Scalia. Dead. Yesterday.

I knew about it then, but God asked me to announce it only on a Sunday. 

Dead and (one hopes) gone...

Actually, I found out while I was sitting in a car in the Academy Sports & Outdoors parking lot, waiting for Stella who was trying to buy tennis shoes. I struggled mightily to find a free, unpassworded WiFi available from the parking lot. I found one, with a signal strength so low that its download transfer rate was only 1mbps. About the only news list I subscribe to is The Guardian (what? you expect an American news service to publish straight info on American politics, etc.? gimme a break!), and I saw the announcement of Scalia's death pass quickly before my eyes, but the connection was so iffy I gave up and dismissed the browser. But even the dismissal didn't get through the bad connection; I received one article from the Guardian, sans photos, and read the basics.

I have never had any sympathy for that man. He was a smiling dogmatist, with no redeeming qualities I could ever find. (I guess that makes me one of those "liberals" The Guardian said found him "infuriating" ... fair enough.) Read the article at ThinkProgress for a list of possible consequences of Scalia's sudden absence on the Court; be forewarned, they range from actually beneficial to nearly "chaotic" (their word, not mine). Now that there is a 4-4 tie between conservatives and moderates (the last actual liberal retired and died over a decade five years ago), cases which provoke an ideological reaction from the Right will rebound to the lower court in which they originated; in many cases, that court has more "tighty Righties" than the Supremes... and the result will apply only to the circuit in which that court operates. In other words, no help for Texas, Louisiana or Oklahoma. Sucks, if you ask me.

Here are other articles I found once I had a solid connection from inside a bookstore:

• Moments After Scalia’s Death Is Confirmed, GOP Senate Staffer Pledges To Block Any Obama Replacement
  

  So did Sen. and presidential candidate Ted Cruz, I read somewhere. Grrrr... if he becomes president, he shall appoint NO Supremes; I would hope the Democrats in the Senate will see to that.

• Antonin Scalia's death calls supreme court gun rights stance into question
  

  That would be District of Columbia v Heller.

• Supreme court justice Antonin Scalia dies: legal and political worlds react
  

  The summary bulleted list contains useful links.

That will do for the moment. Ted Cruz and other Repugnant members of Congress are vowing to torpedo anyone... ANYONE... Obama nominates to replace him. Dog help the next Repub president, whenever they manage to steal that office again...