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

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.)

Senator Orrin Hatch passed away Saturday.  He was a true leader and a great friend to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He spoke to RNLA more than any other elected politician and was very close to one of our founders, Betty Southard Murphy. As the left tries to lionize him for being some bipartisan figure from a bygone age, we should remember what a strong Republican Senator Hatch always was. As his former staffer, Tom Jipping, stated: Senator Hatch was “a real compassionate conservative.”  

But that compassion should not be mistaken for weakness. The Wall Street Journal had it right when it editorialized:  

The press is eulogizing former Senator Orrin Hatch for his civility and bipartisan deal-making with Democrat Ted Kennedy. He certainly was a gracious man who represented a more civil era in politics. But we’ll remember the longest-serving Republican Senator, who died Saturday at age 88, for the moments he bucked Beltway convention and took unfair abuse for it.

The first was his stalwart defense of Clarence Thomas against the accusations by Anita Hill in 1991. Ms. Hill’s claims have achieved totemic status on the political left. But they arrived only at the last minute, midwifed by Democratic operatives, and lacked substantiation. On the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch subjected the claims to proper scrutiny. He helped confirm Justice Thomas, who has been a credit to the High Court and country.

On Monday, the Biden Administration announced its latest gun grab. The National Review's David Harsanyi writes:

Crime is rising, so it’s time for Democrats to take aim at law-abiding gun owners. In a press conference today, President Joe Biden promised swift action, announcing a series of unilateral moves that will have virtually no effect on rising criminality. Among them is regulating so-called “ghost guns,” which Biden claims “are the weapons of choice for many criminals.” And by “many,” he means “incredibly few.” Biden also promised to fight for “universal” background checks and “assault-weapons” bans, two other policies that would do almost nothing to lower the crime rate and everything to do with making life more difficult for peaceful gun owners.

On Friday, President Joe Biden officially announced the nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Brown Jackson has long been seen as the frontrunner to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Court.

Happening Now: President Biden delivers remarks on his nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. https://t.co/kfVZTKYjTb

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 25, 2022

When Justice Clarence Thomas was going through the confirmation process, Democrats orchestrated false allegations that Thomas had harassed a former employee, Anita Hill, in an effort to derail his nomination to the Supreme Court. The character assassination was led by none other than then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden. The remarkable thing is that Biden did not even believe Hill, but he chose to use her testimony anyways. Mark Paoletta, who worked on Justice Thomas' confirmation, recalled one specific instance where then-Senator Biden pressured Hill to change her testimony to fit the Democrats' attacks on Justice Thomas:

Hill, who had been discussing in detail alleged conversations with Thomas and others that happened many years earlier, told Specter she could not remember any such conversations. According to Specter:

During a live-streamed interview on Tuesday, Democrat House Leader Steny Hoyer echoed President Joe Biden's position that the 2022 midterm elections could be "illegitimate" if Democrats fail to pass their radical elections bills. Politico reported:

Hoyer said the Democrats' push to pass voting rights legislation is “very much alive,” but he referenced the same strategy that failed Democrats last week. “We either need to change the rules, or get 60 votes [in the Senate],” he said.

Republicans and Democrats spent Tuesday presenting dueling visions for America's elections. Republicans want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat, while the Democrats, led by President Biden, are willing to do whatever it takes—including changing the Senate filibuster—to achieve a partisan takeover of our elections.

Democrats will do whatever they have to do to get their way—including changing the rules—to fundamentally change U.S. elections.

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) January 11, 2022

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for two challenges to the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates. Fox News reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Friday in a high-stakes public session to decide whether the U.S. government can begin enforcing sweeping COVID-19 vaccine requirements affecting nearly 100 million workers.

In multiple major rulings, two of the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates were blocked by federal courts today. First, the Eastern District of Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction suspending the enforcement of a vaccine mandate for federal contractors in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. The Lexington Hearald Leader reports:

A federal judge in Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction effectively blocking implementation of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal government contractors and subcontractors on Tuesday.