The Senate confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday, filling the critical ninth seat that has been vacant for over a year and capping a tumultuous debate that saw Republicans overhaul the way the chamber operates in order to overcome what they described as an unprecedented Democratic filibuster.

The 54-45 vote, in which three Democrats crossed party lines to support the appeals court justice, is expected to restore a 5-4 conservative tilt on the bench. Once sworn in, Gorsuch will join the court and begin to hear cases, in the seat once held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

“He’s going to make the American people proud,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.

Republicans lauded Gorsuch as an eminently qualified jurist and a fitting successor to Scalia. But Democrats accused him of giving evasive answers during his confirmation hearing, and claimed his past rulings showed a tendency to favor business interests over workers. More broadly, Democrats remain furious that Republicans under McConnell’s leadership blocked consideration of former President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, in turn allowing Trump to nominate Gorsuch.

These partisan tensions exploded on the Senate floor this week, as Democrats mounted a filibuster against Gorsuch, prompting Republicans to use what’s known as the “nuclear option” Thursday to force a final vote.

Each party blamed the other for the escalation, accusing the other side of damaging long-standing institutions.

“Damage was done to our democracy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Friday. “Raw political power has been exercised to break the rules and norms of this body.”

But McConnell claimed that Republicans only triggered the nuclear option to “restore norms” that Democrats had defied.

Republicans pursued that course after Democrats blocked the nominee on Thursday, denying him the 60 votes needed to proceed to a final roll call. McConnell in turn executed a series of parliamentary maneuvers that resulted in the threshold being lowered to 51 votes. With that standard, Gorsuch easily advanced to the final vote on Friday.

McConnell said he made the move “for the sake of our country.”

McConnell’s predecessor as Senate majority leader Harry Reid, now retired, took the first step down the “nuclear” road by lowering the threshold for other nominees in 2013 – a controversial move Republicans frequently brought up on the road to Friday’s final vote.

But lowering the threshold for a Supreme Court pick is a more significant step. It means for the foreseeable future, the minority party will have significantly less leverage to oppose any nominee to the highest court in the land, no matter who is president.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said there will be “less faith in the Supreme Court” going forward.

Republicans say Democrats have been unfair to an otherwise qualified nominee and have wrongly cast him as an ideologue.

“Rarely has this body seen a nominee to the Supreme Court so well-qualified, so skilled, [with] such command of constitutional jurisprudence, with such an established record of independence and such judicial temperament,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Friday.

All Republicans present voted yes on Friday; Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., struggling with health issues, did not vote. Vice President Pence presided.

The three Democrats who voted for Gorsuch were North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Indiana’s Joe Donnelly — all moderate Democrats facing challenging reelection bids next year in red states.

Gorsuch is expected to take the oath on Monday.

By Judson Berger  Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans have voted to stop the Democrats’ filibuster of President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, invoking the so-called nuclear option.

Following a precedent set by Democrats under Harry Reid, senators voted 52-48 along party lines to change the Senate’s precedent, lowering the threshold for advancing Neil Gorsuch from 60 votes to a simple majority.

They then immediately voted 55-45 to advance the nominee to a final confirmation vote, which is expected to occur Friday afternoon after thirty hours of more debate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) initiated the rules change by raising a point of order asserting that simple-majority votes should advance Supreme Court nominees to final confirmation votes.

Democrats tried to delay it by offering motions to postpone a vote and to adjourn the chamber, but both fell short as Republicans remained unified.

Earlier Thursday, McConnell said the rules change would restore the Senate’s tradition of considering a Supreme Court nominee based on credentials instead of ideology–something the Democrats have transformed over a period of decades. He called the Democratic filibuster of Gorsuch “a radical move” and something “completely unprecedented in the history of our Senate.”

“This threatened filibuster cannot be allowed to succeed or to continue for the sake of the Senate, for the sake of the court and for the sake our country,” he said.

McConnell accused Democrats of having steadily ratcheted up the “judicial wars” over the years and noted that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Bill Clinton’s pick for the court in 1993, once advocated for the abolishing Mother’s Day but was still confirmed by a 96-3 vote.

The American Bar Association rated Gorsuch as unanimously well-qualified, but Democrats criticized him for not revealing his personal judicial philosophy during confirmation as well as for several opinions they said showed he tended to favor powerful interests over “the little guy.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued that Republicans didn’t have to change the rules to put Gorsuch on the court, and that the more sensible option would have been to ask Trump to pick a new nominee. Of course, his argument is twisted and self-defeating. He said replacing Gorsuch would be fair after Republicans refused to give President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing or a vote last year.

