By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s funeral was held Saturday, February 20th, 2016 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic church in North America. We now feature the videography of his funeral service.
Source: Youtube
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We may get a “token Protestant” on the bench to replace Scalia.
I find it interesting that a court, that was dominated by WASPS for centuries, has nary a one now.
I know I can’t prove all the Catholic justices religious views, but I sure look forward to the day when there is more religious diversity on that bench.
BUT, Opus Dei members? It’s pretty easy to ascertain their religious views.
Randyjet……..you wrote that “a Catholic majority on the SCOTUS are inclined to vote their religious views rather than anything else”.
A. I know that there were 6 Catholics on the Court (5 now, with Scalia gone), but I don’t know their religious views. There is virtually no uniformity among American Catholics in their religious views, regardless of what ” official Catholic dogma” happens to be.
B. You failed to provide any examples of just how the 6-3 Catholic majority “voted their religious views”. Can you provide examples of these ” Catholic” decisions by SCOTUS?
Here is a marvelous quote from the Toobin article:
“During the oral argument of a challenge to a California law that required, among other things, warning labels on violent video games, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Scalia’s harangue of a lawyer by quipping, “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?” “
I wonder if we can still kiss the great man’s ring.
Jeffery Toobin on Nino Scalia from the New Yorker.
Warning: The New Yorker is Not The Daily Mail. If The Daily Mail is your preferred journalism, you won’t like this article. If you dismiss any criticism of Scalia as an instance of ‘classless hate’, you won’t like this article.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/antonin-scalia-looking-backward
An indication of just how American Scalia was can be seen in his acceptance of corporations to be allowed the rights of voters. Essentially a corporation is a voter with next to unlimited funds. A corporation can purchase a politician, happens more often than not if not all the time. This direction is the opposite direction that was chosen in 1776. This is the direction towards privilege and rule by other than democratic means. This is the direction that results in kings, emperors, dictators, and in the case of America oligarchs.
Scalia may have been a great legal machine, encouraged others to sharpen their machinery, and might have had an extremely deep reservoir of legal mumbo jumbo; however, his decision to support oligarchy is nothing short of the exact opposite that was intended by our founding fathers. It was the antithesis of what the Western World holds sacred. Scalia should be studied without fail.
You are so correct Issac. This ruling allows the management of a company without the consent of a shareholder(s), to provide contributions to various candidates and/or parties. Just because I elect certain managers to run the company I invest in, does not mean I give my consent to such expenditures. A company should be excluded as a person or individual in both corporate and tax law. Corporations are a privileged government franchises which is and should be treated differently than Citizens who have inalienable rights.
He basically unlocked the doors for the management of some very financially powerful companies to dominate the pay to play political system the oligarchs have slowly set up over the history of our country. Once this happened there is little we the people can do to stop it other than perhaps a nationwide income tax protest. To many people are however infused in the system and will never risk such a proposition.
As Scalia said himself the Constitution is dead, dead, dead and he helped place a few of the nails in the coffin.
The usual silly, foolish retort.
Further clarification…
oral arguments present the opportunity for the justices to learn which way the other justices are leaning so they can calculate who they might be able to sign on to their opinion.
BTW. They don’t email one another – at least while in the office regarding court business.
Nina Totenberg, who, much to her regret, has not been a private investigator for 30 years, says that the justices have pretty much made up their own minds before they hear oral arguments. She says the primary value of oral arguments is the opportunity to learn which way the other justices are leaning. She says it is possible for the advocates to badly screw up, but oral arguments are not nearly as important as the public thinks.
And sure, it is fun to be entertained (or outraged) by Scalia from the bench. But, we really ought to be less interested in being entertained (witness the ascent of Trump) and more interested in actually learning something and understanding the gravity of the question before the court.
A dinner party with Scalia? Fabulous! His sneering bullying from the bench? Not so much.
L’Observer – Nina Totenberg should dress in motley before each presentation. She is the jester for the Supreme Court.
