Justice Antonin Scalia Dead at 79

[Maggie Mae]

8 minutes ago, Howl said:

For those of you interested in where Scalia was staying for his quail hunt adventure, it was the very luxe Cibolo Creek Ranch, about 15 miles north of the US/Mexico border.  Turns out it is only about 40 miles as the crow flies from where I was this weekend (Big Bend Ranch State Park) so it made me curious enough to look it up.

cibolocreekranch.com/

Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, has a post about Justice Scalia's passing: 

facebook.com/Mrs-Betty-Bowers-Americas-Best-Christian-312383761871/

Many people who are convicted that Betty Bowers IS America's Best Christian have felt led to comment. 

That ranch looks pretty nice. I kind of want to travel to Texas now, which is a place I've never actually wanted to go to. 

I was in the middle of typing up some Game of Thrones posts and felt convicted to share that there are people out there questioning the lack of autopsy and the "conspiracy" surrounding Scalia's death. 

Also, fun fact: Scalia used to drive over an hour to go to church at a church that still held pre-Vatican II type services (in Latin.) 

[Cleopatra7]

The fact that Scalia had friendships with people with disagreed with doesn't impress me. It's quite possible to be personally nice to a handful of people from a minority group (e.g., black, LGBT, non-Christian) while advocating for policies that disenfranchise members of those groups as a whole. The reason why Scalia could be friends with people like Kagan or Ginsberg is because they were essentially like him (i.e., educated elites) and he could view them as worthy intellectual opponents. I doubt he would have the same attitude towards, say, the plaintiffs in Lawrence v. Texas (the case that struck down sodomy laws), who were working class gay men with criminal histories. 

[notfundy]

2 hours ago, Emkay said:

How familiar are you with John Kasich? He's my governor, and not only as a politician, but as a person in general, his character doesn't say much about him. I know people who have interacted with him in an official capacity and not. He treats people he finds beneath him with contempt. When John McCain says someone has a temper, it says quite a bit about a person.   There are many examples of his behavior from the time he was at Lehman Brothers up to his re-election campaign as governor in OH (check out at the video of the Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com interview of him and his opponent during the election) and throughout his current presidential campaign.

@EmkayThank you so much for the feedback about Kasich.. so glad you weighed in since you're from Ohio. It makes a real difference since admittedly I have little to go on re: Kasich (other than he accepted the Medicaid expansion portion of the Affordable Care Act, and he seems "reasonable" when compared to Trump and Cruz.)    I'll definitely look at him with a much more critical eye.

Reminds me of the people who were so excited about Scott Walker - he's MY governor (blech!) and I always wanted to step in and say "But you don't know what he is really like"  

[Emkay]

42 minutes ago, notfundy said:

@EmkayThank you so much for the feedback about Kasich.. so glad you weighed in since you're from Ohio. It makes a real difference since admittedly I have little to go on re: Kasich (other than he accepted the Medicaid expansion portion of the Affordable Care Act, and he seems "reasonable" when compared to Trump and Cruz.)    I'll definitely look at him with a much more critical eye.

Reminds me of the people who were so excited about Scott Walker - he's MY governor (blech!) and I always wanted to step in and say "But you don't know what he is really like"  

He's very much like Walker- tried to rid OH of collective bargaining, and was struck down (Senate Bill 5, if you're interested in looking it up). Claims a surplus in the state budget- but has only gotten it by stripping local governments of their funding (heard on the news tonight that one local-ish village police department may be dissolved due to state cuts). 

 

Most recently, though, he's come under fire for the charter schools issues in Ohio. There's also a court case pending regarding his administration's push for the passage of a bill that resulted in the takeover of Youngstown schools, which are now led by a CEO-type- not unlike what Snyder did with emergency managers in towns and cities in Michigan, actually. Requirements for the job, of course, did not include experience in education. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/20/what-ohio-gov-john-kasich-is-doing-to-public-education-in-his-state/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/02/10/the-education-mess-in-ohio-under-gov-john-kasich/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-ohio-gov-john-kasich-took-over-the-schools-in-youngstown/2016/02/01/3944be56-bbc0-11e5-b682-4bb4dd403c7d_story.html

[zebra #13]

3 hours ago, notfundy said:

@EmkayThank you so much for the feedback about Kasich.. so glad you weighed in since you're from Ohio. It makes a real difference since admittedly I have little to go on re: Kasich (other than he accepted the Medicaid expansion portion of the Affordable Care Act, and he seems "reasonable" when compared to Trump and Cruz.)    I'll definitely look at him with a much more critical eye.

