The ear trumpet was comically Victorian, associated with retired brigadiers and irascible dowagers, but its replacement, the hearing-aid, featuring a crayfish-shaped plastic box worn behind the ear, fatally signalled the owner as a Deaf Old Git.
Yet he initiated numerous significant reforms, including a move towards the replacement of certain oral hearings by more paperwork in major civil cases.
declared that the Senate would hold no hearings on a replacement, signaling his intention to leave a spot on the nation's highest court vacant for at least a year.
The massive turnover in high-ranking and cabinet-level positions is unprecedented, as is Trump's reluctance to nominate replacements to undergo Senate confirmation hearings for those positions.
No less important, it also mean confirmation hearings for Rumsfeld's replacement - hearings that may well turn into the Congressional inquisition on the war, its prosecution and the intelligence fiasco that preceded it, that the White House has fought tooth and nail to avoid.
Public hearings on the bridge replacement will be held.
declared that the Senate wouldn't even hold hearings on a potential replacement.
Mirroring Republicans' block last time around, many Democratic senators, including Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein, Chris Murphy, and Kirsten Gillibrand, said they'd support holding hearings for Kennedy's replacement until after the midterm elections.
Within hours of the justice's sudden death on Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). declared that the Senate wouldn't even hold hearings on a potential replacement.
Some form of rationalisation is long overdue.This will inevitably come up at the senatorial hearings for Ms Schapiro's ultimate replacement.
The closed-door hearings opened with appearances by Petraeus's replacement, acting CIA director Michael Morell, and the national intelligence director, James Clapper.
