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Members of the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday were heard groaning and saying, “Oh, my God,” when their meeting was broken up with news of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. Politico reported-- citing an audio recording-- that the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee was interrupted by the news alert that was followed with one person saying, “This is not good news.” **SNIP** The New York Times editorial board called Kennedy's decision “crushing.”

Earlier this afternoon, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. Court observers long thought it was possible that he’d step down after this most recent term, but now it’s confirmed. The moment has arrived. In the first two years of his first term, President Trump is set to nominate just as many Supreme Court justices as Clinton, Bush, and Obama nominated in all eight years of their presidencies. That means that no matter what happens the rest of his presidency — whether it’s cut short by scandal or it extends to two full terms — he’ll make an indelible mark on...

Various civil rights groups are backing calls from Democratic lawmakers to hold off on a vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's replacement until after the November elections. Vanita Gupta, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, says senators need to put country over party and use every tool to stop what she calls President Donald Trump's plan "to take over the Supreme Court for the next 40 years." Despite the Republican majority, Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says she's confident senators can be persuaded to hold off....

A writer for Comedy Central said he wished Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was dead after Kennedy announced his intention to retire, giving President Donald Trump another court pick. “I wish this Kennedy had been shot instead of the other ones,” Curtis Cooke wrote on Twitter Wednesday in response to news of Kennedy’s retirement. The “other ones” is an apparent reference to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Cooke is a writer on Comedy Central’s “The Jim Jefferies Show.” Cook’s death-wish for Kennedy comes amid an increasingly volatile political environment, in which...

Hollywood celebrities jumped on social media Wednesday and fired off a series of emotional reactions, calls to “fight,” and cataclysmic predictions in response to the news that Justice Anthony Kennedy had announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. “ok, dems. this is real. all y’all paying attention? this is how you lose a country,” actor Don Cheadle said on Twitter. “all of our rights are in the balance. urge your leadership to resist when trump attempts to appoint the next swamp thing out of the pez dispenser or kiss it bye bye.” Other stars, like Will & Grace actress Debra...

President Trump said he would move quickly to name a replacement. He also said his nominee would be drawn from a list of 25 names that the White House issued in November. McConnell said the Senate will move quickly on a replacement. Any Democratic hopes that Mr. McConnell might hold up the Senate’s consideration of Justice Kennedy’s successor until after the midterm elections were quickly put to rest. Mr. McConnell took to the Senate floor not long after Justice Kennedy’s announcement to make clear that he expected to begin consideration of a replacement as soon as possible.

Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, precipitating a cataclysmic election year confirmation battle. Though the White House has publicly identified as many as 25 possible candidates to succeed Kennedy, the early favorites for the pick are drawn from a small crop of young appeals court judges popular in Washington’s conservative legal circles. Speaking in the Oval Office shortly after Kennedy’s announcement, Trump confirmed he would draw his selection from a list of possible Supreme Court nominees assembled during the campaign. Five individuals were added to that list in November 2017. These early favorites include...

Matthews seemed to suggest that Democrats should block the appointment of a conservative judge until after the midterms, citing Republicans blocking Merrick Garland when Obama was president. “The base will attack the leadership for this, if they allow it to happen, and they should,” Matthews said of Democrats. “This is a time for vengeance for what happened two years ago, and if they don’t reap the vengeance now with four and a half months to go before the election, they will not look very strong to their base, and I think they’ll be under attack.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced that he’s retiring from the Supreme Court. And if you thought post-Janus liberal Twitter was lit, well, brace yourselves: WARNING GRAPHIC OBSCENE LANGUAGE AT LINK. CELEBRITIES LOSE THEIR COLLECTIVIST MINDS!..................

Why when Neil Gorsuch became one of the Supremes, didn't he have any chance of becoming 'The Swing Vote'? And, does Kennedy's replacement, automatically become the Swinger? Or does some other, standing Justice assume that mantle?

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Wednesday lamented the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as “a disaster” for “We the People.” The 81-year-old Kennedy, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan's, who has long been considered a “swing vote” on the court, announced his retirement on Wednesday. “This is a disaster for everyone who believes in the 'We the People' vision of the Constitution,” Merkley tweeted. In a follow-up tweet, Merkley noted that he was “worried” about the standing of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Kennedy’s retirement opens the door for President Trump...

President Donald Trump says he met with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy at the White House on Wednesday shortly before the announcement of the justice's retirement. Trump says he discussed with Kennedy some potential replacements but declined to say which names were mentioned. The president says in the Oval Office that he will choose Kennedy's successor from a list of 25 names that have been under consideration. The president says Kennedy was at the White House for about 30 minutes....

President Trump said Wednesday that he intends to select a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy from a pre-existing White House list of candidates. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he will retire from the Supreme Court effective July 31, giving Trump the opportunity to select his replacement. The president told reporters moments after the announcement that he'll begin the selection process for Kennedy's replacement "immediately." Trump told reporters that he met with Kennedy this afternoon. The two discussed potential replacements, Trump said. “There are certain names that are just outstanding, names that you already know, to be honest with...

Breaking news

The Supreme Court is expected to end its term on Wednesday with one final major case challenging public sector union fees left to decide. The most anticipated decision of the year came Tuesday, when the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Trump's travel ban. That's led to some speculation that a retirement announcement could happen on Wednesday, though there is no hard evidence one is coming. The speculation for the last year has centered on the court’s swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy, but some have pondered if Justice Clarence Thomas is actually going to be the one to call it...

An email from Dr. Mike Kennedy, the principled limited government constitutional conservative who beat Mitt Romney for the Senate nomination at the Utah Republican State Convention, reminded us that the Utah Republican Primary Run-Off is Tuesday.

A government watchdog who played a central role in the Hillary Clinton email investigation during the Obama administration told Fox News that he, his family and his staffers faced an intense backlash at the time from Clinton allies – and that the campaign even put out word that it planned to fire him if the Democratic presidential nominee won the 2016 election.

Fifty years after his death, his deep conservative beliefs continue to define him. It was 50 years ago, June 5, 1968, that Robert F. Kennedy was shot by a 24-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian immigrant looking to exact revenge upon the New York senator for his support of Israel a year earlier in the Six Day War. “My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession,” Sirhan Sirhan had raged in his diary on May 18, 1968. “R.F.K. must die. R.F.K. must be killed. R.F.K. must be assassinated.” ...on a historic night when he had just won the...

To borrow one of Han Solo's lines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, "That's not how the Force works!" It's an apt way to sum up the troubled performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. In one of the biggest box-office surprises in recent times, Solo is badly underperforming and will become the first of the Star Wars movies made by Disney and Lucasfilm to lose money. Wall Street analyst Barton Crockett says Solo will lose more than $50 million. Industry financing souces, however, say that figure could come in at $80 million or higher, although no one knows the...

Stand by for a torrent of slobbering stories about Robert F. Kennedy as the 50th anniversary of his assassination approaches Wednesday. The main speaker at the official ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery will be Bill Clinton. I kid you not - Bill Clinton! Look, of course it’s terrible that RFK was murdered at the age of 42, leaving behind all those kids and Ethel pregnant with the last of them. But since his passing, there’s been even more historical revisionism about Bobby than with almost any of the other liberal icons. So, as the gushing from his fawning biographers like...