StrangeSox

e.g. if the Court makes an odd ruling the pre-clearance simply applies to all states, I'll happily accept the outcome but still disagree with how it was reached.

It's not analogy if he's talking about the law that's in front of them and citing the voting record on the law that's in front of them. That's just literally talking about a thing. Congress has the explicit authority to enforce the 15th amendment via "appropriate legislation." What is appropriate is a policy question, not a constitutional one, and even then, Section 5 is a perfectly rational method to address the problem. Congress went to considerable effort in 2006 to consider if this measure was still appropriate and necessary and found that it was. So long as this law is seen as an important and necessary law, it will and should remain difficult politically to get rid of. It simply is not the Court's role to make this determination. Liberal justices do sometimes usurp Congress's power, and sometimes I'm okay with the outcomes even if I'm not okay with the theory. But liberal justices don't pretend to be "originalists" or that the constitution is "dead," as Scalia does. Furthermore, the history of the Court's rulings on voting rights has recognized an enormous amount of deference to the legislature. Gutting the Voting Rights Act because it's politically difficult to "get rid of" would be the height of judicial activism.

Sotomayer basically shoots down the entire case in her first statements:

Giant recession? Increased unemployment? Larger deficit?

No, he wasn't making an analogy. He was making a s***ty and racist argument against a policy he doesn't like. He was talking about the case before him, which is about the Voting Rights Act. I'll grant you that his statements are more akin to a talk radio host than a judicial scholar these days, but there was no analogy here. If, at some point, the need for Section 5 goes away, then we can let our elected representatives determine that. If there will always be too high of a political cost for doing so (in e.g. Utah or "just ratified the 13th amendment" Mississippi, I'm doubtful), then it means that a law that the people want remains in place. Why does this become Scalia's decision to make? Why does the Court get to usurp Congress's power to protect voting rights and forever close off certain very effective measures? Judge "Dead Constitution Originalist" is making an argument that "times change" and that he should explicitly overturn a duly passed law with explicit constitutional support simply because he doesn't think Congress will ever not renew it. He wants to overrule Congress's considered judgement and determination to take away this "racial entitlement." Does he think the PATRIOT Act should be thrown out by the court because of the chosen name and broad support? Is there something else that the act designed specifically to protect voting rights should be called? How is this not an explicitly political and completely ajudicial argument?

By the way, to put the timeline of Section 5 into perspective, consider this: From 1501-1865, a total of 364 years, slavery was legal in the American colonies and then states. From 1865 until 1964, a total of 99 years, we had legal racial discrimination and oppression in this country, and it was another year until the right to vote was fully protected. It's been only 48 years since the VRA was signed into law. We are barely on to our third voting generation since the passage of this law compared to almost two dozen generations of vicious discrimination before it. As much as we have progressed since the 1960's, it's simply naive to believe that racial animus has disappeared and that minority voting protections are no longer needed. In just this past election, we saw minority-heavy districts in certain states have hours-long waiting lines that weren't present in other areas of the same state or in other states.

"wear knee pads" or "need knee pads" would make sense, but being a kneepad really doesn't. So they're the cushion when someone else sucks? Wha?

I used to listen to a mix between MJH and B&B, but once Mac left, I couldn't stand the show. If I listen to any sports radio at all, it's about 15-20 minutes of B&B on my drive home. If Dan starts getting into his hyperaggresive, semantic and bad-faith arguments with a caller, I flip it off. Sometimes they turn out great ("Steak dinner. BOOM!") but usually they're just him intentionally misunderstanding an alternative point of view.

No, as the referenced Katz study looked at Section 2 litigation, which is universally applicable, and still found that areas covered by Section 5 were significantly disproportionately represented. Regardless, there are still literally thousands of examples of attempted voter discrimination acts, which highlights exactly why the entirety of the VRA, including and especially Section 5, is necessary. I have said in the past that I support pre-clearance being applied to the entire country, but that's a political question, not a judicial one. Scalia is not a super-legislator, tasked with doing the tough things those elected, accountable legislators just can't do without, ya know, being held accountable. There are arguments against Section 5, and not all of them are explicitly racist (and dumb) as Scalia's statements. Check out the rest of the articles on SCOTUSblog for some examples. I think they're incorrect or naive about present-day realities, but they are not Scalia's argument.

