Sandra Day

Sandra Day O’Connor has passed away. Don’t let anyone spoof you, she was one of the nicest, brightest and best people you could ever hope to meet. Gracious is not enough of a word to describe her. She went from the smartest girl in the room at Stanford Law to not being able to get a job because they were all helmed by men. From the NYT and Greenhouse:

“During a crucial period in American law — when abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination and voting rights were on the docket — she was the most powerful woman in the country.

Very little could happen without Justice O’Connor’s support when it came to the polarizing issues on the court’s docket, and the law regarding affirmative action, abortion, voting rights, religion, federalism, sex discrimination and other hot-button subjects was basically what Sandra Day O’Connor thought it should be.

That the middle ground she looked for tended to be the public’s preferred place as well was no coincidence, given the close attention Justice O’Connor paid to current events and the public mood. “Rare indeed is the legal victory — in court or legislature — that is not a careful byproduct of an emerging social consensus,” she wrote in “The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice,” a collection of her essays published in 2003.

The idea seemed so novel that Ronald Reagan’s promise during his 1980 presidential campaign made front-page news. Only two years before that, a Broadway comedy, “First Monday in October,” featured a conservative female Supreme Court justice, and the very idea was played for laughs. When life imitated art on July 7, 1981, Paramount moved up the release date of the movie version of the play by five months, releasing it in August. Ultimately, of course, it was Sandra O’Connor who had the last laugh.

Sandra Day O’Connor was one of the good people in life, as was her too early departed husband John. Print and visual media will tell you the obvious, good and bad. I’ll tell you something different.

Long ago, one of her sons was kind of a friend. He lived in their house while she was mostly away in Washington. There was a raging party at said house, and there was a long line of girls at the main bathrooms. So I, ahem, went outside by the side of the house. As one does.

After finishing business, I walked out toward the front. Where there was suddenly some kind of black car/limo. It was Sandra Day. She came home early. During the party!

I helped her with her luggage and then asked a freaking sitting member of SCOTUS, if there was anything else I could do?

The response was: ‘Can you get me a beer”? So I could and did. Discussion with Sandra Day was incredible for the rest of the night.

Hard to describe how wonderful she was. Saw her occasionally at the local grocery store. Always a beautiful human. So, say what you will, she was better than that, she was.

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101 replies
  1. Joe Stewart says:

    That’s an awesome story – good for you. I’ve a similar one about LTG Honore (he led the military response to Katrina) – good people are everywhere.

  2. PeteT0323 says:

    That may be a top three story for the ages. So, may I ask where home was at this time?

    No doubt some progress has been made with women in deserved high places since then. Not enough and I see headwinds.

    Men of good will need to get off their asses. If you knew my wife then you’d know where my butt is and has been ;-)

    • bevbuddy says:

      She was anti-democracy which is why Reagan appointed her. She paid off during the Bush v. Gore case.

      Imagine working on climate change since 2001, and democracy.

        • Justin_02DEC2023_1313h says:

          https://scholarship.law.pitt.edu/fac_articles/260/

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        • bevbuddy says:

          – Harris Over Purged Voter Rolls taking legal voters’ rights away
          – GOP staffers led “Brooks’ Brothers” flash mob to stop vote count
          – One scanning machine counted -16,000 votes against Gore. a negative number of voters
          – Dan Rather interviewed printing staff of company that had for many years printed Florida’s paper ballots with chads. They refused to sign off on new paper that was known to shrink in humidity which caused misalignment in template used to punch out chads. Some trays were not emptied of chads from previous elections. Misalignments & full trays made hanging chads, dimpled chads many of which were not counted as could “not know the voters’ intent” but, it could only be their intent.
          – The anti-democracy GOP supreme court justices disallowed a full hand audit count with an arbitrarily shortened deadline that stopped peoples’ votes from being counted, helping Bush.

