That's Linda Greenhouse in "Family Ties at the Supreme Court/Do the political activities of Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife cross a line?" (NYT).
What did Ginni Thomas do exactly? Greenhouse links to "Trump Meets With Hard-Right Group Led by Ginni Thomas" by Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni (NYT). Excerpt:
President Trump met last week with a delegation of hard-right activists led by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, listening quietly as members of the group denounced transgender people and women serving in the military, according to three people with direct knowledge of the events....I'm skeptical about whether these "members of the group" actually "denounced transgender people and women serving in the military." It seems much more likely that they denounced some policies relating to these groups, not the human beings themselves. One could think transgenders shouldn't be in the military and women shouldn't be in combat without being hostile to these individuals. Indeed, one could hate heterosexual men and believe they absolutely do belong in the frontlines of military duty.
It is unusual for the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice to have such a meeting with a president, and some close to Mr. Trump said it was inappropriate for Ms. Thomas to have asked to meet with the head of a different branch of government....
পোস্টগুলি
১২১টি মন্তব্য:
If the Notorious RBG can be political, I see no reason why a justice's spouse can't be.
Filed under "Things that are bad when Republicans do them but okay for Democrats"
"Shut up" she argued.
This "norms" meme is always a signal that the writer is a bullshit artist.
Ya know ya in for some insightful, thought-provoking, balanced "journalism" when an opening line begins, "President Trump met last week with a delegation of hard-right activists."
So there’s a “hard right,” there’s “right wing,” is there a “center right” or is there just a hole there and we go sraight to “left of center” from there, where it stops, since there is no “hard left” or “left wing”?
Do people really wonder why people from the center to the right simply don’t trust the media to be unbiased?
"If the Notorious RBG can be political, I see no reason why a justice's spouse can't be."
I suspect Greenhouse, on an earlier draft, received a comment anticipating reactions like that, because the column contains this paragraph, set apart inside parentheses:
"(To digress, in the summer of 2016, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly labeled Donald Trump — accurately, but as she promptly conceded, indiscreetly — a “faker.” How does this indiscretion rank with Ginni Thomas’s immersion in right-wing politics? For one thing, Donald Trump was a political candidate, not a sitting president. For another, Justice Ginsburg’s expression of distaste was generic, while Ms. Thomas evidently discussed with the president issues near the top of the Supreme Court’s agenda. A case on whether federal law protects transgender people from employment discrimination is pending; the justices talked about whether to accept it at their most recent closed-door conference.)"
Justice Thomas keeps his mouth shut but Ginni isn't built that way. Nobody criticizes First Ladies with opinions and personal desires to become President someday. So we need to leave Ginni alone. She is, after all, nothing but a small wave in a big ocean.
Hard right? Used to be the norm under Clinton. Except for the women in military part, was the norm under Obama.
For Christ's fucking sake, I hunger to read a woman who says:
"Feminism doesn't mean shit to me. Sisters, go fuck yourselves."
Somebody free from the fucking zombie affliction. A free mind.
Haven't encountered a woman with this freedom of mind and will since my wife died.
It's like eating a shit sandwich reading dumb hags bleating about feminism.
"Hard right" group, eh? And the number of times Greenhouse--or even the NYT--has catagorized an interest group as hard left? Or extreme left, or far left? I do kinda see her point though. Hmmm. I can't figure out how to contextualize Ginni Thomas' advocacy activities to come to a firm opinion. What other activities of powerful governmental figures' spouses might be relevant?
So, Linda Greenhouse is now a concern troll? She's concerned that someone who opposes her liberalism is meeting with people who --oppose her liberalism.
Stopped reading at "hard right." I know whatever follows will most likely be some kind of sensible policy that a plurality of Americans likely support.
The aside should have been the clue to kill the piece instead of trying to make it work anyway.
To digress, in the summer of 2016, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly labeled Donald Trump — accurately, but as she promptly conceded, indiscreetly — a “faker.”
So silly. Why is it "accurate" to single out Trump as a faker? Is any politician not a faker? Is RBG herself not a faker when she pretends that she's being objective, and fair, and correctly interpreting the Constitution and apolitical in her judicial decisions?
And let's be honest here, we're all fakers in some way or another.
There’s something troublesome about the unbounded nature of public advocacy in the NYT hard news pages, at least for those of us who still care about journalism.
So it's "hard right" now to understand the basic science of biology. So noted.
Greenhouse says "Ms. Thomas evidently discussed [transgenders in the military] with the president," but the NYT article she cites for a report of the meeting says that Thomas only was "listening quietly as members of the group denounced transgender people and women serving in the military, according to three people with direct knowledge of the events...."
