Anton Scalia is dead. This Blawg is revived.

Hi Returning to this blog after a long hiatus. Originally I was dealing with a death in the family, and thereafter with such dismay of the contempt of the concepts of law and democratic government shown by the U.S. Supreme court that adding my own voice seemed almost absurd. But back again and we'll see where it goes. Per a letter I had published in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, responding to an editorial eulogy on the demise of Justice Anton Scalia, one of the five member junta:

 "Justice Scalia did not promote the concept of the Constitution’s “original intent.” On gun control, Scalia stripped from the Second Amendment the preface to right to bear arms that says “a well-regulated militia” is to the security of the free state. Scalia instead decided the Constitution gave unregulated individuals a right to keep guns for home use. On voting rights, he violated the express language of the 15th Amendment that gives Congress the power to protect voting rights. He did so by simply claiming that Congress had relied on obsolete facts in maintaining scrutiny over certain states and localities. Along with opening the door to voter suppression, he thus seized for the court an unconstitutional power to overturn any law the Court majority decides is “obsolete”. As for corporations, which weren’t even in existence at the writing of the Constitution, he gave them “free speech” consisting of the right to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections. Not content, he and his conservative colleagues decided a corporation has a constitutional right to profess a religion on the basis of which it could discriminate. The writers of the Constitution and its amendments would probably have been appalled."

The gun control cases were District of Columbia v Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010)

The anti voting rights case (and seizure of power by the court to void laws for being what they decide is obsolete) is Shelby County v. Holder (2013)


 The (worst of) the Corporate wealth can be used in unlimited amounts to influence elections as free speech is of course Citizens United v. FEC  (2010)

The case in which the court said a corporation could have, and discriminate on the basis of religion is Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014)