Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has announced he is stepping down at the end of the current session, which in practice probably means this July. The next Supreme Court term, which begins October 3rd, will have a replacement justice.

Who will it be? The smartest jurisprudential brain in the land? Nah. That's not how it works. I explained that all two weeks ago. These are political appointments.

In any case, there is no way to test and score jurisprudential brain power; and if there were a way, it would deliver the same lopsided results by race as every other cognitive test known to man, and the nation would be erupting with outrage again.

The President has told us he will nominate a black woman. The Daily Mail has told us that this was a deal Biden made with Congresscritter and big power broker Jim Clyburn of South Carolina in the 2020 campaign. Biden wasn't polling well in that state and needed Clyburn's support; this promise was the price.

I don't see anything to get agitated about there. The nomination is, as I said, political; and our politics is today thoroughly racialized. I don't like it, but that's how things are.

Here's a thing I did like: David Cole's response to the lists of black female jurists being offered as candidates for the nomination in our news outlets. Tweeted David