Republicans said they wanted to seat Gorsuch on the court no matter what it took, praising him as an eminently qualified judge who a decade ago would likely have won strong bipartisan support for confirmation.

Times of have changed since the Senate confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, to the court in 2005 with an overwhelming vote of 78-22.

PUBLIUS, with contributions from Alexander Bolton

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday along party lines to endorse Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, setting up a showdown between Democratic and Republican senators in a series of final votes expected later this week.

The 20-member committee voted 11-9 for Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick for the high court seat left by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

“The nominee’s opponents have tried to find a fault with him that will stick. And it just hasn’t worked,” said committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who allowed all 20 members to speak before the final vote. “Judge Gorsuch is eminently qualified. He’s a mainstream judge who’s earned the universal respect of his colleagues on the bench and in the bar. He applies the law as we in Congress write it.”

Despite such praise from the GOP side, all Democrats on the committee voted against the nominee, in a sign of the clash to come as the nomination advances to the full Senate.

The chamber’s Democratic leaders appear ready to try to hold up the nomination through what’s known as a filibuster. Republicans have 52 senators and would need the support of eight Democrats to reach the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and head to a final vote.

That appears out of reach. Prior to the committee vote, more than 40 Democrats said they were willing to block the Gorsuch nomination — increasing the likelihood that majority Republicans would use the so-called “nuclear option” to push the nomination through.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s top Democrat, returned to her party’s repeated argument that Judge Merrick Garland, former-President Barack Obama’s nominee, should have been considered for the Scalia seat, but leaders of the Republican-controlled Senate held off until after the 2016 presidential election.

Feinstein also revisited a ruling Gorsuch made on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Colorado, in which he sided with a company that fired a trucker for disobeying orders by unhitching his vehicle from a malfunctioning tractor-trailer and driving off — after waiting hours for help in sub-zero temperatures.

“So this is not the usual nominee,” she said. “Therefore, I cannot support the nominee.”

So far, just three Senate Democrats have announced support for Gorsuch, a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Law and Oxford University.

They are Sens. Joe Donnelly, of Indiana; Heidi Heitkamp, of North Dakota; and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — all representing states Trump won in November and all up for re-election next year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Gorsuch nevertheless will be confirmed by Friday.

He was noncommittal on whether he was prepared to trigger to so-called “nuclear option,” a change in precedent that would allow the Senate to break the filibuster with a simple majority of 51 votes.

But on Monday, a Republican colleague spoke bluntly and indicated the party would go that route. South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Judiciary committee member, said: “This will be the last person subject to a filibuster. … Ironically, we are going to change the rules … for somebody who has been a good judge over such a long time.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Gorsuch would not pass the 60-vote benchmark and argued that Trump should “try to come up with a mainstream nominee.”

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat on the committee, like Feinstein argued that Gorsuch had too often sided against the “little guy.”

“In case after case, he favored corporations, lawyers and the special interest elite … over workers, consumers, people of disability and victims of discrimination,” he said.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican on the committee, said Gorsuch likely thought the firing of the trucker was “foolish.”

“But that wasn’t the question before him,” Lee said. “The law, as he carefully analyzed it, would not allow judicial intervention.”

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance.

Russia is known for many things—communism, vodka and bizarre dancing, for starters—but one thing Russia is not well-known for is its sense of humor. Perhaps that’s about to change.

In what could go down as one of the most interesting April Fools’ Day pranks of all time, the Russian Foreign Ministry posted on its Facebook page an audio file that supposedly showed the agency’s new switchboard message.

The message begins with, “You have reached the Russian Embassy. Your call is very important to us.”

“To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1,” the recording continues (in both English and Russian). Users are then instructed to “press 2” in order “to use the services of Russian hackers.” For “election interference” requests, “press 3.”

The Associated Press reports—because, apparently, AP felt the need to check—it was able to confirm the recording was meant as a “joke.”

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized those in the United States who continue to play the “Russian card” to score political points, alluding to the Democratic Party. He also called the accusations of election interference made against his government “endless and groundless,” according to a report by CBS News.

The New York Times appeared to reinforce a claim President Trump recently made about ObamaCare being on the brink of collapse.

