Breaking News: Chief Justice Feeling Better; Scalia to Find Better Voodoo Doll

N.B. I only poke fun because it appears the chief justice is not suffering from a serious illness.

PORT CLYDE, Maine, July 31 -- Chief Justice David Hasselhoff was released from the hospital today after suffering from a seizure and a fall Monday.

The chief justice was reportedly awake and alert on his ambulance ride to the hospital. Medics on the scene asked Hasselhoff several standard question to ascertain his mental capacity, including: what year it is, who the president is, and was Roe v. Wade correctly decided. The chief justice answered all the questions correctly without any hesitation.

The 52-year-old chief justice spoke with President Bush this morning and reassured him that the illness was not serious. "Two years ago, I promised the president that I would issue conservative opinions from the bench for at least 30 years," said Hasselhoff.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the president was very relieved because a serious illness might leave a vacancy on the Court in the first year of a Hillary Clinton Administration. Snow said, "The president then contacted the vice president and told him to 'put the shotgun away.'"

A Supreme Court spokesman described the episode as a "benign idiopathic seizure," a medical term for an episode whose cause is unknown. The term "idiopathic" comes from the Greek words "pathic" (suffering), and "idio" (a huge moron). The spokesman continued by saying that the designation of the seizure as "benign" will be debated at oral argument in October because such a classification must meet strict scrutiny review.

Reached for comment, Justice Scalia said: "Damn, we almost got rid of that wuss. Even if he is still healthy, this is a sign from God that this Court must waste no time in stopping the homosexual agenda." He then laughed menacingly, and twiddled his fingers.

Retarded state legislation: Illinois edition

It has been a while since we last checked into the "laboratories of democracy" (as Justice Brandeis called state legislatures). I have a few gems to share with you, but this one shine brightly as the most retarded - LITERALLY. I will share it with you in its glorious entirety:

SR0228

WHEREAS, The use of "retard" (as a noun) or "retarded" as slang to label a person or situation that the speaker considers stupid, unreasonable, foolish, or absurd has become common in our society; and

WHEREAS, The use of "retard" or "retarded" in such a casual or colloquial way reflects an insensitivity to persons with disabilities; and

WHEREAS, Such use of "retard" or "retarded", even when done with a laugh or as a joke, can be hurtful, both to persons with disabilities and to their families and friends; and

WHEREAS, All persons in this State enjoy freedom of speech, but, at the same time, they should consider the effect of the words they use; and

WHEREAS, Soeren Palumbo, a student at Fremd High School in Palatine, briefly addressed the Illinois Senate on the subject of the casual use of the words "retard" and "retarded"; the address was an abridged version of a longer speech given to his classmates that was a wake-up call for those who all-too-casually use those words in an insensitive way and that also served as a tribute to his younger sister, who is developmentally disabled; and

WHEREAS, Many other persons have also spoken out against this insensitive use of "retard" and "retarded"; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge Illinoisans not to casually use the words "retard" or "retarded" in an insensitive way that may be hurtful to others.

I apologize for any epileptic seizures that may have resulted from reading that piece of crap (legislation). The Illinois General Assembly: tough on crime, tougher on vernacular.

I don't know what the hell is going on in Springfield, but any legislature that has enough free time to legislate against colloquialisms needs to take a recess. Get back in your communities and figure out what the REAL problems are.

As the Bible according to Lew tells us, after reading this legislation: "The left side of my brain turned to the right side of my brain and said, 'It's dark in here. And we may die.'"

Justice Louis "Sticks and Stones" Brandeis

I was watching an old Boston Legal episode (thanks, Foxhole) and came across the quote of the week. Alan Shore represents a candidate for mayor who has been slandered in a campaign commerical by the incumbent. The challenger's campaign wants the District Court to take the ad off the air.

In the courtroom, the mayor's lawyer argues that if the challenger feels that he has misrepresented in the commerical he should counter with his own commercial.

Lawyer: "As Justice Brandeis said, 'The best antidote to false speech is more speech.'"

