In September 2018, a story went viral, which claimed that 85 year old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a re-occurrence of cancer and would be retiring in January 2019.
The story by the obscure little weekly publication, Santa Monica Observer, which has an estimated circulation of 1,200 copies per week to Santa Monica and the surrounding communities of Los Angeles County, California, had no source links, and did describe the type of cancer inaccurately, stating it was "a re-occurrence of malignant melanoma," which is skin cancer and not a form of the disease that Ginsburg had previously suffered from.
Via that story from September 2018:
While the Nation is preoccupied with the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, it appears there will soon be another vacancy on the US Supreme Court.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had a re-occurrence of malignant melanoma, she has told her law clerks. Ginsburg was treated in 1999 for colon cancer and had surgery in 2009 for pancreatic cancer.
She has told key Democratic members of the Senate about her medical condition, including ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee Dianne Feinstein. This explains in part the "take no prisoners" attitude of the Democrats during the Kavanaugh nomination, carefully orchestrating weak 37 year old allegations against Kavanaugh by Women he barely remembers knowing in High School and College.
Kavanaugh is a player in this drama. He's in the wrong place at the wrong time . President Donald J Trump will be replacing Notorious RBG, the lovechild of the left, and so will remake the Supreme Court for a generation. The Democrats simply must win back the Senate in November 2018, progressives feel.
The website was correct that Ginsburg had previously had surgery for colon cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Needless to say, after the circus and chaos surrounding President Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, any suggestion that Ginsburg might have to step down due to health issues, would be huge news, hence the Santa Monica Observer story capturing attention.
DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH
ANP did not report on the Observer's story back in September because although we spent multiple days digging for the truth and attempting to confirm or debunk the original story, we could do neither. We found that the Observer is an actual weekly paper that was founded in 1998 by David Ganezer. We found it is not a hoax site, although they have made mistakes at times, then again, we all are human and prone to accidental errors, and many MSM outlets have been documented publishing un-sourced news as well, which has turned out to be fake news.
By November, the story had gained enough traction to have liberals across social media freaked out, so into the fray jumped the liberally biased "fact checking" website Snopes. They declared the Observer story was "fake news," although their reasoning isn't that they factually debunked it, but that the site had other questionable stories, and "no reputable news outlet reported similar information about Ginsburg at the time, nor has any reputable news outlet reported on the subject in the intervening months since the Observer‘s article was published — despite the abundance of leaks in Washington that make such rumors virtually impossible to keep a secret......"
My problem with that justification by Snopes comes from personal experience.
Remember Jade Helm 2015? Stefan Stanford broke the news of the Jade Helm's "8-Week Summer Special Ops Exercises Prep For End Game And 'Mastering The Human Domain'," along with the original military documents that were sent to ANP by a source. No "reputable news outlet," had reported on it beforehand or immediately after. Drudge linked to ANP's document on Scribd, Infowars picked up the story five days later, then other Independent Media outlets followed.
Only after it became viral did the "reputable" establishment news outlets pick up the story, in order to "debunk the conspiracies," about the drill.
So....... when a website like Snopes claims, no MSM outlet is reporting, therefore it has to be fake.... it doesn't wash. We all know the MSM often doesn't report narratives they do not want to report unless they are forced to.
THE OBSERVER WAS RIGHT.......AND WRONG.
Jump forward to December, it was reported that after Justice Ginsburg fell in early November and fractures her ribs, that testing then found malignant cancer in her lungs, and on December 21, 2018, she underwent surgery to have them removed.
Interestingly the Observer did specify the type of cancer inaccurately calling it "melanoma," but they absolutely were correct that cancer had re-occurred for Ginsburg, as the MSM is full of not only the news of the surgery, but that she has now missed three days of oral arguments, which she has never done in 25 years due to health issues.
This brings up a number of questions: How did the Observer know in September, that in November Ginsburg would be in a position (broken ribs) to have tests that would reveal lung cancer?
Is the official story of doctors finding the cancer during testing after she broke her ribs, utter BS? Did they actual find it earlier and it went unreported except by the Observer?
Or is it totally coincidental that the Observer "predicted" a re-occurrence of cancer more than a month before official reports say it was found?
The latest reports indicate that there is no official date that Ginsburg is expected to return to the bench, with those same reports indicating that she is working off the transcripts of the arguments from home while recuperating. Ginsburg was back to work and making public appearance just days after her fall where she fractured her ribs, was given ample time before removing the cancer from her lungs, but on an 85 year old body, the two events that close together had to have taken a toll.
BOTTOM LINE - WILL SHE RETIRE OR WON'T SHE?
The $64,000 question being asked across the internet is whether Ginsburg will retire in 2019, giving President Trump a chance to nominate a third Supreme Court Justice. According to Fox News, she previously hired law clerks for the term that extends in 2020, which would indicate she plans to continue. She also commented publicly that she would continue as long as she could do the job "full steam."
The problem with assuming Ginsburg will continue just because she has hired clerks that would take her into 2020, is that it was reported that she "hired four clerks for the October 2018 term and four clerks for the October 2019 term, which ends in June 2020, all the way back in January 2018, well before her latest health issues.
Also, it is noteworthy that retired Justice Anthony Kennedy had hired clerks to extend through the 2018 sessions, yet he retired leaving those clerks to be "orphaned" law clerks.
At the time websites like Above The Law indicated that the "rumors" that Kennedy would retired in 2018, effective around late June 2018, were most likely "greatly exaggerated," all because he had hired a "full complement of four law clerks." Yet by late June 2018, Kennedy announced his retirement.
This goes to show that the hiring of clerks is not a sure method of determining who will and will not retire, nor when.
According to cancer experts that spoke to CNBC, Ginsburg's recuperation time is not abnormal and they expect her back on the bench within six weeks, if she so chooses.
That is the real question given Ginsburg's recent health issues, and her advanced age, along with her previous bouts with cancer, will she even want to return to the bench or would she rather spend her remaining years relaxing and enjoying life.
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