Scalia on Obama: 'What can he do to me?'

[kpete]

Source: Politico

Scalia on Obama: 'What can he do to me?'


Comments (135) By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/29/12 10:29 AM EDT
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said he did not “view it as a threat” when President Barack Obama in April predicted his signature healthcare overhaul “will be upheld because it should be upheld” and that anything less would constitute “judicial activism” by the high court.

Scalia conceded in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Obama’s forceful comments on a pending Supreme Court case were “unusual, but as I say I don’t criticize the president publicly. And he normally doesn’t criticize me.”

But when host Chris Wallace pressed, asking whether Scalia, who in June sided with a minority seeking to overturn the law, felt “any pressure as a result of that to vote a certain way,” Scalia laughed.

“No. What can he do to me? Or to any of us?” the justice responded. “We have life tenure. And we have it precisely so that we will not be influenced by politics, by threats from anybody.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2012/07/scalia-on-obama-what-can-he-do-to-me-130389.html

[sakabatou]

1. Where's my clue-by-four?

He's such a douchebag.

[Roland99]

40. ha...that's a good one

never heard "clue-by-four" before.

[sakabatou]

44. It's a much more powerful weapon than the clue-bat

[Panasonic]

2. How about legislation forcing morons like Scalia a 10 year term.

His term is already up. Way past up.

He needs to go see the solitary confinenment and make himself comfortable there and stay there permanently.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. You mean a ratified constitutional amendment?

How are you going to rally enough states for that?

[1monster]

15. Only by Constitutional amendment. On that Scalia is correct. Supreme Court Justices

were given life time tenure to buffer them against the slings and arrows of outrageous politics.

However, since Scalia and his faithful henchman Thomas (among others) are already playing with outrageous politcis, perhaps they should be reminded that they can be impeached...

[cstanleytech]

16. Can be sure but likely to be? Nope, I dont see it happening.

I mean heck Thomas wasnt impeached for his failure to report his wifes income.

[1monster]

22. Sigh. Agreed.

[Dustlawyer]

38. If they were given life tenure to buffer them against the slings and arrows of outrageous politics,

Then they should not be permitted speaking fees, travel costs etc., to speak in front of crooked, corpratists espousing the right to purchase our government!

[1monster]

41. Were lecture tours big in the late 18th Century? Doubt if the idea even occurred to the

framers of the the Constitution.

[samsingh]

3. life time tenure should go first.

[jberryhill]

28. Uh, no, it is that way for the reason stated

[awoke_in_2003]

29. Yep...

if you want better justices, elect better presidents.

[Occulus]

30. That reason is obviously no longer valid.

Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts are all as political as they come. They aren't merely influenced by politics- they're compromised. Or operatives. Or both.

Limit the SCOTUS to three Presidential terms and then bar them, by Amendment, from any other form of employment with the government at any level, right down to dog catcher. NO position in our government should have life tenure. None.

[jberryhill]

31. I see, and for whom might they work after that?

Yes, those justices are overtly political. That would not be a first.

But the prospect of picking up a plum position post-service also causes problems.

[samsingh]

43. the republicans and their interests. Companies that support republicans

[4th law of robotics]

46. To be reinstated every 4-8 years when the political situation changes

remember "what goes around . . . "

[PatrynXX]

4. the guys a joke

what threats. yes political pressure they give into that all the time...

[savalez]

5. Do you really think Scalia is "not be influenced by politics"?

I'm pretty sure I've heard him parrot a few RW talking points.

[cstanleytech]

17. No, not parroting. More like he is the dummy in a ventriloquist act and he has a hand shoved right

up inside his ass controlling what he says and does.

[tularetom]

6. Drones

[Enrique]

7. I ask the same thing every time I hear that ridiculous accusation

the RW is saying Obama is threatening the conservative judges. I say wtf can you possibly mean?

[Bozita]

8. Fuck Fat Tony! ... n/m

[thesquanderer]

9. Send in the drones.

If that case ever gets to the Supreme Court, Scalia might be wise to declare unconstitutional a President's ability to unilaterally decide to send a drone after an American citizen. Otherwise, the answer to "what can he do to me" could be pretty deadly.

[DRoseDARs]

10. What can the President do to you? Constitutionally, nothing... except ask Congress to impeach you.

That in-and-of-itself is a long-shot, but your abuses of the bench certainly warrant in. The legal case can easily be made to have you removed. You should be grateful the bar had been set so high after Presidents Washington and Jefferson both attempted to have a USSC justice impeached.

[Joe Bacon]

20. OH there is something Obama CAN do.

Obama and the Congress can simply pay Scalia's salary, and then pay for nothing else. No clerks, no office supplies, not even toilet paper for Scalia to wipe his ass with.

[onenote]

53. Not Constitutionally

Leaving aside that the chances of what you suggest happening are absolutely zero, even if it did happen it wouldn't be Constitutional. Congress cannot pass a law that singles out one Justice out of nine for unequal treatment, particularly where the basis for doing so was designed either to muzzle Scalia's speech or to influence his judicial decisionmaking.

[progressivebydesign]

11. WTH is a Supreme Court Justice doing on Fox "news" that is not a news channel in the least.

He is the most political of all of them, and he has the nerve to say that he's got a lifetime appointment so that he won't be interfered with by politics??? OMG the irony.

