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Once upon a time, a Supreme Court nomination was largely noncontentious. The general approach of the Senate’s advise-and-consent mandate was that the primary determination of who should earn a seat on the bench was determined by voters in the most recent presidential election. Nominees were often simply confirmed on a voice vote, sent by the Senate to lifetime appointments across the street with little debate. As you probably noticed, that is no longer the case. Not only are voice votes extinct, so are broadly bipartisan confirmation votes. The last Supreme Court nominee to have received more than 70 votes was...

Being transgender shouldn’t bar one from office, but neither should it be a reason to give an incompetent and corrupt medical official a job.Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said they wouldn’t vote for any non-diverse — i.e., white male — presidential nominees until they were convinced more non-white people would be chosen. They soon dropped their threat after receiving word a “senior level” liaison to the Asian-Pacific Islander community had been appointed. Once you agree to the principle that the most important consideration in filling the approximately 1,250 federal jobs that need Senate approval is the race...

WASHINGTON — Former FBI officials expressed confidence Friday that agents could quickly interview key witnesses and track down potential leads into Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations... A Los Angeles Times reporter located Gaudette’s home from when he was in high school and was allowed inside. Its current owner said the Gaudette family lived in the two-story, single-family house in Rockville, Md., in the early 1980s... Ford...testified, she was pushed into a bedroom across the hall...She said she ran out of the room and into the bathroom across the hall. A master bedroom sits at the top of stairs of Gaudette’s old...

Abortion enthusiasts continue to use old scare tactics (and outright lies) that are designed to drive one result: peel off support for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Their narrative is simple: if a Constitutional originalist gets on the Supreme Court, then hundreds of thousands of women will die from illegal abortions (a lie thoroughly debunked here) and the court will make contraceptives illegal. This narrative is, of course, false. The pro-abortion strategy seems to be to twist facts using skewed and inaccurate headlines which point readers to a false conclusion. Their latest claim is that Judge Brett Kavanaugh referred...

January 10, 2017 - Jeff Sessions Trump Attorney General Pick Speaking at Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says she supports President-elect Donald Trump ’s nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general. “[Sessions] is a man who is committed to justice and knows that law and order are necessary to guarantee freedom and liberty,” she wrote in a Monday letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), according to CNN . “I know that Sen. Sessions will uphold the laws of our great country and will work to ensure that every person here in the United States is given the voice that is deserved,” added Rice, who served...

...Pundits weighing in on the scope of interrogation Elena Kagan, Barack Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee will endure by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee predict she will be asked questions intended to inform as to how a J. Kagan would tend to rule in cases involving issues like guns (how seriously does she take the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms); and judicial restraint (can she separate her progressive politics from her rulings from the bench). Questions will also likely arise concerning her decision as Dean of the Harvard Law School to restrict military recruiting on campus (ban altogether...

Republicans plan to call a white firefighter whose reverse discrimination claim was rejected by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor to testify against her. New Haven, Conn. firefighter Frank Ricci brought a lawsuit challenging his city's decision to scrap the results of a promotion test because too few minorities scored highly enough to qualify. He's one of 14 witnesses Republicans will call during Senate hearings on Sotomayor's confirmation that open Monday. Sotomayor was part of an appellate court panel that rejected Ricci's claim. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling last week. Democrats' witnesses include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former FBI...

Perhaps the best reason to support John Bolton's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is that his approach to foreign policy is radically different from John Kerry's, as shown by their exchange during Mr. Bolton's confirmation hearings. It is a shame anyone missed this delicious slap-down. Mr. Bolton said, for the United Nations to be effective on Iran, North Korea and Lebanon, the 15 members of the Security Council (and particularly the "Perm[anent] 5,") would have to reach policy agreements about those countries. Mr. Kerry's reflexive response was: "And isn't it fair to say that we're sort of...

Alito has enough support from 51 Republicans and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska to assure his confirmation. With the rest of the chamber's Democrats showing little interest in a filibuster, the 100-member Senate is expected to make it official with a majority vote before Bush's State of the Union on Jan. 31.

The views that Samuel Alito expressed on reapportionment in a 20-year-old document could jeopardize his Supreme Court nomination and provoke a filibuster, a leading Democratic senator said Sunday. "I think he's got a lot of explaining to do, and depending on how he does, I think will determine whether or not he has a problem or not," said Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans confirmation hearings in early January.

