Mona I kinda disagree that it is only up to her whether to make it known she is capable of fulfilling her Supreme duties, Reality is she is 85 with a long history of medical issues many of them severe including the last ones, She does deserve privacy while she recuperates. We deserve to know she is the one fulfilling everything required of a Supreme and it is not her unelected staff. As has been noted the Court can operate with 8. It should not operate with 8 and the staff of the 9th. I hope she is recuperating nicely but we do deserve to know how capable and engaged she is
Horns6721, I agree with the principle you are describing. I just don't see how you enforce that in a way that doesn't lead to worse problems or political fighting.
Ah Well Mona You make a good point naive me I would hope anyone appointed and confirmed to the highest judicial position would have the morals and honor to respect the Court enough that if one can not in good conscience perform as required that person would recuse themselves until such time as they can. I just do not think it is unreasonable to want confirmation of her ability to act independently.
This could be a complete hoax but it is timely Opera singer, 52, and his husband are arrested for 'raping' man | Daily Mail Online A famous famous opera singer and his husband have been arrested on suspicion of raping a young singer who claims he was left bleeding from the rectum after blacking out at an after-show party with the pair in Texas, in 2010. David Daniels, 52, and his conductor husband Scott Walters, 37, were arrested in Michigan, where they live, on Tuesday night. They are being held in county jail and aware awaiting extradition to Houston where they are accused of raping Samuel Schultz after a performance in 2010. Schultz came forward last August with his allegations, waiving his anonymity as the possible victim of a sex crime to describe how the couple allegedly preyed on him. He reported his claims to the Houston Police Department at the same time. In his complaint, Schultz, who was 23 at the time, described how he rarely drinks but accepted a drink from Daniels once they got back to the home the couple was staying in. " RBG married this couple. Of course this is not what she envisioned. But it is kinda funny
I want Justice Ginsburg to leave the Court and have wanted her to leave every day a Republican has held the presidency since she took office. Her judicial philosophy is anathema to the rule of law. However, she does not have to leave until she dies or is impeached. It's that simple. Furthermore, I see no evidence that she can't do her job. This is not a trial court where evidence is introduced and where the judge has to make rulings on the fly. This is an appellate court. It doesn't work the same way. She does not have to be at oral argument to do her job. She can get the transcript of the hearing if she needs it, and she can read the parties' briefs on her own. She doesn't even have to be there to ask questions. She can give them to another justice to ask. Clarence Thomas sometimes does that even when he's sitting right there. He'll pass a note to Justice Breyer who will then ask his question for him. Nothing wrong with Ginsburg doing the same. She also does not have to attend the judges' meetings in person. She can appear by phone. She does not have to be there to author opinions either. Keep in mind that staff usually writes court opinions anyway. Judges review and can make changes to them, but they usually don't write them from scratch. She can do all of that away from the Court. The bottom line is that so long as she is still of sound mind and can communicate what's on her mind, she can do her job. She could be at the courthouse, at her home, in a hospital bed, or on a beach in the Maldives.
Well media was all over Melania recovering from her kidney surgery CNN even posted a calendar showing the number days she was not in public and this Melania Trump's absence continues, skipping Camp David weekend - CNNPolitics But no MSM let's not ask about a 85 yo Supreme with frequent life threatenng medical issues. Because RBG has no real role on SCOTUS
OK, can we stop the Ruth Bader Ginsburg death watch? She's not dead, folks. She's even getting out and about. Link.
I think if she does attend then that will put everyone at ease. If she’s a no show the questions of her even being alive will continue.
It won't put anyone at ease. She'll sneeze somewhere, and people will say she has pneumonia. And it's all silly. She's not going to die or quit any earlier because of the chatter. In fact, the Left did the same thing to her when Obama was in office, and it made her dig in out of defiance.
Exactly. People bark about the executive branch becoming too powerful...It's the SCOTUS that has become too powerful. Congress should take back their power and quit deferring to ever morphing discoveries of new rights and guarantees situated in the constitution that clearly have no basis in plain language reading of the document and don't even have the contextual support of other documents. They just invent crap this isn't and wasn't ever there.
For most the issue is not that she is dead BUT that she is not capable of fufilling her duties as Supreme. As to this report she is doing a mile a day and is hale and hearty then she will be there tonight. Won't have to walk nearly that far. Interesting that theWapo reporter walked back that he actually saw her last night and another blogger/reporter deleted his twitter account after he said he saw her . No pics? right.