Reminds me of the people who were so excited about Scott Walker - he's MY governor (blech!) and I always wanted to step in and say "But you don't know what he is really like"  

Walker was really the one that terrified me--he *seemed* sane at skin level. . . .  Soul level, not at all. . . .

[Howl]

9 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

That ranch looks pretty nice. I kind of want to travel to Texas now, which is a place I've never actually wanted to go to. 

I was in the middle of typing up some Game of Thrones posts and felt convicted to share that there are people out there questioning the lack of autopsy and the "conspiracy" surrounding Scalia's death. 

Also, fun fact: Scalia used to drive over an hour to go to church at a church that still held pre-Vatican II type services (in Latin.) 

interesting article about the mega-multi millionaire owner of Cibolo Creek Ranch, John Poindexter (not the Iran-Contra Poindexter):   texasmonthly.com/articles/the-man-in-the-white-hat/

re:  conspiracy        Yup, the man was 80 years old, so ZERO possibility that he could have died in his sleep from natural causes.  

Possibly, apparently, rumored, likely, maybe, absolutely Scalia was Opus Dei (along with Clarence Thomas,  Alito and Roberts).  That's some scary sh*t right there.  

[Buzzard]

The fact that they didnt do an autopsy, coupled with him being found with a "pillow over his face" will create the undying rumor that he was murdered to either:

1) Allow Obama to swing the bench

2) Create a sure thing for Hilary because the repubs will not fight incessantly about gay marriage and abortion

3)Distract the public from Hilary's emails.. 

And probably so many more things I cant even think of.  Perhaps to cover up another moon landing?

[bea]

One of the reasons that this Presidential election is so vital is because the next president would have been making two, possibly three Supreme Court appointments. As we saw when marriage equality became law, who is on the Supreme Court and the mindset of the Justices is really, really important to the people who live in this country. I am often confused by those who believe that we need to simply elect a Democratic president, and everything will be fine. As we have seen with the last 7 years, that is not correct. We have three branches of government, and the President is only the executive branch.

That Republicans would say it is too late in his last term for Obama to nominate someone to the Supreme Court is so utterly absurd that even half of the Republicans seem to realize it. The Constitution - the document that Scalia claimed was utterly unchanging, DEMANDS that the President appoint Supreme Court Justices. Constitutionally, it's the President's job, and if Obama said "oh hey, let's just wait another year with one branch of the government crippled so that the NEXT president appoints someone to this vacancy," Scalia would have been first in line to point out that is unconstitutional for the President to do anything but appoint another Justice ASAP. The Washington Post printed in an OpEd that the longest time it has ever taken to confirm a Supreme Court justice was 180 days, and Obama has 340 days left in his term, so this concept of "there just isn't enough TIME to get a Justice proposed and confirmed" is historically proved to be utterly crap. And, of course, Saint Ronald Reagan nominated and had confirmed a Justice to the Supreme Court in his last year as president. But never mind that. The Republicans remain totally outraged by the fact that Obama continues to discharge his duties as President according to the Constitution.

I am always amazed by the way the Republicans are perfectly happy to essentially set the country on fire and watch it burn as long as "they" don't get what they want. I live in Illinois, where our Republican governor refuses to propose a budget, leading to state services ending because there's no budget, so no money to pay for anything. Our Governor seems AOK with watching our state fall to pieces, because at least the Democrats can't do anything. Honestly - he's willing to watch the citizens of the state he's supposed to be serving suffer, lose their jobs, lose critical services, have our state infrastructure collapse, because the alternative would be bipartisan negotiation. This is what happens when a business man, with no political experience, is elected to a high office. The position of the Republicans, at this point, seems to be only to keep the Democrats from getting what they want. Watching this election cycle has been so infuriating - what the Republicans have in mind for this country is to undo everything Democrats have ever done to it, regardless of how the citizens of the country may have benefited from whatever it was that was introduced or passed. The whole "take back our country" rhetoric, for example. Take it back from what? Take it back from the voters who put Obama in office twice? Take it back from the people that live here? Take it back from registered voters? It's a dog whistle. They want to take the country back from people who aren't white and in possession of a penis and a lot of money. Watching them scramble to make it more and more difficult for people in majority Democratic areas to vote is a really, really obvious example of how they intend to do exactly what they say they want to do. Take the country back. Take it back from those annoying registered voters who have the temerity to not vote for them.

