It’s that time of year when the life-tenured denizens of America’s imperial court, otherwise known as the Supreme Court, come down from their bench to mix with the masses. Just kidding. The justices limit their appearances to friendly audiences, to elite folks too well-mannered to ask them about matters like gifts from billionaires with business before the court or misleading confirmation testimony to the Senate.
Instead Kavanaugh blithely compared the current Roberts court — which has greatly expanded rights for gun owners, police and corporations, limited those for voters, consumers and women, and eroded the wall between church and state — to the court of the 1950s and 1960s led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, whose landmark rulings desegregated public schools, expanded voting and other civil rights, ended mandatory Christian prayer in schools and established new rights for criminal defendants.