The recent announcement by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter that confirmation hearings on Judge Samuel Alito have been postponed until January was only the latest in a series of painful examples of what happens when Senate Republicans wimp out.Senator Specter did not wimp out. The Senate Republican "leadership" wimped out when they made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee after he had fired a shot across the bow of his own President, right after the election, publicly warning President Bush not to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who would stir up controversy in the Senate.That was the time...

This is it. Do you understand? We're ready for this debate. We can win this debate. We're up against a bunch of people that don't have any ideas. We're up against a bunch of people that can't be honest about who they are, but they care so much about this court they have no choice but than to be honest about who they are.

Justice Clarence Thomas' Electronic Lynching Helps Harriet Miers By Kevin Fobbs One of the most unique Supreme Court feeding frenzies on record was the confirmation hearings for now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Because of his sacrifice U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who is filling a key court seat, will not have to undergo his televised hardball treatment. What America saw was this seemingly uncontrolled feminist agenda on open display to take no prisoners in its attempt to destroy Thomas and polarize America for generations to come. Americans sat spellbound and watched the Senate proceedings wondering when the feminist...

Senator Sam Brownback says he and other conservatives have ``a great deal of skepticism'' about Harriet Miers, President Bush's latest nominee for the Supreme Court. The Kansas Republican is disappointed Bush did not pick a candidate with more of a track record. He had urged Bush to nominate someone who opposes the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Brownback compared the nomination of Miers -- Bush's White House counsel -- to that of Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Souter was nominated to the high court by the first President Bush and was believed to be a conservative, but he later...

Roberts: Day Four Set to Begin On Thursday, the members of the Senate Judiciary Cmte. continue with a third round of questioning. Then six different panels of out- side witnesses deliver their views on the professional and personal suitability of John Roberts to be appointed Chief Justice of the United States. This testimony will take the entire day. LIVE LINKSC-span3 (realplayer)C-span3 (win)Judiciary Committee web feed Nomination of John G. Roberts [LIVE thread 9-12] Nomination of John G. Roberts [LIVE Thread 9-13]~Day TwoNomination of John G. Roberts [LIVE Thread 9-14]~Day Three

Roberts Reveals His Favorite Movies 2 hours, 22 minutes ago After two days of intense legal questioning, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts finally addressed a subject most Americans could relate to: His favorite movies are "Doctor Zhivago" and "North by Northwest." Frustrated by Roberts' answers, Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., suggested on Wednesday that if he dared to ask the nominee his favorite films, he would get a discussion of cinematography and why "Casablanca" is considered one of the greatest. Instead, Roberts answered flat out, bringing laughter from the audience and senators alike. "North by Northwest," Alfred...

Day Two of Roberts Q&A On Wednesday, the members of the Senate Judiciary Cmte. finish their first round of questions, beginning with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS). A second round for Chief Justice nominee John Roberts will follow, with each senator getting twenty minutes as opposed to the thirty minutes in the first round. LIVE LINKSC-span3 (realplayer)C-span3 (win)Judiciary Committee web feed

Liberal critics of the fresh-faced Roberts, 50, and their conservative foes have been bombarding the airwaves and the press as they try to put their spin on a nominee who appears all but guaranteed to win confirmation to the high court. The full-frontal assault hasn't done much to sway Americans one way or another, but liberal groups intent on tripping up the nominee have instead suffered a few missteps of their own... If the public miscues put the Left on the defensive, it showed in today's hearings. "Committee Democrats were much less acrimonious than I thought they would be, because...

CNN's Jeff Greenfield: "I Can Understand Why John Roberts Earned A Fine Living Arguing In Front Of The Supreme Court. He Is A Very Skilled Litigator And Presenter." (CNN's "Situation Room," 9/13/05 )The New York Times David Brooks: "I Think, First Of All, It Was A Good Morning Because There Is Nothing That Changed The Likely Prospects That He Will Be Confirmed." (PBS' "John Roberts Confirmation Hearings," 9/13/05 )Fox News' Megyn Kendall: "He Did Well This Morning ..." (Fox News' "Fox News Live," 9/13/05 ) Kendall On Sen. Joe Biden's (D-DE) Questioning: "KENDALL: He's ... Being Cross-Examined On Positions That...