          Quoting Thom Hartmann:
          https://hartmannreport.com/p/four-presidents
          Why Has America Tolerated Six Illegitimate GOP Presidents?
          “Power at any cost” has been the Republican slogan

          The Iran hostage crisis continued and torpedoed Jimmy Carter’s re-election hopes. And the same day Reagan took the oath of office — to the minute, as Reagan put his hand on the bible, by way of Iran’s acknowledging the deal — the American hostages in Iran were released.
          Keeping his side of the deal, Reagan began selling the Iranians weapons and spare parts in 1981 (and using the money to illegally fund rightwing neofascist death squad “Contras” in Nicaragua) and continued until he was busted for it in 1986, producing the so-called “Iran Contra” scandal.
          Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, solidifying its rightwing tilt. We’d learn, in the Bush v Gore case in 2000 when they awarded the White House to the son of Reagan’s VP, that none of the three of them valued democracy.

        • KaJo503 says:

          Can I endorse your link to Thom Hartmann’s excellent essay on The Six Illegitimate Republican Presidents? https://hartmannreport.com/p/four-presidents

          For those who don’t remember:
          Nixon, for going behind Johnson’s back and talking to So Vietnamese leaders to delay peace talks.
          Ford, for pardoning Nixon.
          Reagan, for going behind Carter’s back and talking to Iran’s leaders to delay return of American hostages.
          Geo. HW Bush, for pardoning Reagan’s Iran/Contra criminals.
          His son, Geo W Bush, who was awarded the 2000 election thanks to O’Connor.
          And lastly, Donald Trump, ushered into the 2016 WH thanks to criminal Republican Secretaries of State, Russian interference, and a questionable pursuit of the Clinton e-mail investigation.
          Trump then pardoned the insiders who helped him.

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        • KaJo503 says:

          How do I make that change, Rayne? Do I just re-register using a 8-plus character username, and you delete the old one?

        • Rayne says:

          Just use the name the next time you comment. Type it into the Name field, use the same email address you’ve used on your previous comments, type your comment, then Post. It helps if you note in your comment that you’ve changed it but I’ll generally catch it when commenters don’t.

      • Rayne says:

        Cite one or more examples apart from Bush v. Gore in which Justice O’Connor’s decisions displayed an anti-democracy bent.

        One decision does not prove an ideology.

        • bevbuddy says:

          Perhaps this from Wikipedia will do:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Day_O'Connor#Supreme_Court_career

          In 1996’s Shaw v. Hunt and Shaw v. Reno, O’Connor joined a Rehnquist opinion, following an earlier precedent from an opinion she authored in 1993, in which the Court struck down an electoral districting plan designed to facilitate the election of two Black representatives out of 12 from North Carolina, a state that had not had any Black representative since Reconstruction, despite being approximately 20% Black[61] – the Court held that the districts were unacceptably gerrymandered and O’Connor called the odd shape of the district in question, North Carolina’s 12th, “bizarre”.
          ……………….
          Few cases will ever have the future impact of Bush v. Gore.
          Also, from same Wikipedia article:

          Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), O’Connor joined with four other justices on December 12, 2000, to rule on the Bush v. Gore case that ceased challenges to the results of the 2000 presidential election (ruling to stop the ongoing Florida election recount and to allow no further recounts). This case effectively ended Al Gore’s hopes to become president. Some legal scholars have argued that she should have recused herself from this case, citing several reports that she became upset when the media initially announced that Gore had won Florida, with her husband explaining that they would have to wait another four years before retiring to Arizona.[68] O’Connor expressed surprise that the decision became controversial.[69] Some people in Washington stopped shaking her hand after the decision, and Arthur Miller confronted her about it at the Kennedy Center.

        • bmaz says:

          This was an In Memoriam. Take your ignorant whiny ass shit somewhere else, it has NOTHING to do with the subject of the post. I’m serious, you apparently have come only to shit on this post. If you return with more, you are done “bevbuddy”.