Also, Greenhouse's comparison of RBG and GT makes what RBG did much more troubling! "For another, Justice Ginsburg’s expression of distaste was generic, while Ms. Thomas evidently discussed with the president issues near the top of the Supreme Court’s agenda." Huh? It's much worse for the actual Justice who will be deciding the case to be expressing hostility to party who will be involved in many cases than for the wife of a Justice talking to that party. Now, Ginni Thomas is in a position to talk to her husband (the decider of cases) and maybe to influence him, but to worry about that is on the level of worrying about what goes on inside Ruth Bader Ginsburg's head. We never have access to that.
If we're worried about SCt Justices being influenced by talking to other people, we ought to worry about all the many people who talk to Supreme Court Justices. I suspect that the influencers skew left. There are thousands of private conversations that we don't get to monitor.
"Martin Ginsburg gave up law practice when his wife first became a judge, embarking on a new career as a law professor"
She omits that in addition to being a law professor Mr. Ginsburg was of counsel to the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. The firm represents plenty of far left advocacy groups and must have had cases before his wife.
Today at Starbucks, one of the staff was one of the new gender folks. I almost certain they started w a dick. Probably still has one. Wasn’t going for a gal look. Not guy either.
Let them be.
IMHO.
Things must be looking bad for RBG...the hyenas are already coming for the body....
https://www.thenation.com/article/notorious-rbg-scotus-dissent/
Greenhouse said..."For another, Justice Ginsburg’s expression of distaste was generic, while Ms. Thomas evidently discussed with the president issues near the top of the Supreme Court’s agenda."
Let's just sweep under the rug that Ms. Thomas is merely married to a Justice while Justice Ginsburg actually is one.
"hard right"
As written by someone on the ultra hard radical fascist left.
I thought Greenhouse was going away?
Remember how upset Ms. Greenhouse was when then-First Lady Hillary Clinton shattered norms by being placed in charge of devising the nation's health care policies?
Me neither.
At least that wasn't in poor taste.
It’s Linda Greenhouse. You should be skeptical of the whole thing.
Why does the left think it’s ok to bash Thomas and his wife? Isn’t that racist and sexist?
Hillary Clinton was a president’s wife. She was a hard-core partisan who ran for President. The Times has no problem with that bullshit.
I remember when Anna Quindlen trashed Thomas and his wife for posing for that People Magazine cover. Such snobbery from The Times. And totally oblivious to the fact that it was actually a pretty big deal to show an Inter-Racial Couple back in 1991, especially a Republican one. That didn’t fit The Times bullshit narratives.
The Times is going to go apeshit when Amy Barret gets nominated. A woman with 7 kids to take Ruth’s seat. Wait until she’s on the cover of people with 7 kids.
After Covington - I have NO trust in anything radical far-left opinion writers say.
I've noticed that feminist sensibilities in discussing Republican women always come with a big "but".
It's interesting Greenhouse used the word troublesome rather than troubling.
It's the "unbounded nature" that is troublesome. Thomas needs someone to set boundaries for her so she won't be troublesome, so say Linda Greenhouse's feminist sensibilities.
I'm thinking Ginni Thomas will be pleased to learn that her opponents find her troublesome.
After the bullshit hit job the Times and Dems pulled in Thomas, it’s awesome his wife is a hard-core conservative. Maybe Kavanaugh’s wife will wake up and start punching back twice as hard.
"But while my feminist sensibilities make me wary of suggesting that [fill in the blank] ... My deeper commitment to partisan hackery demands..."
Linda Greenhouse gas.
Good catch Bob Boyd. As we used to say when girls wore slips, “You’re slip is showing, Linda!"
"..., those familiar" is another tell that this is a bullshit story/article.
This scares the left more than anything.
So, they lie.
It's interesting Greenhouse used the word troublesome rather than troubling.
Well at least she didn't use "turbulent".
“If we're worried about SCt Justices being influenced by talking to other people, we ought to worry about all the many people who talk to Supreme Court Justices. I suspect that the influencers skew left.”
Isn’t every Greenhouse column an attempt to influence from the left? Doesn’t she talk to justices, clerks, former clerks with ties to justices, etc when she journals her isms? Maybe she just doesn’t like the competition. Very troublesome.
We know that Linda Greenhouse reads the Althouse blog, so this comment is directed at her.
Ginni Lamp Thomas is my classmate from Creighton. She is a wonderful and smart person. Admit it, you just hate her because she is living the life she intended. Is Ginni forced to leave her political beliefs and life's work at the church's doorstep the day she married Clarence Thomas at St. Paul United Methodist Church at 55th and the Northwest Radial Highway in Omaha? (I wasn't invited but I thought about crashing the wedding since I lived just down the street.)
