Senator Jon Kyl, one of the most adept questioners on the Judiciary Committee, takes Kagan through a series of issues relating to her approach to judging. He begins by asking about the President’s famous comment of last year that judges should have “empathy.” Read More

Sen. Sessions (R-AL) tells our Brian Beutler that the Citizens United decision (which allowed unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns) is like a modern day Brown v. Board of Education.

I have a dream that one day dollars of humans and dollars of corporations will be able to sit together at a table of brotherhood …

Senators Hatch and Feinstein take Kagan through Supreme Court precedents, although from different perspectives. Read More

John Boehner tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Obama is “snuffing out” the America he loves. Also says Obama overreacted to the Gulf Spill and also overreacted to the financial crisis. Even says he’d raise the Social Security retirement age to 70. See the video.

The Idaho GOP just came out with a new platform. Main planks? Idaho should withhold taxes from the federal government, take away people’s right to vote for senators and nullify all federal laws Idahoans don’t like.

Herb Kohl is one of the few non-lawyers serving on the Judiciary Committee, and his questions typically have a common-sense touch. But, even though Kohl is a Democrat, his questions presented some traps for the nominee, and she had to leave Kohl disappointed. Read More

The rest of Senator Sessions’ questioning involved a detail grilling of Kagan’s role and decisions with respect to military recruiting at Harvard Law School. The back and forth dealt largely with the litigation over the statute requiring law schools to permit military recruiters on campus notwithstanding the military’s inability to sign the nondiscrimination pledge, and Harvard’s response to the rejection of the government’s position by a lower court, as well as the actual status of recruiting on campus. Kagan tried to answer the questions, and point to her good relations with students serving in the armed forces, but Sesssions’ bottom line was that Kagan’s actions evidenced significant hostility to the military.

GOPers who ripped Thurgood Marshall yesterday can’t come up with any decisions they disagree with.

Last week we mentioned that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Skilling case could end up having a big effect on a lot of outstanding public corruption cases. Most of our readers know about the Don Siegelman case because of very serious suspicions that the case was based on a politicized prosecution. But the Supreme Court has just sent Siegleman’s case back to the 11th Circuit “for further consideration in light of Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S.”

Jon Stewart asks David Axelrod: Do you see Obama soon ‘regaining the ability to snatch flies from the air? Watch it.

Also, guess it’s not too early for humor: Colbert: Byrd was snatched away from us “in the blink of an eon.”