Thanks once again to our blogger pals at The Daley Gator for the Rule Five links!

Moving right along:  Well, this isn’t good.  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is gone.  Excerpt:

At various points in his long and storied tenure on the Court, Scalia was an advocate for limiting the federal government’s power with regards to individuals and the states, but that impulse clearly had its limits. In the 2005 medical-marijuana case, Gonzales v. Raich, Scalia argued that the federal government had the right to regulate home-grown medical marijuana that never left the state in which it was grown. This was seen by many as at odds with his earlier rulings in Lopez (a ruling that invalidated Gun-Free School Zones) and Morrison (that struck down parts of 1994’s Violence Against Women Act).

More here.  Justice Scalia died of apparent natural causes.

Now, Senate Majority Leader McConnel has said that the vacancy thus created should be filled not by President Obama, but by the next President.  Emphasis is mine; it remains to be seen as to whether Senator McConnel has the testicular fortitude to see this through.

Given recent performances by the Senate GOP, that’s not at all certain.

Still, Scalia was as reliable a voice for liberty as we’ve had on the Court in recent years, in most things at least.  The libertarian Reason magazine has written a lot on his judgings over the years, and much of his work has been positive.  Among other things, he was solidly pro-Second Amendment – although he was weaker on such issues as legalizing marijuana.

Still.  79 is far too young.  Let’s hope we can find another solid Constitutionalist to fill his seat on the bench – which we surely won’t see from another Obama appointee.