Senator Arlen Specter has participated in 11 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. This will be his last. He focuses on issues involving the relationship between Congress and the Court. Read More

Another recent addition to Supreme Court confirmation hearings is a focus on the role of foreign law. Last year, Justice Sotomayor got many questions on whether she would cite foreign law.

What’s the problem? Read More

As you’ve seen we’re reported on Markos’s charges that at least some of the data provided by Research 2000 was fraudulent and the statistical analysis on which the charges are based. I’ve read Nate Silver’s approving review of the statistical analysis. And I’ve spoken with Professor Charles Franklin, who is our outside consultant on polling questions.

Based on this review I’ve decided that there is more than enough question hanging over R2K’s data to warrant our purging the firm’s numbers from the TPMPolltracker database. That has now been done.

I should add that this is not and we’re not in a position to pronounce a verdict of guilty on R2K’s data. But that’s not the standard. We can only include data the integrity of which is beyond reasonable question. And on that basis we’ve removed it.

Should subsequent developments remove the cloud of suspicion over R2K’s data we would, of course, re-add it to our database.

Our reporter just talked to the attorneys for Markos and R2K. Here’s his report.

Kagan tells senators recent decisions affirming a personal right to carry firearms are “settled law.”

Here’s our initial write up of the Kos/R2K story. Our reporter got in touch with Del Ali, head of R2K who is declining to comment on advice of his lawyer but says “I will tell you unequivocally that we conducted EVERY poll properly for the Daily Kos.”

GAO study finds improper “burrowing” during Bush years.

During the 1980s and 1990s, confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees focused to a considerable degree on the Roe v. Wade and the Court’s other decisions relating to constitutional limitations no state laws restriction the availability of abortion. Democrats pressed nominees to express support for Roe and its progeny; Republicans pressed for expressions of skepticism. The nominees had to chart a difficult course between these demands.

These days, Roe makes only cameo appearances. The focus has shifted to the Second Amendment cases, Heller and McDonald. Read More

Markos has just published an explosive post on DailyKos.com’s former pollster Research 2000. Markos had dropped R2K a few weeks ago citing their poor track record. But now he’s released a report he says shows that all at least a substantial portion of the polling R2K did for the site was fraudulent. Read More

With Sen. Brown pulling the football away from the Dems, Steny Hoyer suggests Dems may reopen the financial reform conference to address Brown’s concerns.