On Tuesday, the D.C. City Council approved a dangerous crime bill that will radically weaken criminal penalties in the nation's capital. The bill is so bad that even leftist Mayor Muriel Bowser opposes the bill:

The District of Columbia City Council voted to force through revisions of the district's criminal code that will soften penalties on violent crimes, overriding a previous veto from the mayor's office.

On Friday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Congressman Mike Johnson announced an investigation by House Republicans into the bombshell discovery that President Biden mishandled documents retained from his time as Vice President.

#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan and @RepMikeJohnson launch first investigation into @JoeBiden’s classified documents scandal. pic.twitter.com/sR8E5J2ZTd

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) January 13, 2023

Two separate groups of Republican senators had eventful visits to the southern border this week, providing a stark contrast to President Biden's visit over the weekend. As we noted earlier this week, the Biden visit was short and provided a sanitized look at the issues facing border states.

https://t.co/Y13ThKxQ3Z

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 10, 2023

On Sunday, President Biden finally visited the U.S.-Mexico Border after two years in office. Ironically, one highlight of President Biden's trip was a photo-op in front of the border wall erected by the Trump Administration to deter illegal border crossings from Mexico—the very same border wall that he and other Democrats pledged to cease building. In recent weeks, both Democrats and Republicans have criticized President Biden for the border crisis created by his administration. 

Biden got his photo-op by the border wall. The same wall his party stopped construction on.

— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) January 9, 2023

A ranked-choice voting (RCV) disaster occurred in Oakland, California's recent election after the wrong winner was likely declared in a school board race. Even worse, the mistake wasn't admitted until the end of last month. The Mercury News reported:

Here’s what went wrong in Oakland: The software provided by well-known elections firm Dominion Voting Systems allows cities and counties to activate a “suspended votes” feature that does not immediately count votes where the first-choice column is left blank but subsequent columns are filled.

"Lefty legal commentator" Mark Stern has attacked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet again. This time, he has misconstrued a picture of Justice Thomas with former U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker as proof of Justice Thomas' alleged "interest in politics." Mark Paoletta explains:

In April, Justice Thomas hosted a reception at the Supreme Court for recent inductees into the Horatio Alger Association. This organization has awarded $235 million in scholarships to more than 35,000 at-risk students. Herschel Walker was one of many inductees this year, so he attended the event too. 

RNLA's blog covered a wide variety of topics in 2022, and we wanted to highlight some of the top posts here.  Part One focused on RNLA's top blogs on judicial issues. Part Two focuses on how unhinged the far Left has become. RNLA covered everything from cancel culture, election results denialism, and more. We hope you enjoy this recap of some of RNLA's top blog posts of 2022!

As is always the case, the media obsession with President Trump will never end. This time it is a bit different, in that both the left and the right agree on a part of Trump’s legacy in their year-end round-up stories.  Democrats and Republicans in the media agree that President Trump, combined with a Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell, remade the Judiciary. 

From the left, Professor Noah Feldman does the typical frothing at the month unhinged liberal attack on conservative judges, President Trump, and Republicans in the Senate.  But putting aside the irrational hatred and mischaracterization, Feldman states something surprising:

2022 turned out to be the most consequential year of Donald Trump’s presidency. This year, the Supreme Court proved that its hard-right turn will be the most enduring legacy of his sorry four years in office.

Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments — the most by any president since Herbert Hoover, thanks to Mitch McConnell holding Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat open for Justice Neil Gorsuch — have launched a conservative judicial revolution that has only begun to repeal many of the major constitutional advances of the last 50-plus years. The new conservative majority is issuing decisions geared at restoring a nostalgic, never-was version of constitutional history, in place of long-established precedent. (Emphasis added.)

RNLA's blog featured a wide variety of topics in 2022. Many of these blogs highlighted important judicial issues including nominations to the bench, major Supreme Court cases, and more. We hope you enjoy this recap of some of RNLA's top blog posts of 2022!

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court's ruling to keep the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy in place which many see as the only thing stopping the crisis out our southern border from becoming even more out of control than it already is. National Review reported:

In a filing, Chief Justice Roberts stayed the lower court order that ended the pandemic-era policy, which had allowed the administration to expel illegal immigrants as a means to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Roberts gave the DOJ until Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. to file a response to the states petitioning to maintain Title 42.