I wish there was a mandatory civics class for many of these people promoting Republican candidates. A lot of them do not seem to have the most basic understanding of the job of President, the role of Congress, or the job of the Supreme Court. Hell, the Republicans in Congress would probably benefit from a basic civics class. At least the ones are claiming that Obama cannot nominate a Supreme Court justice in his last year as President. Not only can he do that, he has to, according to the constitution. But they only care about the Constitution when it serves their own purposes.

[EmmieJ]

52 minutes ago, bea said:

... The whole "take back our country" rhetoric, for example. Take it back from what? Take it back from the voters who put Obama in office twice? Take it back from the people that live here? Take it back from registered voters? It's a dog whistle. They want to take the country back from people who aren't white and in possession of a penis and a lot of money. Watching them scramble to make it more and more difficult for people in majority Democratic areas to vote is a really, really obvious example of how they intend to do exactly what they say they want to do. Take the country back. Take it back from those annoying registered voters who have the temerity to not vote for them. ...

I thought your entire post was excellent and wish I could "like" it more than once.  You are so right about the "take our country back" movement - they mean to take it away from the majority of Americans and return to some time where women had no rights, people of color had no rights, where you could freely discriminate against women, people of color, gay people, and anyone you felt like, as long as you were white, privileged and usually male. 

And of course it's absolutely ridiculous of anyone to say that President Obama should NOT submit a nominee to fill Scalia's slot.  But that was the second thing out of so may Republican politicians' mouths, right after "oh shit, he died?"

And I am sickened by all the fawning remembrances of Scalia by politicians and other notable figures (Although I guess this is what is conventionally done and I'm sure more than a few may have thought quite the opposite but dare not say so).  He may indeed have had quite a brilliant legal mind, but it was a shame the way he used that brilliant mind and history will not look upon him kindly, nor should it. 

[OnceUponATime]

@Whoosh @diplomat @SpoonfulOSugar - Thankyou for your answers. they were helpful.

so a few more questions:

- is there a method to changing your constitution? Is it theoretically possible for it to be modernized? (I get that no one would dare touch the Second Amendment for fear of a civil war or getting assassinated, but if someone grew balls and decided to do so, are they able?)

- if SCOTUS makes a decision that becomes a precedent on how the law is to be interpreted, does the Senate ever decide to rewrite the law to reflect that, or do they always just leave cases as precedents? Do they send carrier pigeons to the senators asking them to rewrite badly written laws?

- do your recently written laws come with a copy of the debate surrounding them, and a letter of intent (or something like that)?

- if you're legally expected to know the law, are you also expected to know the precedents? (I'm guessing you are expected to know the law or the #1 defense would be "I didn't know it was against the law")

I do believe that everyone should be able to easily understand what the law is. It should be as watertight as possible, and it should be clear to people when they do something illegal. I know no one strives for crappy laws, but I personally feel that if they do happen, the laws should be cleaned up and not some precedent formed that becomes a pseudo-law.

When I studied politics Montesquieu was heavily pressed as "The model" of tripartite systems. Namely that your three powers must be separate, each with their owns tasks, and each with the responsibility of checking up on the others and twigging them if they step out of line. I know that's all theory dreamland but it does make sense (at least to me). Especially if you start to consider that your judicial branch is usually(?) not voted for by the people they ultimately serve.

It confuses me as to why you would actually want a judicial branch that creates precedents, that then stay 'law'. It seems to me like it could be a better option for SCOTUS (as an example) to make a ruling on the case, but put a deadline on how long that is valid for (that way everyone has legal certainty), and inform the law makers "Hey Senate guys and gals, you made a crappy law and it has loopholes that let us travel to the planet Pluto*. You have five years to fix it. This <insert legal mumbo jumbo here> will be how it is to be interpreted and implemented until that deadline. After that, well all hell will break loose". <- maybe that happens and I don't know?

