If you have ever tuned to CSPAN late at night, hoping for something truly dull to put you to sleep, you have probably wondered why you never see Supreme Court arguments. The reason is that Justice Scalia doesn’t like cameras, or informing the public! A college junior recently asked him at a luncheon put on by the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association why he doesn’t like cameras in the courtroom, and he got totally shirty with her.
This student, Sarah Jeck, has brass balls and is an American hero:
Jeck asked whether the rationale for Scalia’s well-known opposition to cameras in the Supreme Court was “vitiated” by the facts that the Court allows public visitors to view arguments and releases full argument transcripts to the public, and that justices go out on book tours.
Yes that’s right! A 20-year-old knows what “vitiated” means!
Anyhow, Scalia said, “That’s a nasty, impolite question,” probably because he doing a SELF-PROMOTIONAL BOOK SIGNING at that very event. Later on he said that he didn’t want “30-second takeouts” from court arguments to be used to characterize the full depth and breadth of a Supreme Court case. This just goes to show you how out of touch Justice Scalia is, as everybody knows they’re called “sound bites” and rarely last for 30 whole seconds.
And of course the idea that anybody would care enough about Supreme Court goings-on to attempt to ferret out only the most salacious details for the evening news is also laughable. This is why the nation’s highest court should just have its own CSPAN channel, for people to sleep to.
Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question — and Gets Scolded [The Blog of Legal Times]
U.S. Supreme Court justice shows confidence, combativeness at West Palm Beach forum [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Read More:
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- Michele Bachmann Says Justice Scalia Will Teach Her Constitution Class
{ 84 comments }
Fine. Let’s keep cameras out the the SC. But, let’s see transcripts of memos and correspondence between the justices. Okay. Never happen. Maybe I’ll take it up with Aaron Sorkin.
Puddin’ fer brains smart puddin’ but puddin’ jus’ the same.
Actually, a nasty, impolite question would be along the lines of “Hey asshole, why don’t you suck a bag of dicks?”. Miss Jeck’s question in retrospect seems eminently reasonable and sweet.
Of course it is a nasty impolite question asked by that librul lawrat wannabe because it is A question.
No one questions the whizzdumb of Scalia and gets away with it, NO ONE.
Perhaps he should get back to hunting ducks with Dick Cheney.
this 42 yr old has no idea what vitiated means and has no intention of visiting miriam webster on line to find out. so there.
I just got out of my 9am meeting and I have another meeting at 10am, but I’m hoping that I can sneak off to the bathroom for a “30-second takeout” in this bit of free time that I have.
Move over Christian Bale, there is a new drama queen in town.
Is it wrong for me to want this man to die? It can be quick and painless, I just want him removed from the Earth.
“Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?”
That is a question he should have asked himself before he wrote the fucking book.
If he were hawt instead of butt-ugly, he’d let the cameras in.
Yes that’s right! A 20-year-old knows what “vitiated” means!
It’s like frottage, right?
I don’t think it’s very polite for Scalia to disparage 30-second takeouts like that. If it wasn’t for 30-second takeouts in public mens rooms, poor Larry Craig would only be able to have sex with his lady wife.
My seething antagonism for Scalia is vitiated by my fantasies of imagining him gang-raped in prison.
Advice to Antonin Scalia: get over it.
[re=236601]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: Totally beat me to it. A thousand curses.
I like how speaking truth to power is considered rude. And by ‘like’ I mean Scalia is a dickhead.
[re=236601]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: Scalia then added: “I’m fuckin’ done with you, professionally.” She was SO embarrassed.
Maybe he thought she said “titty ate it” instead of “vitiated”.
IT HAPPENS1!!
The real reason is that Cokie Roberts needs the work.
“Vitiated”, a process much like what might happen to Antjuan were he to spend more time duck hunting with his bud Dick Cheney. Ah, wistful thinking.
When plugs turn bad.
[re=236613]bitchincamaro[/re]: My fault for getting up way too early. It won’t happen again.
Doglessliberal: No, not wrong. I will help you, and it will NOT be quick.
How vitiated a poor fellow in that sorry state. What a shirty dame.
Which is why Scalia is italian for big fat douche bag bastard. The End.
[re=236618]Colander[/re]: “FUCK’S SAKE girl you’re amateur. Vitiated? Really?”
Perhaps a better idea would be to take the transcripts and do re-enactments for release to the media. Scalia could be played by the re-aminmated corpse of Lou Costello.
My guess is that Scalia doesn’t want the world to see he or Thomas nodding off during the session.
So, I figured I’d search the googles for this young woman’s profile. Her (limited) facebook profile shows her with another young woman, and that she’s a friend of the Ellen Degeneras show.
hmmmm. Looks like my hope of hooking her up with a law school friend of mine might be for naught. No wonder she hates Scalia.
