On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Terry v. United States. The holding is not particularly novel. The Court upheld Terry's sentence for a drug offense because recent changes to mandatory minimum sentencing did not apply to the offense he was convicted of. As Ed Whelan explained in the National Review, this decision is an embarrassment for the Biden Solicitor General because the DOJ decided not to defend the lower court's decision at the last minute.

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.

Today, Ed Whelan posted the four big questions in judicial confirmations for 2020 and answers to the four big questions he posed at the beginning of 2019. The first big question is whether a new Supreme Court vacancy will arise.

Although one did not in 2019, he notes that a nominee for a vacancy that arise this year would likely be confirmed "notwithstanding the ruckus the Left will raise." Looking ahead to 2020, he also asks:

With the confirmation of Barbara Lagoa today, the number of judges appointed by Republican presidents versus Democratic presidents is now greater on three federal circuit courts than when President Trump took office.  Last week, the Second Circuit "flipped" from majority Democratic-appointed to majority Republican-appointed with the confirmation of Steve Menashi, and Judge Lagoa's confirmation today "flipped" the Eleventh Circuit.  As Ed Whelan wrote:

Demand Justice, a far left group run by former Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon that has become the left’s voice on judicial nominations, came out with their “short list” of potential liberal Supreme Court nominees.  The list is extreme to say the least.  How extreme?  As Carrie Severino points out:

Amazing: there must be hundreds of federal judges Obama put on the courts, and only 4 make this list. This list would have been way too liberal for Obama.

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) October 15, 2019

Undaunted by the backlash against their personal attacks on Catholic nominees for their religious faith, Democrats and their liberal allies are attacking President Trump's new nominee for the Second Circuit, Steven Menashi, for being...a Jew who defends Israel.