On behalf of the Court and retired Justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away. He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family.
Justice Scalia had gone to Marfa (Texas) to participate in a hunting trip with friends. He went to bed early on Friday night, saying he felt unwell. When he did not get up for breakfast on Saturday morning, he was found to have died in his sleep of natural causes. The Justice was 79 years old, and had served 29 years on the Supreme Court (nominated by President Reagan in 1986).
Scalia was the most rabid right-winger on the Court, and probably is the justice most responsible for the curbing of abortion rights, the expansion of gun rights, and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, among many other issues. Considered a hero by those on the right and an enemy by those on the left, Scalia's replacement has the potential of radically affecting the conservative/liberal balance on the court.
That makes it very important whether it is a Democratic or Republican president that nominates his replacement. President Obama has the right to nominate a new justice, but it is very unlikely that the Republican-controlled Senate would approve anyone he nominated (and probably would not even allow a vote on an Obama nominee). They think they can win the White House in 2016, and that would let a Republican president choose Scalia's replacement.
There have already been discussions about the next president being able to choose one or more new justices. Now we know that is more than a possibility -- it will happen. This makes the already critical 2016 election much more critical. We need to make sure a Democrat in sworn in on January 2017 to avoid a Scalia-clone being appointed to the Supreme Court.
Ted, with Trump Kroo knows what you'll get. (If you are wondering, Kroo was a meek, weak, dying South Asian god in an almost forgotten Henry Kuttner WWII story that somehow has remained in my memory since I saw the pulp magazine version -- don't think it was ever reprinted.)
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Anyway, Trump is so unpredictable I could see him pulling a 'Marshall McMahon' and not showing up for his own inauguration, or trying to appoint a spare ex-wife to the Court.
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But Ted Cruz, as I keep on trying to get people to realize, is a whole other matter. We're used to essentially secular Republicans keeping preachers as symbiotes, giving them photo-ops and hopeless bills in exchange for endorsements and GOTV services. Even George Bush, while an evangelical convert, still had a protective coating of Anglican underneath that kept him and us safer. (Equal nonsenses, yes, but not equally harmful.)
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Cruz and his preachers -- including his Daddy -- are a whole different thing,, and I hope we start realizing it. (I'll admit that over the 53 years I've been an atheist, I have always been fascinated watching religions and understanding the differences between them.)
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Remember, even McCain had to drop Hagee because of his "Hitler was a hunter sent by God to drive the Jews to back Israel' line? Mike Bickel says the exact same thing, (along with a few other things, like 'Oprah is a forerunner of the Antichrist') and Cruz boasts of his endorsement from Bickel and his associates.
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Has there ever been a President touting his endorsement from someone who has publicly called for the return of the Biblical death sentence for gays? But Cruz actually appeared at a conference run by Kevin Swanson where he called for this -- after giving the gays a chance to 'repent' and there was literature being sold at the conference -- without the 'repentance.' And again, when called on Swanson, Cruz supported him.
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ReplyDeleteCruz has too many endorsers who are tied to the New Apostolic Reformation, a group (which even many other evangelicals consider a cult) so seemingly nuts that no one takes them seriously -- until they notice how they've grown. (These people claim the 'supernatural powers given to the apostles' and one of them even claims to be able to raise the dead.) But remember that prominent crack-using bisexual mega-church minister who got caught a few years ago -- I'm pulling a ridiculous blank on the name ad there have been several, but this one was big news about a decade ago. Until his secrets came out, he was looked on as one of the most important evangelicals and I think was even the head of a major evangelical group. Well, he and his 'prayer warriors' and 'spiritual mappers' was part of the NAR and the whole 'control the 'seven mountains; movement, which holds that only 'Christians' should control the 'seven mountains of society.' The list varies, but includes business, politics, entertainment and the law.
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Then there's Daddy, who has a bigger collection of conspiracy theories than Glenn Beck -- maybe the Gold goes to Alex Jones,, but Rafael Cruz is a strong competitor for the silver and who has been rightly described as making Sarah Palin look like a Jeopardy winner. (Palin is '7 mountain' too, btw, as you'll find out if you listen to the whole of the blessing she received from that African exorcist that played a part in the campaign.)
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Cruz Jr. does NOT have to publicize these endorsements, and your typical Republican, even if he accepted them, would bury them in a much wider pool of 'ordinary evangelicals.' Cruz boasts of them -- and there are so many more the list would fill half a page -- even though they do not help him at all with the secular community (and will be the strongest weapon Hillary has against him), and could even hurt him with regular evangelicals -- who think Bickel and Engel's 'International House of Prayer' and the NAR are a 'cult.' It was evangelical professors who forced his publisher to withdraw David Barton's most recent book for its lies. (Barton is a Cruz endorser and, I believe, adviser)
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Cruz doesn't need to male the point of working with these people, and it hurts him, so the only reason for using them is that he believes the same as they do.
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Finally getting back to the topic, we'd actually be lucky if Cruz appointed a 'Scalia-clone.' Hard to imagine, but his choice coud be much worse -- and WON'T be a atholic, wh are not 'real Chrsitiaans in the eyes of Ted's friends.