Sheldon Whitehouse actually said...

Do not worry if there is not a great deal of attendance here. That is usually actually a good sign.

It is clearly inconvenient to certain powerful interests who think they have got the executive branch of government under control...

I detect a strain in certain current judicial philosophies of trying to deny, minimize, inhibit, cripple the jury system.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the jury is, before everything, a political institution.