Free Republic

Sometimes a superstar is just a superstar. That is the case with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who had long been considered the most qualified nominee for the Supreme Court if Republicans secured the White House. The Senate should confirm him. I have argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other woman. I worked in the Solicitor General’s Office for 13 years during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. Because I am a liberal Democrat and feminist, I expect my friends on the left will criticize me for speaking up for Kavanaugh. But we all benefit from having smart,...

One of the nation's most powerful labor unions is rallying supporters to oppose Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. On Friday, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) began circulating a petition online for its allies to send to their home state lawmakers. The union letter calls Kavanaugh a "narrow-minded extremist" and accuses the D.C. Circuit Court judge of undermining workers' rights and opposing abortion. "Kavanaugh is a narrow-minded extremist who will chip away at our rights in the workplace, the doctor's office and the ballot box," the letter says. "If Kavanaugh is confirmed he...

The National Archives is doubling down on its refusal to respond to Democratic' requests for documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's White House tenure. Archivist David Ferriero wrote in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, that it is the agency's policy to only respond to requests from a committee chairman, who are all Republicans. "Accordingly, I am not in a position to change our understanding of the law or our practice in this particular instance," Ferriero said. Feinstein sent a letter to Ferriero last week asking him to reconsider the...

ORONO, Maine - Democrats have all but acknowledged that they are unable to stop the Senate from confirming Trump nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court this fall. Moderate Republican senators such as Susan Collins of Maine, the most closely watched GOP swing vote, are sending strong signals that they will back Kavanaugh. Several Democrats facing difficult reelections this year have indicated they are open to voting for the judge. And leaders of the resistance are already delivering post-mortem assessments and blaming fellow Democrats for a looming failure. Barring a major revelation, the Senate is poised to install the...

CHICAGO - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today released the following statement after the Senate Judiciary Committee announced dates for the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh:  “This is unprecedented and unfair to the American people.  Senate Republicans want to wrap up Judge Kavanaugh’s hearing before the National Archives releases documents--which Republicans themselves requested--about the work Kavanaugh did in the White House.  These documents may bear directly on the credibility of Judge Kavanaugh’s sworn testimony, not to mention his legal views and temperament.  The American people deserve to know the true story of the man seeking a...

INDIANAPOLIS — A multi-million-dollar surge across states where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanagh’s confirmation hangs in the balance is intensifying in Indiana, with Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly the target of several groups committed to securing Kavanuagh’s place on the bench. Among those ranks are pro-life activists, partisan lobbyists and judicial networks that have been on the search for a conservative, constitutionalist justice for years. And now, it seems, they’ve found the man for the job. But Donnelly has yet to be pinned down on where he stands on the nominee, and it appears he is prepared to take time to...

WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced on Friday that his Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court on September 4 through 7, giving the Senate time to confirm him before the Supreme Court begins its annual term on October 1. Opening statements from Kavanaugh and the senators on the committee will take place September 4. The senators will then question the nominee on September 5. The final part of the hearings will include testimony from national leaders in the legal community. Democrats are expressing outrage at the schedule, saying...

Republicans said Friday they’ve scheduled Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a confirmation hearing Sept. 4, moving ahead with a speedy schedule that could still see him confirmed in time to be on the Supreme Court before October. Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley announced the hearing, saying there’s plenty of information out there for senators to evaluate the judge without waiting for potentially millions of pages of documents from the National Archives. “It’s time for the American people to hear directly from Judge Kavanaugh at his public hearing,” Mr. Grassley said. If the hearing follows past practice it will involve the...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday he still wants to have Judge Brett Kavanaugh confirmed and sitting on the Supreme Court by the start of the new term in October. That is an aggressive schedule that means senators would hold a final vote well before all of the documents they’ve requested about his background would be released to the public by the National Archives ~snip~ “He’ll get confirmed. It won’t be a landslide, but he’ll get confirmed,” the senator said.

"Do you want them [the Senate] to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice?" Rep. Devin Nunes said at a recent fundraiser. Hard-line conservative Republicans in the House recently hit a roadblock in their effort to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when Speaker Paul Ryan opposed the move. But one of those conservatives, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., gave a different explanation to donors recently when asked why the impeachment effort had stalled. He said it's because an impeachment would delay the Senate's confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,...