Face facts, dear Linda. The elite opinion coming from the NYT is dead. Trump won. Hillary lost. Clarence and Brett are on SCOTUS for life. Move on.
Feminism is just a tool for Greenhouse. She is a faker.
Greenhouse and The Times are Hard Left.
Allowing transgenders in the military is a Hard Left position, especially in combat units.
anti-de Sitter space said...
Today at Starbucks, one of the staff was one of the new gender folks. I almost certain they started w a dick. Probably still has one. Wasn’t going for a gal look. Not guy either.
Let them be.
IMHO.
Absolutely! "Let them be". They have a dick? They're male. Let them go to men's restrooms, men's locker rooms, and men's dressing / changing rooms.
Because real women, ones who have vaginas, deserve "let them be" too.
And that's destroyed when you let men in their private places.
For one thing, Donald Trump was a political candidate, not a sitting president.
Re: RBG publicly disses and denigrates a political candidate.
As a sitting Supreme Court Justice, who many revere and hold her opinion in high value, why can't we consider this an attempt to sway public opinion in a political race? Should we pretend that she didn't sway some people? That her words don't carry some special weight and that they might have an effect on the ultimate results. If the Russians had an effect, why don't we acknowledge that RBG could do the same.
A Judge and especially a Supreme Court Justice is "supposed" to be a-political or at least be non public/private about political opinions on current and existing events....especially those that might come before them at court. To not keep private their preconceived opinions shows bias and prejudice. (Not to say that those don't exist as a part of being human).
Maybe we should just allow the Judges and Justices to just let it all hang out and show their prejudices. At least we will stop pretending that "justice is blind".
The wife or husband of a Supreme Court Justice or any Judge isn't generally held to this high standard because they are not the ones who are making these momentous decisions that affect everyone. However, as a spouse, it is likely that they will be influencing factors on the decisions that the Judges will eventually make.
What are we supposed to do with the spouses? Put them in a box. Solitary confinement and pretend that they have no lives outside of being a spouse?
...husband’s apocalyptic confirmation hearing
Did Justice Thomas open up Seven Seals one by one before the Senate?
How did I miss that?
"But while my feminist sensibilities make me wary of suggesting that [fill in the blank] ... My deeper commitment to left-wing hackery demands..."
FIFY
One wonders if the pillow talk between Genni and Thomas accounts for another reason why the court is being framed more and more as an "activist" court and not impartial. Clearly Roberts has his work cut out for him.
Classic concern trolling by all the "journolists". Greenhouse can take her column and stuff it up her ass.
These same jackanapes dissing Mrs. Thomas thought that it was wonderful when Bill and Hillary presented themselves as a "Two for One" package in the1992 election.
There are 330 Million people in the US.
How many transgenders are there? 100? 200? 500?
It's not very popular or healthy or common to want to snip your thing or add a prosthetic one.
Why is this even discussed? Death by lightning is rare, so we don't spend much time worrying about it. Why not the same for transgenders?
Because the Left doesn't give a hoot about transgenders. If they did, they would recognize it as mostly a mental disease, and would promote whatever standard medical treatment there was.
Instead, the Left uses the issue as a vehicle to cause uncertainty, doubt, chaos, lawsuits in the military. They want our military to be weak.
We have that luxury, post-Cold War, to engage in this nonsense.
If we were facing an existential threat (like the Nazis or Communists), we'd need to focus on building a strong military, with strong men. And, hopefully, we wouldn't get bogged down with social engineering about gays or trannies or women in combat.
Allow the odd sexes in but do away with sensitivity training.
More Navy fighter pilot orgies.
@Bay Area Guy:
There are 330 Million people in the US.
How many transgenders are there? 100? 200? 500?
It's probably somewhere around a million. But you're right, transgender are a tiny fraction of the population, perhaps one-third of one percent.
Why is this even discussed? Death by lightning is rare, so we don't spend much time worrying about it. Why not the same for transgenders?
To be fair, you could make the same argument about terrorism which people tend to not accept. Death by terrorism is rare, yet we believe we have to spend trillions of dollars to protect ourselves from it.
Because the Left doesn't give a hoot about transgenders. If they did, they would recognize it as mostly a mental disease, and would promote whatever standard medical treatment there was.
In fact, they are. Hormone therapies and sexual reassignment surgeries have become "standard medical treatment," though I think their efficacy is highly questionable.
If we were facing an existential threat (like the Nazis or Communists), we'd need to focus on building a strong military, with strong men.
The Nazis never posed an existential threat to US, and the existential threat from the Soviet Union came in the form of their nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, I agree with your position that if transgender people want to serve in the military, they should do so according to their biological sex.