In a tweet last week, the president said the Affordable Care Act will “explode” and cause all sides to “get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for the people.”

This weekend, the NY Times will publish a front-page story on former Donald Trump advisor Paul Manafort. Can you guess what shocking revelation the Times will be sharing with its readers? No doubt it will highlight Manafort’s long-time business activities in Russia, and close with a comment from another ubiquitous anonymous source, reminding the reader that the justice Department is investigating certain Trump advisors and their “alleged” contact with Russians during the 2016 Campaign. You can be sure that the Times article will not mention that this investigation, which is becoming more disturbing everyday, has yet to find the slightest bit of evidence indicating wrong-doing on the part of Trump or his staff. Between the Washington Post and the Times, its beginning to appear as if these two once-respected newspapers are taking turns, publishing stories about Trump advisors or cabinet members, which provide nothing but the same basic allegation, dressed up with the all-important comment from the secret source. Currently, journalists in DC seem to have an endless supply of inside government sources. At first, these leakers caused a firestorm by providing the Associated Press and others with the identity of three Trump advisors or confidants who had met with Russian government officials during the campaign. What should be most disturbing is the willingness of the AP, the Post and the Times, to print information which is obviously classified and illegally obtained.

If the FBI or another government entity finds it necessary to surveille and “listen in” to the conversations of foreign nationals, occasionally that effort will pick up the identity and incidental comments of U.S. citizens as well. Whoever has been given the authority to collect intelligence on the foreign national is required by law to mask the identity of any U.S. citizen who has “inadvertently” picked up in conversation. Before the FBI or whoever are allowed to start the surveillance operation which might involve a U.S. person, they are required to obtained FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) authority from a Judge. Trump’s nominee for Attorney General Jeff Sessions and advisor Michael Flynn were picked up during a FISA-approved collection effort. How can we know this?  Because an anonymous source, probably within the Justice Department, provided this information to a journalist. First and foremost, only a select number of people in Washington DC are supposed to have “unmasking” authority. One of these individuals unmasked both Sessions and Flynn, which gave the media the opportunity to create a firestorm of innuendo and unproven allegations regarding both Trump and Flynn. I have yet to hear one Democratic Congressperson express concern regarding the unmasking of U.S. citizens.

Some things in life are guaranteed. Ice is cold, kittens are irresistible, and the American people have no faith in the mainstream media. Have you noticed that since the GOP has taken over both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the media is anxious to publicize any and all polls that illustrate Congress’ low approval rating? At the same time, you will rarely see poll results on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, or CBS that highlight the complete lack of trust the American people have for the mainstream media. Regardless, journalists continue to have no clue. Even after the fiasco of anointing Hillary Clinton as the winner of the 2016 election while the Campaign was still in full-swing, the media remain convinced of their intellectual superiority over almost all Americans (they probably rank themselves somewhere just below tenured Ivy League Professors). This knowledge burdens them with the heavy responsibility of editorializing every piece of news. From where they stand, the job of a journalist is not only to report the news, but to do so in a selective and nuanced fashion, ensuring that the audience comes away with the “correct perspective.” For the press, the fact that no evidence exists connecting Trump advisors and staff to alleged Russian efforts to impact the 2016 Presidential Campaign, makes it imperative that the American people are reminded, ad nauseam, that the Justice Department has not completed its investigation into this matter.

. . . continue reading this story>>

By Eric Burkhart, Mukhabarat, Baby! Follow me on Twitter @mukhabaratbaby Email me at mukhabaratbaby@gmail.com

Robert Barnes: Trump Could ‘Go Full Andrew Jackson’ and Ignore Interference from Activist Judges

Attorney Robert Barnes joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss his latest Breitbart News column, “Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special Constitutional Rights to Bring Anyone from Terror Countries into America.”

Marlow asked Barnes to begin by explaining why Trump’s temporary ban on various terror countries was blocked.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/312699339″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

“The district court judge in Hawaii, who was a fellow law graduate of Harvard law school with former President Obama – and, in fact, Obama was in Hawaii yesterday before the decision was issued, so some people have speculated on the coincidence of that. But he issued a decision that blocks the ability of anybody to enforce the order anywhere,” Barnes said. “So he went beyond just the district of Hawaii. He said no state can enforce it. Nobody in any part of the country can enforce it. Nobody anywhere in the administration can enforce it. He issued what’s called a nationwide injunction, and it precludes any application of the order, pretty much, on any aspect of the order, pretty much, until there’s further review.”