FULL TITLE: Planned Parenthood Launches Six-Figure Ad Campaign Trashing Brett Kavanaugh: “Right to Abortion at Stake” For a group that claims to serve low-income patients, Planned Parenthood certainly spends a lot of money on politics. In addition to a $30 million mid-term election budget, the abortion chain plans to spend six figures on ads trashing President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, The Hill reports. On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood announced the ad buy, targeting several swing-vote U.S. senators who could make or break Kavanaugh’s confirmation. “The constitutional right to have an abortion is at stake. Our...

Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.) on Tuesday became the second Democrat to publicly announce that they will meet with Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's latest Supreme Court nominee. Donnelly will meet with Kavanaugh on August 15, according to his office. "Donnelly has consistently said he would carefully review and consider Judge Kavanaugh’s record, meet with him, and follow his confirmation hearing," his office said in a press release. Donnelly's announcement comes after Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) said on Monday that he will meet with Kavanaugh next week, becoming the first known meeting between Trump's nominee and a Democratic senator.

The National Rifle Association’s legislative-lobbying arm announced Tuesday a seven-figure national and region ad campaign to support the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. The national cable and regional broadcast ads will start airing Tuesday and will run through Aug. 27. The regional ads are to air in Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia. “The NRA strongly supports Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court because he will protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). “It’s...

The Democratic push to get documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's work in the George W. Bush administration ran into a new roadblock on Friday. The National Archives, in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), said it will only respond to a request for documents under the Presidential Records Act (PRA) if they come from a committee chairman, who are all Republicans. The National Archives and Records “remains unable to respond to PRA special access requests from ranking minority members,” wrote Archivist David Ferriero, who was appointed by former President Obama. Schumer and Ferriero spoke on...

The National Archives says it will take months to process the records Republicans have asked to see from Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s previous government work, throwing a curveball at the GOP, which had hoped to review the documents, hold hearings and confirm him to the Supreme Court before October. The Archives said it will take at least through October to review 1 million pages that Republicans have requested to see. And that doesn’t include the 3 million additional pages Democrats have asked for. If Congress waits for those, it could push the confirmation schedule beyond the November elections and into...

Abortion-rights advocates are intensifying efforts to make it easier for women to get abortions amid a new wave of state-level bans and restrictions expected to occur under a reconfigured U.S. Supreme Court. The efforts include boosting financial aid for women needing to travel long distances to get an abortion, and raising awareness about the option of do-it-yourself abortions. The sense of urgency stems from the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes provided the decisive vote in support of abortion rights, and the possibility that Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by President Donald Trump to replace him, would give the...

What if I were to tell you that there is a political issue that galvanizes young voters? An issue that unites libertarians, independents, and African-Americans? An issue with bipartisan power, that works not only in cities, but has demonstrated strength in red states like Kentucky and West Virginia? It’s an issue likely to generate cases to be heard by the Supreme Court in the next decade and one on which the Trump administration’s leading law enforcement official—Attorney General Jeff Sessions—is already on the losing side politically. Given all that, you would think this issue would be a central part of...

There is a special sort of irony in the idea that some abortion advocates want to protect their children by keeping pro-abortion legislation in place. With midterm elections coming up this fall, Boise Weekly published a column chronicling the “fight” that abortion advocates have supposedly endured in trying to keep abortion rights intact. Many abortion advocates are fearful of President Donald Trump’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. “We take Trump at his word that Brett Kavanaugh would overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Jennifer Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii. “This nomination puts Roe v....

Some Senate Democrats are refusing to give President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh the time of day. They have no legitimate reason for the obstruction, according to former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, who served President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. In an op-ed for The Hill, Gray excoriated these politicians for "manufacturing" excuses to ignore Kavanaugh, like their sudden need to see all of his old White House documents. Senate Democrats have no excuse for refusing to meet with President Trump ’s Supreme Court nominee, so they have manufactured one. Democrats say they...

The second-ranking Democrat in the Senate said Tuesday that JudgeBrett Kavanaugh misled senators during his 2006 confirmation hearing, and vowed to make the judge explain himself before winning a seat on the Supreme Court. Sen. Richard Durbin said JudgeKavanaugh in that earlier hearing denied involvement in crafting the Bush White House’s policy on detainees and enemy combatants caught during the war on terror. But Mr. Durbin said he now believes JudgeKavanaugh, who had been in the White House counsel’s office and later served as staff secretary to President George W. Bush, was involved in those decisions. ~snip~ Mr. Grassley said...