Ryan jokes and laughs as 71-year-old is forced to the ground

I'm stealing Diane Sweet's headline (she posted this recently at Crooks & Liars) — because mine was far more editorial:

"VoucherCare Ryan" shows his Republican true colors:
Conscienceless & cruel (Granny, you're next)

Call this "burying the head" — I couldn't make myself put that up front.

But I swear to god, there's something really off about these people. Something do to with empathy I think. Dunno, maybe it's an anti-Christian thing.

Anyway, thanks to Diane for resurrecting this. Enjoy the full flavor of the man:



Diane's take:

This took place last fall at one of Congressman Rep. Ryan’s “Pay to Play” town hall meetings where he was discussing cutting Senior’s Social Security, and Medicare as a means of debt reduction. As you might imagine, one senior was not pleased.

Indeed.

But that's not the worst. Is Ryan Opus Dei, like Scalia and Thomas are rumored to be? If so, I could care less about your taxes, sir. Show me the marks from that torture-belt you guys wear.

That's right, Paul — I want to see what makes you think you're a Christian. Got scars? 'Cause otherwise I can't figure it out.

Your friend in you-know-who (seriously),

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
  Read the rest of this post...

Scalia open to regulating guns?

Odd thing for him to say. From National Journal:

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 magazines like those used in the recent Colorado movie theater massacre, Scalia declined to speculate. "We'll see," he said. '"It will have to be decided."

Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post editorial blasts Scalia's partisanship

GOP Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is the judicial equivalent of a House Republican.< Scalia is to the court what Fox News is to, well, news. He is a caricature of justice. He epitomizes elitism. He's what I'd call "intellectual trash" - you've heard of "new money," Scalia is "new intellect." Smart, but seemingly incapable of managing the burden that comes with both intellect and power. Here's a part of the Post's editorial:

This gratuitous outburst, regarding a matter that might someday come before the court as a legal case, followed Justice Scalia’s performance during oral arguments on health care, which included a wisecrack about striking down the “Cornhusker Kickback” — even though that infamous dollop of Medicaid money for Nebraska, allegedly inserted in return for the vote of that state’s senator, was no longer in the statute. He sneered that asking the justices to read the entire 2,700-page Affordable Care Act would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. He launched into a muddled riff on an old Jack Benny comedy routine that became so protracted and distracting that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., amused at first, eventually had to declare, “That’s enough frivolity for a while.”

The Supreme Court decision on health care reform should come out shortly after 10am Eastern. Stay tuned. Read the rest of this post...

The "leap second" lives!

I am disappointed to hear that the ITU has not killed one of the stupidest ideas in timekeeping at its meeting in London today. Instead the decision has been postponed to the 2015 meeting.

As you might have noticed, the earth is not a clock. While it takes the earth almost exactly 24 hours to revolve so that it is facing the sun in the same way the movement is not perfectly regular. Changes in the shape of the earth cause it to speed up or slow down. The tidal motion of the moon acts as a brake and slows it down very slightly. Lesson: do not attempt to use a very large, very heavy physical object as the basis for a precise system of measurement.

The discrepancy is less than a second per year but some people worry that over time these seconds might add up and cause some sort of catastrophe and so for the past fifty years the ITU has synchronized the UTC time count to the rotation of the earth by adding (and occasionally subtracting) leap seconds.

One consequence of this practice is that is not possible for computer systems to precisely calculate the number of seconds to any future date and time that is more than a year into the future. There might be 31,536,000 seconds between 00:00:00 on 21st January 2013 and 00:00:00 on 21st January 2014 or there might be 31536001. That type of unknown can cause major problems in planning systems.

Dealing with the leap second requires complex code and the ability to update the database of leap seconds. When two computer systems interact there is always a possibility of error being introduced because one is applying a correction and the other does not.

Astronomers have known about this problem for decades and that is why the astronomers I worked with at Oxford used International Atomic Time (TAI) rather than the error prone UTC. Using UTC in a scientific context is like using feet and inches to measure distances: Serious scientists just don't do it when it would make a difference.

