RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the "notorious RBG" — and no, its not too soon for this type of obit

First, I speak from outside the duopoly, where I know that all the current Democrat-appointed SCOTUS justices, including the late Ginsburg, are or were some degree of squishes on the First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments.

So, no, Dems who think you own my vote, you don't, and this doesn't change things.

Here's some of the not so highlights of Ginsburg only, separated from Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor.

First, clearly not even a left-liberal, let alone a leftist, on things like protesting, calling Kaepernick "dumb and disrespectful," while never calling out BFF Hillary Clinton for wanting to recriminalize some flag-burning even after SCOTUS' Johnson ruling. 

UPDATE, Oct. 13, 2021: Katie Couric, in her new memo, says she edited out even worse shit that Ginsburg said in that interview in 2016.

And, worse yet? She suspected Ginsburg didn't understand the question. She asked the Notorious Bobo Whisperer, David Brooks, and he agreed!

If they were right, they agreed to protect a senile Justice, and in an election year no less. 

For the record, here's what's edited out:

In new memoir, Going There, Couric writes that she edited out a part where Ginsburg said that those who kneel during the national anthem are showing 'contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.'

Wow.

In reality, I HIGHLY doubt Ginsburg was senile or close to it.  Instead, Katie and the Bobo had to protect the St. Notorious of Scaliaburg from herself.

I'd actually call her take on the issue "dumb and disrespectful." Disrespectful to Black Lives Matter. Disrespectful to the spirit of the First Amendment while giving lip service to its letter. Disrespectful to a minority when a member of an oft-oppressed minority herself. (If another Jew failed to stand for the National Anthem after we refused to, say, bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz in late 1944, or after we turned away the MS St. Louis in 1939, would she have called that "dumb and disrespectful"?

I was disgusted enough with the Kaep comment at the time. And, with everything that's happened since George Floyd's death, I find her equivalent of a knee-jerk conservative's take on Kaep to be nothing other than despicable.

I'm more disgusted yet on learning that she later did a non-apology "apology," admitting that what she said was crass and saying it would have been better not to respond, but never actually apologizing. She was also a weasel for not even doing this personally, but rather having the Supreme Court press office do a release.

ZERO attempt to understand him, just like wingnuts. But, not surprising. She, along with the WHOLE rest of the Court at the time, per that top link, hated the freedom of assembly clause of the First Amendment. And, of course, that's what protects protests.

Book of Face claims that, re Kaepernick, she wasn't very Black-friendly in her personal hiring, either. And one Roe-related statement sounds eugenicist. And, she was a good anti-environmentalist capitalist earlier this year, too.

That said, there may be more to it, per that and the above. Stanners of the Notorized RBG — if they know this — don't really like to talk about her having no black clerks as an appeals judge, and just one in TWENTY-FIVE YEARS on the Supreme Court. If it walks, talks, and quacks like a duck ... 

Ginsburg had little love for civil liberties for the less fortunate abroad, as well. As Mondoweiss notes, she had little love lost (and that's probably being polite) for Palestinians.

That link above is from the New Yorker (tho I got it via Counterpunch), not exactly a radical site. It does also follow up on what I noted at the start of the piece — Ginsburg was a squish on civil liberties, especially for criminals.

As for the flag burning and BFF Hillary's take? Ginsburg had sold her mess of pottage to become a "centrist liberal" well before Bill nominated her to the Supreme Court. This is only more confirmation. And yes, "centrist liberal" is correct, and that's not just my take. Her 2019 biographer called her that, repeatedly, and elsewhere, Counterpunch has noted said biographer pulled punches to get as much access as she did to family and friends of Ginsburg.

Then there was her strange bromance with Nino Scalia. (Sidebar: The Nation noted early last year that she did a partial cave to him on Bush v Gore. And, the piece noted, as well, that there was a cult among her devotees, and that said cult had a dark side. 

It wasn't wrong, those claims of a cult; I wrote about said cult back in 2016. We're going to see more of that over the next week or so; there's plenty of it on Twitter tonight. As I updated in 2019, her new biographer called her a "centrist" within liberal federal judges of the last generation. Calls her that more than once. At that Nation link, Mari Uyehara also uses the word "centrist." And I agree.

Her last case? A concurrence with the wingers on the court that a 1996 Slickster law limiting habeas appeals for asylum-seeking immigrants is still constitutional. It was shit like this that led the Edelmans to ditch the Clintons — and Ginsburg to stay "loyal."

And, for her cultists, who are all in the left half of the duopoly, not outside of it? Schadenfreude is a bitch, especially if Biden loses. 

And I am SHOCKED that Jill Lepore, author of an error-riddled, interpretive-error-riddled, "centrist liberal" American history, is part of the RBG cult. I am MORE SHOCKED that Lepore was ALSO the author of the other New Yorker piece, up above. Actually, this time, I actually AM shocked.

At Slate, commenting on Trump's would-be replacement for Ginsburg, Dahlia Lithwick is also part of the cult, claiming a Ginsburg care level for the less fortunate that isn't quite true.

Counterpunch, in another example of editorial unevenness, runs a Ginsburg-stanning piece.

Speaking of Twitter, now, we the plebs know what all the Trump Supreme Court shortlist chatter was about over the past week.

As for the chances of Trump and McConnell trying to fill her seat before Nov. 3? Not likely, as I see it, but a lame-duck move is more possible.

Update, Oct. 3, 2023: Part of James Bamford's early writings against the NSA offer further reason to loathe Ginsburg. Read also his latest book, SpyFail.