“His basis for doing so was an extraordinary interpretation of the right to travel and the freedom of association, which before, has only been associated with U.S. citizens,” Barnes continued. “Every court decision in the 200 years prior to this has said that people who are not citizens of the United States, who are not present within the United States, have no First Amendment constitutional rights. The Constitution doesn’t extend internationally to anybody, anywhere, anyplace, at any time. Instead, this judge said it did, as long as you had a university here who wanted to assert, quote-unquote, the foreigner’s rights, or you had some physical person here. In this case, it was one of the leading Muslim imams in Hawaii; he wants to bring over various family and friends from the Middle East.”

“The Hawaii judge’s decision says he has a First Amendment constitutional right to do so because he’s Muslim. It was one of the most extraordinary interpretations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ever given, which is that because these are Muslim countries that were banned where the issue of terror arises from that that meant they had a special right to access the country and visit the country,” he said.

“As long as there is somebody here that wants them here, no president can ever preclude them from coming here. He basically gave First Amendment rights to everybody around the world and gave special preferences to people who are Muslim under his interpretation of the First Amendment,” Barnes summarized.

“So it’s an extraordinarily broad order. Its legal doctrine has no limits. If you keep extending this, it means people from around the world have a special right to access the United States, visit the United States, emigrate to the United States, get visas to the United States. There wouldn’t be any limit, and the president would never be able to control our own borders. It would be up solely to the whim of a federal judge who effectively delegated it, in this case, to a Muslim imam in Hawaii,” he contended.

Barnes noted that the judge did not “cite any prior decision” that has ever established this astonishing new quirk of the Constitution.

“Just last year, the Supreme Court implicitly said the opposite, when they said your right to association does not include a right to bring foreigners into the United States, in the Din decision,” he pointed out. “Now, there were several concurrences, so the binding precedent of that has been left open, but he does not even reference or mention or discuss the decision. He doesn’t even mention the statute, the main statute that gives the president the right to ban any alien from the country, for any reason the president deems appropriate, for any temporary time period, that the president yesterday cited in his national speech. Like the prior Ninth Circuit decision, the Hawaii judge never mentions the decision at all.”

“So there’s no real legal precedent. He’s taking three or four different concepts that have been applied in completely different areas of law, that only ever have historically applied to U.S. citizens, and he’s magically adding it to foreigners and acting like that’s always been the case when it’s never been the case,” he said.

“It is a product of what I call liberal law school education that was happening when I was in law school, which is they’re increasingly teaching lawyers to replace objective analysis with their subjective preference, but to pretend their subjective bias was really objective reality, even when it wasn’t,” Barnes said. “They basically taught you to lie to yourself about what the law really was and what it really stood for.”

“Obama reflects that, and this judge deeply reflects that,” Barnes asserted. “He’s someone whose opinion would be taken apart. If it was a first-year law school exam, he would get an ‘F’ because of how badly he misapplied the law. Unfortunately, in the liberal law school mentality, it’s what they’ve taught people to do. This judge, who’s a relatively recent judge, he’s been on the bench a few years, extended it in that way.”

“To give you an idea of how bad it is, yesterday, five Ninth Circuit judges dissented from reviewing the decision about the prior Ninth Circuit decision,” he pointed out. “The prior Ninth Circuit decision effectively became moot when President Trump replace his old executive order with the new one, and these five judges said that prior decision was so bad that they needed to vacate the decision and should vacate the prior decision, even though that’s very rare under those circumstances. They referred to the obligation to correct the ‘manifest many, obvious, fundamental errors’ that went against all the precedent the guy overlooked or neglected in the prior panel decision.”

“It was one of the harshest condemnations ever issued, and one of its authors was former chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinsky, who is regarded as one of the best and brightest judges from anywhere in the country, even though he’s usually more on the liberal side of the spectrum,” he noted. “What they all pointed out is it doesn’t matter what your politics are, the law is clear. There was no basis for the prior Ninth Circuit decision. Well, this Hawaii decision goes further than any court had ever gone before. Hopefully, it will get reviewed and reversed, but in the interim, the country’s safety is put into jeopardy because one federal judge decided to anoint himself the one Supreme Court of the country.”

