#NationalPoetryDay with a #SCOTUS twist—some courtly clerihews by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor (from Brief Candles, LSU Press, 1998):

Antonin Scalia
likes to sing "The Rose of Tralee"—a
treat for all students
of his jurisprudence. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
said ''Titanic,'' in truth, made her wince. ''Berg
phobia?'' inquired a reporter.
''No,'' she said, ''I just wish it were shorter.''

Anthony Kennedy
was startled: when had he
removed his tie?
And why?

But whom should the investigation offensively flatter?

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1046824009873203201

Senators loved the word “fulsome” this week. Gillibrand complained the FBI didn’t conduct a “fulsome review.” Even the secondary meaning of “abundant” isn’t fair here, because it implies the FBI would find a lot of info. “Thorough” would probably have been the better word. And...

This rhetorical sleigh-of-hand is everywhere right now: Jennifer Rubin calls people making allegations *victims*--which implies that the accusations are true and the accused is guilty. So any question about an accusation becomes contempt for a victim.
washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/… *sleight-of-hand

More tweets about art and books to end the weekend. The Delacroix exhibition at the @metmuseum (& Eric Gordon’s review in @TWSculture) gives me a good excuse to hop on my hobby horse and point out that Delacroix loved to paint scenes from Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe. (1/)

https://twitter.com/metmuseum/status/1033084535683129345

He was especially taken by the scene in which an evil Knight Templar, with the help of his Saracen slaves (spoils from the Crusades), abducts Rebecca, “the beautiful Jewess.” This 1846 depiction of The Abduction of Rebecca is in the Met, and...(2/)

FINALLY!!! A news outlet has the courage to analyze "the twenty-four articles that [Kavanaugh] wrote, from 1983 to ’86, as a sports reporter for the Yale Daily News." h/t @RBPundit newyorker.com/magazine/2018/… I think he's being serious.

Weird Al.

https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1027372664522985473

They Might be Giants.

Be sure to check out the series @realclearpolicy is running called "Reclaiming Our American Project," which has thought-provoking essays about what @Pete4CA and @richtafel of the American Project call the "conservatism of connection."
realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/… In the latest installment, @ToryAnarchist discusses the importance of "re-affirm[ing] a national perspective." (h/t @smarick) realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/…

Anything written by Mike Post (A-Team, Magnum, Rockford, Hill Street Blues, Law & Order, LA Law, etc)

https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1026621044789051392

And, @ScotBertram, NewsRadio.

Taking my sons to their first baseball game and a home-run ball just bounced off the seat next to my 5-year-old—who didn’t even notice. #FatherhoodFail Experts tell me that I shouldn’t be upset for being caught off-guard: nobody expects a hit from Matt Wieters, let alone a home run.

Yesterday, @CardinalBCupich was asked what he thought of something my father said about the death penalty and the Catholic Church. I don't think he gave a very good answer. (1/)
chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-c… When the moderator read the passage below and asked for a reaction, Cardinal Cupich said: “Would that he had lived to be here today, to see what the pope has done, because I think it would cause him to rethink that.” I, too, wish he were still alive! But the belief that...(2/)

Before you attack the idea, know what it means. From #ScaliaSpeaks: “Originalists believe that the provisions of the Constitution have a fixed meaning, which does not change: they mean today what they meant when they were adopted. . . . THIS IS NOT TO SAY, OF COURSE,...

https://twitter.com/JonRiley7/status/1021003426954653698

“that there are not new applications of old constitutional rules. The Court must determine, for example, how the 1st Amendment guarantee of ‘the freedom of speech’ applies to new technologies that did not exist when the guarantee was created—to sound trucks, for example. . . 2/4

As people freak out over Judge Kavanaugh’s statement about the independent counsel law, remember that in 1999, someone named Eric Holder, speaking for Pres Clinton’s DOJ, determined the law should be scrapped. (Congress agreed—the law was not renewed.)
nytimes.com/1999/03/02/us/… NYT, July 4 1999: “...the statute, first enacted as an important post-Watergate reform, was widely perceived as an abusive legal bludgeon that had failed in its purpose of separating politics from law in investigations of Administration officials.” nytimes.com/1999/07/04/wee…

This @NewYorker essay about our excessive attention to national politics at the expense of the local considers some of this trend’s causes—and devotes exactly one sentence to the growth of the federal government. 🤔
newyorker.com/magazine/2018/… There’s the growth of the private sector. The change in the media landscape. And—hello!—the expansion of presidential power.

Let's consider a lame joke that Colbert told last night, making fun of Judge #Kavanaugh's first name. The highlighted line seems like a throwaway, but it's important because it relies on a popular but false assumption about the "living Constitution." 1/ Colbert bases his joke on the belief that b/c Kavanaugh's an originalist, he's likely to take rights away. An accompanying presumption is that the living Constitution approach, which interprets Const according to modern standards, only grants more rights. But that's false. 2/

If Kavanaugh is the nominee, the fever-swamp theory that Trump picked him because he'd protect the president from indictment will gain traction. It's nonsense, and here's why. /1

https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1016360494431694848

The theory implies that Kavanaugh said that *the courts* should protect a president from such situations. But in fact, it's clear that Kavanaugh says that only *Congress* has the authority to do so. See the excerpts below. /2