To paraphrase Mark Twain, Justice Samuel Alito’s retirement has been “much exaggerated.” Yesterday, my phone exploded with calls from reporters about the scoop by NPR’s Nina Totenberg that Alito had retired. As someone who has covered the Court for 30 years and was in the midst of covering yesterday’s opinions for Fox News, it was enough to trigger a panic attack. I had been told that Alito had selected his clerks for the next term and was not retiring. Then NPR issued a retraction that Totenberg was wrong and Alito was still showing signs of judicial life. It turns out that it came down to the perils of pluralization for the press.
NPR issued a retraction stating:
“Earlier today, we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. Neither Alito nor the court’s public information office has announced his retirement, and we have retracted the story.”
To her credit, Totenberg later went on “All Things Considered” to apologize for what she called a “rookie mistake.”
The explanation was even more surprising than the mistake itself. I had assumed that Totenberg had gotten a mistaken account from a justice or high-ranking court official. Instead, she explained in a letter to Justice Alito that
“I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody was going on inside, to which the answer was, ‘retirement announcements.’ I didn’t hear the ‘s’ on ‘announcements,’ and I assumed, something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don’t know what else to say, except that I am so, so sorry.”
So it came down to the mistaken pluralization from an account of a third party leaving the chamber?
It is particularly bizarre that Totenberg would run with a story without confirming not only the retirement but also the actual justice. There has also been speculation that Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Sonia Sotomayor might retire. The story came across as more wishful thinking than loose reporting.
While it may be what Totenberg considers “the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism,” it is not the first such controversy.
I previously wrote about another challenged Totenberg scoop. As is often the case with Totenberg, the conservative was the villain.
After striking down the Biden vaccine mandate for workplaces, Totenberg triggered a frenzy over Gorsuch not wearing a mask at oral arguments:
“Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up. They all did. Except Gorsuch, who, as it happens, sits next to Sotomayor on the bench. His continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.”
It did not matter that Totenberg had previously attacked Gorsuch. The media showed the same hair-triggered response in taking the story viral.
Gorsuch did appear in the last argument in the term without a mask. Ironically, if he had simply worn a commonly used cloth mask, there would have been no outcry, even though the masks do not appear to block the virus, and even CNN’s experts were calling them “little more than facial decorations.”
It is also unclear whether Sotomayor even knew whether anyone or everyone would wear masks during the argument. She had previously stated an intention to participate remotely. Given the lack of protection from most masks (including reused or contaminated N95 masks), Sotomayor likely felt the risk was not worth taking. Yet, Totenberg stated as a fact that Gorsuch’s “continued refusal since then has … meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.”
Her story led to a torrent of criticism from other liberal outlets. MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace declared Gorsuch guilty of “anti-mask insanity.” Her colleague Joy Reid accused Gorsuch of virtually standing Sotomayor up in front of a COVID firing squad for his personal enjoyment. Rolling Stone ran with the story “Neil Gorsuch Stands Up for His Right to Endanger Sonia Sotomayor’s Health,” and added “the liberal Supreme Court justice is diabetic and didn’t want to sit next to justices who weren’t wearing masks. Her conservative colleague didn’t care.”
Former senator Claire McCaskill tweeted:
So glad I voted no on this jerk. What kind of guy does this? I could tell in my meeting with him that he thought he was better than everyone else, more important, smarter. Ugh. #Gorsuch
The Daily Kos declared
“it is hard to imagine a bigger shit. But we should not be surprised…Most Americans will find his selfishness incredible, but it is typical of his kind. One trait common to every conservative is a sociopathic lack of empathy.”
Elie Mystal, who has written for Above the Law and the Nation, tweeted
Confirmation of what we all already knew. Whatever you think about masks, Gorsuch, who sits next to Sotomayor at work, just decided to be a dick to a colleague.
Then came the denial of all three justices.
Chief Justice John Roberts also issued a statement that it was false, as claimed, that he asked any of his colleagues to wear masks on the bench. Indeed, previously the justices did not wear masks during arguments. Moreover, Gorsuch is routinely shown wearing a mask around the courthouse.
The joint statement of the two justices insists that Totenberg’s account is entirely false:
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”
Yet when NPR’s ombudsman, Kelly McBride, merely suggested that Totenberg clarify the facts of her story, Totenberg attacked her. Totenberg responded to The Daily Beast and declared that McBride “can write any goddamn thing she wants, whether or not I think it’s true.”
I wonder how many of the Gen X and Z generations know who her father was. I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them do.