[re=236593]Norbert[/re]: Win.
“That’s a nasty, impolite question” is a nasty, impolite non-answer.
Hell, if they televised SCOTUS proceedings, Clarence Thomas would never bother showing up at all.
In Canada it is the opposite. Cameras are not allowed in any court except the Supreme Court. The reasoning is that witnesses can be intimitdated by the cameras but the Supreme Court only has lawyers and justices.
Having seen Scalia at work, I can honestly say that he’s brought the talk radio format to the Supreme Court. Judge Scalia, vitiate this.
How has this excuse for a human not been hit in the face with a pie yet?
[re=236623]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]: I’m sure you mean Nina Totenberg, who totally rocks, but you’re absolutely right.
This fine young lady is probably one of those Wonkettes that Denby hates, for snarking.
Scalia has proven once again that he is the Rush Limbaugh of SCOTUS. Only he mainlines Cialis instead of snorting blow. Also.
Ms. Sara K. Smith, you just called Justice Scalia “shirty.”
Um…I think I’m in love with you.
In his defense, if anyone would know ‘nasty and impolite’, it would certainly be that douche-nozzle.
This is why the nation’s highest court should just have its own CSPAN channel, for people to sleep to.
I get along just fine with the regular CSPAN, thank you very much. Also, who does this Scalia guy think he is, suggesting the media’s gonna go through SCOTUS hearings like they’re Paris Hilton interviews. Get over yourself!
“Yes that’s right! A 20-year-old knows what “vitiated” means!”
Totally hot. I didn’t think one existed, but I want! Seriously though, this is what happens when you give someone too much power, unreasonable compensation (relative to the service they provide), and they have no fear whatsoever of being held accountable for what they say or do. She just should have walked up and kicked him in the nuts.
Can’t he be impeached for something? For a jiz-stained dress or saying fuck too much on FBI recordings?
You know, Bushies would have put vitiate girl in jail. Also.
When Sarah Jeck runs for President and it ends in an alleged tie, she will have absolutely no shot at winning.
[re=236658]Come here a minute[/re]:
You are correct. I am again humbled. Actually, I’ve been humbled so much that I must be the humblest person in the world. At least I got that going for me.
The fact that she didn’t follow it up by pointing at his haircut and laughing proves that she has remarkable restraint.
I wonder if they teach big words like “vitiate” at the Holy Roller Law School and Storm Door Co.
…if they do begin to televise Supreme Court cases, then Barry should nominate Judge Mathis and Judge Judy as the next justices!
[re=236645]Cape Clod[/re]: And Cheney can play Frankenstein’s Monster.
Unfortunately the most unkind fate we can hope for Scalia to suffer is to be the minority blowhard in a very liberal court after 8 years of Hopey & 4-8 years of some other Democrat. While not quite as satisfying as having his brains bashed in by a Robert DeNiro-like character, it will have to do. Unless the constant stream of high blood pressure-inducing “fuck you, who the fuck do you think you’re talking to you fucker?” coursing through his veins leads to an early meeting with his maker. Please. Also.
Vitiated. I’m pretty sure all law students like to use that one a lot; its one fo the first big ones they learn.
e.g. “The main points of the suit against Mr. Denby were vitiated by the fact that Wonkette pretty much libels everyone, everyday, forever. Also.”
They should have a TV channel which just focuses on Clarence Thomas sleeping
[re=236688]hobospacejungle[/re]: It is my dearest wish that Cheney will invite Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito on a skydiving, rockclimbing and hunting trip. I would contribute by buying them lots of booze, ammo and LSD.
So bottom line:
Scalia’s OK with one-line summations by reporters who are fed one side or the other’s interpretation, but he’s not comfortable with the court itself actually speaking on the record about it?
[re=236604]shanemacgowan[/re]: In fact, this is also the very question he should have asked himself before accepting the nomination to sit on the Supreme Court.
I think he’s just worried that if they videotape the proceedings then people might learn the secret Supreme Court handshake they all do before starting a case, then everyone will be able to get into the post-decision mixers and orgies.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
that fat sack of meanspirited douchenozzles will live to be a trillion and spend every last fucking minute pretending to conduct seances with long-dead white slave owners and writing terrible opinions so fat faced little wingnut “federalists” across the country can spend the next millenia reminding poors, bitters, and blacks that they too can fuck themselves.
[re=236673]AngryBlakGuy[/re]: I recently saw Judge Alex give a sobriety test to the defendant during testimony. That was kind of awesome.
[re=236710]actor212[/re]: I spend some time in “COURT HOUSES” (where I still waste time on Wonkette, thinking up comments that will be forgotten, even by me, at exactly the point they are no longer on the first page), and I have to tell you, most Judges are simply really fucking bad. In a spirit of anonymity, I would like to talk about Judge McBride here in SF. He drinks on the bench and makes irrational stubborn decisions, starting at about 1:30 p.m., when his medicine starts affecting his judgment. At that point, he will hand down sanctions to every man, woman and child in his Courtroom, randomly throw people out, and make decisions that truly affect people’s lives on the flick of a switch or the flip of the coin.