The 15th Amendment explicity gives Congress the power to override "States Rights!!!!!" in favor of actual, living peoples' rights. After almost a century of trying to prevent discrimination on a case-by-case basis, it was determined that pre-clearance was a much more effective measure as it shifted the burden to those who wanted to change the voting laws. As I already noted with this link, the present-day voting discrimination comes primarily from areas that are covered by pre-clearance. http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/shelby-c...covered-states/ More importantly, you're making a political argument. It's not the Court's place to decide this on the incoherent grounds that it's too popular of a law.

Arkansas is the latest GOP-run state to accept the Medicaid expansion. Except, it's going to be through a privatized system and not directly through Medicare. Which means it's going to be more convoluted, more expensive and less effective. http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archi...?wpisrc=nl_wonk

Of course neither you nor scalia can explain why it's unnecessary or why it would ever be harmful. Nor is it possible to decouple one of the most important civil rights laws in this country from race.

So it's either a (still racist) rant against all those blacks on welfare and the politicians who can't vote against it, an irrelevant talk radio-level diatribe given in the middle of Supreme Court arguments, or it's a completely incoherent argument that voting rights protections are "racial entitlements" that the (originalist, dead-constitution, minimalist) court should strike down because Congress couldn't.

Yes, that "entitlement" to vote. You're talking about a bunch of irrelevant (but still silly) stuff in order to hand-wave away what he said, what he was talking about and what he is going to help do.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 28, 2013 -> 03:50 PM) He got 47% with 95% of African Americans voting for Obama, so yeah, that makes sense. Who gives a s***? What Scalia said was incredibly racist, not to mention completely incoherent. It's a god-damned mystery why 95% of African Americans didn't vote for Republicans when they keep reaching out to them like this. real f***in' head-scratcher.

Oh ok nevermind then! No excuse.

Obliviousness/ignorance. (not having grown up a hockey fan myself, if I was just a casual watcher going with a group of friends and didn't waste all day at a sports forum, I wouldn't know about this 'rule' either)

John Lewis: Antonin Scalia comments ‘appalling’

yeah turns out it was a whole bunch of nothing http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entr...riously?ref=fpa

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 28, 2013 -> 06:50 AM) When I used to drive down to school in Champaign, I would always try to keep it in the 70-72 range, never got stopped. Slow down when you see the signs for Rantoul, especially if it's a traffic-heavy weekend (start/end of breaks, Mom's or Dad's weekends, etc.).

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 27, 2013 -> 06:19 PM) This would concern me if I was going to keep him on the roster. I know most people don't think marijuana is a big deal but it has a major impact on athletes especially football players. The TCH in it drastically slows down the inflammation and healing process. This is why people can get a medical prescription for it for chronic inflammatory diseases. In football with the beating they take smoking it will slow down their recovery and extend injury times. Many NFL players would use it because it made their soreness the next day less but in reality it extended the problem. It's a short term feel good for long term bad effects. We use to try to educate the players on it and some got it and others didn't. Sometimes there is a reason seemingly minor injuries take extra time to heal. Interesting info, thanks.

Post-argument commentary: Voting rights are an American entitlement

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 27, 2013 -> 05:22 PM) And I think he's right that taking away race entitlements will be incredibly difficult going forward. Who's going to stick their neck out and tell a minority that money/benefits they receive from the government aren't necessary anymore? btw this was essentially the Romney campaign last year, and he got 47% of the vote.

The VRA isn't money/benefits and it should be incredibly difficult to take away minority voting protections going forward. Though I'm skeptical of his claim that a vote against would necessarily cost someone their seat. It's not something they could campaign on, probably, but I doubt it would cause a Senate seat in Mississippi or Utah to go D. There's no reason to ever get rid of the VRA or section 5. It's not evil, it is unquestionably good and it's success is an argument in favor of maintaining it, not judicially eliminating it. If anything, it should be expanded to every county in the nation, though as I linked above, the problem is still concentrated in the covered areas.