Alan Shore: "It's no suprise that Brandeis would say that. He was a well known drunk and pedophile."

Now you can understand why Boston Legal is one of my guilty pleasures!

Would you like some cheese to go with your whine, Justice Scalia?

The 2006 term of the Supreme Court yielded a plethora of information about the dynamics of the Roberts Court. As the Wheel of Kennedy (from a previous post) indicates, the Court has taken a sharp right turn.

But is that turn sharp enough? Not in the eyes of Justice Scalia. The architect of The Most Activist Court in History is very unhappy with the slow pace of activism under the new chief justice. In a remarkable piece written by the Honorable Linda Greenhouse, Justice Scalia criticizes Roberts for not going far enough in several of his decisions.

It's not every day that one Supreme Court justice, even one as rhetorically unrestrained as Justice Antonin Scalia, characterizes another justice, let alone the chief justice of the United States, as a wimp and a hypocrite. Yet Justice Scalia did something very close to that, not once but twice, in separate opinions on Monday. As a result, he has served to lift the curtain a bit on the differences within the powerful five-justice conservative bloc that has marched in lock step through much of the term, bent on reshaping the law and, in several important areas, well on the way toward doing so.

Yes, that's right Justice Scalia has launched into his latest judicial hissy-fit, this time he has targeted Chief Justice Roberts. In the campaign finance case, FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Roberts chipped away at the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law but refused to overturn it because the Court had sustained it just a few years ago in McConnell v. FEC.

Justice Scalia wrote a concurring opinion urging the Court to overrule McConnell. In it, he accused Roberts of "faux judicial modesty" for attempting to overrule McConnell "without saying so." He said of Robert's majority opinion: "This faux judicial restraint is judicial obfuscation."

Chief Justice Roberts also authored the opinion in Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, which weakened the ability for ordinary taxpayers to have standing in Establishment Clause cases. Again, Justice Scalia concurred, favoring an abolition of the Court's taxpayer standing precedent. He castigated Roberts' opinion, saying: "Minimalism is an admirable judicial trait, but not when it comes at the cost of meaningless and disingenuous distinctions."

Chief Justice Roberts recently told Professor Jeffrey Rosen that he wants to seek consensus and build unanimity on the Court. Jusitice Scalia apparently believes that this noble goal should stand in the way of dismantling any precedent that he dislikes.

But perhaps the real reason for Scalia's critique of Roberts is, dare I say it, sour grapes. Near the end of Chief Justice Rehnquist's life, Scalia hit the law school lecture circuit big time, trumpeting the virtue of originalism. He mounted a judicial PR campaign to increase his chances of being picked as chief. But even with a Republican president and a Republican Senate, Scalia never got the promotion he thinks he deserves.

Either way, conservative-on-conservative violence is very satisfying.

Grand Re-re-opening (and Wheel of Kennedy)

YAWWWWNNNN. I have been in hibernation for almost a year. I'm sorry that life has gotten in the way of me keeping up on the Dicta, but don't worry, life has been treating me very well. BUT, this blog is not about my life. It is about the Constitution, the Supreme Court, truth, justice, and the American way of life.

To give you an idea of where I am going, I will be reviewing a few of the Court's 2007 decisions. There is no better way to kick this off than by quoting one of the foremost constitutional lawyers of our time: Jon Stewart.

As I will discuss in future posts, it appears that Justice Kennedy is the new Justice O'Connor, though not in terms of their ideological predispositions (I think this term demonstrates that Kennedy is much more conservative than O'Connor). They are similar in that Kennedy has shown an uncanny ability to be in the majority in a 5-4 decision.

As Professor Stewart Jay (any relation to John?) notes in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 24 cases this term decided on a 5-4 basis, Kennedy was the decisive vote in each one. In other words, he batted 1.000 this term, which makes me think he may be taking performance-enhancing drugs.

As a result of this unbridled power, Kennedy has demonstrated an O'Connor-esque penchant for writing jurisprudence that makes no rational sense, except in his own mind.

More on this later...In the meantime, it's good to be back!