HARRY REID: GOP Not Budging On SCOTUS Nomination, “Will Wait And See What President Trump Will Do”

(Hat tip: KimR) - Senate leaders met with Barack Obama on Tuesday to discuss the vacancy on the Supreme Court after Justice Scalia’s death. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley stuck to their position that the next president should fill the vacancy. Read more at Gateway Pundit Read More......

Krauthammer: GOP has right to fight over Supreme Court nominee

Let's understand something about the fight to fill the Supreme Court seat of Antonin "Nino" Scalia. This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony — brazenly, embarrassingly so. --In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer publicly opposed filling any Supreme Court vacancy until Bush left office. ("Except in extraordinary circumstances." None such arose. Surprise!) Today, he piously denounces Republicans for doing exactly the same for a vacancy created in Year Eight of Barack Obama. Read more at Review Journal Read More......

Scalia’s Death May Turn 6 SCOTUS Cases From Conservative Wins To Ties

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may have set off a political battle over who and when to replace him, but, while that is happening, the business of the Supreme Court goes on. There are six key cases on this year’s SCOTUS docket that probable 5-4 conservative wins may now be 4-4 ties. The cases involve important issues; one man one vote, abortion, religious freedom, Constitutionally defined separation of powers, affirmative action, and right to work. Read more at Lid Blog.com Read More......

Texas Governor Defends Religious Liberties…And It’s HARDCORE!

Today marks what could be considered one of the most controversial days in the history of the United States of America. If you haven’t heard, the Supreme Court has decided that same-sex marriage is now a Constitutional right and that traditional marriage between one man and one woman is no longer the definition of marriage. --There is one state (and if you have read my articles before, you know which one I’m talking about) that is already leading the way, in essence combating SCOTUS and their disastrous decision. Of course, I’m talking about the Lone Star State.

Read more at YoungCons.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Fox Nation: Scalia Blasts ‘High-Handed’ Justices in Scathing Dissent of DOMA Ruling

Dissenting from [Wednesday's] opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Antonin Scalia – as expected – holds nothing back. ✧ In a ripping dissent, Scalia says that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his colleagues in the majority have resorted to calling opponents of gay marriage "enemies of the human race." See Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA.

But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority's judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement. To question its high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to "disparage," "injure," "degrade," "demean," and "humiliate" our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual. All that, simply for supporting an Act that did no more than codify an aspect of marriage that had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence— indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history. It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.

Scalia says that the court's holding – while limited to the Defense of Marriage Act – is a sure sign that the majority is willing to declare gay marriage a constitutional right.

It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it. I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with.

And, he says, the holding will short circuit the debate over gay marriage that should have been carried out in the states.

In the majority's telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one's political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today's Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.

But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today's decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent.

Source: Fox Nation Read More......

Will there be a Supreme Court vs. Obama smackdown?

EXAMINER.COM, 7/9/2010 by Anthony G. Martin (Hat tip: Stella Gunether via email) - According to sources who watch the inner workings of the federal government, a smackdown of Barack Obama by the U.S. Supreme Court may be inevitable.

Ever since Obama assumed the office of President, critics have hammered him on a number of Constitutional issues. Critics have complained that much if not all of Obama's major initiatives run headlong into Constitutional roadblocks on the power of the federal government.

Obama certainly did not help himself in the eyes of the Court when he used the venue of the State of the Union address early in the year to publicly flog the Court over its ruling that the First Amendment grants the right to various organizations to run political ads during the time of an election. Read more at the Examiner...

(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic). Chief Justice John Roberts, U.S. Supreme Court. Read More......

Take action to protect 2nd Amendment Rights

Action Item: NRA-ILA GRASSROOTS ALERT - Ask Your U.S. Senators and Representatives to Sign Amicus Brief Supporting Second Amendment Rights in the States!

As a critical Second Amendment case goes before the United States Supreme Court, U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Jon Tester (D-MT), and Congressmen Mike Ross (D-AR) and Mark Souder (R-IN) are gathering signatures for an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief by Members of Congress. And we need your support for this important effort next week.

The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago, and it will answer the question of whether the Second Amendment applies to the states-as the Congress clearly intended in the 1860s, when it adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to protect constitutional rights against abuse by state and local governments. This brief is an opportunity for today's Congress to show just as clearly that it respects the Second Amendment's importance to all Americans-not just residents of the District of Columbia and other federal territories. (Call MON-THU)

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) - DC (202) 224-3753, Salem (503) 362-8102
Sen. Ron Wyden (D) - DC (202) 224-5244, Salem (503) 589-4555
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D), Oregon, 4th - DC (202) 225-6416, Eugene (541) 465-6732
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D), Oregon, 5th - DC (202) 225-5711, Salem (503) 588-9100

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Republican defender of the slave Dred Scott

"On this day in 1856, Montgomery Blair, one of the founders of the Republican Party, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in defense of the slave Dred Scott, who was suing for his freedom. Blair later served in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, all 7 Democrat Justices on the Supreme Court would vote against Mr. Scott, decreeing that "a black man has no rights a white man is bound to respect." Both Republicans voted for him, in the infamous 7-2 Dred Scott decision." --Michael Zak, Grand Old Partisan Blog Read More......

VERY LATE NEWS: SCOTUS Decisions

Pacific Legal Foundation: Press Release

SACRAMENTO, CA; June 28, 2007: Today Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) hailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions, announced this morning, to strike down public schools’ use of race in student assignments.

The Supreme Court decided that policies in Seattle and in Jefferson County, Kentucky, that use race in determining what public school a child may attend are patently unconstitutional.

PLF is amicus and part of petitioners’ legal teams for both student-assignment cases – Seattle and Kentucky – decided by the United States Supreme Court today. PLF Principal Attorney Sharon Browne assisted the attorney for the mother in the Kentucky case at oral argument, sitting second chair, and PLF attorneys participated in every phase of the Seattle case including the oral argument when the Seattle case was before the Washington Supreme Court.

“These are the most important decisions on the use of race since Brown v. Board of Education,” said Sharon Browne, PLF Principal Attorney. “Schools across our country must get the message loud and clear – our young people should not be assigned to a school based on the color of their skin.”

“With these decisions, an estimated 1,000 school districts around the country that are sending the wrong message about race to kids will have to stop,” Browne said. “The High Court has decided correctly that children must not be stereotyped by the color of their skin, but rather treated as individuals. They deserve equal opportunities to prepare them for life’s challenges.”

Ms. Browne and PLF have led the effort to enforce California’s antidiscrimination Proposition 209 for more than a decade. Proposition 209 prohibits government agencies – including public schools – from using race in making decisions. PLF also litigates nationally in opposition to race- and sex-based quotas in public education and government programs.

PLF has successfully litigated to end racial quotas in one Southern California school district, and is currently suing the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district, and the Berkeley, California, school district.

The cases that the Supreme Court decided today are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 05-915.

About Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacific Legal Foundation is the oldest and largest public interest legal organization dedicated to property rights, limited government, and a balanced approach to environmental protection.

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