Marlow asked if President Trump had any recourse, other than waiting for a higher court to overturn the Hawaii decision. Barnes suggested he could “always do a true Andrew Jackson, since he was there yesterday,” referring to Trump’s visit to Andrew Jackson’s grave.

“When the Supreme Court issued a decision, Andrew Jackson’s famous comments were, ‘Well, they’ve issued their decision; now, they can enforce it,’” Barnes recalled. “He was the last president to really challenge a Supreme Court usurping authority they did not have.”

“In this particular context, because it’s a district court decision – Professor Dershowitz even argued this, earlier in the cycle, when the Ninth Circuit even issued its decision – was that because there was a conflict between the courts, because you have a court in Boston that actually approved of the original Trump order, a great detailed order, 21-page order, cited by the five Ninth Circuit judges yesterday – the president would be in his legal rights to say: ‘There’s a conflict between the courts. Until the Supreme Court addresses this, I’m going to do what’s appropriate to keep the country safe,’” he suggested.

“The flip side is if he did that, the media would go on a field day and say the president thinks he’s above the law and is refusing to honor a court order,” he acknowledged. “He’s more likely to wait for this issue to get adjudicated. It ties his hands, unfortunately, and endangers the country in the interim, but politically speaking, he’s sort of put between a rock and a hard place. His only real alternative is to either go full Andrew Jackson or let it play out in the courts, and in the interim, the order is not enforced.”

“You definitely can do impeachment proceedings,” Barnes said when Marlow asked if there was any course of action that could be taken against the Hawaii judge for abusing his authority.

“I do think that all the political pressure put on the courts and all the public criticism by legal scholars and everybody else publicly about these decisions, and how reckless they are, and how dangerous they are to the well-being and safety of the country, and how anti-democratic they are, and how they mirror and reflect the aspects of Obama’s shadow government undermining the government through its Deep State connections and its undemocratically elected officials has real value,” he said.

“That’s even reflected in the decision of the five judges yesterday who were so harsh in the criticism of their former colleagues,” he pointed out. “They mention that the attention drawn to the court is a particular concern to them in jeopardizing the credibility of the court – because, at the end of the day, America’s courts only have power as long as people respect and believe and have confidence in the independence and integrity of those courts.”

“As that gets sacrificed, courts lose power, and we may return back to a time and place where someone like President Trump needs to go back to Andrew Jackson and invoke his tradition and legacy in order to challenge judicial usurpation of the safety and security of the country. At the current time, there’s not a lot we can do without being willing to go full Andrew Jackson against the court system,” he judged.

“Impeachment is always an option in the House. Some congressmen could pursue it because of these judges usurping their authority and invading the security and safety of the country, and violating the tripartite branches of power, where the judiciary is always supposed to have respected the president in this area. But right now, there’s not a lot we can do under the current political and legal environment,” Barnes concluded.

He agreed with President Trump’s contention that this level of judicial overreach was unprecedented.

“When you have law professors like Jonathan Turley or Alan Dershowitz or Jeffrey Toobin saying that the prior Ninth Circuit decision – which did not go as far as this case did, as the Hawaii judge did – saying it basically is bad law, then you know how bad the law actually is,” Barnes said. “It’s law that has no precedent, that has no historical application. For example, the Supreme Court and our Congress banned anarchists from coming into the country. It banned people that were Communists from coming into the country. We have always been able to use just mere ideology as a test.”

“We’ve also favored several religious groups, disfavored other religious groups,” he added, agreeing with Marlow’s example of how the Obama administration treated Christian refugees.

“This Hawaii judge is close friends with Obama, may have met with Obama before the decision was issued, is here condemning President Trump from just trying to keep the country safe as to who can come in. Well, if you apply his doctrine legally, how was Obama drone-bombing Americans and all kinds of people overseas? So you don’t have a right not to be drone-bombed, but you have a right to live next to somebody in the state of Hawaii or anywhere else in the country?” he asked sarcastically.

“There’s no logic. If you start to apply logically all of the consequences of this judge’s ideas, it goes to places that would destroy the whole concept of borders, destroy the whole concept of nationhood sovereignty, destroy the presidential prerogative to destroy our borders. There’s just no limit to where this judge’s decision could go,” Barnes warned.

He said there is no question executive power has been used in a discriminatory fashion against Christians “for almost the entire Obama tenure, particularly the Syrian Christians and others who were being actually harassed and persecuted.”

