Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee completed opening statements in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.  That needs to be said because, listening to Democrats, you would think it was a healthcare candidates' forum in New Hampshire.  (Hint their message was: "Trump bad, Obamacare good.")  RNLA live tweeted the hearing and will live tweet the Senators questioning of Judge Barrett over the next two days.  Below are some highlights from the RNLA’s Twitter (@thereplawyer) and others:

Senate Judiciary Dems stuck to Sen. Schumer’s talking points (at least for today), but tellingly none of them disavowed the anti-religious, anti-woman, despicable attacks on Judge Barrett made by their mainstream media surrogates and progressive allies. Like this 👇 https://t.co/i0qT8FzzMx

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) October 12, 2020

Apparently both the left and the right are outraged at aspects of Judge Sullivan's decision to delay granting the Department of Justice’s motion to drop the case against Michael Flynn.  But while one side respects the separation of powers and the rule of law, the other side is acting like a schoolyard bully making threats.

To our minds, Judge Sullivan blurs separation of powers when he appointed a retired judge who publicly expressed opinions against Flynn to review the case and accept amicus curiae briefs.  Judge Sullivan seems to be acting like a prosecutor, not an “umpire” judge.  While we consider Judge Sullivan’s decision extremely troubling, we think Flynn’s lawyers took the appropriate course of action in this case by requesting a writ of mandamus. 

We continue our Top 10 Blog posts for 2019.  Numbers 6-10 are here.  

5. February 7: SENATE JUDICIARY ADVANCES AG NOMINEE BARR AND 44 JUDICIAL NOMINEES

Senate Judiciary Dems playing an awkward game of praising Bill Barr's character and competence while saying why they're voting against him, which boils down to Pres. Trump, with some background of unitary executive theory.

Many have long believed that Democrats use race as a political weapon, especially against those of a protected class.  This has long been part of judicial nominations politics in particular.  Form the “high tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas during the George H.W. Bush administration to the fact that Senator Dick Durbin led opposition to Miguel Estrada during the George W. Bush administration for the racist reason that he did not want a Republican to nominate the first Hispanic to be on the Supreme Court.  Now comes another test for the Democrats. 

Today President Donald Trump nominated the first openly gay person to a federal circuit court, Patrick Bumatay.  Bumatay is also a minority and most importantly an outstanding nominee for the Ninth Circuit.  His background is very impressive.

While Democrats are likely all talk and no action, in the scenario that they actually follow through on impeachment threats – Republicans in the Senate are ready to “quickly quash” those efforts.

There are several take-aways from this week’s hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We now know that Democrats will stop at nothing to lie, deflect, and accuse innocent people in order to try to hurt President Trump.

There was one consistent theme throughout the testimony of Attorney General Bill Barr yesterday – Democrats failed to get any of their attacks to stick and only accomplished embarrassing themselves at every accusatory question.

Today, Attorney General William Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the report by special counsel Robert Mueller.

He re-affirmed what we already know to be true: President Trump did not collude with the Russian government.

As expected, Democrats’ theatrics were put on full display throughout the hearing as they attacked AG Barr and accused him of petty mishandling of the report.

Thanks to the leadership of Senator James Lankford and Leader Mitch McConnell, efficiency and order have been restored to the U.S. Senate. Their resolve to move past the Democrats’ partisan obstruction is now allowing the Senate to fill judicial vacancies in a timely manner and equip federal courts to be fully operational and serve the American people.

Under the leadership of Senators Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, James Lankford, and Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans have been confirming judges at record pace.  Democrats have not tried to substantively oppose most nominees (maybe because they are so well qualified) but have attempted to use obscure Senate procedures to do so.  An example was the “cloture rule:”

This involves Rule 22, which provides a time consuming process to end debate, a necessary step before the Senate can vote on confirmation. Under Rule 22, even when the Senate votes to end debate, there can be up to 30 more hours of consideration. In the past, the minority party cooperated to informally schedule a final confirmation vote. Today, Democrats will not cooperate on anything, forcing the Senate to use this drawn out process for nearly every nomination, including those with no actual opposition.

The Senate has taken six times as many of these unnecessary cloture votes as during the same period under the previous nine presidents combined. You read that right. Even though the Senate votes to end debate every time, Democrats insist that the clock keep running for those 30 hours of debate after cloture. Even worse, they almost never spend time on the Senate floor actually debating these nominations.