Moonhowlings

Oh Megyn, give me a break.  Rachel Maddow called it as she saw it, trying to explain why Justice Scalia would make such an offensive remark. It was Maddow’s right to call him a troll, as it was his right to have made offensive remarks.

Megan can be all offended if she wants. Her last line did bother me though. She said that the justices vote their consciences? Shouldn’t they be voting according to their understanding of the law? I know they are only human but surely interpreting according to the constitution has to be the goal.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court revisited the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Speaking of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, during the proceedings  Antonin Scalia stated:

“I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”

The courtroom spectators  audibly gasped after he spoke.  His words set off a firestorm among political activists, especially those older ones, like Rep. John Lewis who had been involved in the original fight for voting equality in the 1960′s.

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Justice Scalia is probably right. He also hasn’t been to the SOTU Address for the past 16 years, regardless of who is president. Scalia says he doesn’t want to give dignity to the event. Salia further adds that the justices can’t clap for much of anything other than when the president says, America is a great country. The rest of the time, they keep their eyes on the Chief Justice to see when clapping is appropriate.

Justice Scalia also told tales out of school.  He revealed that on a hunting trip, Justice Elena Kagan is turning into quite the hunter.  She dropped a white tail doe with one shot while some of them were on a hunting trip in Wyoming.  .  She had no hunting experience before joining the court.  Scalia quipped that even though they had a license for shooting mule deer and antelope, they never saw any.  He said Kagan could have shot the white tail in his driveway without having to go to Wyoming.  (yea, Tony, but was it doe season?)

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear cases challenging DOMA and Prop 8  which deny same sex marriage.

Washingtonpost.com:

This was an easy one.   How do you feel about the ruling?  No spouting law.(unless you have passed the bar in some state.)  Yawn.  How do you feel?

The Washington Post’s opinion (in full):

By Editorial Board, Published: June 27The Washington Post

Many people have noticed that the Supreme Court, comprised of 9 members, is far too powerful and far too political.  Go back to 2000.  Basically, the Supreme Court decided who was to be  the president of the United States.  9 people chose the President of the United States of America. Today, we are on the brink of perhaps losing health care.  Should 9 people get to make that choice?    Many people are still seething over Eminent Domain and Citizens United.  They feel the High Court has been too far reaching.  There are 100 other examples.

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Obviously the Virginia legislature is not always correct. HBO will air The Loving Story on February 14, Valentine Day. The Lovings were an interracial couple  from Caroline County, Virginia. They grew up, fell in love, and married in Washington, DC. They failed to realize that just living together as man and wife was also illegal.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Paul Clement was attorney general for exactly one day in the Bush Administration. However, that is not his claim to fame.  He has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other lawyer in the past decade. 

The day that it was decided the Supreme Court would hear the health care reform case, guess who was being treated to dinner by Paul Clement’s law firm, the one that would be arguing the case?  Justice Anthony Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.  Do they not feel attending this dinner gives a vision of impropriety?

Obviously not.

While most people focused on the Supreme Court video game ruling, an equally important case went pretty much unnoticed.  This case affects millions of families, in particular, children.  Turner vs. Rogers dealt with deadbeat dads and is more commonly known as the ‘deadbeat dad case.’

According to the Washington Post :

The justices ruled in a 5 to 4 decision (PDF) to uphold the appeal of Michael Turner, a father who had been jailed for a year because he did not — he said could not — pay the nearly $6,000 in child support payments he owed. The court decided that Turner’s incarceration violated the due process clause because he had not been told that his ability to pay was crucial to the case and the court never determined whether Turner could, in fact, make his child support obligations.

The Turner case addressed one of the biggest problems in the national child support enforcement program. Though most sentient adults agree parents need to meet their child support obligations, enforcement rules often don’t recognize the reality of financial situations.

A noncustodial parent might have lost a job, as millions did in the recession, but it’s doubtful his or her payment schedule changed at all. It can be a slippery slope from provider to deadbeat.

Upon first glance (see PDF link) the original defendant, one Mr. Turner of South Carolina, is not a very sympathetic figure.  I felt he deserved to be jailed.  However, he was not represented by an attorney and he got caught up in a real legal catch-22.  He had to be out of jail in order to make money to pay his child support.  This guy was ordered to pay $52.73 per week. That might not seem like much to some people.  To others, it is a fortune.  Throwing a person in jail who has this few assets seems to be self defeating. 

