Elena Kagan

So for example, Barack Obama, two-term president, served for eight years, made two appointments in those eight y- I should say, had two justices confirmed in those eight years, did in fact make a third appointment of Merrick Garland, who was never given a hearing, and of course, not confirmed.

But so there are two justices appointed by President Obama, uh, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan.

By contrast, in just his first term, President Trump was able to make three appointments to the court.

And so those, you know, reflect enormously different influence on the trajectory of our law, even though Obama, at the point that term, that Trump finished his first term, had served twice as long.

It helps, though, then to have a better approach.

I know some justices, for example, Justice Breyer not long ago, and Justice Kagan now as well, are seeking to at least allow somewhat more content-based but viewpoint-neutral restrictions on speech.

They would allow more balancing rather than categorical protections in certain areas.

Justice Thomas, again, joined in some measure perhaps by Justice Gorsuch, would try to take a much more originalist approach, which in many ways I think would allow more restrictions, although maybe not in other ways.

No, I've never been married, never had kids.

Why do you ask Kagan? And of course, the diminutive justice, Katonji.

No, I'm not a biologist.

How would I know what a woman is? Jackson.

The dissent, of course, by the three scrowns.

Maybe I should start calling them the four scrowns.

Justice Sonia, the wise Latina diabetes sotomayor, Justice Katonji, no, I'm not a biologist, how would I know what a woman is, Jackson, and Justice Elena, no, I've never been married, never had kids, why do you ask, Kagan, joined by the other estrogen justice, not Amy Coney Barrett, but Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored this dissent.

Chief Justice John Roberts would have left the injunction, this open hole in the ground, would have left that injunction in place, stopped construction of the ballroom.

I mean, because think about, for instance, on the current Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan is single, right? Right.

And there's been...

And there have been

And as Lisa and Victor, um, implied, or at least they said that the, uh, law enforcement people they spoke to implied, is that there was a, shall we say, contingent of law enforcement that was waiting in New Baltimore and had that area cordoned off, which means that if they did in fact usher out all the, uh, wreckage and such, uh, you probably didn't have any bodies to deal with at that also.

Um, also, uh, CNN, uh, uh, correspondent Kagan, his first report was that, um, he was at Shanksville, and he said, "Well, there's a, there's a debris field six miles southeast of here, and I can't understand that."

[laughs]

And it goes on.

Yes.

These are serious people who operate by reason and you can disagree with individual decisions and you can rue the composition and coalitions, but occasionally you hear arguments about, do we want cameras in the courtroom? It's sort of a trivial question in a sense, but I liked it when Justice Kagan was asked the question.

She said, well, one good thing about it would be Americans would see that these are serious people engaged in important work.

Although the clips would be

In light of the entire record in this case, the court agrees with the U.S. District Court that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied the clearly established Batson precedents and unreasonably determined that Pitchford waived his opportunity to rebut the prosecutor's asserted race-neutral reasons for peremptory strikes of four black prospective jurors.

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson joined.

In Batson v. Kentucky, this court held that the Equal Protection Clause bars prosecutors from exercising peremptory challenges based on race.

In Batson and subsequent cases, the court has spelled out how a trial court should determine whether a prosecutor employed a preemptory challenge based on race.