The LuLac Edition #3145, February 15th, 2016

ANTONIN SCALIA

AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL

The late Antonin Scalia (Photo: CNN)

The death of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was both saddening and shocking. Scalia was a mainstay of the Supreme Court. He was very controversial in his comments but that was offset by the brilliance and logic of his opinions. While he was against every decision I agreed with, most notably The Affordable Care Act, I respected Scalia’s ability to make his case. After his death, the eloquence and artistry of his arguments are juxtaposed against the ignorant comments of political experts (aka talk radio callers) who have used his death to promote the stupidity of their views gleaned from talk radio. (I’ll get to that later).
Scalia was always one to rattle the cages and he took great delight in being a contrarian. My good friend former Scranton Mayor James McNulty always says that “Timing counts only in love and politics”. Scalia’s demise was timed exquisitely for this rough and tumble election year. If there are pearly gates you can bet that Scalia is taking great delight in the timing of his departure from this life. One can imagine him expounding on the ramifications his death inflicted on those contemporaries he regarded as intellectual inferiors when he was alive.
The best thing anyone can be said about their life’s work is whether it was consequential or not. Scalia’s service to the Court was that and then some. He will be regarded as one of the most influential Justices in the history of the Court. Not bad for a kid who came from the streets of Trenton, New Jersey.

A LITTLE RESPECT PLEASE

I was shocked and dismayed at the swift reaction to the death of this good man. I mean the body wasn’t even cold when Mitch McConnell said that there was no way the President should nominate a successor. (To Old Forge’s Frank Scavo, it was McConnell not President Obama who brought this up first. But I’m sure Frank and his Conservative crazies will next blame the President for killing the Justice.)
The national media was no better allowing the GOP candidates to pounce. Then there was the misinformation about the lame duck so called rule that said a President leaving office could or should not appoint a Justice. Some fool to Corbett’s show talked about “The Lyndon Johnson Rule”. There is no LBJ rule NOR is there anything in the Constitution that says anything like that.
Let’s look at the Johnson thing. Arthur Goldberg was a Supreme Court Justice. Johnson pressured him to take the position of UN Ambassador opening up a lane for his friend Abe Fortas to be confirmed as an Associate Justice. That was July 26th, 1965. Not 1968. My late Professor from King’s Dr. Donald Buzinkai said he could never forgive LBJ for talking Goldberg off the court).
Johnson in 1967 appointed Thurgood Marshall the first black person to be on The Supreme Court after Tom Clark retired. When Earl Warren announced his retirement, Johnson elevated Fortas to be the Chief Justice and Homer Thornberry to take his place. Johnson fought hard for the nominations but the liberalism of the Warren Court and a coalition of Southern Democrats who were pissed at LBJ for the Civil Rights legislation and Conservative Republicans stalled it. The Vietnam War, Civil rights, and Johnson’s cronyism with Fortas pretty much did the nominations in. THERE WAS NO LBJ rule or precedent.
Anthony Kennedy was picked by President Reagan after Robert Bork was repudiated by the Democratic Senate in 1986. Bork was the Nixon Solicitor General who became Attorney General after Richard Nixon in 1974 fired two AG’s on the same night. Bork was no angel and the nomination of Bork by Reagan was just as fool hardy as Johnson’s of Fortas. Reagan needed a compromise choice and it was Kennedy. Ironically Reagan’s other picks, Sandra Day O’Connor and Kennedy were centrists unlike Scalia.
So before you swallow what the “know everything” loudmouths of talk radio start telling you, check the facts. Or talk to someone like me who was there when it happened!

OBAMA’S CHOICE

Sri Srinivasan. (Photo: American Choice.com)

If I had the ear of the President and I do not, I’d advise him to not pick Loretta Lynch but instead pick Sri Srinivasan, age forty-seven of D.C. Circuit. The child of immigrants from India, Srinivasan grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, the hometown of Bob Dole and Arlen Specter. He served under Sandra Day O’Connor and is not a fire breathing liberal. The President has done his part to increase the Court for women, now it’s time to expand that to recent immigrants. Plus this is the best political choice. How can the GOP already in the doghouse on immigration say they won’t even bring this man’s nomination to the floor?
This silliness that a political party that won the Presidency should wait is just plain stupid. The next President, D o R will have plenty of opportunities to replace 81 year old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 77 year old Anthony Kennedy and 75 year old Stephen Breyer.
President Obama was elected twice, let the man do his job.