Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building, and fired. She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files, and depriving her of secretarial support. Staff have described Judge Newman in their interactions with her as “aggressive, angry, combative, and intimidating”; “bizarre and unnecessarily hostile”; making “personal accusations”; “agitated, belligerent, and demonstratively angry”; and “ranting, rambling, and paranoid.” Indeed, interactions with Judge Newman have become so dysfunctional that the Clerk of the Court has advised staff to avoid interacting with her in person or, when they must, to bring a co-worker with them.
I work in higher education, coordinating advanced degree programs. This situation makes me think of half a dozen research faculty I know personally that behave the exact same way.
I’m not of the opinion that people of advanced age are automatically less competent, but it’s a fact that age-related cognitive decline is a thing. People persisting in important decision-making positions after such decline cause immense and compounding problems.
It’ll never happen, but I’d love for us to collectively decide that a particular age range is the end of a person’s professional life and the beginning of something new and exciting and also dignified. I’m aware of the cultural reasons that it can’t happen in this particular time and place, but it would improve things a lot if it could.
there used to be tenure with sanity; it was rare for faculty to stay on after their abilities started to wane. Then came the boomers.
Why do these old people constantly feel the need to work? I’m trying to retire the moment I can and enjoy the rest of my life.
Power. The moment they retire they give up the ability to control people’s lives.
DING DING DING
WE HAVE A WINNER FOLKS
You ever heard the phrase “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”?
Well some people love being abusive pieces of shit.
Probably not as much as I love this comment though.
probably because they really dont work as hard as you
Nah I barely work hard. I’m not equating my life to work. There’s too many other things to enjoy for that.
Then create a culture that isn’t reliant on working to make money just for basic necessities.
It should be possible considering we have some money hoarders hoarding enough that we shouldn’t have people going hungry and enough houses that people shouldn’t be homeless.
Yet we do.
Tax the rich.
Part of it is because you still need a gig to keep the retirement funds rolling. You don’t want to live it out on pea soup and bread.
Part of it is because after a certain point every bit of your body, from your bones to your brains, is only available on a Use It or Lose It basis with no warranty for service blackouts.
And part of it is because, and l guess this is due to the collapse of the extended-family model, lots of people don’t have anyone or thing to go home to; they’re divorced or widowed, kids have moved out, and their social network has literally died out.
Towards the end of his life my father only had ONE surviving peer from grade school. Imagine how it is to call your only surviving friend on a regular basis and to wonder, each time, if today’s the day you learn you’ve already heard their voice for the last time.
Yup. A lot of people here don’t get that when you retire the funds are finite. And you could still live another 20 yrs, even up to 35 more years but completely alone and with no income. If you have someone telling you to quit as you round up to 65 when you have another good 20 yrs of cognizance to pull income, you won’t go quietly.
And you shouldn’t.
Retirement right now is still expecting you’re going to pay your way or live worse than prison conditions. Even worse if you’re a person with disabilities or early onset issues, diabetes along with other things from a lifestyle habit of consumerism pushed on all of us by capitalists that don’t give a shit what happens to you down the line.
it’s not to say someone shouldn’t retire eventually when they can no longer work. It’s to say that assuming you’re as incompetent at 60 as if you’re 96 is just plain refusal to recognize the human condition and it’s ageism. The article is about a 96 yr old. That’s past 30 yrs retirement age. It’s only in her recent years this is happening so the fact she made it to 90 cognizant is actually very impressive either way. So just saying yeah, she should retire now. But blaming her for not retiring at 65 when she’s 30+ past that age is a misnomer argument at this stage. If anything we should all be so lucky to make it past 70 with our cognitive abilities with the current American diet slowly killing our organ function.
I quit at 35 and am now 58. My only regret was being too afraid to do it earlier.
How ? I long ago was able to to differentiate needs from wants.
I do own my own small house. Each year I have excess funds, some is rolled over and reinvested, some is donated to charity, because the small investments I do have earn way more then my needs.
I’d consider euthanasia if I had to return to work because of some unforseen reason, after deaades of freedom Arbeit macht frei is prison.
Is none of it wanting to keep their boomer views relevant?
Why do they not want to ? Ego and or indoctrination mainly. (Work itself has worth for being work, power over others, you’re an attention whore and fear obscurity, or some combination ). There’s also a stigma with being retired.
I retired at 35 and am now 58. My only regret was not stopping earlier.
Imagine you go to court and this fossil at 96 is the one who determines your fate. Imagine if you catch her on an off day and she thinks you stole her computer, her files or other nonsense she’s accused court staff of doing (the only thing that’s been stolen is her marbles, and it looks like they went a few years back)
Get these shocking people out of the courts and into the nursing home where they belong
Is the occupation of judge so badly compensated, that you can’t retire? What the fuck is wrong with this lady?
I assume she’s got nothing else in her life, actually quite sad
She’s in severe mental decline? I thought the article made that pretty clear.
I’m sure there are financial benefits being a federal judge
Let’s ask … Clarence Thomas, shall we?
I think for her it’s the ego trip not the money. Same thing Bader-Ginsburg did which gave us Kavanagh.
What’s wrong with the system?
Technology is allowing us to live “longer,” but not necessarily “better.”
We shouldn’t be ruled by geriatrics. Age limits need to be a thing.
Age limits could be tricky and unnecessarily easy to use in a divisive political campaign though. But contract term limits should be introduced into lots of positions. It not only gives the employers an easy and expected out, but it also gives a natural contract renegotiation point for workers with smaller bargaining power.