If leap seconds are abolished it will take approximately 7200 years before the discrepancy between UTC and 'Universal Time' (time corrected to the rotation of the earth) reaches an hour. Why should this matter to anyone? According to current custom we move the clocks forwards and backwards by an hour twice a year. New York is not on the precise same longitude as Boston. In the early Victorian era, the two cities would have used different time as a matter of course. Today we ignore the difference because the social cost of maintaining separate local time would be huge, the value nil.

Attempting to determine longitude by using the equation of time has always required the use of correction factors. Depending on latitude the time of solar noon varies by several minutes over the course of a year in any case. The orbit of the earth is not circular and the rotation of the earth is tilted with respect to its orbit.

The leap second is an archaic notion that has absolutely no practical value and causes real practical difficulties. The ITU should have had the guts to kill it off, instead they procrastinated. Read the rest of this post...

Execution of Georgia prisoner Troy Davis would be "a grievous wrong"

The execution is scheduled for today (Wednesday) at 7:00 pm Georgia time, by lethal injection. Pending stay (see below), it will occur.

NY Times:

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for the 1989 killing of a police officer in Savannah, Ga. The Georgia pardon and parole board’s refusal to grant him clemency is appalling in light of developments after his conviction: reports about police misconduct, the recantation of testimony by a string of eyewitnesses and reports from other witnesses that another person had confessed to the crime.

This case has attracted worldwide attention, but it is, in essence, no different from other capital cases. Across the country, the legal process for the death penalty has shown itself to be discriminatory, unjust and incapable of being fixed. Just last week, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for Duane Buck, an African-American, hours before he was to die in Texas because a psychologist testified during his sentencing that Mr. Buck’s race increased the chances of future dangerousness. Case after case adds to the many reasons why the death penalty must be abolished.

The grievous errors in the Davis case were numerous, and many arose out of eyewitness identification. The Savannah police contaminated the memories of four witnesses by re-enacting the crime with them present so that their individual perceptions were turned into a group one. The police showed some of the witnesses Mr. Davis’s photograph even before the lineup. His lineup picture was set apart by a different background. The lineup was also administered by a police officer involved in the investigation, increasing the potential for influencing the witnesses. ... Studies of the hundreds of felony cases overturned because of DNA evidence have found that misidentifications accounted for between 75 percent and 85 percent of the wrongful convictions. The Davis case offers egregious examples of this kind of error.

Click the links to see the news articles. The family of the slain police officer consider themselves the real "victims", not Mr. Davis.

The Times obviously disagrees. Please read the entire article for all of the reasons why. They are legion.

About a stay, over at emptywheel.net, the practicing lawyer bmaz offers a ray of hope — Antonin Scalia and the Supreme Court. Scalia and the Court have put their fingerprints on two stays of execution recently, with another case upcoming that turns on much the same material as the Troy Davis case. The trick appears to be (as my non-lawyerly mind reads it) crafting the appeal:

The common wisdom, and repeated meme in the press, is that there is no remaining available judicial path for Troy Davis. But this may not necessarily be true. There are paths left to be pursued, even if narrow and dimly lit. And in an imminent execution situation, anything and everything must, and will, be pursued. The dedication, intensity, selflessness and never say die, literally, attitude of death penalty lawyers is legendary. If you have not seen them in action, you don’t know, but it is a thing of beauty.

Here is but one possible path, among many, which could possibly be attempted in one form or another by the Davis defense team. There has just, quite recently, been a fairly landmark study released on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Granted, the AJS study pertains to eyewitness testimony as related though police lineups, but it is further concrete evidence of a changing landscape in how the unreliability of eyewitness identification in general is treated, and the picture is quite disturbing as to lack of reliability and veracity.

Now the issue of eyewitness identification infirmity has been reviewed before in the case of Troy Davis, but not in the bright new light emerging recently. And there is one other important difference now. The Supreme Court has scheduled for oral argument on November 2, 2011 the seminal eyewitness ID case of Perry v. New Hampshire.

bmaz discusses the relevance of Perry to the Troy Davis case. His analysis is a good (and timely) read.

Mr. Davis has again refused his "last meal" on the grounds that it won't be his last. Here's hoping — both for his sake and the sake of the nation, as it climbs up from barbary and its Southern roots.



Those roots nourish strange fruit indeed.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Barney calls Scalia a "homophobe"

And he is. Read the rest of this post...

