Justice Ginsburg: I Slept During State of the Union Because I Had Too Much Wine Again, Plus, An Actually More Significant Story
I don’t really care much about this story. I just love the picture:
Above: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The audience for the most part is awake, because they’re bobbing up and down, and we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges. But we’re not, at least I wasn’t, 100 percent sober,” Ginsburg said during a talk at The George Washington University on Thursday night, according to a report by The Blaze.
“Because before we went to the State of the Union, Justice Kennedy brought in … it was an Opus something or other, very fine California wine, and I vowed this year, just sparkling water, stay away from the wine, but in the end, the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine.”
She had vowed to stay away from the wine, you see, because she did the same thing last year.
Hey, it beats falling asleep during oral argument!
More important, as Ed Whelan notes, is the fact that Ginsburg is commenting, willy-nilly, on multiple cases now pending before the Court:
The 81-year-old justice discussed the public’s increasing acceptance of gays against the backdrop of resistance by Alabama officials to a federal court order that took effect Monday and made it the 37th gay-marriage state. With the high court set to rule on the issue by June, she said it “would not take a large adjustment” for Americans should the justices say that gay marriage is a constitutional right.
“The change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous,” Ginsburg said. “In recent years, people have said, ‘This is the way I am.’ And others looked around, and we discovered it’s our next-door neighbor — we’re very fond of them. Or it’s our child’s best friend, or even our child. I think that as more and more people came out and said that ‘this is who I am,’ the rest of us recognized that they are one of us.”
But I can be fair on gay marriage!
Asked about the president’s legacy, Ginsburg pointed to the law, known as Obamacare, which she voted to uphold in the 2012 case.
“Our country was just about the only Western industrialized country that didn’t have universal health care for all of the people, and he made the first giant step in that direction,” she said. “That’s certainly one of the things he will be remembered for.”
But I can be fair on King v. Burwell!
Longtime readers know that Ginsburg commenting on issues pending before the Court is not a new phenomenon — indeed, this very blog (with a tip from Kevin M.) broke a nation-wide story about Ginsburg doing exactly that back in 2004.
The difference today is that nobody cares.
Ding.
Patterico (2b72e1) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:30 pmeven your most refined ivy league trash look silly in those robes
why don’t they just throw on some powdered wigs and pass around a snuff box
that might even help the old drunk-ass one stay awake
happyfeet (831175) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:38 pmThis story in various iterations about her off the cuff comments, and her wine, with pictures of her snoozing at the SOTU, were concurrently published on almost every news website last week. They were mostly done with an illusion of sweet humor but never failed to mention her age and some mentioned her health issues. Being the cynic, I believe these are again part of a concerted leftist effort to get her to resign from the Supreme Court. Fearing the possibility of an R president in 2016 they desperately want President Obama to have the opportunity nominate a young socialist who could serve long on the high court. You may recall there was an orchestrated effort to get her to resign a couple years ago and she not so politely told people to eff-off. But I think she’s going to be increasingly put under pressure to step down.
elissa (397550) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:48 pmI absolutely love the look that the Wise Latina is shooting toward Justice Ginsburg in the photo above.
elissa (397550) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:51 pmThere’s no impropriety here, as her votes are utterly predictable on this type of case. Even a casual observer of the court could guess her vote on every Constitutional* test and be right 95% of the time.
—-
* on matters of dry law unrelated to politics, it is harder to guess.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:55 pmI would imagine it’s her health, not the “glass of wine” excuse. I wonder, were she to leave the court in the next year or so, what the GOP would demand for ratifying a successor. Probably nothing, of course, but a Presidential signature on a pile of bills would be my price.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/15/2015 @ 12:58 pmThe GOP would demand nothing for ratifying a successor. 90% of the GOP respects the President’s prerogative to appoint politically aligned judges.
Unfortunately, the GOP is the only political party that respects this prerogative. The Democrats will use any excuse to seize any inkling of power.
egd (1ad898) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:02 pmelissa- word for word I would love to know what the wise latina was thinking.
mg (31009b) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:05 pmwe must sacrifice a chicken to the sleep goddess
happyfeet (831175) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:10 pmBreaking News! New ISIS video shows beheading of 20 Egyptian Christians. And guess where this took place; Libya. It gets worse.
The Emperor (64d34d) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:11 pmCalls to mind the old saying, “sober as a judge”… Lol.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:12 pmNobody cares since we realized that Obama could install two partisan hacks without much fight.
You could not convince me that there is not an exit strategy in place for her. How that lines up with her exit strategy for herself is an open question.
steveg (794291) — 2/15/2015 @ 1:47 pmSheesh.
It’s like the US is manifesting various signs of transforming itself into sort of a quasi-third-world, emerging-world, banana-republic type of stupor, with the photo of Ginsburg and her public chatter about that making her a perfect poster child for that phenomenon.
