The Atlantic: “While Kavanaugh’s allies insist that those comments were misinterpreted, they also say that he still privately seethes over the ‘smear campaign’ he believes he endured.”

Said one friend: “He’s made an effort to say, ‘Look, I’m not bitter about this. I’m moving forward.’ But I assume, when he’s lying in bed at night, it’s hard not to think about it.”

Said another friend: “He was really angry at Democrats for what they did to him and his family.”

“And yet, those same friends also describe a competing impulse in Kavanaugh—a burning desire to gain readmission into polite society and enjoy all the perks associated with one of the world’s most prestigious jobs.”

President Biden announced his third slate of nominations for federal judges, with the president now having put forward 20 names to fill judicial vacancies.

“The Supreme Court has been sitting on a potentially very significant abortion case for the last two months, one that the Court’s rules say it should dismiss,” Vox reports.

“We’re likely to find out this week whether the Court will dismiss this case, however, and that decision could tell us a great deal about how fast the Court plans to move in rolling back abortion rights.”

“Senior Democrats are treading carefully around Justice Stephen Breyer these days, worried that a progressive push to get him to retire could either anger him or come off as overtly political — in either case potentially dashing their hopes of getting a young new liberal on the Supreme Court in his place,” CNN reports.

“The clock is ticking for the party, because the Senate could fall into Republican hands during the midterm elections next year — or, actually, at any moment. Two members of the Democratic majority are near or just over 80 years old, and they hail from a state where a Republican governor would name their replacement if they weren’t able to serve.”

Adam Liptak: “Justice Clarence Thomas, who once went a decade without asking a question from the Supreme Court bench, is about to complete a term in which he was an active participant in every single argument.”

“I’ve experienced life in perhaps a different way than some of my colleagues because of who I am, and that might be valuable — I hope it would be valuable — if I was confirmed to the court.”

— Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing today to be elevated to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Dahlia Lithwick: “A progressive left that often sleepwalked through the Merrick Garland blockade and had no idea how to message the judiciary in 2016 is now wide awake and furious. New progressive groups are pushing a debate about the courts that lived for years only on academic panels. Liberals who were outraged about the norm-busting hardball around Garland, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, are not in fact waiting around for an adverse abortion or guns decision.”

“They are energized about court reform right now and they aren’t waiting for radical decisions to demand change.”

NPR: “Democratic members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees are asking U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from participating in a case involving a conservative nonprofit with ties to a group that gave at least $1 million to fund a ‘national campaign’ to win Senate confirmation of her Supreme Court nomination.”

A new Morning Consult poll finds 46% of Americans prefer to keep the Supreme Court at nine seats, with only 26% saying they would support expanding the bench.

Equally noteworthy: these numbers are essentially unchanged since their last survey on the issue in October of 2020.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) chastised members of the Capitol press corps of not pointing out more often in its coverage of the Supreme Court court expansion debate that two prominent liberal jurists, late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, firmly opposed expanding the Supreme Court beyond nine seats, The Hill reports.

He noted that both Ginsburg and Breyer have said “nine is the right number” with regards to the appropriate number of court seats.

Michael Albertus and Guy Grossman: “Our research finds a majority of Americans would not oppose a court expansion scheme like the one president Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed but failed to enact. Indeed, a noteworthy minority would actively support it.”

“One of our strongest findings is that few respondents wanted to punish an incumbent who reshapes the court for partisan ends. This finding is consistent with past research that shows many American voters support empowering popularly elected officials, even at the expense of checks and balances and other features of liberal democracy.”

“The judge overseeing former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin’s trial in the death of George Floyd said Monday that Rep. Maxine Waters’ comments could be grounds for appealing a verdict in the trial,” CNN reports.

Said Judge Peter Cahill: “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”

“Waters on Saturday night had called for protesters to ‘stay on the street’ and ‘get more confrontational’ if Chauvin is acquitted in Floyd’s killing.”