Ginni Thomas ceased being an individual and free to act as she sees fit when her husband was installed on the Supreme Court? Clarence Thomas ceased having unique thoughts once he married Ginni? Is that what we are supposed to understand from the complaint articulated by the author, "It is unusual for the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice to have such a meeting with a president, and some close to Mr. Trump said it was inappropriate for Ms. Thomas to have asked to meet with the head of a different branch of government...."?
As others above have said, Bill Clinton was a better and improved POTUS because he had the brilliant Hillary as his spouse. And a major selling point for Hillary as POTUS was the fact that the brilliant Bill would become First Man. A two-fer!
I bet Steven Pinker would throw the BS flag on this nonsense too.
mccullough said...
The Times is going to go apeshit when Amy Barret gets nominated. A woman with 7 kids to take Ruth’s seat. Wait until she’s on the cover of people with 7 kids.
I expect gasps on the left and fainting spells when two of the kids turn out to be black (adopted from Haiti)
"denounced transgender people and women serving in the military."
I don't think anyone denounces "women in the military". Some denounce women in combat or more specifically, women in combat arms jobs.
Women in combat arms jobs is two orders of magnitude more denounceable than women in the military :)
FYI.
- we had women in the military in 1776
- women in combat since 1990
Bay Area Guy @11:09-- Hear, hear. Well stated.
Fernandinstein: It is known by Settled Science that Greenhouse gas causes catastrophic global warming. Mother Gaia weeps.
you could make the same argument about terrorism which people tend to not accept. Death by terrorism is rare, yet we believe we have to spend trillions of dollars to protect ourselves from it.
I think the counter argument would be that it's not so much the actual death toll from terrorism that concerns people, but the potential one. The fear that a lack of vigilance, a lack of massive spending will inevitably lead to another 911 event is a difficult one to fully dismiss. Of course perhaps a more logical line of thought would be to accept that no matter how much money we spend there's no guarantees. Shit happens. But we're not very logical.
In fact, they are. Hormone therapies and sexual reassignment surgeries have become "standard medical treatment,"
I am pretty sure that my lifelong need for cardiological care would have kept me out of the military, and I wouldn’t have taken in personally either.
Trump is pretending to be conservative but he's probably fairly liberal. The radical left and their non stop CNN-MSDNC Hillary-Mueller hatred have pushed The Donald to the right. to which i say - hooray!
you could make the same argument about terrorism which people tend to not accept. Death by terrorism is rare, yet we believe we have to spend trillions of dollars to protect ourselves from it.
What is the cost to the economy when people refuse to fly? Hint, you are going to need a lot of zeros.
@Nonapod:
The fear that a lack of vigilance, a lack of massive spending will inevitably lead to another 911 event is a difficult one to fully dismiss. Of course perhaps a more logical line of thought would be to accept that no matter how much money we spend there's no guarantees. Shit happens. But we're not very logical.
I agree with you. For one, the threat of mass murder will always exist in an open society. Second, when people go nuts and kill a lot of people, conservative voices are usually the most prominent ones to caution against do somethingism. Third, most of that money was spent on foreign wars that had nothing to do with protecting the American homeland.
Please, if you value your time and your sanity do NOT get involved with J. Farmer about the whole question of existential threats to the U.S. :-;
Linda Greenhouse should concern herself with whether RBG is alive and cogent or dead/comatose. Anything that has RBGs signature after her lung surgery is probably invalid and if I were directly affected I would scream. So Linda, how about a little useful "journalism".
"I was surprised by how much interest there’s been from centrist politicians, who are desperate for a coherent narrative to defend centrist liberalism, cosmopolitanism, open society from the threats both by populists and by the hard left.
It's not hard. Alan Dershowitz is out there doing it every day.
What they want is someone ELSE to do it for them, to take the slings and arrows.
They love those things so much, yet not enough to personally risk anything for them.
@J.Farmer,
Good rejoinder.
A few minor replies:
It's probably somewhere around a million. But you're right, transgender are a tiny fraction of the population, perhaps one-third of one percent.
A million transgenders in the US? I highly doubt it. I've lived in the SF Bay Area for nearly 50 years, and haven't seen too many here. If they ain't here, they ain't in Peoria.
But I will defer to the data.
The Nazis never posed an existential threat to US, and the existential threat from the Soviet Union came in the form of their nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, I agree with your position that if transgender people want to serve in the military, they should do so according to their biological sex.
Too narrow. The Nazis posed an existential threat to Europe and Great Britain, right? Well, they were our allies and they needed us to bail them out, er, I mean fight their war, er, I mean, help them defeat Nazism in Europe, which we did.