There was fake news that Fetterman had left the DNC, too. We do not have a media, and yes, every left-wing organization is 100% complicit. Pravda is blushing as communist/Islamist aristocrats install their useless children in positions of authority and have just been granted permission to create anchor babies on any scale they like. Most of us are too busy staring at phones to notice or care. The *federal* part of federal law and its implications no matter what state a person lives in doesn’t register in sleepy, apathetic brains, even after years of this. It is madness.
Totenberg owned up to this one and many reporters and analysts were likely thinking “but for the grace of God go I.”
No. Any reporter or analyst who has even a modicum of professionalism was not thinking that, he was thinking, “What a silly, foolish thing, to overhear someone’s statement, not ask them any questions about it or for clarification, fabricate its meaning, never confirm any facet of its fabricated meaning, and then publish it as a news story. Now she and NPR have well-deserved egg on their faces.”
Totenberg has never been a professional journalist. She has always been a partisan hack. She has always been a liar. Her virtual raison d’être all these years has been increasing the number of aborted babies nationwide.
@oldman
Spot on, but let us remember she is there *because* she is a partisan hack. Even her handlers are well aware, it’s all good to the modern left.
Nina Totenberg has alzheimers? Why do we have literal corpses for ‘journalists’? Retire, and let someone else have their say nina!
and they wonder why MSM is dead.
If Caitlin was trans or an immigrant here without legal backing, Wok would shut down the WNBA and demand criminal conspiracy charges be leveled against the owners, the players, the refs and coaches and Trump, of course.
Because she is white, non-violent and focused on playing basketball, she’s a nothing, a nobody, deserving of the fists slamming her airway shut, crushing her neck, when they assumed it wouldn’t be caught on camera, and being body slammed live during a game. She is ignored like Laken Riley
It was a story too good to be bothered to be fact checked! Verified! Confirmed as true! Just run with it!
Yeah, where else have we seen this kind of thing?
Russian collusion.
Pee tape.
Alpha bank.
All the COVID nonsense.
Joe Biden, “Sharp as a tack!” “Laser focused!”
The border is secure!
Gender affirming care.
Keep on, keeping on NPR/MSM. And you wonder why your ratings are in the toilet.
Rottenberg’s “mistake” is typical of what passes for thinking on the left: such a strong urge to replace reality with a universe that works as she thinks it should that she spun a cryptic sentence fragment IN HER OWN MIND into a reflection of that internal fantasy world. How can she expect anyone to regard anything she “reports” as possessing any degree of credibility? I’m just thankful that we as taxpayers are no longer funding the cauldron of cattle feces that is NPR.
The way that Totenberg treated the ombudsman is exactly how leftist elites treat people that work under them or have less “stature”. They love the masses…it’s just people they hate.
Im no spring chicken, but how do you report a story which you didn’t even hear second hand or see? Time to hang it up.
One way to look at this is Ms. Totenburg is defunded along with NPR from the public fisc. We no longer have to pay for the little boy to cry wolf.
When will the court announce that it was Sotomayor that leaked the Dobbs decision?
Nina Totenberg is not a journalist, she is a urinalist. Plain and simple.
Pluralization? She just wanted It to be true. I would imagine she was more disappointed than embarrassed when she found out It was false
” it was enough to trigger a panic attack”
The problem appears to be that NPR has been so reliable as to be unquestioningly believed and, as a demonstration of that reliability, when an error occurred, they immediately made strong efforts to alert their listeners as to the error.
This is unlike, for example, Fox News, which not only lied about voting machine suppliers, but went to court to lose a case that cost them nearly $1B and a weak apology that did nothing to restore the belief of their viewers in the voting process.
Clearly Turley wants all outlets to be as unreliable as the organization that frequently features him. Which raises the question – If the Fox News platform is known to be unreliable, isn’t the corrosion of unreliability passed to those who appear to speak on that platform?
Nina Totenberg is 80. I’ve known a number solid performers who get to that age and begin making odd errors, errors that are discovered and corrected by their employer. Except for Trump. The Heritage Foundation hasn’t done anything to correct Trump’s frequent errors. Perhaps the voters will start a correction at the midterms.
—
“even though the masks do not appear to block the virus”
Masks don’t have to block the virus. Only plastic wrap would do that, and there are more than a few I think should have tried that.
Filter masks capture larger liquid particles that are carrying the largest amount of the virus and slow the exit velocity of all the air.
The virus doesn’t survive long in open air, as measured in time, not distance, and the cloth masks reduce the distance the virus can travel in a given amount of time from the person who exhales them. Try to blow out a birthday candle while wearing a non-vented mask to see the reduction. The more slowly they travel the less distance the viral particles can cover before the virus particles break down. If they didn’t break down rapidly, then one infected person could infect a building days or weeks or months later. Instead it appears to only happen within seconds of exhalation, though it may take many exhalations to happen.
