If the Supreme Court issues orders from the “long conference,” but everyone is across the street at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, is anyone paying attention? Just in case you weren’t, I review the week at the Supreme Court and in the Kavanaugh confirmation battle in this podcast.

When the justices met for their conference on Monday, one of the cases that they were slated to consider was a familiar one: The case of Sergio Hernandez, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by Jesus Mesa, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, while Hernandez was standing on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border…. Read More

The Constitution’s establishment clause indicates that the government “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In 2005, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge under the establishment clause to a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of Texas state capitol. In his controlling opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer concluded that, although the monument’s text “undeniably… Read More

[UPDATE: Chief Justice John Roberts later referred the request by Crossroads Grassroots to the full court, which on September 18 denied the group’s application without comment or published dissent. The ruling means that the district court’s order invalidating the FEC’s regulation will go into effect, at least for now.] Last month a federal district court invalidated… Read More

After four days of testimony (occasionally interrupted by protesters), the Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up hearings on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. I cover today’s events, which focused on witness testimony for and against Kavanaugh, in this podcast.

The Senate Judiciary Committee today held a third day of hearings on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court. Here’s my rundown, in less than three minutes.

Day 2 of the Kavanaugh hearings began at 9:30 am and ended after 10 pm, but I boil it down to the highlights in just under four minutes in this podcast. Enjoy!

No time to follow events at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court? No problem — I have a brief (under two-and-a-half minutes) rundown on today’s events, in my new podcast.

Earlier this week the Senate Judiciary Committee released another batch of documents from (among other things) Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s stint in the White House counsel’s office. This post is not about those documents, because I just finished reviewing an earlier batch (totaling approximately 80,000 pages) of emails from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House.

In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled in Whren v. United States that police can stop and seize a motorist as long as they have probable cause to suspect a moving violation, even if the seizure is actually a pretext to search for evidence of other crimes. When the justices meet for their September 24 conference,… Read More