Justice Ginsburg to Resign?

You are correct. But, I think it is clear that an electoral college vote does not a mandate make.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I think having a mandate comes more from personal charisma and a clear ability to lead than from margin of victory.

 

Do you have a source for this? I'd like to read more.

 

http://news.google.com/news?q=Ginsburg

 

First of all, CMG: on the surface you appear to be anti-Semitic. Twice you made reference to her ethnic/social/religious background, and neither really offered any insight as to your point....

Q: In reading about a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court, I came across something called the "Jewish seat." What in the world is that? -- Norman Brooks, Trenton, N.J.


A: It's not officially called that, of course. But after Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo died in 1938, Felix Frankfurter succeeded him on the court. And when Frankfurter retired in 1962, President Kennedy named another Jew, Arthur Goldberg, to succeed him. That's when the term "Jewish seat" began to be widely used.


The tradition continued when Abe Fortas succeeded Goldberg in 1965.


The first Jew named to the court was Louis Brandeis, who was nominated by President Wilson in 1916. His nomination was met with angry debate, much of it blamed on anti-Semitism. Emotions ran so high that when Brandeis joined the court, another associate justice, James McReynolds, refused to sit next to him when the court had its official photo taken. While still on the court, Brandeis was joined by another Jew, Cardozo, who was named by President Hoover in 1932. Compared to the outcry over Brandeis' nomination, however, the reaction to Cardozo was muted; unlike the Senate vote on Brandeis, when 22 senators voted no, Cardozo was approved by voice vote. It was Cardozo who essentially began the streak that became known as the "Jewish seat."


Cardozo's death in 1938 led to Frankfurter, who left the court in 1962 following a stroke and was succeeded by Goldberg. Following the death of United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson in 1965, President Johnson convinced Goldberg to leave the court for the U.N. One reason for LBJ's maneuvering was to get his longtime ally/crony (take your pick), Abe Fortas (who also happened to be Jewish) on the court.


Goldberg may have been bamboozled into leaving the court -- and that in itself is a fascinating story -- but for Fortas the turmoil was worse. Johnson tried to elevate him to chief justice in 1968 after Earl Warren announced he wanted to step down. A filibuster led by Republicans and Southern Democrats forced Johnson to withdraw Fortas' name that year, though he did stay on the court. Then, a year later, Life magazine reported that Fortas took (though later returned) money from a foundation controlled by the family of Louis Wolfson, an indicted stock manipulator. The resulting uproar forced Fortas to quit the court in May of 1969, although he denied any wrongdoing.


In seeking a nominee to succeed Fortas, President Nixon had no desire to continue the "Jewish seat" tradition. After the Senate rejected his first two choices (Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell), Nixon settled on Harry Blackmun, a Methodist and long-time friend of Chief Justice Warren Burger. That ended the decades-long tradition of having a Jew on the court. It lasted until President Clinton named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the court in 1993 and Stephen Breyer the following year; both still serve.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4723460

It was a term used by the Democrats when they were in power back in the days of Fortas, etc. See, cultural diversity is not as new as you think.

 

I would say the Democrats were wrong to use this insulting and demeaning phrase about Jews.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Thanks for the history lesson.

 

Well, why should I have been blamed because some of the younger people did not know that that term was around? In its day, it was used to justify ethnic inclusion, a form of affirmative action. I don't think that it is bad as you say. It merely is a formula for dividing up the supreme court, which has been divided up along cultural diversity lines for quite some time now. And look at the outcry for another female on the court. So we have always decided judges to some extenet on physical characteristics it seems and we still do.

 

Affirmative Action is insulting and demeaning inasmuch as it includes quotas.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Blame it on the Democrats like JFK. Who said that politics was pretty? There was no outcry at the time, and this dates back to Woodrow Wilson. In my mind, the problem again here is that American law was based upon Protestant thinking about Christianity. Now we have a drive to put all these different cultural groups on the court and some of them are at odds with American jurisprudence deep down. Ginsburg certainly is not founded in American jurisprudence by any stretch of the immagination. But then we do have a look at the way American politics works and how votes are bought and sold to the highest bidder.

 

Then kindly provide evidence backing up yoru claim that Ginsburg donated millions of dollars to Clinton in exchange for her seat on SCOTUS.

 

I said that she must have contributed a lot of money to the Clintons. She had to have been a Democrat political operative. That means that she did things for Democrats. Roberts is a GOP political operative. He worked in the Reagan administration. Ginsburg was an ACLU type and that is closely allied with the Democrats.

 

Exactly. You said she "must have contributed a lot of money to the Clintons". That's clear rumor and gossip. Scripturally forbidden. Plain and simple. I don't care of it's Gisburg, Roberts, or the Dali Llama we're talking about. No such gossip or rumor is allowed. Period.

 

But I am not alleging corruption or bribery. What I am saying is that in politics, if one expects the worst of everyone else, one is seldom disappointed.

I doubt if there is a link describing Ginsburg's donations in time and money to the Democrats but the American political system is such that one does not get these high ranking appointments by beauty and brains. One pays one's dues. Therefore she must have paid her dues because otherwise why would Clinton, who is intelligent and logical if European socialistic, appoint a far left wacko like Ginsburg who is so far out of the American mainstream? Ginsburg is to the left of most liberal Democrats. There is no more mercy in Ginsburg than there is milk in a male tiger.