Showing posts with label Democrat Obstruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democrat Obstruction. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Sen. Collins Will Not Be Swayed by Abhorrent, Potentially Illegal Intimidation from Liberals on Kavanaugh

Radical liberal organizations are trying to intimidate Republican Senator Susan Collins from Maine into voting against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, even resorting to potentially illegal bribery and threatening her staff members.  The Wall Street Journal described the abhorrent campaign of intimidation against Senator Collins:  
A crowdfunding website is trying to strong-arm Senator Susan Collins, the Republican from Maine, by giving more than $1 million to her 2020 opponent—unless she opposes Judge Kavanaugh. . . . It isn’t clear this is even legal. We’re all for citizens exercising their free-speech rights, including campaign donations, for or against political candidates. But federal law defines the crime of bribery as “corruptly” offering “anything of value” to a public official, including a Member of Congress, with the intent to “influence any official act.” The crowdfunders in this case are offering something of value—withholding funds from her opponent—in return for a Supreme Court confirmation vote. . . . 
Another pressure tactic, one Ms. Collins says she finds “incredibly offensive,” is “the out-of-state voicemails being left on the answering machines of my state offices.” Many of the messages are profane. “In one case—and we are going to turn this over to the police, but unfortunately, of course, the person didn’t leave a name or number—but they actually threatened to rape one of my young female staffers.” 
The Senator’s office also has been receiving coat hangers in the mail, a grisly attempt to insinuate that a Justice Kavanaugh would restrict abortion rights. About 3,000 have arrived so far. “I am pleased to say,” Ms. Collins says with a small chuckle, “we had a group that has a thrift shop that helps low-income women ask us for 300 of the hangers. So at least 300 of them have gone to a very good cause.”
But Senator Collins will not be intimidated.  Instead, she will do her job under the Constitution's advice and consent requirement and evaluate Judge Kavanaugh based on his qualifications and his record:
Even diehard opponents of Judge Kavanaugh must recognize the unseemly nature of this bid to intimidate a U.S. Senator. Not that it will work. “I’m going to do what I think is right,” Ms. Collins says. “I am going to cast my vote—as I have done on all of the other Supreme Court nominees that I’ve been called upon to consider—based on his qualifications, his character and integrity, judicial temperament, his record, and his respect for the rule of law and fidelity to the Constitution.”
The lengths to which liberals and Democrats are willing to go to oppose Judge Kavanaugh show that they have no genuine basis for their opposition in either his qualifications or record and the depths to which they will descend to resist President Trump.  They are even willing to make unsubstantiated allegations of perjury against Judge Kavanaugh and mischaracterize his testimony during the hearings last week to such an extent that even The Washington Post's Fact Checker awarded the description four Pinocchios and said that "Democrats should drop this talking point." 

But Senator Collins deserves credit for not giving into the intimidation and remembering that her duty as a senator is to do what is right and represent the people of Maine, not bow to the radical liberal interests controlling the Democratic Party.

Friday, September 7, 2018

Top Ten Moments and Takeaways from Kavanaugh Hearings

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court adjourned this afternoon at 4:15.  

After four long days of hearings, Americans now have a glimpse of a man and judge who is kind, thoughtful, humble, intelligent, and intellectually curious, possesses incredible endurance, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the law, has a consistent judicial philosophy of looking first to the text of the relevant law at issue, works very hard to get the right answer in each case and be fair to all litigants, and has a deep respect for the Constitution, the separation of powers, federalism, and the rule of law.  And we also have a depressing picture of what the next two years of Democratic presidential primary will look like.

Here are the top ten moments and takeaways from the hearings.



