I’ve got some thoughts up at Cato at Liberty on President Obama’s new nominee.
Other views: Ted and Carter at Point of Law, Ilya Somin, Jonathan Adler, and Jim Lindgren at Volokh. And Ilya Shapiro digs into Kagan’s record on the First Amendment with some not especially reassuring results, while Radley Balko finds cause for concern on criminal law and civil liberties.
Reader John B. alerts us: “If you haven’t already seen it, there’s excellent Overlawyered-type rhetoric from Justice Kennedy in Monday’s Supreme Court opinion on debt collectors’ liability under federal statutory law. Unfortunately it’s in the dissent (PDF).”
Wrote Kennedy:
[The Court’s decision today] aligns the judicial system with those who would use litigation to enrich themselves at the expense of attorneys who strictly follow and adhere to professional and ethical standards.
When the law is used to punish good-faith mistakes; when adopting reasonable safeguards is not enough to avoid liability; when the costs of discovery and litigation are used to force settlement even absent fault or injury; when class-action suits transform technical legal violations into windfalls for plaintiffs or their attorneys, the Court, by failing to adopt a reasonable interpretation to counter these excesses, risks compromising its own institutional responsibility to ensure a workable and just litigation system.
Ann Althouse wisecracks: “Who could have imagined that one day the Supreme Court would take a case called Schwarzenegger… and Schwarzenegger would be arguing for preventing young people from viewing graphic depictions of violence? That day has come.” More: Sullum, SCOTUSblog.
Discussion: 
Ken at Popehat, Ilya Shapiro at Cato at Liberty, and Eugene Volokh in several posts. Our earlier coverage is here. More: Writing for the Capital Research Center, Neil Maghami finds the Humane Society of the U.S. not so warm and fuzzy, policy-wise.
(For the Gadsden flag as illustration idea, h/t Above the Law.)
Orin Kerr explains.
As part of a charity effort for the Connecticut bar foundation, Daniel Schwartz has invited Twitter users to summarize a single Supreme Court case of their choice in a single Tweet, that is, in 140 characters or less. Some of the more amusing results:
@gideonstrumpet Gideon v. Wainwright: helping poor people get convicted WITH the assistance of counsel since 1963.
@GoldnI Brown v. Board of Ed: “Hey Eisenhower, just kidding about the conservative thing. Love, Earl Warren.”
@conlawgeek Gonzales v. Raich: “Dude, but I have a valid prescription for… uh… medical… uh… what were we talking about?”
@Popehat Lawrence v. Texas: “….not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
@ThirdTierAmie Buck v. Bell: You’re dumb, your mama’s dumb, even your mama’s mama is dumb! Three generations of imbeciles are enough!
@AdamBonin Pleasant Grove City v Summum: Put up your wacky religious monument in your own damn park, freaks.
@david_m_wagner Wickard v. Filburn: Wheat. Wheat. The Constitution’s dead, they’re talkin’ about wheat.
@coolasmcqueen U.S. v. Nixon: We have the privilege of informing you that you ARE a crook
My own contribution:
@walterolson Bates v. State Bar of Ariz.: OK guys, go ahead and advertise for clients. Might boost our traffic down the road.
[cross-posted from Point of Law]
In his State of the Union message, President Obama claimed the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United would “open the floodgates” for foreign companies to “spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing words and in particular, per Gerard Magliocca, the phrase “That’s not true”. For why he might have reacted that way, see Politifact “Truth-o-Meter”.
More from Randy Barnett at Politico:
In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.
The President also made an erroneous reference to “reversing a century of law”, which Linda Greenhouse corrects at the New York Times “Opinionator” blog.
And: Tony Mauro/NLJ, Ann Althouse. Althouse also notes that there’s a lesson for Citizen United critics in the ways Alito’s few seconds of silent protest upstaged the President: “It’s not how much or how loud you speak that counts, is it?” And Howard Wasserman at Prawfsblawg rounds up reactions on both sides from the perspective of a “somewhat-rare Democrat and Obama supporter who believes Citizens United was correctly decided.” And did the speech as delivered tone down rhetoric about Citizens United that had been distributed in printed versions?
Justice Alito wittily defends Justice Sotomayor. [BLT/NLJ]