Now we need a photo of Obama playing the fiddle.
Mark (c160ec) — 2/15/2015 @ 2:23 pmor kissing a girl even
happyfeet (831175) — 2/15/2015 @ 2:36 pmNo other SC Justices make comments about pending cases?
seeRpea (aa8044) — 2/15/2015 @ 2:48 pmI don’t think ISIS is operating under auspices of any Islamic clerics anymore.
The insane people seem to be in complete control.
i wonder if ISIS is just now a collection pot of all the violently insane Arab muslims.
seeRpea (aa8044) — 2/15/2015 @ 2:52 pmThey look embarrassed as they look at her out of the corner of their eye. But they should be more embarrassed listening to Obama scolding them.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 2/15/2015 @ 2:58 pmMaybe she passed gas and Sotomayor is breaking with decorum
steveg (794291) — 2/15/2015 @ 3:19 pmWhat was I thinking. They aren’t using the corner of their eyes. They are gawking.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 2/15/2015 @ 4:45 pmDo you really blame her? I would get tanked up too if I had to listen to that crap.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 2/15/2015 @ 6:41 pmImagine if Alito or Thomas or Scalia had passed out drunk.
JD (86a5eb) — 2/15/2015 @ 6:59 pmImagine if Thomas brought wine to the SC and got one of the women drunk.
nk (dbc370) — 2/15/2015 @ 7:47 pmFrom what you posted, nothing she said goes to the merits of these cases.
sing (4aae12) — 2/15/2015 @ 7:49 pmCaption contest:
Roberts: “I should have stayed home.”
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/15/2015 @ 7:51 pmGinsberg: “Zzzzzzzzzz.”
Breyer: “This is getting embarrassing.”
Sotomayor: “I hope she doesn’t piss herself again.”
Kagan (to the right): “Thank God we put a seat belt on her this time.”
The difference today is that nobody cares.
Not quite true. They care if Justice Thomas’ wife says something about politics, but the justices on the left could be finance a case and it would never make the papers.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/15/2015 @ 7:56 pmPerhaps Ginsburg should recuse herself the way Scalia did in Newdow.
DRJ (e80d46) — 2/15/2015 @ 8:24 pmWe need an age limit, seriously, for these old fogies. I know, I know, but what if we offered them five times their salary as a pension for life if they retired at 65?
When I got into this racket, the Justices had two clerks each, with the CJ three. Thurgood Marshall only had one the whole time. Now the Associates have four each and the CJ six. It’s ridiculous. Their clerks are doing all the work because the decrepit old wrecks are too old and decrepit to do it themselves.
nk (dbc370) — 2/15/2015 @ 8:32 pmThey just recently have something that qualifies
Chastity (1e4ce4) — 2/16/2015 @ 4:39 amas a league for women there. He also expresses extreme gratitude to
the supporters. Elizabeth Hennigan from Brand Content explains the thinking
behind their male-oriented marketing campaign.
She was just doing what millions of Americans do every Sunday — taking a nap during a boring sermon.
cedarhill (b104db) — 2/16/2015 @ 5:54 am1.5% of the population has the right to hijack an ancient ritual that belongs to and has defined heterosexuals for 5,000 years because legislator Ginsburg says so.
CrustyB (69f730) — 2/16/2015 @ 9:52 amwhen Ruth dreams she goes to a place where she’s beautiful and people genuinely like her – she smiles and they smile and she smiles and they smile! They laugh at her jokes and when their souls are troubled they eagerly seek her counsel. They say Ruth my mama’s biscuits I thought was tasty but baby you put hers to shame they’re delicious! Hey Ruth come be on *our* team they say! Hey that seat’s saved for Ruth people exclaim wherever she goes
when Ruth dreams
happyfeet (831175) — 2/16/2015 @ 10:17 amThank you, Justice Ginsburg – Now we proles understand that it’s not about “a deliberate parsing of the law as written and applied” — Oh no! It’s about “What We Think The Public Will Approve”.
Good to know.
Or not.
A_Nonny_Mouse (f67eca) — 2/16/2015 @ 11:01 amBe nice to the 81 year old cancer survivor who wants to stay in her job so much that she’s denying the Troll In Chief the chance to try to appoint a forty-five year old moonbat (who will vote exactly the same way or worse) to replace her. Let her sleep.
M. Scott Eiland (725705) — 2/16/2015 @ 11:56 amAlternative version.
See, it works either way, Mr. feets. But the part about saving her seat reminded me of the old TV show Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KtAgAMzaeg
Steve57 (6b5a38) — 2/16/2015 @ 12:24 pmWho the hell cares about this? Shes 81. Who hasnt seen older people sleeping at various times during the day? Hell Ive dozed during meetings.
Gil (27c98f) — 2/17/2015 @ 12:13 am