"Hurricane" Ruth

                           By Florida Bill

                             During the 2016  presidential campaign, Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a bit wide of being wise and judicious.  
                             Unlike most judges who are reluctant and careful about wading into political frays, the 84-year-old Ginsburg went after candidate Donald Trump, now President Trump.  Her horse in the race was the disingenuous Hillary Clinton.  Clinton  didn't make it and that caused some disappointment for Ginsburg, who believes it is way past time for a woman to be president. She is definitely on board with the "MeToo" movement.
                             You could say that "Hurricane Ruth" just let it "all hang out"  when asked by obsequious CNN reporters about her feelings for candidate Trump. 
                                                                                   Trump is a "faker" who has a "big ego" and no consistency, and will say anything that comes into his head...and how has he gotten away with not producing his tax returns? If he wins---"I don't want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs," she told an Associated Press reporter last July.                                                      
                               To her friends at the New York Times, she said, "I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.  Referring to words of her late husband, Martin Ginsburg, a tax attorney, she quipped that --"perhaps now is the time for us to move to New Zealand."                                                                                                             Trump is pretty used to getting scorched by Democrats.  But a Supreme Court justice-- that was a bit unusual.  In a twitter counter punch, the President, as is his nature, slapped back:  Ginsburg is an "embarrassment whose mind is shot...her comments are highly inappropriate and she is a  disgrace to the court. She should resign."  

                          With Trump in office, Ginsburg didn't exactly  apologize for her attack on the President, but she said she regretted saying what she said. But she was not taking it back, and for certain she said there would be no resignation. 
                           Recently, at a time when her  disparagement of Trump was off the front pages,  she was interviewed by CNN's Poppy Harlow at Columbia University.  Reflecting upon the collegiality on the nation's highest court, Ginsburg observed that she had "the best job in the world.....and I respect all of my colleagues and genuinely like most of them."  Just "most of them."  So who does she have in mind with that sophomoric evaluation?
                              Court observers believe that she was referring to its newest member, Neil Gorsuch, nominated last year by President Trump and installed with approval of the Senate. Apparently, to Ginsburg, Gorsuch is cut from the same cloth and branded with a "T" for Trump,  and for that, Hurricane Ruth, a committed liberal,  does not like him.  
                               Traditionally,  justices of the high court, as well as jurists in lower courts, are pretty tight-lipped during interviews with the press.  Unlike lower courts, however, there is no code of conduct which sets forth the dos and don'ts for the nine Supreme Court Justices relative to what they say when their robes are off. Basically, they can say what they want and when they want to say it, and there is no proscription or penalty. 
                              Goldberg, a justice of the Supreme Court since 1993, appointed by President Clinton, appears to relish the microphone and media interviews. She is most comfortable, it appears,  being around the liberal news reporters, particularly those from CNN, who ask soft ball questions and welcome her denigration of President Trump and the overall unwholesomeness of Republicans.  

                                  She was probably taken aback when her beloved New York Times noted in an editorial that she ought to kind of "zip it" when it comes to politics and the President.  And it was probably that paper that prompted her to offer her regrets for her unjudicial comments. 

                                   Will her comments necessitate her recusing herself from cases in which the the President is being challenged? That is up to her.  New York University law professor Stephen Gellers, notes that there is no obligation for her to do so, but her comments are clearly political and she should not have said them.  But "I agree" with what she has said, Gellers added.

                                      In other publicized comments, Stetson university professor Louis Virelli has said that her comments might be seen as grounds for recusing herself although she would not be required to do so.  Participation in some Trump-involved cases would invite challenge to her impartiality, he explained.   

                                      University of California at Irvine Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, whose far left positions are widely known, gives Ginsburg a pat on the back for speaking out.  "More speech is beneficial...We are in a relatively new era of public statements by justices and I applaud it."  
                                        One thing is for sure.  If the mouthy "Hurricane" elects to sit in judgment on a challenge to President Trump, her predicted negative vote will incite a firestorm.  With comments that she has made and can never take back, and her being an octogenarian, it is definitely time for Ginsburg to haul it in and resign and maybe go to new Zealand to live.  
                                      

                                            xxx