We begin today’s roundup with Eugene Robinson and his analysis of Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior:
President Trump’s incoherence grows to keep pace with his desperation. These days, he makes less sense than ever — a sign that this malignant presidency has entered a new, more dangerous phase.
I can’t be the only one who thinks he sounds less like an elected official than like the leader of some apocalyptic cult. Look at the way he rails against the news media at his revival-style campaign rallies. In Indiana on Thursday night, he seemed obsessed with news stories that had described empty seats and a subdued crowd at a West Virginia rally several days earlier. He claimed those reports were “fake news,” although they were demonstrably true.
At The Atlantic, Garrett Epps takes a look at Bret Kavanaugh and what “settled law” means:
I haven’t been able to find a clear definition of the term, but in 1976, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “the Court seldom takes a case merely to reaffirm settled law.”
So maybe there’s a functional definition. “Settled law” means law the Court hasn’t decided to overturn just yet.
[...] Kavanaugh’s tone is not anti-abortion; instead, he talks about the issue as if it were some incomprehensible and extraneous bit of nonsense being imposed on the court and the government by something called “Supreme Court precedent.”