As for the Soviets, Yes, I agree, their nuclear arsenal threatened us, but they also were good at taking over countries with subterfuge and other sneaky methods. That's what the Comintern was all about. Also, they were good at sending in tanks to suppress uprisings. (See, Hungary, 1956; see Afghanistan, 1979). Also, they were good at propaganda, which infected the minds of many folks here.
You have the last word.
@tim in vermont:
What is the cost to the economy when people refuse to fly? Hint, you are going to need a lot of zeros.
I fly quite a bit, and it seems that everyone's favorite past time is complaining about the security bureaucracy. If a group of Arabs try to take over a plane with box cutters today, do you think people will sit idly by? Look at other instances where people have tried to do something on a plane. They've been immediately pounced upon and subdued by passengers. And that's not because of TSA or the Department of Homeland Security. 9/11 worked because of its surprise factor. The people on the planes did not know they were being drafted into a suicide mission, except for Flight 93, and we all know the outcome.
Ginny is a ninny. So Clarence and Ginny are the perfect example of dumb and dumber.
Prior to the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia that deemed "anti-miscegenation" laws unconstitutional, their marriage would have been illegal. Justice Thomas, in his idiotic opinions, looks to the way things were two centuries ago. So, he would surely agree that his current marriage to Ninny is a sham marriage. Clarence pulled the same stunt of marrying a white woman in his previous sham marriage. In 1971, Thomas married his college sweetheart, Kathy Grace Ambush. They had one child, Jamal Adeen. I don't call biracial offspring "bastards," but that's what they were called prior to Loving in the South where Thomas hails from. You know damn well that Clarence won't recuse himself if Loving is revisited. So, he's an unprincipled miscegenist. Do we really want him on the highest court in the land? Was Thomas ever asked why he gave his son, Jamal, a Muslim name? What are Dumb and Dumber's ties to 9/11?
P.S. J. Farmer, I luv ya, man. Always appreciate your knowledgeable and thoughtful contributions here even where I disagree. :-)
"But while my feminist sensibilities make me wary of suggesting that Ginni Thomas should not be completely free to embrace her causes and live her life..."
...my leftist sensibilities make me want to tell her to STFU and dox her if she doesn't.
Guess which sensibilities are stronger? We'll get back to feminism after we've removed the deplorable women who don't agree with her from society.
except codevilla revealed in a recent hoover institution piece, that soviet military strategy for western Europe, would begin with at least tactical nuclear strikes against nato positions, perhaps using the ar 115 'suitcase nukes' a nation that slaughters 20 million of ones own, is not averse to collateral damage to the enemy,
@Bay Area Guy:
A million transgenders in the US? I highly doubt it. I've lived in the SF Bay Area for nearly 50 years, and haven't seen too many here. If they ain't here, they ain't in Peoria.
A number of epidemiological studies have been conducted to estimate the number of transgender individuals in the country. Their findings typically range from around 0.3% to 0.6%. Here is one such study.
The Nazis posed an existential threat to Europe and Great Britain, right? Well, they were our allies and they needed us to bail them out, er, I mean fight their war, er, I mean, help them defeat Nazism in Europe, which we did.
Britain and other European countries were not our allies when the war broke out in 1939. That is why we were under no obligations to enter on their side. The Germans declared war on us because of their alliance with Japan.
The Nazis never posed an existential threat to US
Yet were working on the rockets and nuclear weapons to do so when they were defeated.
Just how much of an existential threat do you think a Nazi, Jew-extinguishing regime, controlling continental Europe with today's technology, and adjacent to the Middle East's oil supply, would be today?
Certainly more of a threat than today's Russia or China.
@Kevin:
Just how much of an existential threat do you think a Nazi, Jew-extinguishing regime, controlling continental Europe with today's technology, and adjacent to the Middle East's oil supply, would be today?
That you can postulate an alternate timeline in which the Nazis are an existential threat does not change the fact that they were not an existential threat in the 1930s and 1940s.
"What she’s violated are longstanding norms of behavior."
What a hack. Here Greenhouse is opting for normal behavior and that is exactly what Ginni is fighting for.
exactly had the been able to seize either the Caucasus oil fields, and cross into Arabia, likely wiping out the jewish settlements, in the way, well things would have gone pearshaped quickly,
@@narciso:
except codevilla revealed in a recent hoover institution piece, that soviet military strategy for western Europe, would begin with at least tactical nuclear strikes against nato positions, perhaps using the ar 115 'suitcase nukes' a nation that slaughters 20 million of ones own, is not averse to collateral damage to the enemy,
What do you mean "except?" To what statement is your reply an exception to?
