The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to take up a challenge to a Washington state law that makes it illegal for pharmacies to refuse to dispense medications for religious reasons. The court's action, bypassing an invitation to wade back into the issues of religion and contraception, allows the state to enforce the law. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito called the court's refusal to hear the case "an ominous sign."
It's an ominous sign... to anyone who views the emerging/coming liberal majority on the court, which will break a three-decade-long stranglehold on SCOTUS by conservatives, as a deeply troubling development. Sane Americans everywhere welcome this development.
And while we're on the subject of the Supreme Court: my second favorite post-Scalia argument (after Obama and/or aliens killed Scalia) is the one put forward by Newt Gingrich: progressive/liberal Democratic presidents—Obama right now, Clinton come January—have a responsibility to maintain the "balance" on the court by appointing a conservative judge to Scalia's seat. Because balance and bipartisanship and comity and tradition and a sober respect for Scalia's legacy. This argument is being made by folks fronting for the same party that replaced this guy...
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice. Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing [civil rights cases] before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that desegregated public schools. He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after being appointed by President John F. Kennedy and then served as the Solicitor General after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. President Johnson nominated him to the United States Supreme Court in 1967.
...with this asshole.