What is 100% known is that masks don’t work for the majority of Republicans because the majority of Republicans wouldn’t wear them. It’s also 100% known that simultaneous outbreaks among people who only shared a common location immediately prior to becoming ill also 100% were among those people not wearing masks of any kind.
What, no inclusion of CNN, or CBS proven accusations and monetary settlements?
“The Heritage Foundation hasn’t done anything to correct Trump’s frequent errors…” Well, don’t forget, the radical, violence pushing, and communist traitors comprising the vast majority of the Big Media, didn’t condemn him 24/7 for everything and anything for a decade, they may have raised that issue.
Poor wok.
“Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks. … There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences—people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
“Putting a mask on yourself is more to prevent you from infecting someone else. And if everybody does that, we’re each protecting each other, because the data is, it’s more efficient to prevent transmitting to others than it is to prevent transmission to yourself. But you can completely cover that ballpark if, essentially, universally, when people go out and are in a situation where they might come into closer contact, that they wear that mask.”
“The reason for that is that at that time, we were very concerned that the public health community, the medical community, the people who were on the front lines risking their lives to take care of people, would run out of masks… We didn’t want them to be without safety equipment. So the advice was given under the context of a severe shortage of masks.”
“So if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective. That’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95.”
“The science is very clear. If you are fully vaccinated, you are protected. You are not going to get infected, and you’re not going to transmit it to anybody else. Therefore, the risk of you being unmasked inside or outside is practically non-existent.”
“Even if you are vaccinated, you should seriously consider wearing a mask when you are in an indoor public setting.”
“From a broad public-health standpoint, at the population level, masks work at the margins — maybe 10 percent.”
“No. But I believe that there are a lot of conflicting studies too, that there are those that say, yes, there is an impact, and there are those that say there’s not.”
Why do we need your retarded take on it when we already have your personal Jesus Fauci telling us 10 different versions IN SUCCESSION? My favorite is “if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected”. You bought that one too, didnt you? Fvcking idiot.
On Jan 6, 2005, the Congressional Black Caucus voted to overturn the 2004 election, based on specious claims of wlection “irregularities”, such as ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINED THAT RANG UP VOTES FIR THE WRONG CANDIDATES.
Yet no one sued Jim Clyburn, Maxine Waters, the sainted John Lewis, or even future J6 committee chair Bennie Thompson.
SPEAKING OF TOTAL IDIOTS, IT MIGHT HELP YOU TO BE UP TO DATE ON THE VIRUS YOUu PATHETIC MORON. the virus that causes COVID-19 can change, also called mutate. Vaccination with the most up-to-date variant that is spreading or expected to spread helps keep you from getting sick again.
Getting it also helps to keep you from getting sick again, spastic idiot-non-savant. So what??
Whats the most up to date variant YOU are vaccinated for??? Don’ bother answering, I know you’d be lying. You’d have to look it up to see what the latest variant even is. Bwahahahahahahahahaha
The anonymous idiot said:
What is 100% known is that masks don’t work for the majority of Republicans because the majority of Republicans wouldn’t wear them.
But whats really KNOWN is
“Regularly” or “Most of the Time”. According to Pew Research Center surveys tracking Americans who wore a mask all or most of the time when visiting stores and businesses:
June 2020: 53% of Republicans and Republican leaners reported wearing masks regularly.
August 2020: 76% of Republicans and Republican leaners reported wearing masks regularly (following a summer surge in cases and shifts in tone from party leadership).
November 2020: The number leveled out and settled in the low 80s ahead of the winter wave.
Any more lies you care to spread?
And the only reason Dem numbers were so high in public was the social pressure within blue circles was massive. In highly Democratic areas, admitting to a pollster (or a neighbor) that you didn’t wear a mask carried intense social stigma. Therefore, the incentive for a Democrat to say “Yes, always”—even if they routinely took it off at private parties or forgot it at the store—was incredibly high.
Gavin Newsome, Lori Lightfoot, Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams, Muriel Bowser, Gretchen Whitmer, showed us what Dems really thought/did. Oh, and lets not forget:
President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were caught on video walking through the upscale Fiola Mare restaurant in Washington, D.C., entirely unmasked, passing several signs stating that masks were legally required indoors by mayoral order unless actively eating or drinking.
Most people wore masks. We did so when we did not KNOW they were near useless. For a long time we did so even AFTER we knew they were near useless.
