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With so many prior selections by Republican presidents revealing themselves as stealth liberals once they donned the robes of the USSC, help in identifying actual conservative candidates was clearly needed.

A top Republican senator shocked his colleagues when he suggested, after returning from a trip to Moscow with fellow GOP lawmakers, that U.S. sanctions targeting Russia were not working and the Kremlin’s election interference was really no big deal.

Now, the senators who joined him for the series of meetings with senior Russian officials are sharply disputing not only Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) conclusions—but also his account of what went on behind closed doors in Moscow.

“I think the sanctions are hurting them badly both in terms of their pocketbooks and in terms of their status in the world,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who joined the congressional delegation last week, said in an interview. “I don’t want to over-state this, but these were very tense meetings.”

In public, the American lawmakers directly appealed to Russia for a better relationship. But in private, according to the senators who attended the meetings, they confronted their Russian counterparts over a host of issues, most notably Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

That’s why Johnson raised eyebrows when, after returning from the nine-day trip with five of his fellow GOP senators, he suggested that the U.S. should evaluate whether the sanctions currently in place are successfully harming Russian interests because “you'd be hard-pressed to say that sanctions against Russia are really working all that well.” He also appeared to downplay the significance of election interference, saying it was “not the greatest threat to our democracy” and “we’ve blown it way out of proportion.”

His colleagues, who attended the same meetings with Russian lawmakers and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, had a different impression. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who led the congressional delegation, said in an interview that he and his colleagues told their Russian counterparts that “the worst thing you can do is try to meddle in our elections.” The senators also disputed Johnson’s argument about the effectiveness of sanctions.

“The Russian leadership that we met with talked about the sanctions and how they were making no difference, but then they kept talking about the sanctions,” Kennedy said when asked about Johnson’s comments.

“And we were pretty direct. I was pretty direct that if they meddle with our election this fall, they’re going to get a double dose of those sanctions,” Kennedy added. “Does that mean they’re going to stop? No. I don’t know what they’re going to do. But I thought it was important for us to deliver the message that we know what they’re doing, and we don’t appreciate it.”

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), who accompanied the group in Moscow, suggested that Johnson could have drawn his conclusion from a meeting that the senators had with American business leaders in Russia. According to Moran, those Americans expressed a desire that the sanctions be “uniform and that Europe and the United States need to be on the same page when it comes to sanctions.”

“That, to me, was the message that the business community delivered—that we’ve got to all do this together, that unilateral sanctions don’t work as well, and that they damage U.S. business interests,” Moran said. “My view is exactly what I conveyed to Russian officials, which is that if you want the sanctions to disappear or diminish, it requires a change in your behavior. A significant portion of changing the relationship is whether or not there should be sanctions.”

Last year, the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a tough new sanctions regime that targeted Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors. It also directed the Treasury Department to release a public list of Russian oligarchs closely connected with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration has been reticent to fully implement those sanctions, spurring outrage from both Democrats and Republicans.

Johnson, for his part, appeared to walk back some of his earlier remarks. He told The Daily Beast that he was not suggesting that sanctions be weakened, but rather, “we need to take a look at what works. We need to get something that works to actually change their behavior. I’m not talking about lessening them at all.”

Kennedy said he and his colleagues received briefings from officials at the U.S. embassy in Moscow ahead of the meetings. During those briefings, senators were informed that the Russian officials were under the impression that only Democrats were critical of Russia for its election-meddling and its incursions into eastern Europe and the Middle East.

“I wanted to disabuse them of that notion,” Kennedy said. “I think there’s a consensus in Congress that if Russia meddles again, then we’ll double down on the sanctions.”

The meetings lasted from 8:30 in the morning until 7:00 at night. The Russians served the Americans water and coffee but no food, according to Kennedy, who said the meeting rooms were intricately decorated.

The senators said the most tense meetings were with Lavrov—the foreign minister—and with the leader of the Duma and some of his deputies. The conversations with Russian senators (members of the Council of the Federation) were more cordial.

“He’s a bully, and he tried to bully us,” Kennedy said of Lavrov. “But we made our point. And they understand where we stand.”

During the meeting with members of the Duma, senators spoke for two or three minutes and the Duma chairman, Vyacheslav Volodin, would respond for at least 10 minutes each time. Volodin would not permit his deputies to speak for more than a few seconds.

The senators confronted the Russian officials about election interference, the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, its incursions into Ukraine and eastern Europe, and its support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Every time, the response was the same.

“The answer was, ‘it never happened,’” said Moran.

“To some extent, the meetings on their end were orchestrated. It was clear that they had what appeared to me to be a strategy. They had an answer for everything, which was: deny, deny, deny,” Kennedy added.

Shelby, for his part, wasn’t surprised that the Russian lawmakers, following Putin’s lead, continued to deny behavior that has drawn international condemnation.

“Listen, I’ve been around since I was a kid and Stalin was running things. Have you ever known them to admit anything? I mean, it’s the Russian view of the world. But the question of can we improve it—they will have to earn their way. We’ve got a lot of grievances,” Shelby said.

Shelby would not go as far as to say that U.S. sanctions were “working,” citing Russia’s refusal to change its behavior. But he said the punishments are “pinching” the Russian economy.

