reporter: cnn checked with the supreme court earlier this year after mrs. thomas founded liberty central, and they said that the court had notified them of the involvement, and said that the discussions would not be made public, but it was said this spring that mrs. thomas was told her work was not conflict of interests, and wolf, most people believe that judge thomas will be careful to recuse himself from cases where her group advocates for certain issues, but we don t have to know, because he does not have to disclose that. thank you, brian todd. let s continue the analysis of what is going on. gloria borger is coming into political room, our senior political analyst, and jeffrey toobin is the author of the book benign, inside the secret world of the supreme court. and you know justice thomas, and do you suppose this is happy that it has been once again brought up, this 19-year-old
is with it. and inside the secret world of the supreme court. roland is in philadelphia, joining us by phone. kate, let s start with you. the update on the news that we ve got this morning. absolutely. hey there, ali. of course, you really topped it off really well. justice john paul stevens announced he is stepping down. that, of course, quickly moves to the question of what s next, who is next. and from what we know, i mean, it s all part of the conversation that s going to be going on for days and weeks ahead. president obama announced his choice of sonia sotomayor, justice sonia sotomayor now, 26 days after a retirement. and some people many think that president obama will be ready to maik his announcement, possibly a little faster this time around. but who will that be? of course, there are a lot of names being tossed around. people close to the process do tell cnn that it is likely, while there is a list of quote, unquote, top contenders, ali, that we ll talk about, that they