I mean, in practice it might not be as bad as it sounds, but the idea that the judges are not impartial, freaks me out a bit. I always assumed they must always be impartial, and if things were unclear, make a judgment in the best interests of society (*cough*what would cost the legal system the least*cough*), and throw the ball back to the parliament to get stuff straightened out.

 

*^{_{I am aware that Pluto no longer holds that status.}}

Anyway I think I might have repeated myself too many times. I'm going to go dream some political dreams (anything but duggar dreams plz)

[Maggie Mae]

1 hour ago, OnceUponATime said:

@Whoosh @diplomat @SpoonfulOSugar - Thankyou for your answers. they were helpful.

so a few more questions:

- is there a method to changing your constitution? Is it theoretically possible for it to be modernized? (I get that no one would dare touch the Second Amendment for fear of a civil war or getting assassinated, but if someone grew balls and decided to do so, are they able?)

 

The Constitution is able to be amended, but not changed. Thousands of amendments have been discussed, only 27 have been approved. There are two ways to amend the constitution, but only one has been used - two thirds of the House and Senate approve of the proposed amendment, then they send it to the states. 3/4 of the states then need to approve it. It's very difficult to do. 

The other way is Constitutional Convention. 2/3 of the legislatures of the States have to call for it. 

Quote

- if SCOTUS makes a decision that becomes a precedent on how the law is to be interpreted, does the Senate ever decide to rewrite the law to reflect that, or do they always just leave cases as precedents? Do they send carrier pigeons to the senators asking them to rewrite badly written laws?

 

SCOTUS decides whether to overturn or uphold laws based on the Constitution. The majority of the laws are state and local laws that got pushed up through the court system. To use Lawerence as an example, the man was arrested in 1998, and in 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas's anti-sodomy statute violated due process and equal protection. This overruling meant that the anti-sodomy rules in 13 states were unconstitutional. 

 

Quote

- do your recently written laws come with a copy of the debate surrounding them, and a letter of intent (or something like that)?

1

You can look up bills online. Supreme Court opinions and dissents are available freely as well. 

Quote

- if you're legally expected to know the law, are you also expected to know the precedents? (I'm guessing you are expected to know the law or the #1 defense would be "I didn't know it was against the law")

 

You have to know the law. The majority of laws come at the State and Local level. For example, in my state, I can go buy a gun right now. If I were in Chicago, I would have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and wait until I had a permit before I could even look at them. In my state, recreational marijuana is legal. In a city not very far from me, it's been made illegal by the community. 

 

Quote

I do believe that everyone should be able to easily understand what the law is. It should be as watertight as possible, and it should be clear to people when they do something illegal. I know no one strives for crappy laws, but I personally feel that if they do happen, the laws should be cleaned up and not some precedent formed that becomes a pseudo-law.

 

It's pretty easy to know what the laws are. 

Quote

When I studied politics Montesquieu was heavily pressed as "The model" of tripartite systems. Namely that your three powers must be separate, each with their owns tasks, and each with the responsibility of checking up on the others and twigging them if they step out of line. I know that's all theory dreamland but it does make sense (at least to me). Especially if you start to consider that your judicial branch is usually(?) not voted for by the people they ultimately serve.

It confuses me as to why you would actually want a judicial branch that creates precedents, that then stay 'law'. It seems to me like it could be a better option for SCOTUS (as an example) to make a ruling on the case, but put a deadline on how long that is valid for (that way everyone has legal certainty), and inform the law makers "Hey Senate guys and gals, you made a crappy law and it has loopholes that let us travel to the planet Pluto*. You have five years to fix it. This <insert legal mumbo jumbo here> will be how it is to be interpreted and implemented until that deadline. After that, well all hell will break loose". <- maybe that happens and I don't know?

I mean, in practice it might not be as bad as it sounds, but the idea that the judges are not impartial, freaks me out a bit. I always assumed they must always be impartial, and if things were unclear, make a judgment in the best interests of society (*cough*what would cost the legal system the least*cough*), and throw the ball back to the parliament to get stuff straightened out.

3

They are impartial as much as anyone can be. Supposedly. A few years ago some judges in Pennsylvania got sentenced to 10 years on prison for taking kickbacks (there's a documentary called "Cash for Kids." Basically they got cash for every kid they referred to a detention center.) 

