the justice noted. When asked if that kind of precedent would apply to assault weapons, or 100-round ammunition...

Coming up this evening at 9 p.m., "Piers Morgan Tonight" sits down with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Washington D.C. for an exclusive sit-down interview.

Pope Benedict XVI has stated it clearly: homosexuality is incompatible with the priesthood. But Elizabeth Scalia, a writer/blogger for First Things and The Anchoress on Patheos, disagrees. In a blog post which may be found here, Ms. Scalia writes, "If Christians have any interest in reaching out to the gay community, if we have any hope to speak a message which can touch their hearts as well, we absolutely must be willing to live as their family. Behind his blundering obscenity, behind his facile attempts to explain Scripture away, behind the blatant hypocrisy of his behavior toward those who disagree...

[T]he irony of Roberts’s opinion must not go unnoticed. His opinion, which is the object of such conservative scorn, is in fact right out of the Antonin Scalia (who dissented) and Robert Bork playbook. (Hat tip to Donald Boudreaux for first bringing this to my attention.) Bork and Justice Scalia believe that unelected judges should not interfere with the elected branches of government except when Congress violates an express, narrowly construed right (essentially the ones in the Bill of Rights). Other interference is branded “judicial activism.” I once heard Justice Scalia say: “My job is not to strike down laws...

Dinners were served in the basement. Ambassadors, generals with many stars, senior White House officials and closely read columnists — all would walk past the yellowing kitchen, which looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the Ford administration, and down a narrow flight of stairs into the dimly lighted dining room. Guests were arrayed around the table according to rank, with the most important ones squeezed in the center. Although the Old World meals could be quite elaborate — venison paté, duck in bitter orange — they were prepared and served entirely by the host, a stickler for protocol...

Scalia’s dissent, at least on first quick perusal, reads like it was originally written as a majority opinion http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/06/evidence-that-the-votes-shifted-after-conference-initial-vote-to-declare-mandate-unconstitutional.html (in particular, he consistently refers to Justice Ginsburg’s opinion as “The Dissent”). Back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal circles that a key vote was taking place, and that Roberts was feeling tremendous pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the mandate. Did Roberts originally vote to invalidate the mandate on commerce clause grounds, and to invalidate the Medicaid expansion, and then decide later to accept the tax argument and essentially rewrite the Medicaid expansion (which, as...

June 25, 2012 Justice Antonin Scalia Bench Statement Rich food for thought in Justice Scalia's dissenting Bench Statement. I have taken liberty to change paragraphing for easier reading (but note Scalia's use of italics). Scalia's last two paragraphs below. Full Bench Statement follows. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 simply unwilling...

The issue arose early in the oral argument, even before the solicitor general could make his claim of exclusivity. Justice Scalia kicked off, asking Mr. Clement whether he would concede "that the State has to accept within its borders all people who have no right to be there, that the Federal Government has no interest in removing ... and the State has no power to close its borders to people who have no right to be there." This time Mr. Clement answered: "I think my answer to that is no." But he did not back up his answer with either...

Is Roger Ailes clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia? One might be forgiven for thinking so following last week’s oral arguments on the health-care law before the nation’s highest court. As has been pointed out elsewhere, some of Scalia’s questions from the bench made use of the tone and even the diction of the attacks on the Affordable Care Act frequently heard on Fox News and conservative talk-radio shows. After Scalia picked up on the idea that a government empowered to have its citizens buy health insurance or face a penalty may also strong arm them into buy some...

If the law is an ass, as Mr. Bumble declares in “Oliver Twist,” then constitutional law must surely be the entire wagon train. Like most Washington policy wonks, I spent too much of last week reading transcripts of the Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of the new health reform law. This was to be a “teaching moment” for the country, an opportunity to see the best and the brightest engage in a reasoned debate on the limits of federal power. Instead, what we got too often was political posturing, Jesuitical hair-splitting and absurd hypotheticals. My first thought on perusing...

Appearing on HBO's Bill Maher Show Obama's former green job czar Van Jones attacks Supreme Court Justice Scalia over his questioning in the Obamacare SCOTUS arguments.

