Discussion: Sandra Day O'Connor: I Have Beginning Stages Of Dimentia, 'Probably Alzheimers'

Thank you for your service, Madame Justiceā€¦

The SCOTUS was a better place during your tenureā€¦

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She doesnā€™t owe us a dang thing, and could have just gone away without so much as a post-it. It took a stronger person than I to write and release a letter like that.

I hope her final chapter is as painless for her and her family as is possible after such a cruel diagnosis.

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When youā€™re diagnosed with Alzheimerā€™s disease, you feel a strong urge to say a number of things before you can no longer do so.

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My dad has Alzheimerā€™s. Watching him slip away is the hardest thing Iā€™ve ever experienced. I took care of him as long as I could, until August when he started wandering. She and her family have my very deepest condolences.

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Nonsense. She was a partisan hack and her record should forever be defined and disgraced for her vote in Bush v. Gore.

Democrats should stop making heroes out of Republicans who have spent their careers trying to destroy them.

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Wow, I thought you Bernie Bros were supposed to be compassionate.

Guess notā€¦

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Iā€™m inclined to agree.

While it was only one of many votes she cast, it was egregious.

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This is always acutely difficult to witness - regardless of who it might be - an exceedingly sharp, conscientiously insightful person - who is slipping away - and at the same time is intimately aware of every damn millimeter that they are slippingā€¦ they are pained by the knowledge that what they simply canā€™t recall today - they would have been able to recount in meticulous detail just a year or two ago.

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One can be honest and compassionate at the same time. I didnā€™t see him/her insult and sling shit at Sandra like many at TPM gleefully did when Charles Krauthammer died.

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sincere sympathies - How old?
I have often pondered the differences between the frank ā€œAlzheimerā€™sā€ cases and those which might otherwise be considered senility or senile dementia - the lines of demarcation appear to be an area of debate - but aside from early onset - the impact quite similar. Had grandmothers whoā€™s brains faded off into the sunset about 3 years before their bodies went at 93 ā€¦ humans are a complicated assemblage of parts & not all the components expire at the same time - sometimes the master switch gets thrown ā€¦ some times - like a 100 bulb chandelier - the lights just go outā€¦ one ā€¦ at ā€¦ a ā€¦ time ā€¦

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I am not sure that I feel so magnanimous. There is Bush v. Gore, of course, but there is also Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Repukes love to scream and shout about overturning Roe v. Wade, but Roe and the right to choose for women in the vast majority of the American landmass exists only in name after Oā€™Connorā€™s waffling, mealy mouthed ā€˜undue burdenā€™ standard that was articulated in Casey.

Nonetheless, I would not wish Alzheimerā€™s on my worst enemy. I watched my own motherā€™s decline and death due to that horrible condition. But my sympathy does not extend to lionization of Oā€™Connorā€™s legacy.

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Thank you for stopping the vote counting in Florida and installing George W. Bush as President over the popular vote winner Al Gore.

Thank you for George W. Bush, one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history.

Thank you for Vice President Dick Cheney.

Thank you for 9/11.

Thank you for the war in Afghanistan.

Thank you for the war in Iraq, and the millions of destroyed lives and wasted resources.

Thank you for bringing government torture back to America.

Thank you for GITMO.

Thank you for the Great Recession.

Thank you for losing our last best chance to stop global warming.

Thank you for Justices Roberts and Alito.

Thank you for voting as a partisan Republican on the highest court in our land.

We wonā€™t forget it, even if you do.

Is that enough thanks, @maximus?

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All fair pointā€™s, but by the time Trumpā€™s SCOTUS gets done with us, SDO will look like Mother Teresaā€¦

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Touche, Maximus. Touche.

True, but I think she regretted it later on. It also occurs to me that she wasnā€™t one of the True Believers and Culture Warriors like most of the GOP men nominees who came after her.

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Well, Mother Teresa did love her some dictators. Maybe sheā€™ll look like Barack Obama in retrospect.

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Eerily comparable to a list of the current carnage resulting from folks who wouldnā€™t vote for Hillary.

You bought Donnie, you own himā€¦

And as much as I canā€™t wait for a scintillating rebuttal, I have to leave for a meeting, so have funā€¦

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Sheā€™s no hero of mine, but I feel deeply sorry for her. I care for dementia patients for a living, and it is a terrible way to go, and no part of it is easy; not the beginning, where you know what youā€™re losing, or the end when you forget how to swallow.
If it were me Iā€™d be planning my exit strategy while I still had some control.

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Sorry, no sympathy from me. The GOP has been a protofascist party for many years, she was up to her neck in that movement both as a state political hack and a judicial hack, she did enormous harm with her power, she gets no props for the occasional non-partisan decision, shame on her and every other person who has played a part in the almost-complete destruction of our democracy and of our planet.

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