Outside the Beltway

Has this precedent permanently damaged the country? Or is it just politics as usual?

The trial phase of the Trump impeachment is set to be an absolute partisan joke.

Anyone who doubts that Republicans would fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2020 is being incredibly naive.

Rich Lowry puts preferred outcomes over constitutional process.

A defense of a modest philosophy of judicial interpretation.

While Democrats debated among themselves about health care plans that will likely never become law, Republicans were pushing forward with judicial confirmations.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t very impressed by the proposals made by several liberal politicians lately to increase the size of the Supreme Court to counterbalance the conservative tilt created by the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations.

Joe Biden recently said that he’d consider nominating Merrick Garland again if there were a Supreme Court vacancy while he was President. Don’t count on it.

President Trump’s first Supreme Court appointment has joined the liberal bloc on several cases.

Mitch McConnell has had an unsurprising change of heart on the issue of Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominees in a Presidential election year.

Hypocritical? Sure. Surprising? No.

Jon Bel Edwards is a reminder that our divide is cultural, not just partisan.

Other than confirming a lot of Trump Judges, the Senate has not been getting much work done so far this year.

A novel proposal for making SCOTUS appointments more responsive to election outcomes.

The Senate yesterday confirmed a 37-year-old to a lifetime Court of Appeals seat.

Supreme Court watcher Jeffrey Toobin speculates that Clarence Thomas could be the next Supreme Court Justice to step aside.

Math rules.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley says he would not consider a Supreme Court nominee in 2020. But does he really mean it?

The Merrick Garland precedent is power politics, nothing more.

The Kavanaugh fight is just another indicator of our national divide.

The GOP has no alternative but to push forward with the Kavanaugh nomination, because they don’t have a viable alternative at this point.

By popular demand . . .

A telling contrast of two Georgetown Prep schoolmates.

In what appears to be a first, Judge Brett Kavanaugh took to the media to defend his nomination. Not surprisingly, he chose a friendly venue.

Why a much-cited analogy in the Brett Kavanaugh controversy is problematic.

Despite what seems to be the prevailing mythos, most nominations fights are nothing like the current one.

My last post on this subject for the weekend (I think).

The status of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation remains up in the air, as does the question of whether or not Christine Blasey Ford will appear for a hearing on Monday morning.

I’m not the only one confused on what to do about the allegations against President Trump’s nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy.

The first day of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings was much ado about pretty much nothing, but then that can be used to describe a process whose outcome is pretty much foreordained.

Tom Nichols argues it should. I disagree.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she’d like to stay on the Court at least until she turns 90, but it’s unlikely she’ll go anywhere voluntarily as long as Donald Trump is President.

Initial polling on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court find the public more divided than they have been for other recent SCOTUS picks, but that’s unlikely to impact the fate of his nomination.

In one area (with an important caveat) this has been a pretty normal administration.

Democrats are making largely meaningless appeals to the so-called ‘Merrick Garland Precedent” to argue for a delay in confirming the President’s next Supreme Court nominee. The American people feel differently.

There is a frustration and a growing sense that the American political system is illegitimate.

The White House is hoping for a relatively quick turnaround time to pick a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Progressive enthusiasm for the notion that our governing framework is dynamic and ought be constantly updated by the judiciary is waning.

The unconscionable violation of norms in 2016 won’t apply in 2018; it’s a matter of power, not principle.

After thirty years on the bench, during which he played a central role in some of the Supreme Court’s most significant rulings, Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring.

One of the most prominent Circuit Courts of Appeal in the nation will begin live-streaming nearly all of their oral arguments.

With the end of the Supreme Court term approaching, speculation about a Kennedy retirement is ramping up again.

Democratic norms are eroding.

House and Senate Republicans say they have reached agreement on a final tax bill, and Democrats are engaging in an effort to delay a vote in the Senate until Doug Jones can be seated.

Justice Kennedy is telling prospective law clerks for the term that beings in October 2018 that he is considering retiring at the end of the term that begins this October.

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is hinting at a new Supreme Court vacancy this summer.

As expected, Senate Republicans invoked the so-called ‘nuclear option’ to move the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch forward to a final vote on Friday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch even as it became inevitable that Republicans would be forced to invoke the ‘nuclear option’ to confirm him to the Supreme Court.

The ordinary and the extraordinary with the latest SCOTUS nomination.

Let the games begin.