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...

For a few months in 1966, the budding romance between film star George Hamilton and Lynda Bird Johnson, daughter of the 36th president, was the talk of Washington....But a previously confidential FBI file - which a Philadelphia judge last week outlined in an opinion and ordered to be released - shows for the first time how far Johnson went to protect his daughter and his presidency

Are only liberals fitting nominees to a traditional “black seat” on the Supreme Court? Did the nomination of the conservative Clarence Thomas somehow kill off the “black seat” tradition? Chris Matthews seemed to suggest as much on this afternoon’s Hardball. Along the way, Matthews analogized Thomas to Abe Fortas, a nominee who ultimately withdrew his name when ethical issues arose. Matthews made his murky comment while discussing the prospects for David Souter’s replacement with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). View video here.

The filibuster isn't a noble institution, it's a tactic - and one with a checkered past, at that. Liberals decried it in the 1960s when segregationist Southern Democrats used it to thwart the will of the majority to block civil rights legislation. But at least that tawdry application of the filibuster was consistent with its purpose in the United States Senate as a procedure to force legislative compromise.

In the current debate over judicial nominations, some commentators claim Republicans such as myself are misrepresenting history by suggesting the current filibuster tactics of the Democrats are unprecedented. These commentators cite the 1968 nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the United States as an example of how Republicans once attempted to block a judicial nomination on the Senate floor. I welcome the opportunity to respond to this claim, because the more Americans learn about the history of judicial nominations, the more they will realize how terribly off-track our confirmation process has become. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson...

Way back in the Slick Nineties, Bill Clinton famously plea-bargained an apology on the issue of drug use by admitting to having smoked marijuana without inhaling. Recently, a Minnesota Viking running back named Onterrio Smith was found to be in possession of a device called the Whizzinator – which is an artificial penis which carries its own supply of urine and can be used to produce a drug free sample upon demand. Smith, who obviously studied at Slick Willie's knee when it comes to plea- bargaining, told investigators he was taking the stuff to his cousin. Use it himself to...

Bob Dole says that amending the Senate's rules would be unnecessary if only Senate Democrats would forswear use of the filibuster. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Pete Du Pont recounts that many Democratic Senators have had a change of heart when it comes to the propriety of filibusters: "Other Democratic senators have had similar changes in belief: Joe Biden and Robert Byrd, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer and their erstwhile colleagues Lloyd Bentsen, and Tom Daschle have all vigorously opposed the use of the filibuster against judicial nominations. Mr. Schumer was for voting judicial...

If you've ever wondered, the word "filibuster" originally meant "pirate." That is to say, senators once viewed the process of talking a bill to death as "piracy" of the will of the majority. But to today's Democrats, the concept of judicial filibusters is a "time-honored tradition." Not exactly. Any excursion into filibuster history should begin with the Constitution. In Article 2, Section 2, the Framers make it clear that they understood the concept of what we now call a "supermajority" – by setting up a two-thirds majority vote to approve treaties. But when it comes to the president's power to...