Barnes said the judicial action against Trump’s revised executive order dispelled the notion his first order was merely worded poorly or rolled out in a clumsy manner. “No, the problem is you have Deep State saboteurs, and you have unelected officials who think they’re above the law try to create the law, try to change the law, try to rewrite the law.”

“The problem wasn’t how he rolled out the prior order. The problem is, the opposition are people who don’t respect democratic elections and don’t respect the limits of their office,” he charged. “This problem is now right center with the way this judge issued his decision and particularly applying it nationally. He prevented every other federal judge, every other federal circuit, from weighing in on the decision because he unilaterally opposed it across the whole country – which both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have said you’re not supposed to do, in cases just like this,” Barnes said.

“Judges think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want. The media will celebrate them. Nobody will do anything negative or adverse to them. And the only person pushing back on it is President Trump,” he said.

Breitbart News

Listen to the full audio of the interview above.

President Trump’s choice to sit on the Supreme Court will get his turn in the political spotlight Monday after laying low for weeks. But what has traditionally been a high-profile confirmation fight is approaching with barely a whimper from the opposition party.

While Democratic leaders have revived their public criticism of Neil Gorsuch in recent days, liberal advocacy groups have all but abandoned efforts to defeat his nomination through public opinion — with scant paid issue advertising or public rallies.

Many progressives lament Democratic senators have been distracted by other ideological fights.

A group led by NARAL Pro-Choice America recently sent a blistering letter to Senate Democrats slamming lawmakers for not putting up more of a fight against Gorsuch ahead of Monday’s confirmation hearing.

“Democrats have failed to demonstrate a strong, unified resistance to this nominee despite the fact that he is an ultra-conservative jurist who will undermine our basic freedoms and threaten the independence of the federal judiciary,” said the letter. “We need you to do better.”

The justices themselves hope the arrival of Gorsuch will end what court sources say has been a tense 13-month period since Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden passing. The current 4-4 ideological divide has kept the court off its internal workplace rhythms — operating in something of a judicial vacuum, reluctant to tackle hot-button issues that would lead to precedent-setting impact.

Tough talk

Despite the criticism from some on the left, the Senate minority promises tough questions for the nominee.

“If he shows in his answers that he is out of the mainstream as his opinions indicate he very well may be,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., “I will use every tool available, including the filibuster, to oppose him.”

And some progressive groups support the low-key strategy being led by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

“I think Senate Democrats are paying attention in the way that the American people want all senators to pay attention which is to have a robust hearing and really ask Judge Gorsuch these really difficult questions,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Whether he will be a truly independent judge, whether he will apply the law fairly to all.”

But while left-leaning groups may be less than engaged, conservative legal advocates have put their money behind their message.

A $10 million ad campaign spearheaded by the Judicial Crisis Network has targeted vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election in two years.

“Jon Tester is creating gridlock, threatening to obstruct Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch,” says one ad, focusing on the Montana senator seeking a third term. “Tell Jon Tester: stop the obstruction and confirm Gorsuch.”

Other JCN ads tout Gorsuch’s credentials, and friends of the nominee said he is prepared to face the tough questioning of senators.

His conservative supporters also point to bipartisan support among the legal communities in academia and the government.

“There are going to be people who are ideologically opposed to this nomination come hell or high water, and I think … once [the] American public sees Judge Gorsuch, they realize what a terrific nomination this is,” said Thomas Dupree, a former Bush deputy assistant attorney general. “It’s been difficult  for the opponents of Judge Gorsuch to really stir up resentment and opposition to this nomination precisely because he is so eminently qualified.”

Hearings strategy

Party sources say Democratic senators will focus much of their attention on seeking Gorsuch’s views on abortion, since he has not ruled directly on the right to the procedure.

“I will not support any candidate who intends to turn back the clock on civil rights, including women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who has not said whether she would ultimately vote for Gorsuch.

Other areas of Democratic interest:

• Separation of powers, and whether Gorsuch would be an independent voice to strike down excesses in Trump’s executive authority, including the president’s revised order banning travel for immigrants from certain countries.
• Voting rights and campaign finance reform, specifically whether the nominee thinks current unlimited corporate donations to PACs are permissible.
• Workers’ rights, and challenges over pay equity, pension benefits, job discrimination claims, and family and medical leave.

Some progressives have actually urged Democrats not to ask any questions at the hearings, as a dramatic rebuff for Republicans refusing to give former President Barack Obama’s high court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing or vote.