The age of the members of the US Supreme Court

John Paul Stevens, 88 (Ford)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75 (Clinton)
Antonin Scalia, 72 (Reagan)
Anthony Kennedy, 72 (Reagan)
Stephen Breyer, 70 (Clinton)
David Souter, 69 (GHW Bush)
Clarence Thomas, 60 (GHW Bush)
Samuel Alito, 58 (GW Bush)
John Roberts, 53 (GW Bush)

Only 2 of the 9 were chosen by a Democrat. Read the rest of this post...

Supreme Court says Gitmo detainees have right to challenge their detention in US courts

UPDATE: More from AP

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.... The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.

Huge decision from the US Supreme Court. And just as huge, the decision was 5-4. If John McCain becomes president, the court will shift to the right and this will be another decision, like Roe v. Wade, that will be overturned.

In a nutshell, the court concluded, from what I can find, that we don't suspend the Constitution simply because bad men are trying to hurt us. And the fact that the bad men have dark skin and are Aye-rabs doesn't matter either.

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

As always, Scalia speaks for the scaredy-cat wing of the Republican party:

Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

I'm afraid of the dark man isn't a legal argument, Antonin. Nor is "it will save lives." Having cops on the street summarily execute anyone suspected of any crime in America might save lives, it probably would in fact. That doesn't justify suspending the Constitution and doing it. Scalia, like many conservatives, thinks that the Constitution was only written for the good times. In other words, it's only for when you don't need it. Read the rest of this post...

Justice Ginsburg speaks out

George Bush politicized the federal courts -- including the U.S. Supreme Court. He wants justices who will turn back women's rights. And, that's happening. It's actually just beginning. As the NY Times reported earlier this week, there is, however, one Justice who is calling her colleagues on their politics:

Both in the abortion case the court decided last month and the discrimination ruling it issued on Tuesday, Justice Ginsburg read forceful dissents from the bench. In each case, she spoke not only for herself but also for three other dissenting colleagues, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

But the words were clearly her own, and they were both passionate and pointed. In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now “differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation.” In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the majority’s “parsimonious reading” of the federal law against discrimination in the workplace.

To read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that the majority is not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong. It happens just a handful of times a year. Justice Antonin Scalia has used the technique to powerful effect, as has Justice Stevens, in a decidedly more low-key manner.

The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”

Ginsburg is right, of course. For all Bush appointees, even judges, it's all about politics. On the Today Show this morning, Joan Biskupic, who is the Supreme Court reporter for USA Today, basically said that Ginsburg wants Americans to know the Court is moving backwards. That's a scary reality.

The right wing theocrats now have a majority on the Supreme Court. Your rights really are at stake. Read the rest of this post...

"New Conservative majority" on Supreme Court rules for Phillip Morris

A sign of things to come from the Supreme Court. CNN just reported that the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled in favor of Phillip Morris and threw out a $79.5 million judgment for punitive damages as "excessive."

Just this morning, the LA Times reported that the Court is heading towards a Scalia-led majority:

It has been two decades in the making, but this is the year Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's most outspoken dissenter, could emerge as a leader of a new conservative majority.

Between now and late June, the court is set to hand down decisions in four areas of law — race, religion, abortion regulation and campaign finance — where Scalia's views may now represent the majority.

Supreme Court justices are the ultimate political appointments. They're life-long appointments. And, their legacy lives on long after the President who appointed them. We'll be facing some ugly decisions from the Scalia court.

(Hat Tip to Think Progress for the link). Read the rest of this post...

Scalia denies DeLay

You can call him "GOP candidate for Congress Tom DeLay."

Via Hotline On Call:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia quickly denied a request by lawyers for the Texas Republican Party to stay an appelate court's decision keeping Ex-Rep. Tom DeLay on the November ballot in the 22nd district.

The poster boy for Republican corruption stays on the ballot. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: 5-3 decision, Supreme Court smacks down Bush over Gitmo detainees

UPDATE: Here's the entire decision.

UPDATE: Did the Supreme Court just gut Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program?

UPDATE: ScotusBlog says this decision is huge, and about far more than the media realizes.

More importantly, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons "shall in all circumstances be treated humanely," and that "[t]o this end," certain specified acts "are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever"—including "cruel treatment and torture," and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. See my further discussion here.

This almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

UPDATE: Washington Post:

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

Just coming in now.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

Not so quaint after all, those Geneve Conventions.

This is apparently the Ahmed Hamdan case, the "driver" of Osama bin Laden. The court said Bush overstepped his authority in setting up military war crime tribunals to deal with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The government has to come up with new procedures to either repatriate the detainees at Gitmo, let them go, or try them. The Geneva Convention must be applied, and the US has not properly established the military commissions to try the detainees

More in a bit. But note one thing. The Supreme Court is now 7-2 Republican to Democrat. The court is even further to the right than it was when Bush took office since he replaced Sandra Day O'Connor with Alito, who is far to the right of her.

That means that even with the most conservative Supreme Court in decades, Bush still got slapped down for his handling of civil liberties under the war on terror. Enough of this "activist judges" bs. Even the Republican-run court slaps down Bush (and apparently the legislative branch gets slapped too).

And what a surprise:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

The court's willingness, Thomas said, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

Three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse would have given Bush a blank check, big surprise. And had Roberts been involved, he recused himself, it's not hard to imagine that he'd have supported Bush's power grab as well. One more vote folks, and there is no stopping this administration. The next Supreme Cour vacancy, if it's one of the reasonable judges, and there will be no more checks on this administration. Read the rest of this post...

Wash. Post looks at Scalia's erratic behavior

Scalia's increasingly bizarre behavior is capturing the attention of the media. He's redefining judicial temperament:

To some, Scalia's conduct shows a lack of judicial temperament -- and hurts the court. "It's sad as much as anything else," said Dennis J. Hutchinson, a former law clerk to two justices who teaches Supreme Court history at the University of Chicago. "It suggests to me a frustration with his colleagues and the left-wing kulturkampf in the academy, and it just does not add to the dignity of the office."

Maybe Scalia just has no dignity. Or maybe there's something else going on. Either way, he's just acting weird.

UPDATE: John and I were just talking about Scalia's recent behavior. It strikes me as intemperate and erratic, like something's off. John thinks Scalia may just be giving up now that he's knows he won't be Chief Justice. John wonders if he'll even stay on the Court. Poor Nino, it must be tough to know he's never going to be the Chief. But Scalia's pal Bush, who he helped make President, gave that job to a much younger conservative. Again, either way, he's acting weird for a Supreme Court Justice. Read the rest of this post...

Scalia's Proud

Proud, yet also increasingly bizarre:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday called his 2004 decision not to recuse himself from a case involving Vice President Cheney, who is a friend of his, the "proudest thing" he has done on the court.

The conservative justice's remarks came as he took questions from law students during a lecture at the University of Connecticut.

Scalia's not exactly the model of judicial temperament these days. Read the rest of this post...

Boston Archdiocese fires photographer who caught Scalia's obscene gesture

The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church -- especially the Archdiocese of Boston -- knows no bounds. When they're not defending child abusers, they're bashing gays. Now, they're defending and protecting Antonin Scalia. By now, everyone know Scalia made an obscene gesture and swore right in one of their churches. But, they are firing the photographer who busted Scalia:

A freelance photographer has been fired by the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper for releasing a picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia making a controversial gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday.

Peter Smith, who had freelanced for The Pilot newspaper for a decade, lost the job yesterday after the Herald ran his photo on its front page. Smith said he has no regrets about releasing it.

“I did the right thing. I did the ethical thing,” said Smith, 51, an assistant photojournalism professor at Boston University.

Smith did the ethical thing. When was the last time anyone could say that about the Catholic church?:

While news outlets from across the country sought Smith’s photo yesterday, the archdiocese said there’s no proof that Scalia uttered an obsenity in the church. Smith said Scalia said, “To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” while making the gesture. That’s Italian for (expletive) you.

The Boston Archdiocese apparently has a VERY high standard for proof. That's why the ignored the child abuse scandal for decades.

Just imagine how riled up the new cardinal would be if a liberal pulled a stunt like that in one of the Catholic churches in Boston. That would cause outrage all the way to the prada-wearing pope. Read the rest of this post...