[pennylane100]

12. So he is only worried about the legal consequences of being a complete douchbag.

Well, let us hope that is all he has to worry about. There are a lot of people out there just as evil as he is and because they do not own the courts, they may have to use their imagination.

[Botany]

13. Scalia is 76

Kennedy is 76

Thomas is a very old 64

Roberts is 57 but he has health issues

*******

Scalia's fall is only a matter of time.

[cstanleytech]

18. Hopefully that time will be when a democrat holds the whitehouse and or the dems

hold a true majority control over both the senate and congress when it happens.

[crimson77]

21. Sotomayor has Diabetes, Clarence Thomas is Fit as a fiddle can you believe it.

[crimson77]

23. I know plenty of Italian who looks a hundres times worse then him

and they live til their 90's, Scalia doesn't exactly have the most hectic work scedule either.

[wordpix]

52. he's very fat, too, looks like he eats way too much animal fat

[The Wizard]

19. Nino The Fixer

as he was known in the Nixon White House is a political hack who never distinguished himself as a lawyer. When one SC justice has the power to stop an election recount to reach a political end that's as political as it gets. He belongs in an orange jump suit. Fux News isn't a political propaganda outlet. Yeah right. Possibly the most corrupt Supreme Court Justice in history. A scaffold and a head hood are appropriate for this scumbag.

[BE10sCoach]

24. Scalia

Antonin Scalia is a piece of shit, enough said.

[Fozzledick]

25. Scalia sounds like an "enemy combatant" to me.

Perhaps Obama should give him a lesson in the powers of the "unitary executive" that he's already declared to be legal.

Personally, I'd be happy to let a Grand Jury examine the facts of his felonious abuse of judicial authority to tamper with a federal election by illegally obstructing the vote count in Florida.

[Kablooie]

26. But he's right. He's immune from any kind of consequences from anyone.

He's completely free to be as big an asshole as he wants and remain totally untouchable by politics or the law.

That's the way it was set up and continues.

[DRoseDARs]

32. You might want to brush up on your USC, your statement is misguided.

Article I, Section 3 of the USC grants Congress the power to impeach Judiciary and Executive branch officials. Article II, Section 4 lays out the guideline for what is considered impeachable offenses. This power has been brought to bear on both presidents and USSC justices. All we lack is a simple majority vote to impeach in the House and a super majority (2/3rds) vote to impeach in the Senate. He's not untouchable, but it's a high bar we're not likely to hurdle. However, speaking false assertions isn't helpful.

[Kablooie]

33. You got me. I tend towards hyperbole I'm afraid.

High crimes and misdemeanors of course, if they can be defined, could lead to impeachment.
Committing a crime and I suppose mental incompetency, though I didn't see it mentioned, would lead to impeachment.

But it's nearly impossible to impeach him on his legal decisions unless they could be proven to be aiding and abetting an enemy. (A high crime, I'd assume.)

Maybe we could define the GOP as an enemy of the state and take it from there. Heh.

[former9thward]

45. Mental incompetency is not used for impeachment.

Justice William Douglas, a great civil liberties justice, became mentally incompetent near the end of his life. He wrote an opinion asserting trees could sue people. His fellow justices, liberal and conservative, decided to wait for him to die and they postponed cases where Douglas' vote might make the difference.

[Kablooie]

47. That's strange.

I guess impeachment isn't really the correct way to deal with a justice who becomes mentally incompetent because it implies conscious outlawed behavior which is not this case.

I guess they could try to convince him to retire but it's strange there isn't any mechanism for replacing a mentally ill judge.
Maybe they thought that it is such a vaguely defined malady that it could be misused as a political move to unseat a judge.

[former9thward]

48. The standard for impeachment is defined in the Constitution.

"High crimes and misdemeanors". Mental issues are not crimes.

[SoapBox]

27. ...such an arrogant ass.

Nuts...just - plain - nuts.

[Firebrand Gary]

34. Judges have forgotten that they answer to the people. It's problematic and needs to be resolved. nt

[Fearless]

35. If he were a Republican I would say federal investigation using tax dollars

To obstruct him from doing his job...

Since the president is a Democrat, I would assume we'll get Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to shine a light on his stupidity for the next twenty years or so. Maybe not as quick, but certainly more satisfying.

[aquart]

36. Obama, no. John Roberts can make your life hell if he feels like it, Tony.

I'm hoping he does.

[former9thward]

50. I'm curious.

What do you think a Chief Justice can do to an Associate Justice to make their life "hell"?

[aquart]

51. I would think this:

"If the Chief Justice votes with the majority in a case decided by the Supreme Court, he or she may choose to write the Court's opinion, or to assign the task to one of the Associate Justices."

[former9thward]

55. I'm not sure why you consider that "hell".

Justices want to write opinions. They go into case law reference books that are studied by thousands of law students. The opinions are used by thousands of judges for precedent in their decisions. You don't go on the SC if you don't like to write or see your name in print. In practice opinions are divided pretty much evenly among the nine justices during the term.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. On the subject of hair dye....

[img][/img]

Pick a color dude! And do the roots before the next interview.

[CarmanK]

39. Scalia's brain is clouded by advancing dementia. He needs to retire !

[CrispyQ]

42. Scalia is a shit stain on the Court & exudes some of the worst traits of humanity. -nt

[Paladin]

49. Remember When Supreme Court Justices Behaved Themselves In Public?

Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

[Ter]

54. Well, he's technically right

They don't have to worry about pressure from anyone, they are there for life.