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Actual artist rendition of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg asleep during hearing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is playing the victim. It's an old trick she probably learned when she served as a political director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Here's how the old saw goes: Right-wingers criticize me. This enflames "fringe" elements who believe them. This results in threats to my life. Maybe what's really enraging Americans about the 73-year-old Ruth Bader Snoozeburg, as I have dubbed her following her recent inability to stay awake during court proceedings, is the fact that she doesn't understand her proper...

IN A SPEECH last month at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made some unfair insinuations about critics of the use of foreign law in American courts. Justice Ginsburg was defending what is, in our view, a perfectly defensible proposition: that American courts should "learn from legal systems with values and a commitment to democracy similar to our own." Yet in doing so, she managed to link those who take an opposing view to the legacies of slavery and apartheid and to paint them as "fuel[ing] the irrational fringe" in its threats against judges. ... ......

Speeches by Supreme Court justices are usually sleepy civics lessons studded with references to the Federalist Papers and the majesty of the law. That seems to be changing. This month, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told an audience at Georgetown University that a judiciary afraid to stand up to elected officials can lead to dictatorship. Last month, speaking in South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the courts were a safeguard "against oppressive government and stirred-up majorities." ....... The recent speeches, said Kermit L. Hall, the editor of "The Oxford Companion to the United States Supreme Court," may be...

"A Decent Respect to the Opinions of [Human]kind": The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication Constitutional Court of South Africa February 7, 2006 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Associate Justice Supreme Court of the United States South Africa's 1996 Constitution famously provides in Section 39: "When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court . . . must consider international law; and may consider foreign law." Other modern Constitutions have similar provisions, India's and Spain's, for example. In the United States the question whether and when courts may seek enlightenment from the laws and decisions of other nations has provoked heated...

WASHINGTON Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court. Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O'Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices. Security concerns among judges have been growing. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months...

Ruth Bader Snoozeburg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 7, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com Actual artist rendition of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg asleep during hearing Most Americans didn't see this picture. I'm quite sure they would have if the Supreme Court justice asleep at the switch were Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg But it was Ruth Bader Snoozeburg catching 40 winks during a Supreme Court hearing last week. And she is a darling of the U.S. media. Why? Let me count the ways this extremist pleases my colleagues. She is on record as a...

MIDI - I DREAMED A DREAM - 2nd version She had a dream while on the bench...goodness, they all watched Ruthie drooling Listening to those arguments...for her that must be really grueling And then they all had heard her snore...it was a moment we should treasure We know the Coke can guy had laughed...for him it really seemed a pleasure Now the time perhaps is here...it is time that she retires To the left it will bring fear...you are gonna hear them scream, scream, scream, scream, scream She had a dream while lawyers dueled...she saw a world without right...

Justice dozes off during political redistricting hearing, colleagues let her sleep Was it a case of dreaming of a better America, napping on the job, or just being asleep at the switch? Serving on the highest court in the land is apparently a tiring affair for at least one Supreme Court justice who caught 40 winks on the bench, literally. According to the Associated Press, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg snoozed during testimony today over political redistricting in Texas. "The subject matter was extremely technical," notes AP writer Gina Holland, "and near the end of the argument Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg...

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced Friday that she is stepping down from the Supreme Court. In anticipation of resignations—Chief Justice William Rehnquist's had been thought most likely—the Bush administration has floated several names for possible nominees. What views have the president's shortlisters expressed, on and off the bench? In order of our best guess as to the likelihood that they'll be chosen, here's a guide to the prospective nominees' records. 1) Michael J. Luttig, 51 2) John Roberts, 50 3) Emilio Garza, 58 4) Michael McConnell, 50 5) Alberto Gonzales, 49 6) J. Harvie Wilkinson III, 60 7) Edith Brown...