        • KaJo503 says:

          Your “memoriam” is hilarious.

          Especially the part where you peed outside by the side of the O’Connor house because one of the O’Connor scions was having a party whereas a bunch of girls were invited, and they all were using the “main bathrooms” in the house.

        • bmaz says:

          He was not a “scion”, just a normal guy. Yes there were many girls there, also just normal people. It was not some mansion just a normal house in Scottsdale. And, yes, main bathrooms. You have gone out of your way to piss on a simple story. Thanks for that Ms. Two Comments.

        • Rayne says:

          Did you actually read either Shaw v Hunt or Shaw v Reno? Did you understand why O’Connor had a problem with the 12th district?

          Do you understand North Carolina has had ongoing problematic redistricting since 1996 and been before the Supreme Court about it?

          Summary from 2019: https://history.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2019/07/29/drawing-democracy-north-carolinas-gerrymandering-history/

          Summary from October 2023: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/anatomy-north-carolina-gerrymander

          O’Connor doesn’t own North Carolina’s deeply racist history by herself (you also fail to make a case she was racist based on decisions related to one state’s gerrymandering). Neither the Rehnquist nor Roberts courts have been able to solve this mess because the problem is at state level and SCOTUS has limited ability to address the problem. It will likely take a state-based movement to push for bipartisan redistricting reform like that in Michigan in order to solve racial and partisan gerrymandering.

        • Rayne says:

          Don’t make me ask you to read the two cases in question, too. You probably should anyhow because the same goddamned issues are at play in NC today AND in the states where fake electors were set up.

  3. BobBobCon says:

    Her experience in state politics and courts made her much more informed about the realities of campaign finance, and a lot less willfully naive about the potential for corruption, than the right wing majority on the Supreme Court that followed after her retirement.

    The ease with which extremists like Alito have brushed aside any consideration of reality has had a lot to do with the fact that they spent their entire professional lives in a DC bubble. But then a lot of people entrenched in the DC bubble beyond just the right wing judges see no reason to even acknowledge the existence of what O’Connor brought to the table, let alone its value.

  4. Attygmgm says:

    Great story, bmaz.

    I worked in DC during her early years on the court. When I walked to work my route took me by the Supreme Court. I would at times be passing by the back of the court when she was pulling in, in her green Honda Accord, to park in the facility under the court. She’d be close, closer than the distance from the lectern to the bench during an oral argument, but way more than a “hand me a beer” length away. Not as cool an encounter, but just as memorable for a young lawyer.

  5. Peterr says:

    Given the “Can you get me a beer?” reply to your question, I suspect that this was not the first party at her house that she happened upon as she returned from DC.

    Truly a grace-filled moment. Thanks.

    • Peterr says:

      Also, this made me think of how you were raised . . .

      Mom/Dad Bmaz: Young Bmaz, if you should be at a raging party at the home of a sitting SCOTUS justice, thrown by her son while she was out of town and she returns in the middle of it, make sure you offer to help the good justice with her luggage and then ask if there is anything else you can do.

      Young Bmaz (rolling his eyes): Oh, c’mon. That’ll never happen.

      Mom/Dad Bmaz: Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man. You never know what will happen, so be ready, just in case. And when it does, I certainly don’t want to read in the papers about how rude you were when she came to the party. Is that understood?

      Young Bmaz (looking at his shoes): Understood.

      Kudos to your elders for raising you right.

        • Pikekone says:

          But I have to say, Punaise you so funny.

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        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          He washed his hands on his jeans. As one does.

          (I was thinking the exact same thing, punaise.)

  6. DJB83PU says:

    Just wondering…how old was the son at the time?