Scalia is probably like this, but times 30, and with a nice, broad power. THIS IS JUSTICE IN THE MAKING.
A WOMAN hath dared ask a question of our Republic’s greatest Jurist! Doth not our Holy Bible forbid her mere presence at such a gathering?
Wow…. I actually agree with Scalia on something….
Of course he went apeshit: In public one uses “mitigated.”
[re=236709]WadISay[/re]: They do not deserve to trip. Please waste not the lsd, there is so precious little of it anymore. How about some ether? Or paint thinner?
Scalia looks and sounds like a big talking pile of shit, sort of like Mr. Hankey, but less cute.
I guess, this being Florida and all, Ms. Jeck is lucky she wasn’t tased. Maybe they don’t do that to chicks, tho.
And then he proceeded to sodomize her, just like he sodomizes his wife.
Talk about nasty and impolite!
[re=236734]spymoose[/re]: Not so much. When you mitigate, it usually means you are taking something that is bad, and making it somewhat less bad. When you vitiate, you are taking something that you believe to good, strong or effective (say, your arguments in a legal dispute) and making them less good, strong or effective.
[re=236654]Canmon (the Inadequate)[/re]: Which reminds me: whatever happened with that “constitutional crisis*” they were having up in Canuckistan? Did the queen take the country back?
*Yeah, right, like Canada has a constitution.
A better question would be “How do you do that trick where Justice Thomas talks and you’re drinking a glass of water”?
“No thirty-second takeouts, young lady. You have to read the whole book, including my signing statement, which is only $10 extra. Contrary to what you have learned in Law School, the Supreme Court cannot be described in Cliff Notes.”
Thomas talks?
I can’t even think of anything funny to say, I’m blinded by rage whenever that Genoese twat opens his slimy mouth.
I thought “vitiated” was one of those Dan Savage terms like “santorum,” but in this case referred to being serviced while wearing adult diapers.
[re=236764]V572625694[/re]: Well, one (out of three) of the uppity opposition parties that was threatening the coup decided to toss out their unpopular leader early, to increase public support for their takeover. Then they decided to appoint a guy who’s spent most of his life working in the US as Leader, without a vote, and he decided he didn’t want to work with the other 2 uppity opposition parties, ’cause they were socialists and French, respectively. Then there were some ‘backroom’ negotiations (if you know what I’m saying), and everyone decided to get along and we went back to the way things were pre-crisis. The end.
… Jeck’s professor and pre-law advisor, told us today he is “incredibly proud” of her questioning and demeanor. “It was certainly a pointed question, but not designed to be impolite or nasty,” said Sweet, a Supreme Court scholar in his own right. “The point of learning is not to stroke somebody’s ego.”
Jeck and her prof FTW!
Scalia can lick my trucknutz.
I guess this means no colonoscopy cam either.
on a related note (sorry if someone has already mentioned this…lots of comments), Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been hospitalized with pancreatic cancer. Hate that…but looks like we will soon be seeing Hopey’s first appointment to the Supremes.
[re=236710]actor212[/re]: On the record – you mean like transcripts? and audio? – http://supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/availabilityoforalargumenttranscripts.pdf
I despise Justice Scalia with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, and have nearly ripped 1000-page casebooks in half reading his opinions. But, I agree with him on the cameras in the Supreme Court.
That headline is the thing that gets me. “Scalia shows confidence at West Palm forum”? What is this, a child beauty pageant? He’s a Supreme Court justice, and she’s a 20-year old presumably nervous law student. I doubt he needed to muster up all that much confidence to get through her rigorous questioning. I’m surprised they didn’t go all out and just lead with, “Scalia Shows Grit Under Barrage Of Terrifying Questions”.
I wish she would have thrown her shoes at this Chris Berman-looking condescending shithead
[re=236608]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: In thus sense that one can be sort of vitiated by the frottage of another. Aren’t those the lyrics to Boner of a Lonely Heart? Or is that the one about being tempted by the fruit of another? Scalia is a fruit disease, isn’t it?
the, not, thus: duh
[re=236843]mercure[/re]: Fricking Canucks. You have a total Cheneyhole PM, most everyone hates him, and you can’t get your act together enough to dump him the first chance you get? What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you figure out how to run a democracy, like we have here in … um, actually, never mind.
What is is? Clarence sleeps on the bench? Are you fucking serious?
“I don’t think that it should be up to him what parts the American people can and can’t see of the judicial process,” she said.
Did she buy Scalia’s book? Just as definitively, she said, “I’m a college student. I don’t have $30.”
I heart her.
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