1. Judge Kavanaugh's poise, including his serious responses to Democrats' questions that were trying to trap him, have him disclose his personal policy views, or commit on how he would rule in future cases:


2. Judge Kavanaugh's repeated description of the proper role of a judge, including a deep and consistent interpretive philosophy relying on the text of the Constitution and statutes:







3. Judge Kavanaugh's repeated description of the separation of powers:

4. How those who knew Judge Kavanaugh and have practiced before him praised him highly both personally and as a judge, while the third-party witnesses from Democrats largely made policy points:



5. Senator Ben Sasse's civics lesson on Tuesday (and great questions throughout):






6. Senator Cory Booker's "Spartacus" moment that wasn't (but then after Sen. Booker was criticized for claiming courage for releasing documents cleared for release, he then did release confidential documents in violation of Senate Rules):






7. Refreshingly serious questions and dialogue with Judge Kavanaugh from Senators Chris Coons and Amy Klobuchar, even if their interpretations of cases and legal theories were often misguided. But unfortunately for Sen. Klobuchar's presidential ambitions, it's unlikely that deeper thinking about the law will mean much to the increasingly liberal, outcome-oriented Democratic base:


8. Senator Kamala Harris' bizarre questions about conversations with anyone at Kasowitz Benson Torres, a law firm with over 350 people, that ultimately proved to be only an attempt to cast unfounded aspersions at Judge Kavanaugh:


9. Judge Kavanaugh's tattered pocket Constitution, which Senator Harris disparagingly referred to as "that book that you carry":



10. Chairman Grassley's leadership throughout, from being gracious to the Democrats despite their obvious lack of good faith to correcting many of the Democrats' misstatements using his prerogative as Chair to allowing Judge Kavanaugh to respond at the end of a questioning period when a Democrat hadn't allowed the Judge to answer. Likewise, the good points and questions made by the Republican members of the committee:



Thursday, September 6, 2018

Highlights and "Low" Lights from Day 3 of Kavanaugh Hearings

The morning of Day 3 of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings began with an hour of debate / grandstanding about the documents.
Sen. Booker stole the show (it was very clearly a "show") by saying he was going to release documents designated as "committee confidential," inviting the consequences for the release of the documents and calling himself "Spartacus":

The only problem is that the documents had already been approved for public release just before 4 AM, due to the hard work of the staff overnight. Not to be deterred from his moment of resistance in the limelight, Sen. Booker started releasing still-confidential documents.  
But Sen. Booker's original document release showed that Judge Kavanaugh was opposed to racial profiling:





Sen. Tillis warned of the consequences of making Senate Judiciary a untrustworthy body for receiving confidential documents:

The senators starting asking questions an hour into the hearing, with Democratic Senators largely trying to have Judge Kavanaugh commit to ruling in a certain way on future cases or share his personal views.  Judge Kavanaugh once again avoided all the Democrats' traps and shone with his vast and detailed understanding and knowledge of the law and legal theory:












The RNLA will continue live-tweeting the hearing tomorrow, when the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from invited witnesses on Judge Kavanaugh.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Day 2 - Kavanaugh Shines on Legal Philosophy and Role of a Judge

The second day of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing is ongoing and expected to end after 10:00 PM.  During this marathon day (fortunately for his endurance, Judge Kavanaugh has run actual marathons), Judge Kavanaugh has remained poised and engaged in substantive discussions of cases and legal theories with senators, often recalling specific citations (down to sections of opinions) without referencing his notes.  He has shown why he is extremely well-qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, as the ABA itself acknowledged.  While protestors continued to interrupt throughout the day, Democratic senators have not engaged in the indecorous grandstanding of yesterday.

You can review the hearing's event on RNLA's Twitter feed, and we will continue live-tweeting the hearing until it concludes.