Frank, You are intellectually honest and a pleasure. Even those who disagreed w/ Scalia’s political views acknowledge his positive impact. No one here can honestly disagree that prior to Scalia, oral arguments were perfunctory and stale for the most part. In consummate Italian dinner table style, Scalia woke the court up to the importance of oral arguments. You needed to be prepared. Scalia was tough on attorneys even if he agreed w/ their case. Challenging attorneys made their arguments better. And, his personality encouraged other justices to ask questions of litigants. Thomas being the exception.
Paul
‘Solving’ the problem? WTF!
The Originalist Scalia was entitled to Solve The Problem? And how admirable that he had ‘the balls’!
Well, that’s an interesting take on the Constitution.
Wasn’t there something about Congress solving ‘the problem’.
Why do I bother? You are such a foolish, silly, unserious commenter.
L’Observer – 7 justices agreed that Florida was breaking the law, only 5 justices (including Scalia) had the balls to do something about it. The job was not Congress’ to fix.
L’Observer – you never miss an ad hominem do you.
The first Italian American on the Supreme Court. I met him briefly on October 19, 2000 when he was in Louisville, KY. Great speaker. Great intellect. He signed the program at my request and I quickly had a photo taken with him and my son as the audience departed. Whether you agreed with his views or not, ( and many I did not) , he was a great writer and served on the court and served our country for 30 years from 1986-2016. May he rest in peace.
PS. Mr. Turley. Has Judge Scalia ever tried to explain what the word “natural” in “natural born citizen” meant when George Washington was alive?
Anyone who claims that there had been unanimity more than two hundred years ago on the meaning of every word in the constitution must have produced a time machine to go back in time and interview them all.
Paul
Obama acted with the majority represented in Congress and the Senate. Scalia acted alone as the deciding and most vociferous vote. And the results in two instances were devastating: an idiot for President and carte blanche for private money. Scalia was a pompous if erudite defender of the perversions that are ruining America. A corporation is not a voting citizen but nothing more than a bully; case in point Trump. Scalia was a pompous, bigoted, and extremely knowledgeable legal mind but he was our pompous, bigoted, and extremely knowledgeable legal mind.
We need centrist Republicans and centrist Democrats in the Supreme Court. Even Palin knows that you can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig, although she would never be able to understand who the pig is. One can complain and point the finger until the cows come home but one thing is certain and it has never been illustrated so clearly as with the Republican party, the system needs to be overhauled. The founding fathers never intended for this circus to take place. I and any other fool off of the street can speak with equal validity as did Scalia when he gave corporations the go ahead to ruin America. This makes Scalia a defender of his own opinion, nothing more. There are, today, issues that simply cannot be referred to some individual’s interpretation of something that was written two and a half centuries ago and written with so little detail and clarity that one would think that either the authors couldn’t clarify it further or were setting up future generations for a similar experience, to think for themselves. Our founding fathers would be ashamed of Scalia. They would be proud and yet astonished that America has managed to survive imbeciles like the three stooges. The question is would they gamble on someone like Donald Trump?
Can those lovers of the constitution here find any section of that document that allowed Scalia to appoint GWB to the office of the presidency?
How’s THAT for an unprecedented event!
So unprecedented, that those justices wrote that the action they were taking was not ever to be used as precedent in future rulings.
Appalling.
L’Observer – appalling that 7 justices found the count to be illegal in Gore v. Bush. Only 5 had the balls to solve the issue. It is appalling that the other 2 that found it illegal, did not have the guts to vote with the five who were solving the problem.
Scalia appointed GWB to his first term of the presidency.
Scalia said: (paraphrased) perhaps African Americans would be more comfortable is they attended lower tier universities.
Both absolutely astounding events – and not in a good way.
Paul C Schulte – “Bill W – it is my understanding that NO President has missed the funeral of a Supreme Court justice until now.”
Wrong
http://www.snopes.com/obama-snubs-scalias-funeral/
Key point:
The decision not to attend Scalia’s funeral was not without precedent. As NBC noted, four out of the past seven funerals for a Supreme Court justice have had either the president or the vice president in attendance (which means nearly half of them didn’t):
Former President George W. Bush attended the funeral for Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Former President Bill Clinton attended the funerals for former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice William Brennan but did not attend the funerals for Justices Harry Blackmun or Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Former Vice President Al Gore attended the funeral for Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Glenn M – I stand corrected. 🙁