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  7. H Candace Gorman says:

    What a great story Bmaz.
    I had the honor of arguing before the court while she was still on the bench. I went to watch other arguments to prepare including an argument where my opposing counsel was arguing. In answering a question from O’Connor he referred to her as justice Ginsberg. ooops. He was an attorney that was often before the court. Seemed it happened quite often that some of these men just couldn’t tell these two women apart. sigh. In my argument I cannot remember if it was O’Connor or Ginsberg who referred to the lawyer by the name of another well known attorney that appeared before the court. I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if I had not sat in on the earlier argument but after correcting herself everyone laughed.

  8. person1597 says:

    Remember when…

    “What the court did was effectively stop the recount procedure,” O’Connor said. “And you can quibble with that if you wish. It was very late in the electoral process, and the court finally decided there had been error and we put a stop [to the recount].”

    Back in the day, blog commenters (tekel along with Kagro X and others) found SDO’C’s reasoning controversial…nay, chafing…

    Essentially saying… “you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting”

  9. H Candace Gorman says:

    What a great story Bmaz.
    I had the honor of arguing before the court while O’Connor was still on the bench. I went to watch other arguments to prepare including an argument where my opposing counsel was arguing. In answering a question from O’Connor he referred to her as justice Ginsberg. ooops. He was an attorney that was often before the court. Seemed it happened quite often that some of these men just couldn’t tell these two women apart. sigh. In my argument I cannot remember if it was O’Connor or Ginsberg who referred to the lawyer by the name of another well known attorney that appeared before the court. I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if I had not sat in on the earlier argument but after correcting herself everyone laughed.

  10. Mary Ann Willis says:

    Justice O’Connor sponsored a women’s exercise session (Mon-Fri 8:00 a.m.) at the Supreme Court during the entire time I worked there from 1991-1999. I never joined the group because I’m not an early morning person but I did get to know her a bit. Her handmade Christmas letter was always a hoot.

    [Welcome back to emptywheel. Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]

    • tinaotinao says:

      That’s what sticks in my craw about her. But, I am a product of my upbringing, and the oversight of my soul. Dogma mind is what we have to be wary of, so I guess being rebellious of my parents dogma and not their faith is something I am grateful for.

      • Just Some Guy says:

        Same feelings here though there are some rulings to be thankful for, such as McCreary County vs. ACLU and Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld.

    • LaMissy! says:

      According to USNews, it appears she repented of that decision in 2013:

      “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye,'” O’Connor told the Tribune’s editorial board. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”

      • BRUCE F COLE says:

        She also, according to a column yesterday by Nina Totenberg, deeply regretted stepping down to care for her already-gone husband with Alzheimer’s, since it was Alito who replaced her, the guy whose execrable dissent as 3rd Circuit appellate judge in Casey supported the requirement that a woman notify her husband before getting an abortion — a requirement which O’Connor’s opinion in that case had demolished.
        https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216458808/the-personal-sandra-day-oconnor

        Interestingly, with respect to bmaz’ anecdote, that Totenberg story indicates that her thinking in that decision was guided in part by her experience growing up with an alcoholic, abusive father. IOW, she knew that such a requirement would have meant some women would suffer harm or even death at the hands of such men. With that in mind, it’s telling that she was so cool with her son’s drinking bash while she was away: she was personally non-confrontational by nature, which that column describes as “not willing to take the bait.”

        • bmaz says:

          Drinking bash?? It was a freaking house party, did you never go to one? Back then I, and my friends, had them all the time. A keg of beer in the backyard is NOT rampant alcoholism. I have been to multiple such things at federal judge’s houses.

          The level of ignorance and vitriol over this one decent woman is insane. Stop.

        • BRUCE F COLE says:

          Well the “drinking bash” description was partly me riffing on a Peterr comment a short ways above this one, and partly your description of girls lining up deep for bathroom space, indicative of a kegger. But that wasn’t my point by any stretch.

