Free Republic

AFTER A 50-YEAR siege, the great strategic fortress of liberalism has fallen. With the elevation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court seems secure for constitutionalism — perhaps for decades. The shrieks from the gallery of the Senate chamber as the vote came in last Saturday, and the sight of that bawling mob clawing at the doors of the Supreme Court as the new justice took his oath, confirm it. The Democratic Party has sustained a historic defeat. And the triumph is President Trump’s. To unite the party whose nomination he had won, Donald Trump pledged to select his high...

Washington — Senate Democrats on Monday blocked a measure that sought to ban transgender girls and women from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identity. The 51-45 vote fell short of the 60 required to advance the bill. Republicans, who control 53 seats in the upper chamber, needed at least seven Democrats to join them if all members were present and voting

After months of attempting to obstruct everything President Trump has tried to do, including an ongoing filibuster of the Judge Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer might be ready to make a “deal.” Schumer: We lost one [Garland] they lost one [Gorsuch] We should now get in a room and come up with a compromise to avoid the nuclear option

Israel's Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said on Sunday that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is "an option." Speaking in a radio interview, the far-right minister maintained that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza," adding that providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute "a failure." Eliyahu was then asked if – since there are no non-combatants in his view – a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is an option. "That's one way," he responded. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying that Eliyahu's comments are "divorced from reality" and that Israel and the...

Democrats are using the mass shooting in Colorado on Monday to renew their push to eliminate the filibuster and pass new gun control legislation. Prominent Democrats said the Senate must eliminate the filibuster in order to push through new gun control laws in response to the killings. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Rep. Jason Crow (Colo.), Rep. David Cicilline (R.I.), Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate John Fetterman, and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Malcolm Kenyatta all called for the filibuster to end in the wake of Monday's attack. "Things won't get better until Democrats get rid of the filibuster and finally pass gun safety...

Former Senate leader Harry Reid says if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, Joe Biden should take “no more than three weeks” to test bipartisanship before ending the filibuster so Democrats can overcome what they call Republican obstruction and pass bills. The retired Nevada Democrat told The Associated Press in an interview that he understands Biden wants to work with Republicans, as the former vice president and Delaware senator has in the past. But Reid said there is just too much that needs to be done in the country to wait around trying to reach agreements under the decades-old...

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is escalating her call for Democrats to end the 60-vote requirement for many major bills to clear the Senate if her party wins the White House and Republicans try to block their agenda. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is set to speak Friday at the National Action Network convention in New York. According to her prepared remarks, she will say that “the filibuster was used as a tool to block progress on racial justice.” …

The move by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately paves the way for quicker confirmation of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch picks and comes amid deep GOP frustration with Democratic delays. Future presidents will benefit too, though McConnell and Trump stand to gain inordinately as they seek to fill 130 District Court vacancies over the next 18 months before the 2020 election. The nuclear option — a change of the Senate rules by a simple majority — gained its name because it was seen as an explosive maneuver that would leave political fallout for some time to...

Senate Republicans deployed the “nuclear option” on Wednesday to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to confirm hundreds of President Trump’s nominees. Senators voted 51-48 to change the rules for the amount of time it takes to confirm most executive nominations with only a simple majority of the chamber. GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined with Democrats in opposing the rules change. Republicans are expected to trigger the “nuclear option” for a second time later Wednesday to force through the same change for district court nominations. The combined actions will result in most nominations...

Democrats blocked a GOP effort Tuesday to change Senate rules and speed up confirmation of most of President Trump’s nominees, leaving Republicans with few options other than a “nuclear” confrontation. The rules change has become a major test of political wills, with Republicans saying Democrats are treating Mr. Trump unfairly compared to past presidents. Democrats counter that Mr. Trump’s picks are so bad that they deserve the obstruction. Tuesday’s vote was 51-48, leaving the GOP well shy of the 60 needed to overcome Democrats’ filibuster. In the wake of the vote, Republicans seemed resigned to going “nuclear.” “This needs to...