They were a minor inconvenience, they were often mandated by our work, and MAYBE MAYBE they were a TINY bit effective.
The PROBLEM is NOT the choices we made. It is the LIES we were told – for a long long time, long past the slightest credibility, and it was that very very very often our freedom was Taken – we did not have CHOICES – we were COMMANDED to do something that those commanding us KNEW did not work.
Today I still see people occasionally with masks. I am happy to see people with masks. It identifies the Morons.
“The problem appears to be that NPR has been so reliable as to be unquestioningly believed and, as a demonstration of that reliability, when an error occurred, they immediately made strong efforts to alert their listeners as to the error.”
ROFL
NPR has not been right about anything in a long long long time.
If NPR were held to the same standards as Fox – they would be bankrupt many times over.
“Nina Totenberg is 80. ”
That is not the issue. I do not thionk this is as big a deal as Turley, does, n or is it a sign of alzheimers.
But Totenberg has been a crap reporter on the courts for decades.
For someon e who has been on the supreme court beat for decades she is remarkably ignorant of pretty much everything about the courts.
Her reporting on the courts is worthless garbage. SDhe is not and never has been a trustworthy source.
“Filter masks … ”
DO NOT WORK
This was settled LONG LONG LONG ago.
Prior to Covid 11 carefully conducted studies found masks ineffectual against the Flu – which is LESS contagious.
Multiple studies during covid – including a large scale indian one in 2020 Found no long term benefits at all.
But the Covid story is not just about masks and it is not just about Covid – it is about MASSIVE lying by those on the left in govenrment.
By Feb 2020 we knewe the transmission rate for Covid was atleast 2.5 -0 NO ONE HAS EVER STOPPED AN AIRBORN VIRUS once it is past a few hundred people.
NEVER.
By May 2020 we KNEW that within 2 weeks hospital workers in NYC with full protective gear that is supposed to be 99% effective in stopping all viruses were testing positive for Covid. The Best of the best of the best PPE was not good enough.
We also knew early on that the transmission rate among children was near zero. In the US no healthy child has EVER died of Covid, and very few unhealthy ones have.
During the “pandemic” More children died of the Flu than Covid by large margins. There is no evidence of Child to adult transmission ever – the shed rate in infected children is too low and their lung capacities and volume are just too low. There was absolutely no reason EVER to shut down schools – this was just absurd left wing nonsense.
Further Schools and similar large public buildings that move large volumes of air dramatically REDUCE the spread of covid. From the perspective of spreading Covid among kids the WORST thing we could do is have them being taught in small groups in someones apartment.
Schools churches warehouses, warehouse stores, large retail stores, commercial office buildings, the outdoors – especially at night were the SAFEST places to be to avoid the spread of Covid.
Yet the government was still lying to people about social distancing and masks and Plexiglas shields.
By Fall 2020 we KNEW that you could enter an elevator that someone who had Covid had left 5 minutes before and still get Covid.
Starting in February 2020 we had the Chinese Wet Markets nonsense – If Covid had a direct zoonotic source – we would have found that within a few weeks.
After 9 months without finding a zoonotic source it was obvious to anyone with the least knowledge of epidemiology that there was no direct zoonotic source – that Covid was with near certainty lab made. Further its rapid mutation rate strongly suggested a lab source. Naturally occurring viruses do not mutate that rapidly.
Regardless more recently released data shows that the US has been funding HUNDREDS of bio-labs around the world – including the WIV in China where with near certainty Covid came from. That we are funding biolabs all over – including in Ukraine.
While many of us hoped against hope that the Vaccine would prove effective – it was KNOWABLE with mathematical certainty that the Vaccine would not work and at best MIGHT have a benefit ONLY for those at high risk and that it was STUPID and actually INCREASED the danger for high risk people to vaccinate everyone.
After 2 doses the Effectiveness of the vaccine was 97% – which is NOT high enough to stop a Virus with a transmission rate of 2.5 – though by the time the Vaccine came out the transmission rate was near 5.0 – worse still the half life of the Vaccine was 6-9 months – again basic math would tell anyone with the slightest ability to think critically that the vaccine was AT BEST helpful for high risk people, and that it was a BAD IDEA for everyone else.
From very early there were stories that the Vaccine was causing deaths in extremely healthy people – these stories were being discounted and buried by those on the left.
While there has been much subsequent work proving that the Covid Vaccine has poor effectiveness and significant risk – the Japanese recently released a long term massive study that found that
Anyone receiving the vaccine has a 5 times higher excess death rate for the 6 months following the injection, and that this gets WORSE with each new dose.