Per the New York Times style book, Thomas is as far out of the mainstream as AntiFa.
exactly had the been able to seize either the Caucasus oil fields, and cross into Arabia, likely wiping out the jewish settlements, in the way, well things would have gone pearshaped quickly,
And if your aunt had balls, she'd be your uncle.
The comments' section is clogged with deplorable right-wing clods. They hog the blog with utter drivel. I read past the usual suspects because I lose neurons trying to make sense out of their claptrap.
the Fulda gap, and points west, would have been a speed bump, not much of an obstacle,
meet with the head of a different branch of government
Maggie's tribalism is showing.
subversion is still a key element:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/01/31/qatar-hacking-scandal-illustrates-u-s-media-megaphones-foreign-agitprop/
like mr freidrich communicating with his wife, the judge presiding over the concord case?
I remember when all the journalists used the word dark about the Trump Administration.
Times change, however.
Right now, the word they all use seems to be troublesome.
What she’s violated are longstanding norms of behavior
Well behaved women rarely make history.
You know a lot, J Farmer, but you don't seem to have much of a feel for human nature.
Not very many Jewish people come on as Nazis, but Linda Greenhouse screams Nazi-ism.
Walter Olson breaks down the NYT use of "hard right" vs. "hard left." Go here.
Yeah, that uppity woman ought to know her place and keep her pretty mouth shut!
Way to go, left wing feminists; way to go.
The new brand “alt-right” is a user of the free speech on the YouTube sites that tellsblunt truths destroying the Government Media’s long proclaimed narratives that conceal truth. It means no more than that. What Mrs Thomas did was lobby for traditional Christianity’s sexual morality.Few people remember that there once was such a set of values.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
In fact, they are. Hormone therapies and sexual reassignment surgeries have become "standard medical treatment,"
I am pretty sure that my lifelong need for cardiological care would have kept me out of the military, and I wouldn’t have taken in personally either.
Having a pussy and being a pussy are two different things
Casimbo Casimbo said "She omits that in addition to being a law professor Mr. Ginsburg was of counsel to the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. The firm represents plenty of far left advocacy groups and must have had cases before his wife."
As per Fried Frank's website, Martin Ginsburg joined the firm in 1980. He died in 2010, but it is unclear if he worked at the firm up to his death. A quick search shows the firm appearing in front of the Supreme Court at least once in the relevant time frame, in the seminal patent case KSR v. Teleflex. Not sure how often they might have appeared before the DC Circuit, where RBG served from 1980 to her elevation to the Supreme Court in 1993.
Regarding RBG's spouse: it's risible to suggest that being a law professor is less activist than being a judge or practicing attorney. Law professors are activists. Legal research is virtually all political activism. The veneer of objectivity is shameless vanity.
Ann: One could think transgenders shouldn't be in the military and women shouldn't be in combat without being hostile to these individuals.
Bingo. As a young Marine wife in my early 20s, I was inclined to support women in combat. I didn't support lowering the physical standards, but in your 20s you tend to be optimistic about the human potential to rise to expectations.
What changed my mind was two things:
1. A tour at the Naval Postgrad School, at the end of which I witnessed female officers openly talking about avoiding undesirable follow-on tours by getting pregnant. At first, I honestly thought they were joking, but they weren't. I was so shocked - these were people we knew socially. In all fairness, they probably would have had kids at one point or another in their careers, but deliberately timing a pregnancy to get out of a "bad" tour seemed (and still seems) self serving and quasi-corrupt to me.
2. A tour at Parris Island, and observations about differences between male vs. female recruit training, PFT standards, stress fracture rates, and other stuff.
“Bingo. As a young Marine wife in my early 20s, I was inclined to support women in combat. I didn't support lowering the physical standards, but in your 20s you tend to be optimistic about the human potential to rise to expectations.”
Oh for pity sake. Women in the military have already been in combat situations and have performed as well as the men.
"A tour at Parris Island, and observations about differences between male vs. female recruit training, PFT standards, stress fracture rates, and other stuff."
That is right on point. The same thing is happening with the New York City Fire Department. Women couldn't pass the physical so they changed the rules to ensure diversity. Now they did the same thing with the written test but thats not so bad. You can be stupid and still be able to carry a fat person out of a fire. But having a weak fire-woman is a recipe for disaster.
The prove that women should not serve in combat or even leadership roles is the recent accident at sea that occurred when two women on the bridge were not talking to each other and refused to utilize the multi million dollar sonar system because their feelings were hurt.
Face it girls. Some jobs are just not for you. Stay home and have some kids and watch daytime TV.
anti-de Sitter space said...
Today at Starbucks, one of the staff was one of the new gender folks. I almost certain they started w a dick. Probably still has one. Wasn’t going for a gal look. Not guy either.
Let them be.
IMHO.
