Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has donned his "dark money" tinfoil hat yet again. Unsurprisingly, Senator Whitehouse dubbed his first hearing as chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights: "What's Wrong with the Supreme Court: The Big-Money Assault on Our Judiciary."

President Trump was extremely successful in having placed 234 Article III Judges, including 3 Supreme Court Justices.  His record of working with the Senate to confirm outstanding Judicial nominees stands in strong contrast to the record of then Senators Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. 

Biden was one of 22 senators who voted against [Chief Justice John] Roberts [who will swear him in tomorrow] in 2005. . . .

Roberts is far from the only justice whose confirmation Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris opposed. Biden, who was a senator from Delaware for more than 35 years, also voted not to confirm Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Harris, a California senator, cast votes against the nominations of the three Trump appointees to the high court: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

It’s the first time in American history that the incoming president and vice president have together voted against a majority of the court.

In a victory for religious liberty, the United States Supreme Court granted an injunction last Wednesday, protecting two New York religious organizations from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's executive order that imposed "very severe restrictions on attendance at religious services in areas classified as 'red' or 'orange' zones" pending a decision on the merits of the case by the Second Circuit.

The Court's unsigned per curiam opinion was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Both Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh wrote concurring opinions. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice Breyer also authored a dissenting opinion that Justices Sotomayor and Kagan joined. Justice Sotomayor wrote her own dissenting opinion joined by Justice Kagan.

The left is attacking Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in a Supreme Court decision earlier this week that declined to reinstate a Wisconsin absentee ballot return extension put in place by a lower court under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics are calling the opinion "sloppy," but as the Ethics and Public Policy Center's Ed Whelan explains, their attacks are "sloppy" at best.

On Friday, the Supreme Court denied a Nevada church's emergency application for injunctive relief to allow the church to operate beyond the limit placed on them by Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak.  The church was challenging the Governor's Directive 021 which allows large groups at restaurants, bars, casinos, gyms, bowling alleys, indoor amusement parks, water parks, and pools as long as they remain at a 50% fire-code capacity limit. However, places of worship are limited to a 50-person limit regardless of the available facilities or precautions taken. The church alleges that the Governor's directive violates the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment. While the Court's denial of the church's application was a single sentence long, the 4 dissenting Justices wrote 3 separate dissents totaling 24 pages expressing their concerns over the Governor's blatant disregard for religious Nevadans' Constitutional rights.

One of the hallmarks of the Trump Administration has been placing judges on the federal bench. As of June, President Trump had his 200th federal judicial nominee confirmed by the Senate. Notably President Trump has appointed two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. One of the most lasting effects of these appointments has been the strengthening of religious liberty which has been under attack over the past several decades. In this past year’s term alone, the Court handed down 3 major victories for religious liberty in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, and Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania.

Today’s decisions by the Supreme Court were a mixed bag.  First, any way you look at it, Chief Justice Robert’s decision in June Medical Services v. Russo is hard to reconcile with his dissent in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. From SCOTUSblog:

Four years ago, by a vote of 5-3, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that (among other things) required doctors who perform abortions to have the right to admit patients at a nearby hospital. In that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined his four more liberal colleagues in holding that, although Texas has a genuine interest in protecting the health of pregnant women, there was no evidence that the law actually did anything to promote that interest – but it did make it more difficult for women to get an abortion. Kennedy is no longer on the court, but today it was Chief Justice John Roberts who joined the court’s four liberals in ruling in June Medical Services v. Russo that a similar law from Louisiana is unconstitutional – even as he maintained that he continues to believe that the Texas case was wrongly decided.

After Ukraine and the Russia-hoax, it seems likely the Democrats in the U.S. House's quest for Donald Trump’s tax returns is just the latest effort to damage the President politically.  During oral argument over President Trump’s tax returns, USA Today sums up that point as follows:

On the other hand, all the conservatives and some liberal justices wondered whether the subpoenas go too far in seeking a decade of private data involving not only the president but members of his family. They suggested such extensive probing could harass and distract both Trump and future presidents.

. . .

“How can we both protect the House’s interest in obtaining information it needs to legislate but also protect the presidency?" Kavanaugh asked House general counsel Douglas Letter. . . .

But even liberal Associate Justice Stephen Breyer noted the subpoenas "go way, way beyond tax returns," a concern voiced by several conservative colleagues.

On March 25, Tara Reade publicly came forward stating that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. The Biden campaign has denied the allegations.

The blatant media bias in handling the accusations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Vice President Biden shows an extremely disturbing double-standard in due process. Apparently, the Left does not hold their own candidates to their own standards.

If you watch the headlines on left like "Fox News Lawyers Up," you would think that Fox News is worried about a lawsuit filed against it over its COVID-19 coverage.  The reality is somewhat different than left wing news and conspiracy websites suggest.  As former Fox News host Megyn Kelly tweeted:

Anyone filing such a lawsuit would be laughed out of court and likely sanctioned by the court for filing a frivolous lawsuit. But, whatever you need to tell yourself to stay occupied during quarantine... https://t.co/c87n1bZSVG

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 30, 2020