Also of note, current and former RNLA women leaders submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee leaders expressing support for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation:
As educated, professional women, we are often told that we should endorse the progressive policy agenda and support judges who will enact progressive policy changes from the bench and by not doing so, we are betraying our sex.  
Nothing could be further from the truth. The policies and laws that best protect the rights of women are the policies and laws that protect the rights of all people. Therefore, the type of judge who best protects the rights of women is the type of judge who protects the rights of all people who come before his or her court by interpreting statutes and regulations as written, according to the text of the Constitution, with respect for the proper role of the courts in our system of separation of powers.  
Judge Kavanaugh is precisely this type of judge. Throughout his twelve years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he has consistently evaluated the text of the relevant legal authorities and applied them to the facts in the case. He has done so even when the outcome of the case was one that he personally would not have chosen. It is clear in Judge Kavanaugh’s extensive record that he understands his role of as that of judge, not policymaker.  
In addition to his impressive record, Judge Kavanaugh is the son of a woman lawyer and has been a mentor to women lawyers, hiring women as 25 of his 48 law clerks. Twenty-one of his women clerks went on to clerk at the Supreme Court. As his women clerks noted in a letter to you, they had “uniformly positive experiences with the Judge as a boss on issues of gender and equality in the workplace.” This kind of mentorship is vital to helping young women attorneys succeed in our chosen profession. 
Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated his durable commitment to the rule of law and sought to interpret the Constitution and the law impartially, and he should receive the support of Americans of all political and ideological beliefs.  
Instead, he has been attacked for political gain, and even more bizarrely, attacked for being an enemy of women. This not only degrades the civil discourse in our country and undermines the role of the judiciary in our constitutional system but also wrongly uses women as partisan pawns. These attacks on Judge Kavanaugh by liberals and Democrats have belittled the role and individual beliefs and achievements of women, while ignoring the very real contribution that Judge Kavanaugh has made in advancing the careers of women attorneys.
The hearings will continue all week with further rounds of questioning from senators tomorrow and expert testimony on Friday.  RNLA will live-tweet the proceedings throughout.

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Highlights and ("Low" Lights) from Day 1 of Kavanaugh Hearing

Today was the first day of the confirmation hearings for the nomination to the Supreme Court of current D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh.  The hearing started inauspiciously, as both Democratic senators and protesters in the room interrupted Chairman Chuck Grassley as he convened the hearing. To their credit, Senators Leahy and Feinstein did not join in the breach of order but rather looked uncomfortable at their colleagues' indecorous behavior.


Chairman Grassley was very patient with the repeated interruptions and responded to them, before finally beginning his actual opening statement over an hour after the hearing started:


After the Chairman and Ranking Member finally gave their opening statements, the other committee members gave their "10-minute" statements.  Chairman Grassley graciously allowed senators to go significantly over their allotted time, and the Democratic members of the committee greatly abused this courtesy with lengthy speeches.




Sen. Sasse gave an excellent civics and history lesson about how the distortion of the separation of powers under the Constitution has led us to the point where Supreme Court nominations are so contentious:



After joking that he had a 12-minute preamble followed by an 18-minute opening statement (as Sen. Booker did immediately preceding him), Sen. Tillis pointed out that the Democratic senators could use the hearing as a valuable opportunity to engage in a legitimate debate:

Both Senators Booker and Harris were clearly on the presidential campaign trail, giving stump speeches meant to appeal to the liberal Democratic base, with Sen. Harris going so far as to claim that Judge Kavanaugh's entire career has been driven by partisanship:



Sen. Graham concluded with a strong statement calling out the Democrats for their hypocrisy:




Then the hearing moved to introducing Judge Kavanaugh and his opening statement:




The hearing will resume tomorrow at 9:30 and can be watched live here.  It is scheduled to last through Friday.  The RNLA will live tweet the hearing each day.  

