Clarence Thomas

Senate carpool dad Ben Sasse recently made headlines when he went on a rant against installing TV cameras inside the Supreme Court. "A huge part of why this institution doesn’t work well is because we have cameras everywhere," Sasse said of Congress. He warned that televising the Supreme Court might cause it to go the same way, that it might incentivize, as he delicately characterized Congress's conduct, "jackassery." There's an entire anthology waiting to be written on Sasse's use of creative swearing in the Senate (after the January 6 riot, he waxed poetic about "kicking Hitler's ass and going to the moon"). Yet the senator from Nebraska is absolutely right.

Cockburn has never thought much of Senator Cory Booker. At a time when Republicans are forever being accused of demagoguery and playing to the cheap seats, Booker does the same thing, only from the other side and with a smile firmly in place. That practiced enthusiasm was on full display Wednesday when Booker "questioned" Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. And by "questioned," Cockburn means "tossed flower petals on the ground before her while weeping uncontrollably." This clip, in which Booker praises Jackson's record and lauds her for being the first black woman nominee to the Supreme Court, went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk-0eryw1u0 Certainly Cockburn can understand why Jackson's nomination struck a personal chord with Booker.

Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia (Ginni) made the cover of the New York Times Magazine on February 27 amid an eleven-page article titled “The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas.” The authors are Danny Hakim and Jo Becker. It is in essence a hit piece, and the latest of several in the left-wing media aimed at undermining the legitimacy of Justice Thomas’s jurisprudence. The first salvo came in late January from Thomas’s long-time antagonist Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, but other eager journalists have stepped through Mayer’s muddy footprints. Three of their publications — the New Yorker, the Guardian, and CNN — contacted me because Ginni Thomas serves on the advisory board of my organization, The National Association of Scholars (NAS).

If you followed the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Merrick Garland, or the news after Stephen Breyer announced his retirement, you might have concluded that the country has never been more divided on what makes a good Supreme Court justice. Kavanaugh’s hearings were among the most divisive and brutal in history, but he at least had a hearing: Garland’s nomination was dead on arrival in the Senate. The selection of justices has become a preeminent political issue.