"Is Antonin Scalia the Vilest Person in Washington?" [View all]

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Is Antonin Scalia the Vilest Person in Washington?

By Steven Rosenfeld at AlterNet

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/antonin-scalia-vilest-person-washington?akid=10137.66032.gNJmfM&rd=1&src=newsletter804214&t=3

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A day after Justice Antonin Scalia caused gasps in the Supreme Court gallery by saying the 1965 Voting Rights Act had become a “racial entitlement” no congressperson could vote against, Rachel Maddow toldThe Daily Show she was in the courtroom and Scalia clearly enjoyed tormenting people. “I think he does know how that sounds,” she said. “He’s a troll. He’s saying this for effect. He knows it’s offensive.”

There’s no shortage of badly behaving Republicans in Washington. There’s the take-or-leave-it congressional leadership, who constantly show they value rightwing ideology more than its impact on people. There are intransigent obstructionists, like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, who believes the answer to gun violence is more guns. But Scalia isn’t simply another Republican bully; he may be the most venal and fascist Republican of all.

It’s one thing to be a political bully and enjoy it, as Scalia does. But it’s another to say that the other branches of government are broken because they’re not doing things he agrees with; and then abuse the power of his office to overthrow that governance and perpetuate his legacy. That’s close to how European despots acted before World War II.

Let’s unpack what Scalia said about the 1965 Voting Rights Act with an eye to seeing his method, not just his madness. It is the same backstory to his mocking outbursts over the years, whether telling law school students asking about Bush v. Gore to “get over it,” or arrogantly answering questions put by other justices to lawyers—such as 2008's Heller case where he coached libertarian lawyers and then wrote the opinion that for the first time in U.S. history said the Second Amendment included a personal right to a handgun at home.

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