Monday, August 6, 2018

Recent Left-Wing Attacks Distort Judge Kavanaugh’s Views on Voting Rights

In modern Democrat politics, anyone who supports measures to enhance voting integrity and decrease the likelihood of voter fraud should be labeled an ‘extremist.’ Hillary Clinton went as far as to say Judge Kavanaugh will bring the United States back to times of slavery. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said if you support Judge Kavanaugh, you are ‘complicit with evil.’  As election law expert Hans von Spakovsky points out, these vicious attacks by top Democrats are totally baseless.
The latest bizarre claim laid against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is that his confirmation would “spell the end of voting rights.” This ridiculous charge has been spun up from two of Kavanaugh’s writings: a 2012 opinion upholding South Carolina’s voter ID law and a brief he filed as a private attorney in a case challenging Hawaii’s practice of preventing residents from voting based on their ancestry.
In both cases, Kavanaugh’s views were — and are — quite mainstream. More importantly, they have been affirmed.
In fact, Judge Kavanaugh’s key rulings on voting rights have all been affirmed by the Supreme Court.
In South Carolina v. Holder, Kavanaugh (joined by two other judges) held that the state’s voter ID law was not discriminatory and did not violate the Voting Rights Act.
Kavanaugh noted, South Carolina made it even easier to vote by providing a “reasonable impediment” exception to its ID requirement. This allows those without proper identification to vote anyway. All they need do is sign a simple affidavit stating the reason they have not obtained a photo ID. Do that, and they can cast a ballot immediately, no questions asked.
Hans von Spakovsky's recent piece for The Hill illustrates the sad state of our political climate. For supporting a measure that would actually make it easier to vote and increase election safety, Democrats and major left-wing organizations have labeled Judge Kavanaugh a ‘racist’ trying to take away voting rights. Thankfully, history and facts have proven Judge Kavanaugh right.
Opponents of the law claimed it would “disenfranchise tens of thousands of minority voters,” but it never happened. The law has been in place since 2013 with no problems and no effect on turnout. No disenfranchisement. No voter “suppression.
Oddly enough, none of Judge Kavanaugh’s critics has bothered to mention that, in a subsequent voter ID case, the Obama Justice Department agreed that an ID law with a “reasonable impediment” exception was not discriminatory. On Aug. 3, 2016, the parties in Veasy v. Abbott penned a “Joint Submission of Agreed Terms” in which they agreed that Texas could apply its photo ID law in the 2016 election as long as any resident who signed “a reasonable impediment declaration” would “be permitted to vote using a regular ballot.”
Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most qualified nominees for the Supreme Court in modern history. Democrats have no viable explanation for opposing his confirmation. However, they have so much animus for President Trump and the American people who voted for the president that they are willing to harm the judicial system and attempt to trash the reputation of an honorable public servant for political gain. Thankfully, it does not appear their scorched Earth tactics will work and Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Not Just Kavanaugh: Democrats Obstructing Virtually All Trump Nominees

In order for our country to function, the executive branch must be able to appoint qualified nominees to critical positions. It appears, however, that Democrats have no interest in what is best for the effectiveness of our nation. They have one goal, obstruct President Trump at all costs. As Hans von Spakovsky and Thomas Jipping explain at Fox News,
More than a year and a half after the inauguration of Donald Trump’s presidency, the left continues to obstruct the confirmation of nominees to critical posts in both the executive and judicial branches. The unprecedented obstructionism denies leadership to executive branch departments and agencies and impedes the fair and swift administration of justice.
It is also an abuse of the Senate’s constitutional obligation to provide “Advice and Consent” regarding presidential nominations of judges and key “Officers of the United States.”
How bad has the obstruction gotten when compared to President Obama’s nominations?
As of July 17, the Senate had confirmed 515 presidential nominations. That may sound like a lot, but it’s nearly 30 percent less than the number confirmed at this point in President Barack Obama’s first term.
And it’s not that Trump hasn’t given the upper chamber plenty of nominations to act on. A whopping 371 nominations are now pending in the Senate, including 90 judicial nominees.  
Trump Judicial and Executive confirmations have not just slowed compared to Obama.
According to a one-page White House memo obtained by the Washington Examiner, each of the last four presidents had confirmed hundreds more judicial and executive nominees than Trump by the second July of their presidency. For instance, the Senate had confirmed 75 and 87 percent of former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s picks by this time in their term. They have confirmed just 58 percent for Trump.
Democrats have forced Republicans to dot every procedural I and cross every parliamentary T before getting their nominee a vote. As the New York Times reported last year, that means calling for a cloture vote which in turn requires an “intervening day” to allow the request, in parliamentary parlance, to "ripen." After that, the rules require 30-hours of “post-cloture” debate before a final vote.
This Democrat obstruction does not only hurt President Trump, it harms the country and the American people most importantly. Let’s hope the Democrats rethink this politically motivated tactic before too much damage is done.