          You seem to have taken my “tellingly” to indicate some dysfunctional tendency in her. I actually meant somewhat the opposite: many people who have grown up with a parent or two who have toxic behaviors connected to alcohol often futilely try to shield their own kids from the same by eliminating such products in the home and coming down forcefully on kids for drinking or drugging. That was not her way, as that NPR story highlighted in general and as your anecdote did from a personal perspective — not that she didn’t have red lines, but that she employed them sparingly, and that she had more people skills than probably anyone else on the Court when she was there.

          She was by far the best SCOTUS pick we could have expected from Reagan. It’s great that she had a red line with respect to that Casey ruling, for example, even if Alito eventually took her place and erased it.

        • bmaz says:

          Lol, thanks….I think. If you live here and know old ranch style houses you would know how and where the bathrooms are. It was a pretty natural thing to go outside.

          Sandra Day was okay. Far from perfect though, but who is? But she was kind and decent. Not at all the person some seem determined to present. I’ll bet were you there, you would also have sat and talked to her all night. Good or bad, she was just a decent human. I don’t know any other way to put it.

        • BRUCE F COLE says:

          I have family and friends in Phoenix and Scottsdale, and Tucson as well, so, yes, I know a little about AZ and its architecture.

          The ground was probably grateful for the gift of moisture, low PH not withstanding.~ You were a lucky guy to have had that experience and, as I noted above, your story of her jibes very well with everything else being written about her. Here’s a bit from the guy you knew and his brothers, very touching and lauditory:
          https://www.azcentral.com/videos/news/local/arizona/2023/12/01/sandra-day-oconnor-later-years/71769020007/

      • Tracy Lynn says:

        The words “Maybe” and “…kind of messed it up…” and, “…probably the Supreme Court…” are doing a ton of heavy lifting.

  11. Sussex Trafalgar says:

    She was a legend in AZ when I lived and worked there. And I loved the fact that after she retired from SCOTUS, she coveted teaching civics!

    She was a good soul!

    • Ralph H white says:

      How many “good soul” were good friends with the murdering, scumbag GHWBush? That sob was responsible at some level for just about every corrupt act our Gov. committed during his time as Dir. of the CIA through his Presidency. Actually before that, as there is quite a bit of evidence of his involvement in the JFK assassination.

      • bmaz says:

        Get your head out of your ass, Sandra Day was a hell of a lot more complex that your tired little rant. I did not like the Bush v. Gore decision either. She was a good human.

      • ButteredToast says:

        Well, I’ve heard a lot of JFK assassination conspiracy theories. But that is a new one. Also, implying someone is a terrible person because they were friends with George H. W. Bush seems a bit much.

  12. Ray Harwick says:

    To have peed in the yard of Supreme Court Justice!

    I once peed standing next to Arizona Supreme Justice Frank X. Gordon Jr. on a rafting trip down the Colorado. That’s the trip where we met, and that (the trip, not the pee) resulted in being on (his wife) Joan Gordon’s Christmas mailing list for the next dozen years or so. This probably qualifies me as One Degree Of Separation from bmaz.

  13. Jharp jharp says:

    A terrific story.

    And just last week I was at my favorite local lunch spot and 2 empty tables away from me sat David Letterman.

  14. Yankee in TX says:

    With her death so closely following Henry K, I’m reminded that St. Francis of Assisi lived entirely during the life span of Genghis Khan.

    • Just Some Guy says:

      Let’s not get carried away. St. Francis was not likely to have campaigned for Barry Goldwater.

      • Yankee in TX says:

        I’m not a fan of her jurisprudence. After bmaz’s tale I was just struck how 2 well known people but disparate overlapped in life.

  15. KM Teleman says:

    Nothing this woman did will make up for the theft of the 2000 election, leading to a long cascade of shame that has led us to a deranged and destructive Republican Party that is set against the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration.

    A wealthy, successful woman who played the smiling role of reasonableness while aiding the worst elements to achieve prominence?

    I do not grieve for all that. I grieve for the damage she and her ilk have done to the Republic.

