he said yes, i am stephen breyer. laughter could and they chatted for a little while and he said so, justice, what is the best thing about being on the supreme court? and he thought for a minute and he said i would have to say the privilege of serving with david souter. [laughter] how can you not love a guy like that? so i'm taking nominations for my favorite justice after that. let's talk about the current supreme court by the numbers for starters. well, there are six men and three women from the first time in history there are three women in the court. [applause] there are six catholics and freed jews? no catholics here? no protestants for the first time in history. there are representatives of ford new york city boroughs on the supreme court. justice sotomayor, and justice scalia from queens, justice ginsburg and justice kegan. staten island is not but you never know when there might be vacancies and we might address that gap. there are six product of harvard law school and three products at yale on the supreme cou

justice breyer in a case which was the third of the trilogy which is basically the supreme court weighing in on the admissibility of scientific evidence or expert evidence more generally, justice breyer referred to making sure that the science works for the task at hand. this notion of the task at hand i think ought not to be forgotten. the neuroscience might work for certain tasks very well and for other tasks not so well. so i think we have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis. i very much agree with anita's point that a lot of the neuroscience right now works quite well at the group level and has not yet been shown to work particularly well at the individual level, but having said that, i think that there is, again, a legal necessity issue that is presented. if you go back to graham versus florida it is true that justice kennedy and the supreme court, the majority of the court said that you cannot impose life without parole for a non manslaughter offense for an add less is sent and therefore, he drew the line's did in roeper versus simmons at saying that at less sent are simply diffe

there were potential nominees who were to the left of ginsburg and breyer but he went to the middle, and they were confirmed with a handful of oppositions. but in president obama's nominees were used the same strategy for both sonya sotomayor and elena kagan were totally mainstream nominees. sonya sotomayor had i believed 17 years as a federal judge. i think more judicial experience coming to the supreme court than any nominee in recent history. elena kagan was highly qualified. my numbers may be off but i think in the justice sonya sotomayor case she got republican votes and i think elena kagan got five. what is going on in the confirmation process? well, i will tell you little story that i heard about the process that is a wake-up call for how broken the system is. so it had appeared right after her nomination that she was calling to get a lot of republican votes. maybe most republican votes. she was a very attractive nominee. i'm going to place just a little bit of water. excuse me. mitch mcconnell the senate republican leader was quite upset by the idea that many in his party mig

but since a san francisco district judge charles breyer decided the original case, if it goes to the supreme court his proker steven breyer will reduce himself and deprive haskell's side of one of the more liberal justices on the court. >> one of the judges at today's hearing asked the aclu attorney are you sure you want this case to be the one that goes to the supreme court. michael richards said, yes, he it would be a good one for the high court to hear. in the newsroom, mark matthews, abc 7 news. >>> terrorists connected to al-qaeda may have been behind the attack of the u.s. embassy in benbhazi that killed four americans. intelligence sources tell fox news that a former prisoner at guantanamo bay may have been the ring leader. he was released to th libyan government on the grounds that he remain in jail. the revealation comes as the national terrorism center testified that the libyan assaults a terrorist attack but lacks evidence of significant advanced planning for coordination of any kind. >>> tonight, are high stakes war games under way in the shadow of one of our fiercest ene

we believe this project will be a great benefit to san francisco, and that after breyer and a half of being closed, time to get the door open again. this will create jobs in support of local musicians and provided sentences go with an outdoor entertainment space. we ask the liquor license before word for full consideration of the end of the hearing, because further delay would be really expensive and a further setback. i could say the one last sentence. we plan on continuing dialogue with the community, and we would be happy to hold another forum for public input, if that is what is desired. thank you, and i look forward to hearing everyone's comments. professosupervisor kim: thank y. i understand the story with respect to the landlord. the previous record license that we had approved here on six straight, it just so you have a little bit of relevance, the owner of that site started are reachinoutreaching to our officx months ago, going to community meetings, meeting with the community, coming into my office almost -- this is extreme, on a weekly basis. contacting our office on a week

justice breyer is 75. they may or may not leave. you know, these justices are very aware of which president is in office when they leave. justice ginsburg is not going to leave under president romney if she can help it. scalia and kennedy aren't going to leave under president obama. now, they're starting to get to the age where it's not always your choice about when you leave but justice john paul stevens served until he was 90. we just don't know when these people are going to leave. >> jennifer: okay so you're not going to make any predictions for me about who's going to leave? >> after my record in predicting the outcome of the healthcare case, i'm going to stick to predicting the past rather than the future. >> jennifer: i think you're going to run for office. [ laughter ] >> talk about unelectable and unconfirmable, that's me. justice ginsburg is the most likely candidate. if obama wins, i think she will leave. perhaps somewhere in the middle of his second term. if romney wins, i think it is much less clear who will leave but n