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

More Obstruction: Democrats Demand Millions of Documents on Judge Kavanaugh

Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit after being nominated by President Bush in 2003. It took all the way until 2006 to confirm him due to the heavy scrutiny that included two Senate hearings levied against the Bush appointee. As Tom Jipping wrote in the National Review,
[Judge Kavanaugh] also spent “four years in private practice, one year in the Office of the Solicitor General, four years in the Office of Independent Counsel, two years in the White House Counsel’s Office, and three years as staff secretary to President Bush.” 
Judge Kavanaugh is a Yale Law school graduate and has taught at Yale, Georgetown and Harvard Universities. Even the left-leaning American Bar Association gave the Judge its highest qualification in 2006. One could argue there has never been a nominee with more exposure than Kavanaugh over the past decade of his work. Yet this is still not nearly enough information according to Senate Democrats. They want millions, yes millions, of documents. The USA Today explains just how unusual this search really is.
Senators have begun the deepest dive ever into the writings of a Supreme Court nominee, digging into a record 1 million-plus pages of legal opinions and emails from Brett Kavanaugh's career as a federal judge, White House attorney, and assistant to the prosecutor who investigated former President Bill Clinton.
The massive volume of Kavanaugh's records dwarfs those of the last two Supreme Court justices to be confirmed – Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan. Senators reviewed about 182,000 pages of documents on Gorsuch and about 170,000 pages on Kagan.
Even with the unique volume of documents the Senate already has on Judge Kavanaugh, Democrats even want more.
Despite the mound of electronic paper that senators will soon get on Kavanaugh, Democrats and Republicans are battling over whether they should have access to more as they debate the merits of President Donald Trump's nominee.
The fight centers on whether senators should see emails and other documents from Kavanaugh's time as staff secretary to former President George W. Bush, from 2003-2006.
Tom Jipping points out that this is pure obstruction.
Unfortunately, many of Kavanaugh’s critics have already announced their opposition, some even before President Trump announced his selection. That makes their demand for documents and other material unrelated to Kavanaugh’s judicial service more than a little odd. Obviously, the information will have no effect on their position. 
So here’s the current state of confirmation play: Senators and groups that already oppose Kavanaugh are demanding access to the least relevant part of his record, much of which was available during the extensive scrutiny he faced for his appeals-court appointment. If that’s not obstruction for its own sake, what is?
The RNLA has always supported a proper vetting process for every judicial nominee, particularly one for the highest court in the United States. However, in this case it is obvious to any objective observer that the current tactics used against Judge Kavanaugh are a politically motivated obstructionist strategy. Unfortunately, the nation and the integrity of our judicial system is being harmed as a result.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Chuck Schumer's Obstruction Tactics Failing as Three Democrats Set to Meet With Judge Kavanaugh

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to do everything possible to block the confirmation of President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Unfortunately for Schumer, it appears a handful of his Democrat colleagues are ready to break ranks and consider voting to confirm the highly qualified Kavanaugh. The Hill reports,
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democratic-allied advocacy groups are using the lightest of touches on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) as he considers voting for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Manchin will meet with Kavanaugh at 2:30 pm Monday and could embolden other Democrats to announce their support for President Trump’s conservative nominee.
Since the U.S. Senate currently consists of fifty-one Republicans, Democrats will almost certainly need zero defections to have any chance of blocking President Trump’s second SCOTUS nominee. As the Washington Examiner reports, things are starting to look grim for Schumer and his obstruction strategy thanks to a handful of Democrats in states that President Trump carried in the 2016 election.
At the moment, Manchin is one of . . . two Senate Democrats who have scheduled meetings with the judge. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., is scheduled to meet with the Supreme Court hopeful Aug. 15. 
Others are in the process of scheduling meetings, including Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., whose office is working with the White House toward setting up a meeting with Kavanaugh. With the upcoming meetings, the ballgame for Kavanaugh will begin in earnest.
With President Trump winning handily in all three states of the aforementioned three Democrat Senators, it would be politically risky for them to disregard the wishes of their constituents and cave to the liberal elite and oppose a nominee as qualified as Judge Kavanaugh in such a pro-Trump state.