    • Lee_02DEC2023_0044h says:

      thank you – for all her regrets for being the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore – historically this choice gave us Bush, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the housing meltdown, a huge billionaire tax cut, Alito, Roberts, ad nauseam – she may have been a nice and honorable person – but this one decision will define her place in the history books.

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      • timbozone says:

        Her place in the history books is pretty much assured to be “First Woman US Supreme Court Justice”…

  16. David F. Snyder says:

    The story about SDC that has stuck with me the most, though I tell it poorly: her husband had lost memory of her due to Alzheimer’s with no working memory of Sandra; and he had fallen in love with someone at the care facility he was at, and he proposed to that woman. SDC was gracious and divorced him so he could legally marry and have that bit of happiness in his life. In short, in my book she had great ethics.

    • Just Some Guy says:

      While it’s true that after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, John Jay O’Connor III did not recognize Sandra Day O’Connor and subsequently had a relationship with another woman (with his family’s blessing), I haven’t seen a single shred of evidence anywhere that the O’Connors were divorced.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Haven’t seen a single shred of evidence that at that point in life, anyone cares whether she inflicted a formal divorce proceeding on herself and a man clinging to life and connectedness.

        • timbozone says:

          Where’s the link to where she was legally divorced? I couldn’t find any info on this in a quick look. Maybe Mr. Snyder above will jump in and provide a link to this info if it exists?

        • bmaz says:

          There is no such thing I am aware of. And John was one hell of a nice guy too, and a good lawyer. There was a report he struck up a friendship with a similarly challenged woman at the assisted living facility he was in at the end.

  17. Vinniegambone says:

    Remotely related humorous story was when Bob Dole, at 73 himself , was campaigning in an old folks home. He asked a elderly woman, ” Do you know who I am ?” The woman’s replied, ” Go ask at the front desk. They’ll tell you.”

  18. e.a. foster says:

    Fun story.
    When Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the American Supreme Court, it was finally it has happened! Thought at last a woman has gotten there, things are going to change.
    There are some things which happen and you’re glad you were arround when they did.

    • David F. Snyder says:

      I agree, but she really didn’t help women’s rights advance much in her opinions. And her strong support of states rights, while understandable, feeds into that issue (in my opinion). Don’t get me wrong, I still respect her and am glad she made it through the imaginary glass ceiling. I only wish she had been able to do more for women’s rights.

  19. Boatsail says:

    In 2000 Sandra announced she wanted to step down from the Court but would only do so if a REpublican president won to replace her.

    She still was one of the five right wing racist REpublican politicians masquerading as judges to decide Bush v Gore thereby subverting the right of the American people to choose their government in a free election.

    • bmaz says:

      And, yet, she waited until 2005, which kind of blows up your bullshit.

      Also, too, what in the world is “RE”? Was that intentional, or you just have a nervous tick? And, if you think she was “racist”, you are both an idiot and a liar. So, “subvert” that, jackass.

      • Boatsail says:

        From the time of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill hundreds of thousands of soldiers—405,399 in World War II alone—have given, in the immortal words of President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, “the last full measure of devotion” to establish, preserve and maintain the right of the American people to choose their government in a free election. It is not surprising that someone as intellectually dishonest as Bmaz would ignore this central fact.

        Bmaz is a no good MotherFucking CockSucking sorry sack of shit who can go Fuck himself.

        [Moderator’s note: ad hominems directed at contributors/moderators are not acceptable. If you do not like this site’s operations you can simply find the exit. /~Rayne]

  20. goatrodeo says:

    Oh my, I can see your story vividly in my mind, just having had lunch at Lon’s yesterday and driving through the hood again for the first time in years. Anyway, my story is from the nosebleed section. I attended an evening at the Phoenix Symphony back in ~2006, and it just happened to be the evening Justice O’Connor announced her family’s endowment of the symphony’s Bassoon Chair. Midway through the concert, she was introduced along with their generous endowment and she gave a short speech; the family had long been supporters of the symphony. At the conclusion, the audience began to politely applaud. For sure, it was an odd moment at a symphony concert! But still, I looked around, and I was aghast at the tepid reception. We were in the presence of generational greatness, very likely the greatest Arizonan ever. (Barry Goldwater, take a seat.) So I stood up and began to applaud vigorously, as did my wife, and slowly the audience awakened too. In time, a healthy standing ovation ensued. Seemed the least we could do? An Arizona crowd is no different than an Arizona electorate, of course, both fickle and ill-informed, though well-intended. Let’s hear it for the Bassoon!

