Antonin Scalia: The body of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was barely cold before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that President Obama shouldn’t even think about trying to appoint a replacement. A statement from McConnell said, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

Scalia’s death sets up what could be a monumental political battle to shape the Supreme Court during a pivotal election year. Republicans will be jamming the process in hopes that a Republican will be president in a year, and the Democrats will be fighting to install a sympathetic vote in the Court in case they lose in November.

Republican candidates in last night’s South Carolina debate said the next president should pick Scalia’s successor. Obama said he will nominate a successor.

The outcome has the potential to tilt the court left for years to come.

The 79-year-old Scalia was found dead yesterday at a Texas ranch resort where he had been on vacation. He appeared to have died of natural causes.

Scalia followed what’s called “originalism” in his reading of the Constitution. He basically thought the words mean what they say and are not open to much interpretation. Most of his decisions fell on the conservative side. His most historic majority opinion held that the Second Amendment is literal; American citizens have the right to own guns. That was not always the interpretation.

Scalia was an extremely bright man who peppered his opinions with acerbic language, the kind of stuff Supreme Court watchers live for.

Just last June, writing in dissent to the majority opinion upholding same-sex marriage, Scalia wrote, “Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.”

HillaryMail: The State Department has released another 551 of Hillary Clinton’s emails from her private server during her time as secretary of state, including 84 that have been retroactively reclassified as “classified,” “secret,” or “top secret.” This will continue to feed the debate about Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. Clinton and her staff have complained that the State Department is overzealously classifying material that was not classified at the time the emails were sent.

Permawar: The terrorist group al-Shabab claims that it was responsible for the failed attempt to take down a Somali airliner with a suicide bomb earlier this month. The explosion 15 minutes into the flight sucked what was left of the bomber out the hole in the fuselage, but the jet was able to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu. Investigators believe the bomb was inside a laptop computer passed to a passenger inside the security zone. Twenty people have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Nation: A pileup involving 60 cars and trucks yesterday during a snowstorm killed three people and shut down Interstate 78 in Pennsylvania. Forty people were taken to hospitals. Drivers said that the cars ahead of them suddenly disappeared into a whiteout. Vehicles were stacked and crushed on the road and strewn into the center divide.

Chill Out: Bismarck, ND, 24; Chicago, 15; Lexington, KY, 17; Washington, 13; New York, 0; Windsor, Ct. -11; Boston, -9; Bangor, Me., -9.

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