Tag Archives: scalia

The Day After

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What I wrote in my head as I lay in bed at 4:00 this morning:

Half of me wants to scream, half of me wants to cry, and half of me is just numb. That doesn’t make mathematical sense, but it hardly matters in a country that no longer cares about reality.

What a disaster.

Bush won 51 percent of the popular vote, a higher percentage than Clinton ever got. No candidate had broken the 50-percent mark since 1988.

All 11 of the anti-gay-marriage amendments passed, even in Oregon.

Social conservatives Jim DeMint (North Carolina), Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), and John Thune (South Dakota) will now be in the Senate, and probably gay-baiting Mel Martinez (Florida) as well. The Senate will contain 54 Republicans.

Chief Justice Rehnquist is likely dying, so we will soon have Chief Justice Scalia. Moderate Justice O’Connor will probably retire, and liberal Justice Stevens is 84 years old.

The fabled youth vote never showed up. Young people didn’t vote in any greater numbers than last time. As Matt Haughey says, “Fucking stoned slackers. You can never depend on them for anything.”

(Update: Youth turnout actually went up.)

And Bush won the same percentage of gay voters as last time. Absolutely fucking astounding.

Sparky speaks my thoughts.

The Left Coaster writes excellently.

Andrew Sullivan writes about the impact on gays.

I feel reverse schadenfreude. Instead of taking pleasure in others’ pain, I’m taking pain in others’ pleasure. I felt this way in fifth grade, when one of my best friends won both the math and language-arts awards, leaving nothing for me. He was beaming and I was in tears.

I get the message. We’re not wanted here. Fine. I’m ready to secede. Let’s create the Greater Federation of Canada and Former Northeastern United States. It would look something like this. Who’s with me? West Coasters, you can join us too.

Part of me says: We got through the first four years, we can get through the next four.

The other part of me says: Supreme Court. Supreme Court. Supreme Court. That’s 25 years of hell right there.

Last night at around 6:30, before any polls had closed, I turned to Matt, breathed deeply, and said, “Let’s just sit here for a while and appreciate this moment, before any bad news starts coming in.” He looked at me like I was crazy.

What a disaster.

Justice Stevens

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Imagining America if George Bush Chose the Supreme Court

I’d guess that the justices most likely to retire in the next four years would be Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and perhaps Justice Stevens.

Here are the general leanings of the current court members:

conservative — Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas

swing voters — O’Connor, Kennedy

liberal — Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer

Clearly, the biggest blow to social liberals would be the loss of Justice Stevens. A Rehnquist retirement wouldn’t change the court that much; an O’Connor retirement would. But the loss of Justice Stevens would be the biggest deal. You don’t hear much about him. He’s currently the oldest justice, at age 84 (he was appointed by Ford in 1975). However, I’ve read that he’s as mentally sharp as ever, and as one of the most liberal of the liberals, I’m sure he wouldn’t want Bush to name his replacement. He’d die on the bench first. (Which I sure hope doesn’t happen.)

If Bush wins, I fervently hope that the Democrats retake the Senate in 2006, if they don’t do so this year.

Scalia on Freedom

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Constitutional Interpretation is not for Sissies.

Scalia further addressed the suggestion that a changing interpretation of the Constitution will lead to greater freedom.

“I don’t know who would think that was desirable. I have always thought we wanted a balance of freedom and order.”

There’s Scalia in a nutshell. Funny — I didn’t think freedom and order were mutually exclusive. Well, now I know that I disagree with Scalia down to the very core of his philosophy. Like most other conservatives, he needs to relax.

Oh, and here’s his memo released today on why he won’t recuse himself in the Cheney duck-hunt thing. I have to say, I don’t think the duck hunt made any difference; I don’t see how it could make him any more biased than he already is. Trying to get him to recuse himself because of the duck hunt is like arresting Al Capone for tax evasion.