deal with justices breyer and kagan saying come over with me to the medicaid limitation?nk on the other issue, it was nice if that wasn't a partisan thing. whether that was implicit or explicit, what was nice is we didn't see another bush vs. gore. we had one institution in d.c. >> in 30 years we'll find out it was an explicit deal. has chief justice roberts put himself where kennedy is? >> he's a conservative. i don't expect that he will swing left lots in the future. in fact, he will be able to look us all in the eye and say in the most important case ever, i didn't vote party line. >> eliot: get out of jail free card. he's given host by a whole host of editorial pages who will say he did us one big one. akhil reed amar, thanks four your wisdom on these top issues. >> thank you. >> eliot: will iran threaten us with nukes or is benjamin netanyahu threatening us with iran? that's coming up. then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...allstate safe driving bonus check? what is that? so weird, right? my agent, tom, said... [ voice of dennis ] ...only allstate sends you

, ruth bader ginsburg is 79 and has undergone treatment for pancreatic cancer and justice stephen breyer antonin scalia is 76 and justin anthony kennedy is 76. with me now is jeffrey toobin, author of "the oath" and white house correspondent sam stein. jeff, thank you for joining us. i can only assume this is one of the best written books of its kind because you are one great writer. i read "the nine." i don't know how you escaped law school. you know how to put sentences together and also make it fun and easy and enjoinable to read without getting into jargon. congratulations again. >> thank you. >> i want you to be a tutor to the voter out there, not just women, gays, minorities, but everybody who cares about civil rights, cares about the kind of country we live in. what's at stake say romney wins for two four-year terms, gets eight years, a shot at picking justices or president obama gets four more years, what's at stake in those periods of time for the foo you tour of the country snp. >> does the constitution still protect a woman's right to dhoos abortion? may a university use race

ruth bader ginsburg is 79 and has undergone treatment for pancreatic cancer, and justice stephen breyernin scalia is 76 and justice anthony kennedy is 76. with me now is jeffrey toobin, author of "the oath," and white house correspondent sam stein. jeff, thank you for joining us. i can only assume this is one of the best written books of its kind because you are one great writer. i read "the nine." i don't know how you escaped law school. you know how to put sentences together and also make it fun and easy and enjoyable to read without getting into jargon. congratulations again. >> thank you. >> i want you to be a tutor to the voter out there, not just women, gays, minorities, but everybody who cares about civil rights, cares about the kind of country we live in. what's at stake, say romney wins for two four-year terms, gets eight years, a shot at picking justices, or president obama gets four more years, what's at stake in those periods of time for the future of the country? >> does the constitution still protect a woman's right to choose abortion? may a university use race in admissio

after clerking for stephen breyer and he was judge of the u.s.court of appeals, professor transport join. fester amarsaluting constitutional casebook from the privacy of the constitutional decision-making and is author of several other books, including the constitution and criminal procedure, bill of rights: reconstruction. america's constitution, a biography and most recent the unwritten constitution, the precedents and principles with live by. the honorable clarence thomas has served as justice of the supreme court of the united states for nearly 21 years. he attended conception seminary received an a.b. from the college of the holy cross and a jd from yellow school. he served as an assistant attorney general from 1974 to 1977 an attorney with the mephisto company from 77 to 79. for 1991 to 82 he served as assistant secretary for civil rights in the department of education and is chairman of the equal opportunity commission in 1982 to 1990. became a judge of the u.s. court of appeals from district of columbia circuit in 1990. president bush nom

and this is a point that justice breyer makes very effectively in the vermont decision. he says, "what's happening is the majority is confusing the political speech, ee speech rights of the citizenry with the commercial speech rights of businesses." and those rights are constricted. for example, we say that states can punish businesses for lying and defrauding people. but we don't say that in politics. politicians get up and say almost anything. and you can't sue them for fraud, basically. but commercial speech is a much lesser notion, because corporations are instrumentalities of the state. and they're endowed with all of these great rights and privileges that have made them fantastic accumulators of wealth and investors of money. but everybody from chief justice marshall to rehnquist to justice white said, "you don't let them convert their economic power into political power." and that is the fateful step that's been taken by the roberts court. >> justice scalia would disagree with you. i want to show you justice scalia earlier this summer on cnn. >> at the moment, und

at relatively spry 74 there's stephen breyer. their retirements shift the court's ideology? >> well, it depends a lot on who is replacing those individuals. if justice ruth bader ginsburg, who is one of the more liberal justices on the court is replaced by a democrat, less change. but it will be monumental change if justice ginsburg is replaced by a republican or if a democrat, president obama were to replace justice scalia or justice kennedy. those would be monumental changes in what is already a very closely divided court on at least a lot of hot button issues. >> yeah. the most recently retired justices were john paul stevens went out at 90. david souter 69, sandra day o'connor 75. is there a tradition of when justices usually retire, be it age, or time served? >> well, they're like most human beings. a lot of factors weigh in. there is -- there was a tradition where justices would tend to retire during the term of a president that was at the same party that appointed them. but we know neither justices souter nor stevens did t