Photographer: Scalia lied in saying he didn't make an obscene gesture at church; Scalia also told reporter to "go get fucked up the ass" in Italian

The photographer has come forward, angered that Scalia lied. The photo is published in today's Boston Herald.

Per the Herald:

Amid a growing national controversy about the gesture U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture.

“It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot.

Despite Scalia’s insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper “got the story right.”

And just as importantly, Scalia also told the reporter to go get fucked up the ass, in Italian:

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

Vaffanculo means "go get fucked up your ass."

So, rather than simply moving his hand under his chin to indicate "indifference," which is what Scalia claimed he was doing in an open letter to the Herald, in fact Scalia flipped off the media and used a phrase in Italian that is incredibly vulgar, and that only reinforces the gesture not being a sign of indifference, but the gesture itself meaning "fuck you" in Italian.

He did this minutes after taking the Eucharist (communion), in church, during Lent, and two weeks before Easter. In addition, he's now lying again during Lent and right before Easter.

Some man of conservative family values. He's not even a good Christian, let alone a good Christian conservative. Which begs the question of what the religious has to say about their darling being an obscene liar who shows disrespect in church?:

"We were hoping the President might elevate someone like Scalia," said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council.

Still hoping a foul-mouthed man who disrespects church during Lent becomes the standard-bearer for Supreme Court justices? Read the rest of this post...

Scalia denies making "obscene" gesture. Great, then release the photo

No problem. Release the photo that was taken of you at the exact moment and prove it. And then explain why you ordered the photographer not to publish the photo.

Release the photo.

Release the photo.

Release the photo. Read the rest of this post...

Scalia asked to recuse himself from case where he already stated his opinion

Scalia's been getting a lot of press for himself lately. When he goes public with his personal opinions on a case that's coming before the Court, he shouldn't sit in judgment:

On the eve of oral argument in a key Supreme Court case on the rights of alleged terrorists, a group of retired U.S. generals and admirals has asked Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself, arguing that his recent public comments on the subject make it impossible for him to appear impartial.

Scalia's behavior has been erratic lately. For a justice to speak publicly about a pending case is highly unusual. For a Catholic to make an obscene gesture in church -- right after communion -- during lent -- is almost unheard of. Read the rest of this post...

Scalia just gave the finger in church yesterday (not kidding)

UPDATE: The Boston Herald is reporting Scalia's movement as "an obscene gesture" and a "flick of the wrist." That still is unclear, it could have been the wrist-under-chin gesture mixed with the middle finger. Either way, it's not really relevant. Scalia gave the "fuck you" to reporters in church right after taking communion. End of discussion.

You gotta be kidding me. This is the family values justice that Bush embraces? I'm not a Christian conservative by any means, I'm a regular old Christian, and the thought of flipping somebody off in church, minutes after receiving the Eucharist, is just, well, beyond shocking, insulting, infuriating. You don't do that kind of thing.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.

A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.

"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian."

The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper.

"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

Scalia owes every Christian an apology. If a "gay activist" had done this, it would be the headlines around the world and the gay community would be apologizing for it for the next 20 years.

Scalia owes every Christian an apology. And frankly, in view of his recent public rants about Guantanamo Bay, I'm starting to wonder if Scalia isn't becoming a bit unhinged.

President Bush, is this still your favorite justice?

Religious right, is he still yours?

Or don't you people care about the sanctity of church? Read the rest of this post...

Scalia publicly prejudges Guantanamo detainee case, calls for him to recuse himself grow

What Scalia ought to do is step down altogether. He knows a judge has no business publicly stating which way he will decide on a case. The idea is that he's supposed to listen to the arguments and THEN decide, though I know in Republican-land that's considered a bit of an old chestnut, deciding on the facts FIRST then acting.

From ThinkProgress:

This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the special military commissions created by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees violate national and international law, as human rights groups charge.

But Justice Antonin Scalia doesn’t have to wait for arguments — his mind is already made up. Newsweek reports that in a controversial unpublicized March 8 speech, Scalia “dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions.”

“War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts,” he says on a tape of the talk reviewed by NEWSWEEK.

“Give me a break" - challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don’t have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: “If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I’m not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it’s crazy.” Scalia was apparently referring to his son Matthew, who served with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

Read the rest of this post...