Yesterday, Mother Jones reported that current FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub has decided to vote against allowing the FEC to defend its positions in court.  Because the FEC currently only has four members and the affirmative votes of four members are required for the FEC to take any official action, this means that Chair Weintraub will prevent the FEC from appearing in court to defend its position.  

President Donald Trump has announced an outstanding choice to be the new Deputy Attorney General in Jeffery Rosen.  Despite more #fakenews about former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein being forced out, Rosenstein has always said he would step down upon the swearing in of a new Attorney General.  Furthermore the Department of Justice has clearly stated the so-called 25^th Amendment talk and Rosenstein was more fake news.  As the Department of Justice points out Rosenstein "was not in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment" and denied the allegations.

We bring this up because it will be an effort to detract from the real story.  Rosenstein’s planned departure should in no way detract from the outstanding nomination of Jeffery Rosen.  Rosen has outstanding qualifications:

The mainstream media breathlessly reported over the weekend that two Trump attorneys had lied about the relationship between President Trump and his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.  This came after the House Oversight Democrats sent a letter containing the allegation of "evolving stories" to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone for a late Friday news drop.  The House Oversight Democrats and the mainstream media chose to smear former White House ethics attorney and current RNLA Board of Governors member Stefan Passantino for making false statements because of notes taken by Office of Government Ethics staff regarding one statement he made regarding his understanding of the nature of the attorney-client relationship between President Trump and Mr. Cohen:

Today, President Trump signed a federal spending bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, which includes additional border security spending. As part of this measure, the President signed into an effect a national emergency declaration, which allows him to reprioritize funding for border security to address the growing national security and humanitarian crisis at our Southern Border. There are some misconceptions about what a national emergency is and what the effects of such a declaration. Below is a helpful clarification of these issues:

Yesterday, the Senate Rules Committee passed a change to the Senate rules that would prevent the Democrats' obstruction and delays of many of President Trump's judicial and executive nominees:

Currently, up to 30 hours of debate time is allowed before a nominee is approved for service. But if the new rule, which was introduced by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and James Lankford (R-OK), is approved in the Senate floor, it will reduce the maximum time to just two hours. The rule would apply to just about all judicial and executive branch nominees, but not nominees for the Supreme Court or other “high level positions,” according to CNN. . . .

This past week in the Senate could be best summarized as "justice week." Last Wednesday and again today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings for judicial nominees announced late last year, including the contentious hearing for Neomi Rao to fill Justice Kavanaugh's seat on the DC Circuit. Last Thursday, the Committee sent more than 40 judicial nominees to the Senate floor for a final confirmation vote, many of whom were holdovers from the last session of Congress thanks largely to Democrat obstruction tactics "to make the confirmation process as cumbersome as possible." And finally tomorrow, the full Senate is expected to have the final confirmation vote for Bill Barr as the next US Attorney General, after invoking cloture yesterday.

On Monday, the Walter Olson of the Cato Institute wrote about President Trump and his administration's efforts to remake the federal courts in the New York Post. He explains that every modern president has worked to leave a lasting impression on the courts through his choice of nominees, but President Trump has been doing great work at chipping away at a liberal judiciary.

This evening, the Senate voted 55-44 to invoke cloture on the nomination of the Honorable William Barr to be Attorney General of the United States.  RNLA sent a letter signed by 115 RNLA leaders, members, and friends to the leaders of the Senate in support of Mr. Barr's swift confirmation:

California has agreed via settlement to investigate its DMV's latest mishandling of voter registration information:

On Dec. 14, DMV officials revealed that staff members had not transmitted voter registration files for 589 people whose applications or updated applications were filled out before the close of registration for the Nov. 6 statewide election. At the time, state officials could not confirm whether any of those voters had been turned away on election day, or if any had cast last-minute provisional ballots that were rejected in the final tally.

Monday’s settlement raises the possibility that a full investigation of the delayed voter registration documents could reveal races in which the outcome might have changed had those voters been allowed to participate. State officials now have 60 days to complete an investigation into the identity of those voters and why DMV staff members failed to transmit the files in a timely fashion.

The Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Neomi Rao on Tuesday showed yet again that though Democrats claim to be the party that champions women and minorities, they really only care about championing those who agree with their increasingly radical policy views.  Instead of celebrating the impressive career and achievements of a minority woman, the daughter of immigrants, the Senate Judiciary Democrats attacked her and tried to mischaracterize her views.  As Ashley Baker explained in Fox News today, Rao is a threat to the Democrats precisely because she is a minority woman who does not have progressive views:

Today, at the end of a long executive business meeting, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to report favorably the nominations of William Barr to be Attorney General and 44 judicial nominees, including circuit court nominees Bridget S. Bade (Ninth Circuit), Paul B. Matey (Third Circuit), Eric D. Miller (Ninth Circuit), Eric E. Murphy (Sixth Circuit), Chad A. Readler (Sixth Circuit), and Allison Jones Rushing (Fourth Circuit).  The judicial nominees had previously had hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee but were held up by Democrats' delays and obstructions, so they had to be re-nominated by President Trump in this Congress.