NO ON E should be getting regular boosters – High risk individuals MIGHT want to get the vaccine if they TEMPORARILY expect to be exposed more normal.
Every single thing that those of you on the left – that the supposed “experts” have told us about Covid has not merely proven FALSE – it has proven to be a LIE.
ATS pretty much NO ONE wants to hear any more lies from you about anything – Bug ESPECIALLY Covid.
Because YOU and our supposed “experts” LIED constantly to us about Covid – ordinary people had to become far more expert than is normal.
You lied to us about Covid from the start. Most of you KNEW you were lying. You treated people like Cattle. You demanded obedience, you punished people for questioning you. You took control of peoples lives. You chose what people could and could not do – not based on science – but based sometimes on ideology and sometimes just to be in control.
You wrapped yourself in science and then lied like a rug.
EVERYTHING you said about Covid was false.
The spread of and death from Covid can be ENTIRELY matched to demographics – nothing else is needed.
Red states TENDED to do better than blue ones – because MOST red states had healthier and less dense populations.
But for the most part – though Covid spread to less densely populated areas LAST – it ultimately Got EVERYWHERE. The transmission rate was Far too high – within 2 years Covid had mutated to milder and far more infectuous – with transmission rates higher than we have ever seen – three times higher than Measles – which is essentially unstopable
Masks were useless – because the do not work – because when the transmission rate is 2.5 – even a 99% effective mask – which is much better than an N95 mask is still just going to delay the inevitable.
While your partisan stupid claim regarding Republicans is FALSE – it is also IRRELEVANT.
We have Never ever managed to stop the flu – despite a much lower transmission rate, and despite much better vaccines.
And Contra PSA’s it is actually BAD ADVICE to vaccinate EVERYONE – all that does is prolong the flu outbreak and dimmish the protection for those the flu is most likely to Kill.
Contra left wing nuts – worse Something the “experts” KNEW – or should have known – with a highly contagious disease – you protect ONLY the most vulnerable and you actively seek to get it to spread as FAST as possible and burn itself out.
Today Covid is endemic – it is with us forever. That need not have been the case. We have had myriads of epidemics and pandemics in the past – they have circles the globe – sometimes milling large numbers of people – Far more than Covid did, and then they burn themselves out, never to return.
Covid is here to stay – it will continue to kill old people forever – and that is YOUR FAULT.
Please do not lecture us about Masks – you are CLEARLY still poorly knowledgeable about Covid, masks, and ranting the proven lies of the “experts”
Almost no one beleives you anymore – further most of us hate you – because of the harm you and your LIES have caused – not just over masks – but myriads of other subjects.
One of the lowest spots on 60 Minutes came when Anderson Cooper allowed Dominion’s CEO to lie and say that all of their voting machines simply marked a ballot, to be read by another machine, when their ImageCast X is also available as a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machine.
Mike Wallace would never have been so credulous, but the Mike Wallace legacy is long gone
Dear Mr. Turley, I am still waiting for Ms. Tottenberg to apologize to Clarence Thomas. However, I am not holding my breath. She is a known liar, and I am thankful Justice Alito called her out on it.
Still seeking the big scoop, Nina, herself being 82 years old, makes a strong case that reporters, not SCOTUS justices, exceeding the age of 65 should retire.
Retirement is up to the individual. Cronkite lamented that if he knew he was going to live as long as he did he wouldn’t retire so early.
The lack of historic perspective in so many of our younger commentators and citizens prove the need for those who lived through recent history. Different jobs require different retirement norms. Whatever they are, it should be up to the indivdual and the value of their work.
no mention of Nina’s ‘value of her work’?
Market forces have already decided value here.
Biden didnt think it was time to retire, either. Cronkite was done, regardless what he thought.
I stopped listening to NPR many years ago so I wasn’t aware that Nina Totenberg was even alive, much less still writing her nonsense. I can’t in good faith suggest that she retire because for me and most sentient beings she is of no consequence and her opinions are her right but no one should care about them.
Never let facts get in the way of a good story or bad argument, regardless of how stubborn they are.
You made the colossal mistake of believing anything coming out of Leftwing media could be true. Live and learn.
Seems like Nina’s last name should be Totenkopf – German for Dead Head. Fits 99% of her worthless reporting for NPR. Her sources are obviously Gen Z half-wits skulking around in the SCOTUS building as Wokie Interns. Let’s hope the news was a plant to ferret out any leakers!!! Bust’em and then Kick’em to the curb!
Totenkopf is a German term that translates to “death’s head” and refers to a symbol depicting a human skull, often associated with danger, death, or piracy.
One of Totenberg’s colleagues is Danielle Kurzleben — short life.