What is clear is that the Democrat obstruction strategy is beginning to crumble right before our eyes, and that is bad news for Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Friday, July 27, 2018

ICYMI: Majority Leader McConnell Defends Judge Kavanaugh From Vicious Democrat Attacks

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke from the Senate floor yesterday regarding the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. McConnell not only explained his personal views as to why Judge Kavanaugh is ‘uniquely qualified, and a brilliant legal mind’ but the Majority Leader also shared similar sentiments from a number of his Senate colleagues.

Unfortunately, Majority Leader McConnell was also forced to address the loud minority of senators who have expressed unhinged opposition to President Trump’s nominee. Speaker McConnell said this,
Here is how the junior Senator from New Jersey [Cory Booker] characterized this nomination with the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Elizabeth Warren] right beside him.  And here's what he said: “We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against."
This, from a member of the Judiciary Committee. He has not even met with Judge Kavanaugh.  He hasn't heard a word of testimony and he is citing Scripture to proclaim that this nominee is pure evil of biblical proportions. He is claiming that the Senators and the American people who have an open mind on this nomination are complicit in the evil. This is truly outrageous and not a single Democrat has come forward to condemn what he had to say. 
Leader McConnell brings up an important point that speaks to the radical commentary from Democrat leaders. While Republicans have in the past opposed the nominees of Democrat presidents, not once has a Republican Senator called a Supreme Court pick ‘evil.’ Perhaps even more disillusioned was what California Senator Kamala Harris said of the pick,
The junior Senator from California [Kamala Harris], another member of the Judiciary Committee, said Judge Kavanaugh would bring a . . . “destruction of the U.S. Constitution.” She made up her mind before there was even a nominee.
Leader McConnell brings up specific instances of extremist rhetoric coming from important leaders of the Democrat Party. Instead of scrutinizing Judge Kavanaugh in an unbiased and open-minded manner, Senate Democrats have resorted to petty political tactics and extreme commentary to bash a longtime public servant’s character. To continue to be the greatest nation in the world with the most fair legal system, this practice of hyper-partisanship from the left must end.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Senator Cornyn Rightly Calls Out “Unhinged” Cory Booker over Judge Kavanaugh

Cory Booker called Facebook racist and in an unprecedented and repugnant moment in Senate history testified against then-colleague Senator Sessions when he was nominated to become Attorney General. Senator Booker has now taken his outlandish attacks one step further (emphasis added).
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Tuesday that senators who don’t oppose President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are “complicit in the evil.”
Booker, speaking at a press conference with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and religious and moral leaders, said that Kavanaugh’s nomination “has nothing to do with politics” but with “who we are as moral beings.”
“I’m here to call on folks to understand that in a moral moment, there is no neutral. In a moral moment, there is no bystanders,” he said. “You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it.”
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn has rightly called out Senator Booker for this (emphasis added):
Cornyn said remarks like Booker's were "unhinged" and "detached from any reality" during a Senate floor speech.
"My advice to some of our friends across the aisle who are engaged in this kind of superheated rhetoric, my advice is get a grip," he said. "Get a grip."
. . ."What in the world? [Booker] needs to get a grip," he said. "Everybody’s trying to outdo everybody else."
At this point no one should pay any attention to Senator Booker, who is ignoring his duties as a Senator to shrilly yell for the support of the far, far left in a desperate bid to be relevant in the 2020 Democrat Presidential primary.