When I reached Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the federal judiciary for Slate, I had one simple question for him.

How weird is it at the Supreme Court right now?

It's really weird.

I will tell you that I am not allowed in because only a small group of journalists who are called hard pass holders who register with the court annually are allowed in right now because of COVID protocols.

It's unfortunate because I feel like there is so much body language going on and I'm missing all of it.

So I can only say from, you know, reporting and what oozes through the audio,

that it is a very fraught and toxic environment these days.

If you think your workplace is difficult to hang out in right now,

consider the plight of these nine justices, a cabinet of rivals, forced to come together,

day after day, even though it is clear to just about everyone, how little they can agree on.

It's hard to say when the atmosphere became fraught and toxic, but the pandemic certainly did not help.

Early on, when the court was only doing arguments over the telephone, it revealed a very gendered dynamic about who gets to speak and who doesn't, because the male justices were

frequently interrupting the female justices.

Chief Justice Roberts, who was supposed to be giving each justice equal time,

ended up allowing people like Alito and Gorsuch to blab over their allotted time.

And so you ended up seeing the men really dominate the argument.

And I'll say that that does include Breyer, who is a liberal, but he tends to just prattle on and on. And it's not just the mansplaining, making things awkward.

Now we're seeing a totally different problem, which is the, I call it mask gate.

Neil Gorsuch refusing to wear his mask, Alito and Thomas periodically taking off their masks,

Sotomayor having to phone in from her chambers because she's afraid of getting COVID.

Just as Sotomoyer is a diabetic, we should say.

So she's very high risk.

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