The Tea Party Nation unity convention was all set for July 15th-17th in Las Vegas with Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle as keynote speaker. But it’s been cancelled. Because the organizers have decided it will be too hot.

Me neither.

Did Senate Republicans really just spend the whole day trashing Thurgood Marshall? Really?

Elena Kagan finally got her chance to speak. As is traditional, her statement was short and nonsubstantive: thanks to her family, students, and colleagues; a discussion of her life experiences, focusing particularly on her work with Justice Marshall and her teaching; and a tribute to Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg for blazing the trial for women in the law.

We’ll be back at 9 am tomorrow, when the questioning starts and things get interesting.

As many of you know, I’ve become a degenerate Mac junkie. Here Jason Chen, the guy who got that brief advance look at that lost demo version, reviews the iPhone 4.

Elana Kagan is scheduled to begin her opening statement at 3:45. But these schedules are made to be broken. So figure she’ll be up within the next half hour. For the latest updates see our live updating TPM Kagan Confirmation Wire.

Next time you’re arguing with someone over who’s responsible for the deficit, pull out this chart. (Click the image to see full-size chart.)

One notable difference from last year’s confirmation hearings is Democrats’ aggressiveness today is putting forth their own (different) view of the role of a judge.

After the Sotomayor hearings, many progressive-oriented legal groups were angry that Democrats failed to use the hearing to criticize conservative legal principles and explain to Americans the real-world impact of the Court’s decisions. Read More

While remembering Robert C. Byrd today we would not do him justice without taking stock of the major blot on his public life: the fact that his early life and political career was inextricably bound up with the politics of racism. That much is not in dispute. Byrd spent the latter part of his life admitting as much and apologizing for it. The outstanding question is whether it compromised him in the bulk of his public career that took place after the 1960s when he became a more or less conventional Democrat on issues of Civil Rights.

First a brief review of the history. In his early twenties Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan and became the leader of the unit is his small town in West Virginia. According to Byrd’s account he wrote the head of the national organization in late 1941 or early 1942 and said he wanted to join the organization. Eventually he was instrumental in recruiting a local group which eventually got the imprimatur of the national Klan and elected Byrd their “Exalted Cyclops”, or leader of the local group, in addition to “Kleagle”, or chief local recruiter. Read More

It’s lucky that the Supreme Court left town this morning. It doesn’t have many fans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Read More

Democrats have started to step up their defense of the nominee. Senator Feinstein went through Kagan’s resume, and specifically expressed support for putting a non-judge on the Court. And Senators Feingold and Schumer have weighed in as well. Read More