“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…
I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed reading a collection of speeches. This may be due to the fact that most or maybe all I’ve read are political, and political speeches, even those authored by literate and capable politicians, lose their significance almost immediately. But perhaps the more important…
“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…
It wasn't just predictable, it was inevitable: The ritual calumniation of the late Antonin Scalia has begun. A noisy scrum of faculty and students are protesting the naming of George Mason University's law school after the recently deceased Supreme Court justice.
Utah senator Orrin Hatch has contended in numerous speeches, op-eds, press releases, and television appearances that the Senate should not act this year to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court that resulted when Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13. Instead, says Hatch, the Senate should…
If politics is the art of the possible, as Bismarck once said, then The Scrapbook’s corollary is especially germane these days: Politics is the art of getting away with as much hypocrisy as possible. Both parties are prone to this annoying habit, of course; but in the week since the sudden death of…
"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself fully as what it is."
In January, The Scrapbook was privileged to be in attendance at a speech Antonin Scalia gave to a small audience at Catholic University. We can’t claim to have known the man or even to have met him for more than a handshake, but Scalia was such a presence that even being in the same room with him…
A few days before Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, I stumbled upon a monograph published in 1979 by the American Enterprise Institute, a debate titled "A Constitutional Convention: How Well Would It Work?" The subject matter, though interesting, paled in comparison to the names of the…
The literary critic Edmund Wilson was ambivalent about the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, but he didn't doubt Lincoln's genius as a writing man. "Alone among American Presidents," Wilson wrote, "it is possible to imagine Lincoln, grown up in a different milieu, becoming a distinguished writer of a not…
Reviews of Justice Antonin Scalia’s career tend to focus on legal philosophy and political outcomes. But generations from now, Scalia's writings will still be studied for his political philosophy: his practical understanding of how and why American government works, and doesn't. And the battle over…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with Adam J. White, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, on replacing the late Justice Scalia.
In 2008, I was invited to judge a wine-and-oyster pairing competition at the Old Ebbitt Grill. It was a great deal: Rank 20 glasses of whites in order of your liking alongside all the Olympia oysters you can eat. Food writers and oenophiles I expected to see there. But Supreme Court Justice Antonin…
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died today and already the Democratic party is fundraising off his death.
Soon after Ed Meese was sworn in as attorney general in early 1985, he organized a group within the Justice Department whose purpose was to advise him, and ultimately President Reagan, on who would be the best candidates to select for the Supreme Court, in the event seats opened. There were about…
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell responds to the passing of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia:
When I was first saw the San Antonio newspaper was reporting Nino Scalia's death, I fervently hoped it wasn't true. But then there were other reports, and emails from friends, and hope was replaced by shock, and by grief.
First published November 13, 2006, and re-published today as news breaks of Antonin Scalia's passing:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Terry Eastland on the Obergefell v. Hodges decision rendered by the Supreme Court today.
On a wide range of matters, including health care, energy, immigration, foreign policy, and education, says House speaker John Boehner, President Obama has ignored some statutes completely, selectively enforced others, and at times created laws of his own, thus failing to “take care that the laws…
Last month, in City of Arlington, Texas v. Federal Communications Commission, the Supreme Court’s five judicial conservatives divided on a question concerning the relationship between federal courts and federal regulators. Justice Scalia wrote the decision for a majority that included Justice…
The day before the Supreme Court announced the Obamacare decision, liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne demanded the resignation of Justice Antonin Scalia. "Justice Antonin Scalia needs to resign from the Supreme Court," Dionne wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts held in his majority opinion today that Obamacare's individual mandate may be considered a constitutional tax rather than an unconstitutional mandate.
On Monday, in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the Supreme Court struck down a California law prohibiting the sale of violent video games to children. In a 7-2 holding authored by Justice Antonin Scalia (with Justices Alito and Roberts concurring and Justices Thomas and…
When the Court hears 80 or so cases in a year, not all of them will be interesting. In fact, some of them will be dreadfully boring. Those tend to be known as "telecommunications cases." (The occasional "fleeting expletive" or "wardrobe malfunction" case notwithstanding.)
Common Cause embarrassed itself by attempting to disqualify Justices Scalia and Thomas from the Supreme Court's review of Citizens United v. FEC, in Common Cause's last-ditch effort to overturn the Court's year-old pro-free speech decision. Ben Smith's report demonstrates precisely how unfounded…
The New York Times runs a story today based on what appears to be an obviously frivolous petition filed at the Justice Department by the partisan left-wing activist group Common Cause. The group alleges that Justices Scalia and Thomas, by virtue of their appearance at a seminar held in Palm Springs…