Very long overdue change needed to overcome Senate Democrats’ 2-year MASSIVE OBSTRUCTION against President Trump’s nominees.

Senate Republicans, frustrated at Democratic stalling tactics on President Donald Trump’s appointments, moved Thursday to change Senate rules to significantly shorten debate time on most nominees. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’s making the move in response to “unprecedented obstruction” by Democrats, which have required Republicans to hold time-consuming procedural votes on 128 of Trump’s nominees. […] McConnell said Democrats have dragged out debates on even routine nominations, burning up the Senate’s time and delaying confirmation of scores of Trump appointees. He noted that similar rules were easily — but temporarily — voted into place for the most recent two...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed a procedural motion Thursday to set up a rules change in the Senate next week that will speed up votes to confirm President Trump’s nominees to federal district courts and sub-Cabinet-level executive branch positions. McConnell filed cloture — a motion to cut off dilatory debate — on a motion to proceed to Senate Resolution 50, which would dramatically reduce the amount of time Trump’s nominees have to spend on the floor and let Republicans confirm more of his picks. The resolution would reduce the amount of floor time that must elapse between when...

Republicans took the first official step Wednesday toward a rules change that would allow the Senate to speed up votes on some of the president’s nominees — setting the stage for what’s likely to become a “nuclear” confrontation. While pleading for bipartisanship, GOP senators made clear they’ll likely act no matter what on a plan to cut the amount of debate time after filibusters to two hours on most presidential nominees, down from the 30 hours currently allowed under the rules. The 10-9 party-line vote made clear that bipartisanship is unlikely, leaving Republicans with only one option if they want...

Multiple sources tonight tell me Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not even in DC, but in New York and preparing to step down from the Supreme Court.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rejected President Donald Trump’s call to partially fund the border wall with a simple majority vote on Friday, suggesting not enough Senate Republicans support the measure. President Trump called on McConnell to use the “nuclear option,” or switch to a simple majority vote in the Senate, to pass the continuing resolution (CR) that would partially fund the border wall...

With attempts to attack Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s record failing, Democrats over the weekend mounted a last-ditch bid to derail his confirmation to the Supreme Court by claiming that the vetting process is so bad that it demands a do-over. ... Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, expressed remorse that her party eviscerated the power of the filibuster five years ago, leaving them no path to stop Judge Kavanaugh, barring Republican defections. Ms. Klobuchar, who voted with fellow Democrats in 2013 to trigger the “nuclear option” and curtail the filibuster, said she would support reverting to the 60-vote rule should her...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that she regrets that her party eliminated the filibuster for approving most judicial nominees. When Democrats controlled the Senate in 2013, then-Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) invoked what's known as the “nuclear option” to get around Republicans blocking President Barack Obama's judicial nominees. Now, with the nuclear option firmly in place, Democrats have little power to stop Kavanaugh's confirmation. During an interview Sunday on NBC News's “Meet the Press,” Klobuchar said that, in retrospect, the Democrats should have left the procedure alone.

Having escalated the judicial confirmation wars at virtually every turn since the 1980's, Senate Democrats in the early 2000's pioneered a new form of self-interested obstruction to block a number of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench.  When Republicans retaliated in kind during the Obama era, many of those same Senate Democrats -- led by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer -- voted to eliminate the filibuster rule they'd exploited to thwart Bush.  Detonating the 'nuclear option' was the latest ends-justify-the-means maneuver by upper chamber liberals, to whom then-minority leader Mitch McConnell made this final plea prior to the fateful...

Senate Republicans, frustrated by delaying tactics imposed by Democrats on President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, are on the verge of altering the Senate rules in order to speed up the process. GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner Tuesday that momentum is building for a change in the Senate rules that would shorten the time frame allowed for lawmakers to debate each nominee. One proposal by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would reinstate a temporary rules change made by Democrats in 2013 that reduced debate time from 30 hours to eight hours for most executive branch nominations and from 30...