As for the Supreme Court, they have different views and are considered "conservative, moderate, or liberal." The conservatives (I'm thinking of Scalia, because I am the most familiar with him took a hard line about what was written in the document. The document that was written in the 1700s. He thought it should remain a "dead" document, and use what was written as the law of the land. I actually enjoyed reading his opinions when it was required of me.) The liberals took a more 'iberal' approach to the document and look at it a bit differently. 

 

Quote

 

*^{_{I am aware that Pluto no longer holds that status.}}

Anyway I think I might have repeated myself too many times. I'm going to go dream some political dreams (anything but duggar dreams plz)

 

[SpoonfulOSugar]

This has a cool graphic:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/15/us/supreme-court-nominations-election-year-scalia.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

Quote

The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn within 25 days. When Justice Antonin Scalia died, 342 days remained in President Obama’s term.

emphasis added . . . . 

[diplomat]

2 hours ago, OnceUponATime said:

if SCOTUS makes a decision that becomes a precedent on how the law is to be interpreted, does the Senate ever decide to rewrite the law to reflect that, or do they always just leave cases as precedents? Do they send carrier pigeons to the senators asking them to rewrite badly written laws?

When SCOTUS invalidates a law passed by Congress or a state legislature or a local municipality, the legislature is free to pass a new law, if they want. And, yes, SCOTUS sometimes specifically criticizes Congress for enacting unintelligible laws. But there are no carrier pigeons that I know of.  

As @Maggie Mae already said, it's very very hard to amend the Constitution, so a decision by SCOTUS that interprets the Constitution can only be changed by SCOTUS itself, in a subsequent decision. For example, SCOTUS once said that racial segregation laws were constitutional (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896); it wasn't until 1954 that it overruled that decision in Brown v. Board of Education. SCOTUS is the final arbiter of what is constitutional, i.e., what is consistent with the federal Constitution.

[HarryPotterFan]

On February 15, 2016 at 10:47 PM, notfundy said:

@EmkayThank you so much for the feedback about Kasich.. so glad you weighed in since you're from Ohio. It makes a real difference since admittedly I have little to go on re: Kasich (other than he accepted the Medicaid expansion portion of the Affordable Care Act, and he seems "reasonable" when compared to Trump and Cruz.)    I'll definitely look at him with a much more critical eye.

I've realized the problem with that argument is that a rabid drunk squirrel is more reasonable than those two. But I still wouldn't want a rabid drunk squirrel to run the country (even though it would likely make better decisions than a lot of these people).

On February 15, 2016 at 2:04 PM, bea said:

-snip-

I am always amazed by the way the Republicans are perfectly happy to essentially set the country on fire and watch it burn as long as "they" don't get what they want.

-snip- The position of the Republicans, at this point, seems to be only to keep the Democrats from getting what they want. Watching this election cycle has been so infuriating - what the Republicans have in mind for this country is to undo everything Democrats have ever done to it, regardless of how the citizens of the country may have benefited from whatever it was that was introduced or passed. The whole "take back our country" rhetoric, for example. Take it back from what? Take it back from the voters who put Obama in office twice? Take it back from the people that live here? Take it back from registered voters? It's a dog whistle. They want to take the country back from people who aren't white and in possession of a penis and a lot of money. Watching them scramble to make it more and more difficult for people in majority Democratic areas to vote is a really, really obvious example of how they intend to do exactly what they say they want to do. Take the country back. Take it back from those annoying registered voters who have the temerity to not vote for them.

-snip-

Hell, the Republicans in Congress would probably benefit from a basic civics class. -snip-

I wish I could like your entire post eleventy billion times, but especially this. You eloquently said all the things I feel and get so eager about. The ridiculous amount of gerrymandering they do in addition to making more difficult for democratic areas to vote really shows, as you said, they have absolutely no regard for the people of this country. They really don't give a crap about anyone, they just want power. And I would LOVE for people to be required to pass a civics exam in order to run for office.  

[Maggie Mae]

I would LOVE for someone to give all government employees and people running for office a civics exam. (I'd suggest this one, but I think I'd like a few different questions, and some of the questions are overly simple and some are wrong.) 

Questions I'd add: 

How many languages are spoken in the public schools of the United States? 

Label this map.

What are the bill of rights? 

What is the "clear and present danger doctrine?" 

What is the "commerce clause?" 