And they demand a filibuster to prevent Gorsuch from ever getting a floor vote.

Bitter feelings linger. “This is a stolen seat being filled by an illegitimate and extreme nominee,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., “and I will do everything in my power to stand up against this assault on the court.”

By Bill Mears

With all the talk of President Trump and his 2005 tax return, let’s put what he paid in perspective, shall we?

Trump in 2005 paid a higher tax rate than President Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2015 and 2014 respectively, as well as a higher percentage than Comcast’s average tax rate. Comcast being the parent company of nothingburger journalist Rachel Maddow’s employer, MSNBC:

 

Maybe we should be thanking Maddow for bringing this to our attention?

Over to you, Bernie. Pay up!

 

And too bad this didn’t get leaked during the campaign:

 

Exit question: When will they admit there’s nothing here?

 

 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46 U.S. attorneys to resign, the Justice Department announced Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a “uniform transition.”

The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior transitions, already had left the department. Now, “the Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations,” a spokeswoman said.

“Until the new U.S. Attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. Attorney’s Offices will continue the great work of the Department in investigating, prosecuting, and deterring the most violent offenders,” the statement added.

It is customary, though not automatic, for the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president is in office. Incoming administrations over the past several decades typically have replaced most U.S. attorneys during the first year or two.

The Obama administration allowed political appointees of President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement had been nominated and confirmed. One U.S. attorney appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the current nominee for deputy attorney general.

Sessions’ actions, though, are being closely scrutinized by Democrats after a rocky start to the AG’s time at the DOJ.

Weeks after his tight confirmation vote on Feb. 8, it emerged that Sessions had met twice with the Russian ambassador last year — despite testifying during his confirmation hearing he had no communications with the Russians.

Sessions later clarified his testimony, while recusing himself from any investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 campaign.

The move Friday also comes amid Republican concerns that officials who served under the Obama administration may be working against the Trump administration. Those suspicions, though, largely have focused on intelligence agencies and elsewhere.

U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their priorities are expected to be in line with those of the attorney general. The federal prosecutors are nominated by the president, generally upon the recommendation of a home-state senator.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republicans on Monday evening released the text of their long-awaited ObamaCare replacement bill, proposing to eliminate the various taxes and penalties tied to the original legislation while still preserving certain patient protections.

Aiming to deliver on their signature campaign promise after several election cycles trying to reclaim control of Washington, majority Republicans unveiled what they call the American Health Care Act. The sweeping legislation would repeal ObamaCare’s taxes along with the so-called individual and employer mandates – which imposed fines for not buying and offering insurance, respectively.

It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, replacing them with tax credits for consumers.

CLICK TO READ THE TEXT OF THE OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL.

The bill would continue Obama’s expansion of Medicaid to additional low-earning Americans until 2020. After that, states adding Medicaid recipients would no longer receive the additional federal funds the statute has provided.

More significantly, Republicans would overhaul the federal-state Medicaid program, changing its open-ended federal financing to a limit based on enrollment and costs in each state.

“We begin by repealing the awful taxes, the mandate penalties and the subsidies in ObamaCare,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” in an exclusive interview.

Asked about some conservatives’ concerns that GOP leaders are merely pushing ‘ObamaCare Lite,’ Brady countered, “It is ObamaCare gone.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told Fox News they also “are not pulling the rug out from under people.” Rather, he said Republicans want to restore power to the states and control costs in Medicaid and elsewhere.

“It’ll amount to the biggest entitlement reform, probably in at least the last 20 years,” he said.

The release of the bill touches off what is likely to be a contentious debate, not just with Democrats but within the Republican Party.

The White House signaled its approval of the plan, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying, “Today marks an important step toward restoring healthcare choices and affordability back to the American people.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “hands billionaires a massive new tax break while shifting huge costs and burdens onto working families across America.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal “would cut and cap Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and force Americans, particularly older Americans, to pay more out of pocket for their medical care all so insurance companies can pad their bottom line.”

The first test for GOP leaders, who have been under heavy pressure ever since President Trump took office to release a bill, will be whether the text satisfies the influential conservative wing  – which has the numbers to torpedo the legislation. But it is a balancing act, as moderate Republican lawmakers, as well as governors of both parties, also have warned against going too far in rolling back consumer protections and benefits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill would “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance.” He added, “This unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare.”

However, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the bill “looks like ObamaCare Lite to me … It’s going to have to be better.”