Same here in Slower MD. He/she/it (I don't know its preferred pronouns) gave me a vente when I asked for a grande, and charged me for the grande. There goes my vote for Shultz.
I also skipped the tip.
tim in vermont:
You know a lot, J Farmer, but you don't seem to have much of a feel for human nature.
Possibly so. I'd like to think not, especially since human nature is what I made my academic pursuit and later my profession. If anything, I am pessimistic about human nature. It's why I'm a conservative.
@Donatello Nobody:
Please, if you value your time and your sanity do NOT get involved with J. Farmer about the whole question of existential threats to the U.S. :-;
Ha. In my defense, Birkel has to take at least some of the responsibility for that.
P.S. J. Farmer, I luv ya, man. Always appreciate your knowledgeable and thoughtful contributions here even where I disagree. :-)
Thank you for the kind words.
A tour at the Naval Postgrad School, at the end of which I witnessed female officers openly talking about avoiding undesirable follow-on tours by getting pregnant.
In the first Gulf War, the first in which ships had female sailors aboard, 25% of the female sailors got pregnant during that deployment.
The prove that women should not serve in combat or even leadership roles is the recent accident at sea that occurred when two women on the bridge were not talking to each other and refused to utilize the multi million dollar sonar system because their feelings were hurt.
OK, I'm going to push back on that one, my good man :p
One data point doesn't prove anything. In a lifetime of watching men operate in the military, I've seen guys get into plenty of pointless pissing contests that impacted their ability to do their jobs. Over 30+ years of hearing the spouse complain about idiots at work, the majority of those idiots have in fact been men (because the majority of Marines are male) :p
I don't believe women should be in the combat arms for a variety of reasons (mostly physical, but also operational -- units with large numbers of women increase the % of non-deployable personnel simply by being there because all the things that make men nondeployable apply, plus we get pregnant and our physiology differs from male physiology). That last is likely why DoD stopped tracking deployability stats, and that's NOT a good thing. I haven't checked lately to see whether they started up again.
Proponents of women in combat always want to argue individual fairness, but IMO that doesn't outweigh unit- or service-level readiness (or the unfairness of men having to deploy more often to make up for the women who can't deploy).
Face it girls. Some jobs are just not for you. Stay home and have some kids and watch daytime TV.
There's no need to be patronizing. I've been fortunate enough to know some amazing female Marines. My husband served with one he rated in the top 1 or 2% of anyone he had ever served with. But again, a few data points aren't a great predictor for an entire population, and policies based on the best case scenario generally don't hold up well in the real world.
Death by terrorism is rare, yet we believe we have to spend trillions of dollars to protect ourselves from...
Death by terrorism would not be rare if we didn’t spend those dollars. This argument you’re making is along the lines of “despite crime drop, incarceration rates are high”.
"In the first Gulf War,..."
Actually, before that war everybody first called the Iran/Iraq War the "Gulf War." So you're referencing the second.
"25% of the female sailors got pregnant during that deployment."
75% lesbian?
I Callahan:
Death by terrorism would not be rare if we didn’t spend those dollars. This argument you’re making is along the lines of “despite crime drop, incarceration rates are high”.
Most of that money was spent nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am not sure how that is supposed to stop half a dozen Saudis from arriving in the country legally on visas and carrying out an attack against us. The fact that there has not been another significant attack against us could just as easily be due to the fact that the threat was never that grave to begin with.
It sounds like Ginni Thomas was advocating whether certain military policies with respect to gender make sense from the perspective of military readiness and morale.
She wasn't commenting on the equal protection jurisprudence of suspect classification nor whether or how such a policy in an individual case should be adjudicated as substantially related to an important government interest.
he prove that women should not serve in combat or even leadership roles is the recent accident at sea that occurred when two women on the bridge were not talking to each other and refused to utilize the multi million dollar sonar system because their feelings were hurt.
OK, I'm going to push back on that one, my good man :p
You can push back all you want. But it was not one, but two recent collisions with the same primary cause- the female OOD and the female CICWO had personal problems with each other that prevented them from professionally communicating. The USS Fitzgerald, which I assume is the one referred to, And the Swedish frigate KNM Helge Ingstad, which was a total loss after colliding with a merchant. DURING navigation training! There were ancillary reasons for both, but the primary cause was identical.
I suppose you could say it was the fault of the officer training pipeline for failing to train females to leave their differences behind while on duty, and settle them elsewhere. But in fact that is a primary part of leadership training in any organization. I've seen the same thing in civilian work- two females who have personal conflicts carry it over into the workplace. With men, you just tell them to Knock off the bullshit and save it for later. Can't do that with females.