Senator Ben Nelson's accusing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia of lacking impartiality. Nelson should be ashamed of himself for supporting an unconstitutional monstrosity like Obamacare... (video at link)

Arguing about whether the court could keep some provisions of the health care law intact, Justice Antonin Scalia says that reading all 2,700 pages of the statute would constitute, basically, torture: Justice Scalia: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? (Laughter.) Justice Scalia: And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to -- to give this function to our law clerks? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each

In Tuesday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General and chief ObamaCare advocate Donald Verrilli was presented with a substantial portion of his own posterior by Justice Antonin Scalia. The summary execution began when Verrilli made the extraordinary mistake of schooling the Court on the proper meaning of its own decisions. “No it didn’t,” said Scalia to the stunned Solicitor General in reference to his errant references to the significance of previous cases. And what followed was a merciless barrage of facts exposing the overreach of the individual mandate, ObamaCare’s method of creating “fairness in healthcare” by making those...

The guy who uploaded this to YouTube calls it a “benchslap.� It's loads of fun, and the point about limited powers will sound familiar. The key part comes early when Scalia jumps in to challenge Verrilli's citation of Court precedent. Those cases dealt with commerce, he says; in this case, the legislation is aimed at people who aren't participating in commerce, i.e. people without insurance. That's a gut-punch to the left since, once you make that move conceptually, the Commerce Clause defense of the statute is hanging by a thread. You can follow his thinking over the rest of the...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington— The Supreme Court strengthened the rights of property owners who are confronted by federal environmental regulators, ruling Wednesday that landowners are entitled to a hearing to challenge the government's threats to fine them for alleged Clean Water Act violations. The 9-0 decision revolved around procedural matters and did not resolve questions about the reach of the act, which has been the subject of different legal interpretations. But it is a victory for an Idaho couple, Mike and Chantell Sackett, who faced fines of up to $75,000 a day if they didn't restore a small...

Former Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson and Eugene Scalia, Justice Scalia's son, will represent LightSquared. Wireless startup LightSquared has hired prominent conservative lawyers Ted Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, and Eugene Scalia, a son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as it tries to save its multibillion-dollar plan to build a nationwide 4G wireless network, the company confirmed Tuesday. Although the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted LightSquared a conditional waiver to move forward last year, the commission is now moving to block the company's network over concerns that it would interfere with GPS devices. The hiring of two...

<p>U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday touted his approach to interpreting the federal Constitution that focuses on the original intent of the Founding Fathers.</p> <p>Scalia, a former University of Chicago law professor, called the “originalism” method “the lesser evil.”</p>

Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday touted his approach to interpreting the federal Constitution that focuses on the original intent of the Founding Fathers. Scalia, a former University of Chicago law professor, called the “originalism” method “the lesser evil.” “I don’t have to prove [it’s] perfect. The question is whether it’s better than everything else,” said Scalia, who addressed about 400 people at the University of Chicago Law School. Originalism was behind his reasoning in a 2008Ö Supreme Court case that upheld the individual’s right to possess a firearm, he said. Scalia wrote the majority opinion for the case and argued...

I confess, I despise “Black Friday.” I hate the way consumers are urged to haul their Thanksgiving-exhausted selves out to stores — away from family members who have often traveled some distance to come together — so they can surrender their human dignity or assault the dignity of others in order to snag a ten-dollar sweater and a waffle-maker for $9.99. And I hate the way consumers go along with it. I hate the way the mad buying and bad behavior is attached to Christmas — the coming of the Christ was meant to set us free, and yet...

All of us shooters give lip service to proselytizing: “Take a new shooter to the range!” “Take someone hunting for the first time!” Few actually DO it, however, at least very often. Once again, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia inspires us. Just caught this from Eugene Volokh: http://volokh.com/2011/10/23/another-hunter-on-the-high-court/ Kudos to Justice Scalia for taking the time to do this. And kudos to Justice Kagan for being open-minded. Scalia has obviously been a voice of reason for our side. Kagan has not. Will her new perspective be reflected in her next analysis of these issues on the highest Bench in...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia said Tuesday he does not believe the high court's "infamous" Kelo decision of 2005, which held that cities can take land from some residents with compensation and give it to others for economic development, will be lasting law. "I do not think the Kelo decision is long for this world," Scalia said in a speech to Chicago-Kent College of Law. He compared the court's decision in Kelo v. New London, Conn., No. 04-108, to the Dred Scott case, which held that slaves were outside the protection of the U.S. Constitution, and to the...

Partially lifting the veil that usually guards their actions, two Supreme Court justices on Wednesday painted the court as a bulwark for the Constitution and said some of today’s cynicism about government stems from the public’s scanty understanding of the founding document. One of the two, Justice Antonin Scalia, said there are too many federal judges and they are too heavily taken from the ranks of lawyers, which he said has watered down the quality of judges. He and Justice Stephen G. Breyer appeared before the SenateJudiciary Committee in an unusual hearing. The branches of government usually strive to keep...