    • bmaz says:

      You were at the Hermosa yesterday?? Heck, I would have come over to buy you a beer, it is literally one of our neighborhood places. Although yesterday at lunch, I was at The Barrio having lunch with two of our other longtime commenters.

      • goatrodeo says:

        Yessir! We live in the east valley now, but every month we get out and find a lunch spot to enjoy together, often one with some nostalgia attached, though, with time, they are harder and harder to find? Anyway, the Hermosa has been our selection a couple of times recently. Ideal setting and hospitality. I prefer the patio though? And given the lovely rain we had, it was not on offer yesterday. Still a very nice lunch, as always. Maybe one day?

        • bmaz says:

          The Last Drop patio got me and Mrs. bmaz through Covid. Am not sure we went out anywhere else during the pandemic. Let me know.

        • goatrodeo says:

          Thanks. I may take you up on that. The Last Drop is a bit of paradise, but during Covid it surely *was* paradise!
          And thanks again for this memoriam for Justice OConnor, and apologies that you must defend her so, even to an erudite crowd such us? Like you said, it’s a memoriam! A little magnanimity please? She was in the arena ffs?!?!
          * also, if people must rant, please see Dr. Kissinger

  21. Stacy (Male) says:

    Marcy, how can you permit this tongue-bath for a woman who abandoned every principle she purported to hold for the purpose of installing GW BUSH in the White House? Really, bmaz’s relentless and obscene humbug in undermining the credibility of your excellent blog.

    • Rayne says:

      bmaz shared a personal experience here. You do not have a similar experience? Okay. Got it.

      I can’t think of anyone in this community including bmaz and myself who will praise O’Connor’s role in the Bush v. Gore decision. But you’re being a dick by policing a personal anecdote. Just hit the exit.

      • Stacy (Male) says:

        He didn’t just relate an anecdote. He characteristically used it as an occasion for infantile and obscene attacks on anyone who doesn’t share his enthusiasm for Justice O’C, the woman who self-servingly dumped her states rights views and discovered the Equal Protection Clause just in time to install–until then–the worst president in American history. I’m not aware that she ever apologized to the American people or to the thousands of dead Iraqis for this little slip-up. And, speaking of dicks, since when did bmaz need a mouthpiece to defend him? You are admittedly more articulate and (slightly) less obscene than he is, but I was under the impression that he could fight his own battles.

        • Rayne says:

          Leave. You’re pissing me off all on your own because you can’t seem to use the same username twice in a row, having to be manually cleared through moderation far more often than should ever be necessary.

          It’s absolutely amazing that you can continue to demand erasure of a person’s lived experience in spite of being asked not to by a moderator. That’s what a lot of the pushback by bmaz has been about, because people can’t seem to understand there’s the possibility more than one thing can be true about a human being at the same time.

          It’s also incredible how much misogyny erupts in the wake of a woman’s death, pinning her solely with the bullshit decision SEVEN justices made, because the other six were men, one of which wrote the opinion on Bush v. Gore.

          Seriously. You made your point ad nauseam — now beat it.

        • bmaz says:

          You have two choices: stop this repetitive whining, else you are gone. Sandra Day did not kill anybody in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, yes, she has long regretted her Bush v. Gore vote. Lastly, yes, I can fight my own battles, your problem is your churlish comments are pissing about everybody off. So back seriously off or begone.

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