Even Merrick Garland can't get up and give a press conference in which he says, "Give me a damn vote." We just hear silence.
Dahlia LithwickFor the most part, much of the legal world's attention has been focused on Donald Trump and his attacks on Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge who is currently presiding over the Trump University fraud cases in California. Trump somehow managed to offend surprising numbers of establishment Republicans.
Dahlia LithwickOn the one hand we want to preserve the integrity of the judicial branch, and we want to talk about judicial independence, and how damaging and dangerous it is when Donald Trump calls out Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel. And at the same time, at the end of the day, judges work for us and we can recall them and we can impeach them.
Dahlia LithwickI wonder if there's just a sense that we have nothing to learn from any Supreme Court justice, including the great Chief Justice John Marshall.
Dahlia LithwickThe Framers were no more interested in binding future Americans to a set of divinely inspired commandments than any of us would wish to be bound by them.
Dahlia LithwickIf Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isiolated.
Dahlia Lithwick