in fact, pretty hilariously, he was twice as funny as breyer -- [laughter] 19 times funnier than justice ginsburg. [laughter] oh, yeah. now, we don't know about clarence thomas -- [laughter] because, as you know, clarence thomas hasn't spoken much, if at all, in fact, not at all, so it is possible mathematically speaking that he is infinitely funny, that he is always funny no matter what he says. [laughter] he could conceivably be the patch adams of the supreme court. [laughter] i just got a razz right there, thanks very much. i felt it, i heard it. >> but justice -- in your book, let's talk further about the book. justice scalia goes on to say that this court is already rewriting the constitution. did he already render your book obsolete? >> oh, he probably did. pretty hilariously, there's a guy named rexford tugwell who has a great name i couldn't possibly make up. he has rewritten the constitution because famously, and we can talk about this in the second amendment, he actually did the work of rewriting the actual amendment to say what he thought it meant using the language and flippi

looks like a little breyer for thursday and friday. we're watching temperatures in the mid 80s. talk about heat. we continue to roast in the middle of the country. drought and areas to get worse this morning. it still feels like the middle of summer out there on this tuesday. back to work and much of the. >> we'll be back live from charlotte coming up. ♪ yes, i'm gone to carolina in my mind ♪ humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? [ cheers and applause ] >> a nice crowd. awfully nice. >> politico's jonathan martin known as j-mart. it's crazy down there. let's talk about one of most fascinating dynamics between president obama and present. president clinton will speak on wednesday night going up against the football game by the way. what is their relationship like as it stands th

breyer model horses. how much do you think we can get for him?ey're like barbie horses but better. i've been collecting them since 1978, and i have over 800, but there's a few i don't have, so that's why i come out. they're pretty headstrong about wanting to get in as fast as they can and see the stuff. a lot of them will run up and down the aisles to see the good things before somebody else does. in the morning, it is unbelievable how the people will line up and buy and buy and buy, and this collecting thing is...big today. what caused that i don't know. i think for me is it's something to do extra, to make a little extra money. you know, you need that little extra. this is a wolverine toy from over in the pittsburgh area there. pull the lever here. [ tinny music plays ] it's from 1930. little red riding hood -- no chips or cracks. they made probably five, six different designs. the red shoes right now are going for about $1,200. mine's $450 -- she don't have red shoes. [ laughs ] this is called the tap-dancer -- mint in the box. you wind him up

if you're taking revenue off the table, there has to be other places breyer will increase revenue to offset because we are in a hole right now. >> i know it is neither here nor there but i am curious if you have any opinion on what affect the separate committee might have had -- the super committee might have had on averting a crisis we are in right now. what could they have recommended? >> if you look at the makeup of the super committee in retrospect -- the were a couple of dealmakers on there. i cannot remember off the top of my head three when they put paul ryan and a couple others and some of the democrats -- it seemed like it was destined to fail. it is hard to imagine what they could get together that would have come out of their. >> i do not think anybody thought that was going to succeed. we at cq roll call, we take everything that happens in go back and forth. there were too many hardliners. it was quite obvious it was not going to be a lot of moving their this also ties into -- and this also ties into simpson bowles. it is amazing it is being deemed the savior. it was the

you ought to see breyer money goes -- to see where your money goes. they ought to pass a budget.of accountability when it comes to a taxpayer dollars. [applause] >> congratulations on accepting the nomination. i have a question concerning the federal reserve. but can mitt romney do and what can paul ryan do to stop qe1, qe 2, and devaluing our dollars? [applause] >> i hate to say but -- haunted easing, the federal government creating money and buying our own bonds with debt -- which dilutes our currency at the end of the day. what is is -- what it is is our central bank tried to make up for a failed fiscal policy. they are trying to bailout the fact the president has been led -- and may have horrible economic policy coming from our regulations and tax policy. the are trying to bail it out and that is not the job of the federal reserve. today and tomorrow, the cost the federal open market committee. they are going to be discussing whether they do more of this money creation. what it is is the federal government creating money in one hand to buy the bonds being issued by the treasu

i think they were pre-surprises a justice kagan and justice breyer old say this part of the law was unconstitutionalt i mean, i do think that the more you talk about the more it does seem like states don't have much of a realistic chance. and whatever you think about that as a policy matter, as a legal think that's a problem for the federal government because the spending power is entirely premised on the notion that it's voluntary. it's not like some other areas of law where if it's to our to forget what the test is, we can give up. because the whole premise of the spending power allows the federal government to do things indirectly through spending for states that they can't do directly. and so, if it's not voluntary, and their just effectively forcing the states to do, that's a real structural constitutional problem. so 1.2 said is the more you make the argument, the states have no choice, over time they will have to essentially opting. again, that kind makes my point. whatever you think of it as a policy matter. the other thing though, when i heard zeke and phyllis go back and forth, and part of