Antonin Scalia Will Make Sure Arizona Stays Fucking Insane:
The next time Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is scheduled to argue against a broad definition of states' rights at the Supreme Court, someone needs to kick him so hard in the crotch that he's doubled over in pain and tasting nut blood. For, indeed, he is a boob. As Dahlia Lithwick describes it, he's "a guy who brings a butter dish to a gunfight."

You can't understand the fucktarded nature of Verrilli's argument against Arizona's SB 1070, the "show us your papers" law that says anyone stopped for any violation, from murder to broken taillight, must prove he or she is a citizen or face detention until that determination can be made, until you read this exchange between Verrilli and Chief Justice John Roberts:

"CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Before you get into what the case is about, I'd like to clear up at the outset what it's not about. No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it? I saw none of that in your brief.

"GENERAL VERRILLI: That's correct.

"CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Okay. So this is not a case about ethnic profiling.

"GENERAL VERRILLI: We're not making any allegation about racial or ethnic profiling in the case."

Aaaand...scene.

So, you got that? A case that is specifically about the racial profiling must not mention racial profiling and, instead, will be argued over whether or not the power to check immigration status belongs to the state or the federal government. Why? Well, perhaps because the law says the cops can't racially profile people. And, of course, we all know that because the law says they can't, they'd never do so. No, the law just says that the cops have to believe that a "reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States." No, no, that would never lead to any racial profiling.

Solicitor General Verrilli must not understand exactly who he's up against because the second this became about Arizona's right to police its own borders, he wasn't dealing with any rational way in which the law could be applied. No, he was dealing with Fox "news" rhetoric masked as jurisprudence. He was dealing Justice Antonin Scalia, a man who bends over a toilet when he's done taking a titanic shit and inhales deeply. And then he makes Justice Clarence "Uncle" Thomas do the same, and Thomas does, without saying a word, of course. Oh, Tony Scals. There's a dude who will certainly one day be found dead, having choked to death on his own jizz after contorting his bloated and broken body so he can suck his own cock.

Here's his big attack on the federal government's position on the enforcement of federal law by the states: "What's wrong about the States enforcing Federal law? There's a Federal law against robbing Federal banks. Can it be made a State crime to rob those banks? I think it is...does the Attorney General come in and say, you know, we might really only want to go after the professional bank robbers? If it's just an amateur bank robber, you know, we're -- we're going to let it go. And the State's interfering with our -- with our whole scheme here because it's prosecuting all these bank robbers."

Does that make a fucking bit of sense in the context of a state declaring that you can be asked to prove your citizen at any time a cop thinks there's reasonable suspicion to do so? Would he want the federal government to be able to do that? Of course he doesn't care. Because he's not going to be stopped. Because he won't look suspicious. Because of his goddamn race. Even if he robs a bank.

But if you want the fullest extent of Scalia's pure dickishness, look at how he taunted Verrilli later in the hearing:

"GENERAL VERRILLI: Now, we are not making an allegation of racial profiling. Nevertheless, there are already tens of thousands of stops that result in inquiries in Arizona, even in the absence of S.B. 1070. It stands to reason that the legislature thought that that wasn't sufficient and there needed to be more.

"And given that you have a population in Arizona of 2 million Latinos, of whom only 400,000 at most are there unlawfully

"JUSTICE SCALIA: Sounds like racial profiling to me."

A moment later, in response to another assertion by Verrilli, Scalia said, "What does this have to do with Federal immigration law? I mean, it may have to do with racial harassment, but I thought you weren't relying on that." That's right. A Supreme Court justice decided to have fun by fucking with an incompetent Solicitor General.

And why is that? Who decided how to argue this case and on what issues? Why can't the case have been argued on federal authority and 4th Amendment grounds? Or, really, is it just that the Supreme Court is so far gone that it doesn't matter?