Which one of these is American? (Pictures of various people, different races and ethnic groups - pacific islander, indian, Native American, Asian, Hispanic, mixed race, black, white, and a box that says "I can not tell by looking at them only.") 

 

And some essay topics: 

Choose an amendment in the Bill of Rights and write about how it has affected your life. Use examples. Demonstrate clear understanding of the amendment. Do that for all 10. 

 

 

[Whoosh]

1 hour ago, Maggie Mae said:

Label this map.

I am going to try this tonight!  I am pretty sure I will get your state, my state, Hawaii, California, Texas, Florida, and Maine correct!  Should be good times

[MarblesMom]

On 2/15/2016 at 11:35 AM, Buzzard said:

Perhaps to cover up another moon landing?

Cmon, you know that happened on a set in Hollywood somewhere....

[floridaotaku]

Well, now it's settled. All of those people blaming Obama for killing Scalia are dead wrong...

Leonard Nimoy did it!

http://harddawn.com/nimoy-and-obama-killed-scalia/

Quote

Nimoy, the crowned “Pinnacle of the Draco,” has been consolidating power over liberal groups ever since he faked his own death last February. He has been commended in some quarters for brilliantly out-maneuvering the old guard of Rockefellers and the Rothschilds as he plots a technology-savvy future for the New World Order. It’s well known that Nimoy’s own radical liberalism was threatened by Scalia’s commitment to American exceptionalism, as best exemplified in his passionate defense of the court’s Citizens United ruling.

 

[HarryPotterFan]

9 minutes ago, floridaotaku said:

Well, now it's settled. All of those people blaming Obama for killing Scalia are dead wrong...

Leonard Nimoy did it!

http://harddawn.com/nimoy-and-obama-killed-scalia/

 

The problem is that there are people nuts enough to believe this crap, so sometimes it's hard to differentiate between satire and conspiracy theorists.

That said, I am all for Leonard Nimoy taking over the world.

[Mrs Ms]

As a non-american, I have no bone in this, but by far the bat-shit-craziest thing I have read so far about his death was shared by Beth Chapman from the (?Dog The?) Bounty Hunter Series on her FB. (I can't figure out how to link her post without signing in to my account.) 
She shared a post and just wrote "This is a very interesting read" and that post goes sooooo far off the deep-end, I can smell the tinfoil from here!

[Catey]

So now can they still rule on Ted being a "real" American? Oh Trump may have another Trumpertantrum now!

 

[VelociRapture]

His son, Eugene, gave a short interview. Basically said people need to stop speculating his father's death was from anything other than natural causes. He stated his dad was at a place in life where they knew this was likely to happen eventually and the rumors are simply causing them all more pain then necessary. 

I said it before, but I do feel for the Scalia family. I hope they are able to mourn their loss in peace and all these conspiracy theorists just shut the hell up.

[EmmieJ]

He was 79 years old and probably quite sedentary (by the looks of him).  It is not surprising at all that his heart just stopped working.  A friend of mine passed away in her sleep a couple of years ago, and she was only 59.  She had been in a serious car accident many years prior which resulted in injury to her jaw, which made it hard to eat solid foods.  I think that may have made her more fragile overall, but ultimately no one could say exactly why her heart just stopped working.  But death by natural causes is not nearly as intriguing as a whole host of conspiracy theories.

[47of74]

Yeah, George Mason University was in such a hurry to rename their law school after Scalia that they didn't think things completely through....

edition.cnn.com/2016/04/05/politics/george-mason-university-antonin-scalia-law-school-name-change/index.html

Quote

George Mason University recently renamed its law school after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- and then quickly realized the acronym that name created was problematic.

The school first announced it would change the name to The Antonin Scalia School of Law, or ASSoL, after receiving an anonymous $30 million donation on March 31.

Observers took to Twitter to comment on the acronym's similarity to a vulgarity, with many of those tweeting not a fan of the conservative justice.

The school acknowledged the issue in a letter to its students and alumni, writing, "The name initially announced -- The Antonin Scalia School of Law -- has caused some acronym controversy on social media. The Antonin Scalia Law School is a logical substitute."

#ASSoL was certainly fitting.  As was the other acronym the internets were suggesting, which was #ASSlaw.

[bashfulpixie]

That's freaking hilarious!!