Obsolete
People don’t realize that Judge Judy isn’t even a caricature. It is shockingly easy to just up and up become a judge.
Geez. Just step down and run for Congress or the Executive at this point.
Presidential material right there
Or maybe just step down 😂 we don’t need folks older than boomers running the government!
I hope she doesn’t drive a vehicle to work.
There needs to be an age limit for these positions. Sounds like she should have retired 25 years ago.
Sounds like dementia. My father in law has dementia and all of a sudden started accusing me of stealing his $5 sunglasses and being super aggressive at my mother in laws birthday party. Shit sucks when it progresses to this stage and someone in charge of people’s lives should definitely call it a day.
Term limits
Quick solution for situations like this: compulsive retirement.
65 years old? Get out of here or get thrown out.
Disagree-ish.
I would suggest that, instead, after a certain age or catastrophic loss (such as that of a lifetime partner) we should all be receiving regular competency / cognizants evaluations. I think that compulsive retirement would be dehumanizing, a potential trigger for senility, dementia, or suicide, and a negligent misappropriation of the experience and institutional knowledge, that many of our seniors hold.
Most modern countries contemplate the notion that at some point in your life you are deemed unfit of occupying an active position, regardless whatever experience an individual may have in whatever field.
What that does not imply is the individual being rendered useless. Highly experienced individuals can act as teachers, mentors and advisers, sharing experience but with no weight for actual decision making or action taking.
I myself don’t intend to reach retirement age and turn off all switches and just stay home and vegetate; I think I can make myself useful up until my body becomes too frail and my mind breaks. But there is a point where I don’t want to have any responsabilities towards an institution.
65 isn’t the same as 96
1 is not the same as 2
Care to elaborate on that, please? I’m not following your reasoning.
That’s Because you’re being an ageist.
You’re going to have to elaborate on your reasoning. One sentence makes no service to explain yourself.
if you applied this unilaterally you’ll end up with a lot of homeless old people
Surely we can find a sensible middle ground between allowing senile elderly folks to hold positions of power and kicking every 65 year old out of every job lmao.
I mean yeah you’d think so but also I was just responding to the top comment
I’m pretty sure they were referring to judges specifically.
What about homeless former judges?
Have you considered them?
Why?
In my very backwards and barbaric country every person, regardless of their profession, receives a state paid pension and we have a notion of social safety net. There are homeless here, like everywhere else in the world, but elderly citizens can retire knowing they will be taken care of.
On the particular case of judges, and on this I have the luck to have been explained how things work, upon reaching 65, a judge is retired and recognized by their service, with a very generous pension, as the career is considered as being of high strain.
No one should be forced nor allowed to work until their dying breath and this is a prime example for it.
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The US are a shithole that stays afloat because the population is kept tame via populist discourse and seeded in-fighting.
And after reading your comment, I find myself wondering how so many people, from my country included, go to the UK to work. Sounds a bit like US but a notch down.
We all make our choices but you could have chosen other countries, with better social networks.
I have been making contributions towards my national pension fund since I started working and enjoy a free access NHS. When I eventually reach the age of retirement, which now is around 67 years of age, I’ll be granted a pension based on my contributive career.
I’ll still be able to keep working if I choose to but most people don’t and others are barred from it, like judges, surgeons, police officers and even politians, as they are seen unfit to hold crucial positions.
And this applies to all emigrants that move here, with some added conditions, obviously, but still are eligible for these social benefits.
And regardless all of this, you can and should save (products with special tax exemptions exist for that exact purpose) if you expect to maintain a specific standard of living.
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75 seems more reasonable
You don’t need to be 96 years old to become a Putin and invade a Ukraine
This didn’t happen overnight, if it’s this bad now then her judgement has been compromised for a long time.
We need term limits, because once these (completely normal) mental changes start happening, the person will almost always react with aggression and refuse to ever step down.
We have a thing called senior citizenry.
It’s an age at which we decided old folks can start skimming funds off the top to make ends meet, because they are otherwise unable
It is absolutely unconscionable to be collecting social security while simultaneously holding office.
No one over the age of 65 should be allowed to hold any office. Ever.
It should be easier to whistle blow if someone thinks a worker is losing capacity to do their job, but having an arbitrary age at which you’re no longer allowed to work in office doesn’t serve its purpose. Some people can have dementia starting in their 50s, and other people in their 70s are excellent in higher level positions due to how much experience they’ve amassed.
If anything, there should just be better peer performance reviews across the board.
I don’t think age needs to be the limiting factor. I’ve met plenty of 70+ year olds who are mentally capable of performing any job. My grandfather is in his 80’s and he’s a kick ass doctor.
I strongly feel that it needs to be test and check up based. Something impartial treated with an air of dignity so that people are raised respecting that it’s perfectly alright to not pass it. That should help avoid stigma while ensuring people like that judge are a non-issue if not nearly a non-issue.
Tests would be a pretty bad idea. It is easy to imagine the ways that someone could use that to attack their political opponents. Similar things were used to disenfranchise voters in the past. Also, it is too easy to corrupt the legitimacy of such a test. All a person would need to do is get a heads up of how the test works and practice for it. Or, have the test designed to be too easy to pass. It’s easy to say “make it impartial, scientific, and dignified”, but that doesn’t mean it will be. I seriously doubt any governmental body ever has or will be that trustworthy. An actual age limit would be objective and clear though, making it much more practical.
How would an opponent be able to attack you if the test is pass or fail? You either are able to have an opponent or you can’t run.
Using a strict age limit would only result in a segment of people who are paying taxes without having representation which is the exact situation we’re brainstorming ideas to avoid.
