https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grgWkZMLArk
Hmmm:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is missing oral arguments on Monday for the first time since she joined the court in 1993, as she recuperates from a recent cancer surgery.
A Supreme Court spokesperson told Fox News that Ginsburg, who underwent lung surgery in New York City last month to remove cancerous growths, is continuing to recuperate from the surgery.
The spokesperson said that Ginsburg would participate in the consideration of the cases through written briefs and transcripts, but there has yet to be a date decided for when she will return to the bench.
Go here to read the rest. At least now we may perhaps be spared the sight of the cadaverous Ginsburg doing “workouts”. Time after time in Supreme Court history we see what a bad idea lifetime appointments to the highest Court is. Ginsburg is merely the latest example of a Justice who is holding on beyond her time. I trust that Trump is keeping Judge Amy Barrett on speed dial.
Ruth will be standing before the highest court in due season. Time waits for no one. Not even Ruthie.
“It is essential to woman’s equality with man that she be the decisionmaker, that her choice be controlling,” Ginsburg told Senators during her four days of questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex.” (Time magazine vault, 1993)
Over sixty million litigants might be present when Ruth steps into the highest court.
The time it takes each litigant to give testimony in the up coming hearing Ruth will face could amount to the time it takes to empty purgatory.
Thats a long session.
Each litigant had a future.
Had, that is,
until c h o I c e trumped the sixth commandment.
The highest court will soon hear Ruth’s version of the story. Her story.
Act of reparation couldn’t hurt.
Never too late.
Even if the Church itself is unwilling to be sorry for a national sin;
https://www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/opinion/armed-police-drag-pro-lifer-from-irish-cathedral-while-he-prays-for-unborn
(And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me. Matthew 25:40)
My observation is that she’s missed arguments before the court for years now. Her attendance has little to do with that.
I think the whole “Notorious RBG” mythos by the Left has gone to her head. However, some Supreme Court Justices simply refuse to know when their time has come and gone, and I think she would be in their number even without this Leftist BS. A particularly pathetic example was William O. Douglas. He was on the Court for 36 years. The year before retiring he had a severe stroke. After he finally retired in 1975 he still attempted to participate in the business of the Court under the guise of having taken “senior status”. After several months of this, the actual members of the Court wrote a letter to him telling him that his function as a member of the Court had ended with his retirement. Then he finally ceased his efforts.
She could always go into private practice.
Given that she’s had pancreatic cancer, she’s amazingly durable. If I’m not mistaken, pancreatic cancer successfully treated (itself an atypical outcome) almost invariably resurfaces. She’s had a loooong run after her initial rounds of treatment, as these things go. I’m wagering those tumors taken out of her lung were not instances of primary lung cancer, but metastases of one of her other cancers. Which means she needs to get her affairs in order.
the actual members of the Court wrote a letter to him telling him that his function as a member of the Court had ended with his retirement. Then he finally ceased his efforts.
Dirty old man was married 4x and (by some accounts) estranged from his children. Wanna bet his colleagues couldn’t stand him either?
So. What term should a Justice be limited to? Something like 18 to 24 years; with a provision to be reappointed to a second, shorter term, say an additional 12 to 15? Maybe we just force these lifetime appointees (not to mention incumbents) to retire like the rest of us, say around age 68 – 72?
“Dirty old man was married 4x and (by some accounts) estranged from his children. Wanna bet his colleagues couldn’t stand him either?”
His last wife, who stuck with him until his death in 1980, was a 22 year old waitress when he married her in 1966 when he was 68. His third wife, who said that he would beat her up, was 23 when he married her in 1963. He had a habit of pursuing the women he wed prior to divorcing their immediate predecessor.
His children with his first wife didn’t tell him when their mother died in 1969 because they long since had stopped speaking with their father. Justice Felix Frankfurter said that Douglas was one of the two completely evil men he had known in his life. His clerks, at least during his tenure on the court in the seventies, referred to him behind his back as sh@thead.
In the media Douglas was portrayed as an avuncular independent thinker. Privately he was a man with a vile temper, motivated entirely by selfishness.
“Justice Felix Frankfurter said that Douglas was one of the two completely evil men he had known in his life.”
I wonder who was the other one?
JOHN F. KENNEDY:
Five will get you ten it was Hugo Black.
Hopefully, God will soon take RBG to her just reward and make it possible for a true conservative judge to be appointed.
Is she hanging on for the generous remuneration she receives for her services? It seems money is the biggest motivator for these career public servants, and even ill health is no roadblock.
I doubt if money is a consideration. Merchandising her image, the sale of her memoirs and film rights to them would make her extremely wealthy, although she is already quite wealthy. With a current estimated net worth north of eighteen million, her salary of 255K a year is chump change. She is hanging on due to ideological belief, hatred of Trump but mainly due to the fact that, as is the case with more than a few Justices, life without the Court becomes unthinkable for them.
Walking, talking validation of the old adage, “Only the good die young.”
Thanks Don. I agree, an 85 year old should not occupy that position. Especially an ill 85 year old. Regardless of their political views. That’s just making a mockery.
So. What term should a Justice be limited to? Something like 18 to 24 years; with a provision to be reappointed to a second, shorter term, say an additional 12 to 15? Maybe we just force these lifetime appointees (not to mention incumbents) to retire like the rest of us, say around age 68 – 72?
1. Mandatory retirement for federal judges on the 31st of July, the calendar year they reach the age of 76.
2. Distribute advice and consent functions for trial courts to the state legislatures.
3. Have federal judges serve for a four year grace period, then be subject to a retention-in-office referendum at that point and every 12 years thereafter.
4. Allow one recall petition and referendum during any given 12 year term.
5. For judges whose jurisdiction encompasses multiple states, assign each state a quantum of electoral votes equal to the state’s citizen population. The referendum held in each state would distribute the electoral votes to the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ column, with the judge’s retention contingent upon a a majority of the sum of electoral votes being distributed to the ‘yes’ column..
6. Hold these referenda quadrennially in May during the 1st year of a quadrennial cycle. Hold your elections to municipal courts in May on the second year of a quadrennial cycle. Hold your elections and referenda in re state appellate courts and state superior trial courts in May during the 3d and 4th year of a quadrennial cycle. Elect or retain municipal positions open to laymen for four year terms and all other judges for 12 year terms, suitably truncated to comply with mandatory retirement provisions. Have ballot access be obtained through a modest petition process or a monetary deposit, rather than a party nomination process.
“I wonder who was the other one?”
Ha! I was wondering the same thing.
I once sat behind Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband at an opera concert. This was during the Harriet Meir nomination debacle, so over 13 years ago. She looked incredibly frail then, and I couldn’t help wonder how much longer she had left. I say this in admiration, actually, because she clearly has a lot of gusto, if nothing else.
If she dies or retires in the next 18 months, and especially if it happens in 2020 – ooh boy, that’s gonna make the Kavanaugh confirmation look like a friendly tennis match.
Kagan’s seat has been held by the left since 1914 and Ginsburg’s since 1962. Would be agreeable to see one of them flip.
“I wonder who was the other one?”
I don’t know. Frankfurter was given to hyperbole. Before he got on the court Frankfurter and Douglas were friends, and both liberal activists, Frankfurter being one of the founders of the ACLU. Frankfurter ended up being a conservative jurist, one of my judicial heroes actually, while Douglas remained ever on the Left, although their disputes tended to be more about personality clashes and that Frankfurter viewed Douglas as a lazy clod with the morals of a rutting minx, both true enough.