We can develop speculative Weekend at Bernie's theories about her if we want to. However, as I explained earlier, unless her mind is gone, she can do the job even if she can't show up.
Mr D I agree But no one knows if she is still mentally capable. She has been through a lot for anyone the past few months but for a frail 85 to who is fighting a 3rd bout of cancer and recovering from the pain caused by the fall? It is not unreasonable for her to reassure us herself. Silly stories like she is walking a mile a day and she attended a concert where no one actually saw her do not reassure anyone but scared libs.
Well of course. But at that moment seeing her would put people at ease that she “has been” and currently good. If she disappears again for a month or two then people will wonder again. If she wants to stay as a Justice then that’s part of it. If she doesn’t want people to not be concerned how she’s doing then she can resign. But I can’t just not show up at my job for a month or two and continue to get paid. Everyone has responsibilities and we are all expected to do our job. If we can’t for whatever reason then we get fired or we resign. Pretty simple.
That's called a Leave of Absence and is pretty common in most corporations. They can be paid or unpaid depending on your company's policies.
You may want that (though I suspect you mostly just want her gone from the Court as I do), but you aren't entitled to it. They could be as wrong too. My point isn't that Ginsburg is 100 percent or not. My point is that the speculation in both directions is silly and unjustified.
I can count the number of 85 year-olds I have seen working in corporations on one of Bubba's hands. That would be SIX. And they were all owners of private companies.
MrD Of course I want her gone and Kagin and Sotomeyer like all Libs want Thomas and Alito gone But until any of them are gone I want to know they are capable of doing the job they were appointed to do, RBG's circumstances are highly unusual and medically serious. It is very reasonable to want to make sure she can do the job. How long is it reasonable to allow her to "telework" from home?
Sange I consider the SCOTUS to be important enough to want to make sure the people appointed there are doing their jobs. Don't you think the Court and the people appointed are important?
You may consider it of ultimate importance. But saying the same damned thing over and over on a thread on Hornfans is not going to change anything. We all know what your point of view is, and that's really all you can do here, isn't it?
BOSDe, You're 100 percent right, but there's another twist here. At least constitutionally, the Legislature makes all the rules. The President has all enforcement power. The Judiciary literally is a bunch of people in black robes writing stuff. That's it. That's why the Judiciary wasn't a very sought-after place in the early days. It wasn't viewed as a position of great power, because it was assumed that all they'd do is apply laws that were written by Congress and would have to rely on the President to enforce their rulings. It was a very submissive branch. That begs the question of why the Legislature and President dutifully obey these guys who at least formally don't have anywhere near the power. The answer, of course, is political cowardice. Congress and the President may not like every ruling the Court makes, but they both like the ability to punt difficult issues to someone against whom the public has no remedy. If the Court didn't dictate on issues like abortion or gay marriage, the politicians all over the country would have to take real stances on those issues and debate them in public. It takes a lot more guts to do that than to simply defer to the Court. They also sometimes benefit from the Court decisions they pretend not to like. Consider the Democrats' boogeyman decision of Citizens United. Is anyone dumb enough to think people like Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer would actually want to see that case overturned? Of course not. It would kill their gravy train. Bernie Sanders actually does want it overturned, because he relies on a bunch of crazy people sending him $50 checks rather than corporate money. However, there aren't enough crazy people with money to do that for every Democratic politician in the country, so you'd see Pelosi and Schumer having to out-crazy Bernie Sanders to convince those people to send those $50 checks to them rather than Crazy Bernie. That's a pain in the ***, and it's politically divisive. It's a lot easier to get Goldman Sachs or Silicon Valley executives to throw money your way in exchange for political favors.
Two points. First, I don't think you really care, because if we were talking about a conservative justice with a Democrat in the White House, I don't believe you'd be questioning it. You'd want him or her to outlast that Democratic presidency, as would I. Second, my point here is that you have no reason to think she can't do her job. If she's getting the work done, she can telework as long as she wants. Why should I give a crap if she's not in the courtroom? Again, she's not a trial judge who's having to make evidentiary rulings on the fly. She's an appellate court judge who decides cases based on the written law and the legal arguments presented by the parties. She doesn't have to be in court for any of that.
