McConnell 'optimistic' about Kavanaugh vote after lunch with Collins

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressed optimism about the chances of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

McConnell made the remarks after he and others in the GOP leadership had lunch with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a potential swing vote to put Kavanaugh on the high court.

“We’re heading toward a final vote tomorrow, and I’m optimistic,” he told NBC News.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell after lunch with Republican leaders and Sen. Collins: “We’re heading toward a final vote tomorrow, and I’m optimistic.”

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) October 5, 2018 Senators voted 51-49 to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination, setting up a confirmation vote for Saturday afternoon. Three potential swing votes, Sens. Collins, Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) all voted “yes.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the lone Republican defection.

“I have been wrestling with whether or not this was about the qualifications of a good man or is this bigger than the nominee and I believe we are dealing with issues right now that are bigger than a nominee,” Murkowski told reporters after the vote.

The Senate will ultimately vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation Saturday in all likelihood.

What Republicans hoped would be a smooth confirmation hearing was thrown into tumult after three women went public with allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh while he was in high school and college.

Kavanaugh offered a fiery defense against the accusations, saying at a hearing last week in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the allegations were planned “smears” and part of Democrats’ “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

Flake, who was later joined by Collins, Murkowski and Donnelly, forced the White House to request an FBI inquiry into the allegations by threatening to withhold his ultimate confirmation vote.

The FBI returned the results of a week-long investigation into the allegations to the Senate on Thursday.

Many Senate Republicans claim there was no corroborating evidence for any of the claims against Kavanaugh and have vowed to confirm the nominee in a vote over the weekend.

Flake and Collins first hinted they were leaning toward supporting Kavanaugh after they praised the FBI inquiry as thorough.

The White House also expressed confidence Kavanaugh would be confirmed over the weekend.

"We sure hope so. I think we should," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked by reporters if Kavanaugh has enough votes.

"Moving into the weekend, we certainly hope the Senate will vote to confirm him," she added.

Sanders said the White House has been actively whipping votes for Kavanaugh to help push him over the finish line.

"We’ve been in constant contact with a number of senators since this process began and we’re going to continue those efforts right up until the last minute because this is such an important moment in our country’s history," she said earlier in an interview with Fox News.

One thing that should now be clear to anyone, is that a female Republican senator can not be counted on in the fight. There are female senators and Republican senators, and in nature it is impossible for both to coexist in the same body.

Let this be a warning over flipped Dem, Hyde-Smith in Mississippi. She has cocked-up the race big time. This is looking like a repeat of Alabama, a real stinking mess. Well at least in Mississippi there is a chance of a later runoff.

If Hyde-Smith wins, it only means another member of the Weak Sister Club.

“Makes no sense.”
the only thing she is concerned about is her social standing with all the Alaskan leftist women lawyers, 1,700 of them, who demanded she vote no. with a lefty and most professional politicians, social standing is everything. Your social status is your very life, it seems. That’s why she’s incoherent because she isn’t stating the real reason. She wants to stay in the Rich Girl’s Club. Constituents be damned. Being rich and elite is your whole world.

p.s. Sarah Palin wasn’t in the club.

Perhaps without knowing or understanding why, Murkowski is correct that this decision is bigger than being about one nominee, this decision may very well be about reclaiming and restoring the very "soul" of the nation.

"Let virtue, honor, the love of liberty...

The Soul Of America's Constitution

America's Founders knew that it takes more than a perfect plan of government to preserve liberty. Something else is needed - some moral principle diffused among the people to unite and strengthen the urge to peaceful observance of law. They recognized that the raw materials of a free government are people who can act morally without compulsion, who do not willfully violate the rights of others, and who love liberty enough to demand that government's power is very limited. They used the word "virtuous" to describe such people. Defined by Webster, "virtue" is "a conformity to a standard of right," but whatever word is used to describe it, such a moral standard is the necessary fountainhead of a free society. The Declaration of Independence referred to "Nature's God," the "Creator," the "Supreme judge of the World," and "Divine Providence" Our nation's founders came together, voluntarily, to create a limited government to secure for them and posterity their God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. Such liberty, they believed, rested on three great supports:

Natural law and unalienable natural rights granted by the Creator,
A written constitution to assure a government of laws, not of rulers, and
VIRTUE among the people - the best defense against tyranny.

Their own words are eloquent reminders of their devotion to this belief:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." - George Washington's Farewell Address

"We may look up to Armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored." - Samuel Adams

"Virtue must underlay all institutional arrangements if they are to be healthy and strong. The principles of democracy are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted!' - John Adams

And Alexis de Tocqueville, the French statesman who traveled across America in the 1830's and wrote a two-volume study entitled "Democracy In America," observed:

"It cannot be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart." - Tocqueville

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5

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