National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy was so angry on Tuesday after the Senate confirmed Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito that she began cursing during a radio interview. "That is such B - llsh - t!" Gandy exclaimed, after radio host Steve Malzberg argued that Alito was nowhere near as politically extreme as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who once favored lowing the age of consent for women to 12. The staff at WOR Radio bleeped Gandy's swearword and Malzberg promptly warned her, "Hey, hey, hey - you can't say that on the air . . . I...

Ethics expert Ted Kennedy is offended by Judge Alito's participation in a case involving the Vanguard mutual fund, in which Alito has been invested. When he became aware of Vanguard’s connection in the case, Alito immediately recused himself despite the fact he was under no legal obligation to do so and neither Vanguard nor he benefited from his ruling. After he informed the other judges on his court, a new panel reheard the case and issued the same ruling. Now, if this is a basis for denying Alito a seat on the Supreme Court, then I would think if a...

The Rehnquist Court is now the Roberts Court...let's assume Alito replaces O'Connor. Who is the next to be replaced? You can bet: if Ginsburg or Stevens leaves next....the "Alito" fight will look like a Sunday picnic.

As I have said before, I didn’t vote for President Bush for his oratorical qualities; I voted for him because I trusted his character, and because I believed that his beliefs more closely fit mine than did those of Gore and Kerry. I trust him on this nomination. In addition to the weak position the Republican Senate has left the President on this matter, there are rumors, impossible to confirm, that several prospective nominees declined to go through the confirmation process. The Democrats have made this process into a vicious war, in which the only thing that matters is the...

I have in the past proudly called myself a "bushbot" on this forum. Initially I was disappointed, but supportive of this nomination. However, as time has gone by, enough has leaked out about Ms. Miers to make me seriously doubt that we can afford to take a chance on a woman who not only has no background in Constitutional Law whatsoever, but - and this is the key - has, according to reliable reports about her stint on the Dallas City Council, shown herself to be very vulnerable to the kind of "go along to get along" attitude that doomed...

AS WE AWAIT President Bush's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, all the talk is about precedent. Roe vs. Wade. What does a judge do when a precedent is based on shaky legal ground? The Ginsburg Precedent: How much does a nominee have to answer, and how do you draw the line? Yet the most important precedent hasn't been mentioned: the Clinton Precedent. To refresh our memories, President Clinton had a chance to make two appointments to the Supreme Court. The first came with the retirement of Justice Byron White, a conservative who cast one of the...

(Washington-AP, Updated 7:50 PM) _ Connecticut libraries lost an emergency Supreme Court appeal on Friday in their effort to be freed from a gag order and participate in a congressional debate over the Patriot Act. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg denied the appeal and offered an unusually detailed explanation of her decision. Ginsburg said the American Civil Liberties Union had made reasonable arguments on behalf of its client, identified in a filing as the Library Connection, an association of libraries in Connecticut. However, Ginsburg said that the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should be given time to consider...

Possibly I've become far too cynical as regards the Dems and politics, but the recent comments by Justices Ginsburg and Stevens, both of whom essentially said that Roberts was absolutelty correct NOT to answer question about matters that may come before the Court, leave me flabbergasted, scratching my head, and wondering both why? and why NOW?

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick writes, as an aside in a piece on John Roberts: Lest you think I'm being too easy on Senate Republicans, I hasten to add that Lindsey Graham's (and today, John Cornyn's) disgraceful use of these hearings to attack Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a champion of legalized prostitution, polygamy, and pederasty is beyond vile. . . . [E]ven as [conservatives] call for bipartisanship, they can't seem to resist attacking a judge with distorted versions of her 30 year old writings. Nice. Yet it seems to me that there's no real "distort[ion]" of Justice Ginsburg's views on prostitution, polygamy,...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has announced that while she does not like being the only female on the Court, just "any woman will not do" to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Apparently merely being appointed for life with authority to declare what is and is not law in America is not enough anymore; sitting Supreme Court Justices should now be allowed to dictate who will become future Justices, as well. Justice Ginsburg fumed, "I have a list of highly qualified women, but the president has not consulted me." How dare him! I expect the White House will...