our moderator is dick thornburgh, the legal advisor chairman for the foundation. >> good morning to you all. welcome once again to our annual gas and dust on month -- gab fest on the supreme court review of focusing ring to be focusing on cases that affect this, but there are other cases will be focusing on. we will also focus on judge sotomayor. i am reminded the the mythical bartender philosopher who once observed of the supreme court follows the election returns. we know that is not literally true, but we did have an election last year, and that will certainly affect the court. most notably, president obama is the appointing of 34 vacancies over the next four years, and we can imagine a quite different scenario for appointments if john mccain have been the president, but perhaps the justice might not have resigned, and there are a lot of things there. the court yesterday completed its october, 2008, term, and we recruited the usual all-star lineup to share their views on its activities. to assess the consequences of a number of 5-4 decisions in recent cases, read something leaves on