As we have documented on this blog, most recently here, it was Joe Biden who started blocking or attempting to block highly qualified judicial nominees nominated by Republican Presidents.  Democrats took this “borking” strategy to the extreme of obstructing multiple nominees.  And now they are angry that conservatives are fighting back. 

Senate Democrats are going after conservatives’ influence over the federal judiciary, but it’s unclear how they plan to counter the immediate impact of President Donald Trump’s wave of judicial nominees.

Recently, we marked the ten year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). We continue to hear a lot about this decision in the mainstream media, with some Democratic candidates describing it as a threat to American democracy, launching attacks on any candidate - liberal, socialist or otherwise - that will take money or support from political action committees (PACS) of any kind.

Democrats often seem to cite certain events as the world is going to end if, or when, they happen -- whether it was Al Gore’s climate disaster by 2016 or the end of the internet when FEC Chair Ajit Pai ended net neutrality.  This week another anniversary of one of those doomsday events occurred, the tenth anniversary of Citizens United v. FEC which was decided on January 21, 2010.  As Cato scholar Ilya Shapiro wrote on the fifth anniversary:

President Obama’s famous statement during his 2010 State of the Union Address: “The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates of special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”

In that one sentence, the former law professor made four errors that are all too common.

Like many Democrat candidates running for President in 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has been an active proponent of campaign finance reform. According to OpenSecrets, "When he served as New York City’s public advocate in 2010, he penned an article in The Nation condemning Citizens United and called on state and local leaders across America to join him..."

And, like other 2020 Democrats, he doesn't think that the existing rules apply to him.