Rank-and-file Republicans were watching to see if the legislation brings down the cost of healthcare.

“If it doesn’t, we haven’t changed anything,” one House Republican told Fox News.

While subsidies would be repealed in the new bill, they would be replaced by monthly tax credits. The credits, worth between $2,000 and $14,000 a year, could be used by low-and-middle-income families who don’t get work- or government-sponsored insurance to buy state-certified plans.

The credits would be based on age and family size, unlike the income-based version under ObamaCare. Conservatives have objected that that feature creates a new entitlement program the government cannot afford.

“I can’t believe many conservative groups are going to like this,” one GOP lawmaker told Fox.

Republicans said they’d not yet received official cost estimates on the overall bill from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That office’s projections on the bill’s price tag and the number of people the measure would cover could be key in winning over recalcitrant Republicans, or making them even harder to win over.

It’s unclear how many people might lose coverage under the new plan.

The legislation, meanwhile, would preserve protections for those with pre-existing conditions by prohibiting insurers from denying coverage or charging them more. It also would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans up to age 26.

Further, the plan would call for a “transition” away from the current Medicaid expansion, which was used under the original law to cover millions more people. Republicans also say they’d give states $100 billion to design their own programs, while upping the amount of money families can contribute to so-called Health Savings Accounts.

A series of tax increases on higher-earning people, the insurance industry and others used to finance the Obama overhaul’s coverage expansion would be repealed as of 2018.

In a last-minute change to satisfy conservative lawmakers, business and unions, Republicans dropped a plan pushed by Ryan to impose a first-ever tax on the most generous employer-provided health plans.

Fox News is told the plan is to go to both the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees on Wednesday for “mark-up” sessions where they will craft a final version of the bill. The legislation would tentatively go before the House Budget Committee next week.

The hope is that the bill would hit the House floor the week after that — and the Senate before the Easter recess.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn’t rule out changes in the measure by his chamber, where significant numbers of moderate Republicans have expressed concerns that the measure could leave too many voters without coverage.

“The House has the right to come up with what it wants to and present it to the Senate by passing it. And we have a right to look it over and see if we like it or don’t,” Hatch told reporters.

Underscoring those worries, four GOP senators released a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shortly before the bill was unveiled.

They complained that an earlier, similar draft of the measure “does not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.” Signing the letter were Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it said is the full hacking capacity of the CIA in a stunning 8,000-plus page disclosure the anti-secrecy website contends is “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.”

The 8,761 documents and files — released as “Vault 7 Part 1” and titled “Year Zero” — were obtained from an “isolated, high-security network” at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va., a press release from the website said. The trove had been “circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors,” one of whom “recently” gave the archive to WikiLeaks.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.

The collection of purported intelligence tools includes information on CIA-developed malware — bearing names such as “Assassin” and “Medusa” — intended to target iPhones, Android phones, smart TVs and Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems, among others. An entire unit in the CIA is devoted to inventing programs to hack data from Apple products, according to WikiLeaks.

WIKILEAKS OFFERS REWARD FOR INFO ON OBAMA MISDEEDS

Some of the remote hacking programs can allegedly turn numerous electronic devices into recording and transmitting stations to spy on their targets, with the information then sent back to secret CIA servers. One document appears to show the CIA was trying to “infect” vehicle control systems in cars and trucks for unspecified means.

WikiLeaks hinted that the capabilites revealed in Tuesday’s disclosure could have even darker utility than simply spying.

“It would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations,” the release stated.

 

FLASHBACK: WIKILEAKS REVEALS CLINTON ‘HITS’ FILE ON SANDERS

The site said the CIA additionally failed to disclose security vulnerabilities and bugs to major U.S. software manufacturers, violating an Obama administration commitment made in January 2014. Instead, the agency used the software vulnerabilities — which could also be exploited by rival agencies, nations and groups — for its own ends, WikiLeaks said.

“As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in ‘Year Zero’ is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts,” the WikiLeaks release stated.

WikiLeaks also revealed the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a hacking base, and the website provided the methods by which agents obfuscate customs officers to gain entry to Germany, pretending to provide technical consultation.

WikiLeaks said its source released the files because they believed questions surrounding the CIA’s reach “urgently need to be debated in public,” echoing the motives of many previous leakers.

Some of the files include redacted information, such as tens “of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.”

By Cody Derespina