Big Tony Knows How He'll Vote

It's clear from their actions that the Emperor and his court jester Dick wouldn't know the Constitution if it walked up and pissed on their shoes as they richly deserve. They don't have use for such niceties as due process, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press out in the wild badlands of Texas and Wyoming. The evil twins only seem to care about those parts of the Constitution that strike their fancy. Freedom of religion (as long as it is evangelical Christian) and freedom to make a buck (we know it's not there, but they don't seem to) are tops on their list.

Despite their simpering about "judicial activists" who "interpret" the Constitution, they seem to like playing fast and loose with it too. Exhibits A-D: warrantless wiretapping, holding people without charges for indefinite periods, torture, and the old Two Prisoner Monte game they've been running in Europe. And these are the things we know about.

In addition to the aforementioned hanky panky, Pat Robertson's prayers were answered and the members of the Big Dick Rod & Gun Club were awarded two (for now) seats to fill on the Supreme Court. The Roberts and Alito confirmation hearings were long on the abortion issue and short on most everything else, but the judicial Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb and their conservative cohorterie on the court are headed for their first brush with the Presidential shenanigans soon.

First up is whether the detainees at Guantanamo have any legal standing under US law. It's nice to know that justice Antonin "Big Tony" Scalia has kept an open mind as he prepares to hear the case.

In a speech at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, Scalia pronounced himself, "astounded" by the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to the prison. "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Newsweek quoted Scalia as saying. "Give me a break."

A Swiss audience member, apparently more familiar with the US Constitution than Big Tony, challenged Mr. Miscarriage of Justice Scalia. His response? "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy," Scalia raved.

We believe he based that brilliant legal argument on Article 1776 of the US Code. It apparently stipulates, "If Big Tony's kid is out on the battlefield all amendments to the US Constitution are automatically abrogated in favor of the esteemed wisdom of Mr. Antonin Scalia who will lead us into the blinding light of justice spurned."

Some people may ask why the administration is making such a hubbub over the trials if the bad guys are indeed as bad as Dub claims them to be. One answer might be that through the sheer incompetence of his prosecutors, they can't even manage to carry out a sentencing trial for someone who confessed and has been convicted. The depths of incompetency in ever facet of the administration continues to boggle our omnipotent mind daily.

After all, Zacarias Moussaoui is still spouting lunacy in court, the prosecutors are busy shooting themselves in the foot, and if the sentencing phases continues on its present course the government will be lucky if Zack is sentenced to 20 years at hard labor as the CEO of Dubai Ports World and fined to a $16 million bonus for being the nuttiest darn guy the court has ever seen.

The administration apparently has little to worry about with Big Tony on the case though. However, in view of the good justice's decision to decide the facts about the case before the case, we'd like to give him a little tutorial on a law that he should know well by now. Title 28, Section 455 of the U.S. Code says:

"Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Now we're no Supreme Court justice - hell, we don't even play one on TV - but we figure our legal mind is at least as good as Big Tony and his ideological sidekick Lil' Sam Alito and we think that passage means Big Tony should be a good little boy, recuse himself from the case, and crawl back beneath whatever rock Reagan found him under.

And if our idea of "fairness" was the same as Big Tony's, we'd assume to know exactly how Alito, Roberts, and Clarence "There's a Pubic Hair on My Coke" Thomas would vote, even if they were sensible enough not to mutter it aloud.

Nope, we won't call for them to recuse themselves. We won't pretend to know how they'll vote (although we do have our suspicions). We'll give them the fair chance to hear arguments and decide the case on its merits because we're not a believer of "judicial activism" either. It seems we're more respectful of the Constitution than Big Tony.

But then, that's not hard is it?

Truth Told by Omnipotent Poobah, Monday, March 27, 2006