Presumably, while she and Kavanaugh were going back-and-forth behind the scenes, Kagan recognized that her colleague had not taken well to her roasting. She could have toned it down, but instead seems to have amped it up. Her opinion in Borden does not evince deep concern for Kavanaugh’s feelings or respect for his intellect. Like Sotomayor, Kagan sounds as if she is done trying to appease Kavanaugh, to woo him over to her side. Indeed, Borden marks the second time in a month that Kagan has taken direct aim at Kavanaugh’s style of judging: In May, she criticized him for treating “judging as scorekeeping—and more, as scorekeeping about how much our decisions, or the aggregate of them, benefit a particular kind of party.” Now she has charged him with acting like a crybaby, regurgitating bad arguments, and warping the words of the law to expand mandatory minimums. This tactic does not inspire confidence that Kagan has talked Kavanaugh into finding a middle ground on this term’s blockbusters. Over the next several weeks, the court is due to release opinions in several major cases where Kavanaugh’s vote could make the difference. In Fulton v. Philadelphia, the court could force Philadelphia to fund foster care agencies that refuse to work with same-sex couples. In Brnovich v. DNC, the court could kneecap what remains of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to even more voter suppression. In Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, it could give high-dollar donors to political “charities” a constitutional right to conceal their identities from the public, and weaken the constitutional basis for campaign finance disclosure laws.