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The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down on First Amendment grounds a California law that banned the sale of violent video games to children. The 7-to-2 decision was the latest in a series of rulings protecting free speech, joining ones on funeral protests, videos showing cruelty to animals and political speech by corporations.

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Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of female employees in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation’s biggest companies.

The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could not proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. By a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.

The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.

So did all of them agree or was there a 5-4 vote?  It can’t be both.  Basically the Supreme Court tacitly approved gender discrimination with a ‘too big to sue’ statement.  It might hurt business.  It might hurt Walmart. 

Does that mean its ok to pay women differently?  Should they not be promoted the same way men who work for Walmart are promoted?  Should they not be paid the same salary for the same work or get raises on the same scale men do?  What is Walmart afraid of?

Walmart and other businesses need to be sent a strong message that discrimination is unacceptable.  I am not sure how to do it.  Some of us won’t go into a Walmart.  I also won’t go inside a local Home Depot because the male workers ignore women customers.  That’s the only way I know to send a message that business practices are unacceptable.  It is probably wise to sent an email to corporate to tell home office why you don’t shop at the local retail stores also. 

The original complainants can still pursue their claim but they cannot move forward in a massive class action lawsuit. 

In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of Westboro Baptist Church to demonstrate at the funerals of fallen heroes. According to CNN:

A Kansas church that attracted nationwide attention for its angry, anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. military members has won its appeal at the Supreme Court, an issue testing the competing constitutional limits of free speech and privacy.

The justices by a 8-1 vote on Wednesday said members of the Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars.

The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and– as it did here– inflict great pain,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

Roberts explanation was that the real criticism was of the government and military and not the individual. Tell that to the families who are grieving. The Roberts Court has been very disappointing.

Will Bill O’Reilly pay the father’s judgement?  He did say he would.

The Washington Post  is running some pretty scary stuff this morning about out Supreme Court justices.  Rather than the cloistered, nearly unrecognizable justices like retired John Paul Stevens, these younger ones are acquiring an almost cult like following.  For example:

At the invitation of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Scalia will be addressing new conservative members of the House of Representatives. To them, Scalia is a nothing short of a rock star. He personifies not only conservative values but a new model for the Supreme Court: the celebrity justice.

Where Scalia has ventured with crowd-pleasing rhetoric, other justices are following. They rally their bases on the right or the left with speeches, candid interviews, commencement addresses and book tours. They appear to be abandoning the principle of strict neutrality in public life, long a touchstone of service on the highest court.

Whatever happened to court neutrality?  It sounds like cases are predetermined, before they are even heard.  Why would Justice Scalia appear before conservative members of the House of Representatives only?  When will they start accepting honoraria? 

The Bachmann event takes this posturing to a new level. Scalia will be directly advising new lawmakers who came to Congress on a mission to remake government in a more conservative image. Many of them made pledges to repeal health-care reform, restrict immigration and investigate the president – pledges based on constitutional interpretations that might end up before the court.

At best, Scalia’s appearance can be viewed as a pep talk. At worst, it smacks of a political alliance.

At best, this behavior is conflict of interest.  The three branches of government need to remain independent.  It certainly doesn’t seem very conservative to allow this kind of cross pollination.  Perhaps ‘conservative’ is just a label of convenience. 

…Scalia is the first real celebrity justice. When he appears at conservative events, supporters line up to greet a man who seems more oracle than orator. They are drawn not just to his originalist views but to the sense that he is a purist on a court of relativists. And his fans are often rewarded with a zinger from the justice that would set the hair of every liberal on fire.

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About 10 days ago, Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas called Anita Hill and left a rather bizarre message on her answering machine.  She called at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning so it sounds like she wanted to leave a message and deliberately called when she didn’t think she would get Ms. Hill live.

Those of us who remember  Anita Hill’s  role in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings knew at the time that there was something going on that wasn’t quite what it should be.  Word around Washington travels fast and without mercy and the word on the street wasn’t good for old Clarence.  Washington, however, isn’t known for its right or wrong as much as it is for its can you prove it or not.  Thomas was confirmed by a 52 to 48 vote and the rest was history, or so we thought. 

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