Supreme Court nerds should give this lengthy SCOTUSblog run-down on the term a serious read. Most notable to me: "Although some cases are decided five to four, that's no more than twenty percent of the docket this Term (we're running the final numbers now). Roughly half the decisions are nine to zero. Only slightly more than one in ten cases involved the narrow liberal-conservative divide (fewer, if we don't include cases in which we presume Justice Sotomayor would have voted with the left had she not been recused)... Among all the Justices, it is in fact Scalia and Thomas-frequently heralded by conservatives as ideal members of the Court-who hesitate the least in invalidating legislation or (with respect to Thomas) calling for the overruling of prior precedent.... Just as fascinating is Justice Thomas's openness to reconsidering almost every issue in the law that he views as wrongly decided. This Term, he wrote eight separate opinions suggesting the reconsideration of existing law."

This song is getting tiresome and out of tune: the Supreme Court, 5 to 4, has just decided that, essentially, no state or local government may prevent our proud citizens from owning guns. But what about the states' rights, to do as they see fit? Clearly the owning of guns is not an issue regarding which we must protect our sovereign states from those meddlers in the Congress. And what about everyone's right to liberty-our right to not be shot and stuff? In light of a brutal gun attack on Saturday- three people in a crowd were randomly shot Saturday night in San Francisco at a gay event-it seems worthwhile to look at Justice Stevens' rather stern dissent. READ MORE

If anyone is prepared for a confirmation hearing, it's thoroughly actually heterosexual man-loving Elena Kagan, former Harvard Law School dean and current U.S. Solicitor General. Not only has she thought quite a bit on what a confirmation hearing should reveal, she's no stranger to the political process, having been shut out of a confirmation hearing entirely after Clinton nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But believe it, this process will be excruciating. You thought the Goldman Sachs hearings down in D.C. were mad political grandstanding? You ain't seen nothing yet! And while her confirmation process as Solicitor General was quite boring-she kept making the case that her job was to represent the interests of the U.S., without regard to her personal opinions! The nerve, to say she'd, like, do a good job and stuff and serve America!-in this confirmation process (assuming we'd get there), she will, we think, be far more revelatory about her potential decision-making process. A process some of us may or may not like, entirely apart from our need to get reelected, not that that matters.