I think it's more likely they didn't have a top flight strategist and trainer, like khalid sheikh mohammed, mostafa setmarian was close, he was the model for the villain in 'body of lies' but he could only manage London and madrid, a smaller scale operation, abbaoud, the planner behind Bataclan and malbeek airport, was closer,
@narciso:
Nobody said that another attack had to be in the form of airliners. Would be terrorists have plenty of options to commit atrocities in the US that we have little to no defense against. Dozens of mass murders happen every year in the United States, and while obviously each death is a tragedy, they have a negligible impact on the functioning of American society.
Given the number of places we are involved in around the world, it is actually surprising that the threat from non-state actors is not greater than it is. The US in fact enjoys a fantastic degree of security. This is likely why relatively minor and manageable threats, like North Korea and Iran, are constantly overhyped and exaggerated.
I'd like to think not, especially since human nature is what I made my academic pursuit and later my profession.
Well human nature equates climbing aboard and airliner when terrorist incidents are happening, even if pretty rare, with playing Russian Roulette. Not for everybody, but for enough people.
@tim in vermont:
Deadly reactions to anesthesia and serious complications from vaccines are "pretty rare" but still happen. Death by pilot is a real phenomenon. Ask the 150 people aboard the Germanwings flight a few years back. How many people eschew public gatherings for fear of a mass shooting. Would you consider that rational? Resiliency is a component of human nature as well.
I never used the word “rational” I don’t think rationality has anything to do with it.
I hope Ms. Thomas continues her advocacy in whichever area she prefers so that one day we can say "She persisted."
The left is on a never ending war with the Constitution. Where does Greenhouse get off on stifling the speech of Ginna Thomas? Her bitch is the same crap the DC establishment tosses at President Trump all the time. "pushing long established norms" I dare her to define that. Norms like inter racial marriage? That was a long established norm.
Fisking Greenhouse is not much of a challenge.
@tim in vermont:
I never used the word “rational” I don’t think rationality has anything to do with it.
I have to admit, then, I am not following your point. This digression started when you quoted me saying that I thought terrorism was very rare, but we think we need to spend trillions of dollars to protect ourselves, and you wrote, "What is the cost to the economy when people refuse to fly? Hint, you are going to need a lot of zeros."
I honestly do not understand what that has to do with what I wrote. The trillions of dollars of which I spoke had little to nothing to do with securing airline travel. Most of it was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the "global war on terror" writ large. If post-9/11, the US has used special operation and paramilitary forces to attack Al Qaeda, launched punitive strikes against Afghanistan, and focused on security the border and US exposure points, we could be much more secure at much less cost, and we not be currently bogged down in military conflicts from the Levant to the Khyber Pass.
« apocalyptic confirmation hearing, «
I still morn all the deaths
Ann Althouse said: "...what goes on inside Ruth Bader Ginsburg's head. We never have access to that."
That's OK. Neither does RBG.
Transgenders either have a mental disorder (gender dysmorphia) or a physical one. In either case, that precludes them from military service. Other mental and physical disorders are denied the opportunity to serve. Transgenders must take hormones to maintain their new gender, why should that be allowed when insulin-dependent diabetics are not allowed to serve? Transgenders require surgery which would make them undeployable for a few years, other conditions render troops unable to be deployed aren't allowed. The focus of the debate should be why should there be special circumstances because someone is transgender? It has nothing to do with discrimination or hatred of a transgenders, it is just practical.
"One wonders if the pillow talk between Genni and Thomas accounts for another reason why the court is being framed more and more as an "activist" court and not impartial."
One wonders that anyone would look at the court for the past 40+ years and NOT consider it an activist court.
narciso: ”xcept codevilla revealed in a recent hoover institution piece, that soviet military strategy for western Europe, would begin with at least tactical nuclear strikes against nato positions, perhaps using the ar 115 'suitcase nukes' a nation that slaughters 20 million of ones own, is not averse to collateral damage to the enemy”
That’s interesting in that this was the same for the US/NATO strategy as well. I was in the US Army 1972-75 assigned to HHB 3rd Armored Division Artillery, the brigade level artillery arm of 3rd Armored. I was in a section called Fire Support Element (FSE). During any war games/field exercises, FSE liaised with 3rd Armored HQ to coordinate all the artillery fire for the division, the 155mm, 175mm, 8 inch and Honest John and Lance battalions.
One of my responsibilities was to update the map boards showing the penetration of Soviet armor into the Fulda Gap which was anticipated. In every exercise I was in, the strategy was to resist and fallback to gain time for reinforcements from the US. It also included the use tactical nukes (from 155mm howitzers) in first strikes if the Soviet penetration was advancing too swiftly. We had little blue mushroom clouds for our nukes and little red mushroom clouds for theirs.
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