"Ruth Bader Ginsburg Insists She’s Not Going Anywhere"

<On Wednesday night, Ginsburg delivered a 30-minute speech looking back at the 2018 Supreme Court term and Stevens’s life, before participating in an hour-long question-and-answer session with Duke Law professor Neil Siegel, one of her former clerks. When Siegel asserted during the Q&A that “nominees for the Supreme Court are not chosen primarily anymore for independence, legal ability, [and] personal decency, and I wonder if that’s a loss for all of us,” Ginsburg immediately defended Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “My two newest colleagues are very decent, very smart individuals,” she said.

She expressed delight over the fact that she had assigned two opinions to Gorsuch and one to Kavanaugh during the last term, something she was only able to do only because the two justices senior to her on the court (Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas) were in the minority.

“The Court remains the most collegial place I have ever worked,” Ginsburg said. She lamented how divisive Supreme Court nominations have become. “I had a history of being a flaming feminist,” Ginsburg said, before noting that she was confirmed 96–3. “I was general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.” Ginsburg pointed out that her “buddy,” the late Justice Antonin Scalia, also had well-known constitutional views when he was confirmed by a unanimous vote. “My hope is we will return to the way it once was,” Ginsburg said of the confirmation process.

“Nowadays, when people divide into ‘I’ll talk to my own kind, and the others I have nothing to do with,’ that’s very sad because that hasn’t been the way it was and isn’t the way this country should be,” Ginsburg said. She added that Americans should go “beyond just mere tolerance of different views” to “welcoming different views because they enrich our society.”>
[nationalreview.com]

"Ginsburg And Scalia: 'Best Buddies'"

[npr.org]

Perhaps the Supreme Court is a good model for the rest of us. Too bad it's become so hard to follow that model.