On the heels of the Russia trip, the senior senator, who formerly chaired the intelligence committee, delivered a warning to President Donald Trump ahead of his meeting with Putin next week in Helsinki: “President Trump needs to be careful with Putin. Don’t give away much. And don’t rely on a lot of his promises. … They’ve got to earn [a better relationship]. I hope the president knows this when he meets with him in Helsinki, and knowing who he’s dealing with when he sits across the table.”

Shelby himself was the center of attention ahead of the Moscow trip after he appeared to justify Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, saying: “We’ve done a lot of things, too.” He later clarified that he was not excusing Russia’s meddling, and upon his return to Washington, he took a much harder line against Moscow.

And we can note here that the well-documented meeting of GOP strategists and leaders on the evening of Obama's inauguration (where it was established that everything Obama might forward as policy/law had to be stopped or maximally impeded) was set up by Ed Meese.

Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says Sacha Baron Cohen "duped" her in an interview by posing as a wounded military veteran.

The Borat star has been secretly filming for a new satirical comedy series that will air on TV next week.

It was revealed on Monday the show - titled Who is America? - would explore "diverse individuals" in the US "across the political and cultural spectrum".

Palin wrote on Facebook: "Yup - we were duped. Ya' got me, Sacha. Feel better?"

She went on: "I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick 'humour' of the British 'comedian' Sacha Baron Cohen, enabled and sponsored by CBS/Showtime."

Baron Cohen is best known for hoaxing interviewees as comedy characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev and fashion reporter Bruno, all of whom inspired big-screen films.

Palin, the former governor of Alaska, said she received a request to contribute to a "legit historical documentary" and travelled across the US with one of her daughters.

She wrote: "Baron Cohen (I presume) had heavily disguised himself as a disabled US Veteran, fake wheelchair and all.

"Out of respect for what I was led to believe would be a thoughtful discussion with someone who had served in uniform, I sat through a long 'interview' full of Hollywoodism's disrespect and sarcasm - but finally had enough and literally, physically removed my mic and walked out, much to Cohen's chagrin.

"The disrespect of our US military and middle-class Americans via Cohen's foreign commentaries under the guise of interview questions was perverse."

Palin, who asked for the proceeds from the programme to be donated to charity, added: "Mock politicians and innocent public personalities all you want, if that lets you sleep at night, but HOW DARE YOU mock those who have fought and served our country. Truly sick."

Last week, the comedian teased his comeback with a preview clip showing former US vice president Dick Cheney apparently agreeing to autograph a "waterboard kit" - in reality a plastic water jug.

Who is America? will premiere on Showtime in the US on Sunday and the network has promised it will show the comedian and actor "as you've never seen him before".

The series will begin in the UK on Monday on Channel 4 at 22:00 BST.

The 'McConnell Rule' is law, and Senate Democrats should sue to enforce it

This week, President Trump will announce his nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has promised to schedule the nominee's confirmation hearings for this fall, before the midterm elections.

If and when McConnell carries through on this promise, Senate Democrats should immediately file a federal lawsuit against him for violating the so-called McConnell Rule. (According to this rule, as McConnell himself stated on Feb. 13, 2016, "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.") The issue - whether the McConnell Rule is now binding precedent - would not be political (and therefore "nonjusticiable") but rather fundamentally legal (and therefore "justiciable").

The minority party needs to have someremedy, somelegal recourse, when the majority leader is completely immune to considerations of fairness and consistency in his exercise of the Senate's substantial constitutional powers. Imagine, for example, that McConnell suddenly stipulated that only 40 instead of 51 votes were necessary to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. Clearly, the validity of this rule change would be a constitutional question, rather than a political question, because it implicates a fundamental democratic principle: majority rule.
McConnell's imminent abandonment of the McConnell Rule implicates an equally fundamental democratic principle: due process for 49 percent of the Senate, which itself represents tens of millions of American citizens. Just as the judiciary would have the authority to intervene if McConnell changed the vote threshold from 51 to 40 (or, for that matter, if he refused to step aside as majority leader should the Democrats regain control of the Senate in November), so, too, the judiciary has the authority to intervene if McConnell violates his McConnell Rule.

Assuming that a court - preferably the Supreme Court - agrees with my analysis, McConnell (the defendant) would then have to argue either that the McConnell Rule is notlaw or that it islaw but, as he claimed on June 28, applies only to "constitutionally lame-duck" presidents. Either way, however, he would lose.

Whether McConnell likes it or not, the McConnell Rule is law. When McConnell declared in 2016 that Supreme Court nominees are not allowed hearings in an election year, that decree carried legal force - the same legal force as former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) reduction of the threshold to defeat filibusters for executive appointments and most judicial nominations from 60 to 51 senators.

As every lawyer knows, not all laws are statutes. Many laws come in different forms: court decisions, agency rules, general principles, customary practices and sometimes even widely accepted opinions by legal experts. Like these non-statutory propositions, parliamentary rules announced by Senate majority leaders constitute laws as well. As a result, they are binding on future legislators unless and until they are explicitly overturned.

Importantly, if McConnell still were to maintain that the McConnell Rule is not law, then the so-called Biden Rule was not law either. But if the Biden Rule was not law, then McConnell's claim on March 16, 2016, to be bound by it - "The Senate will continue to observe the Biden Rule so that the American people have a voice in this momentous decision" - was a lie so monumental that the entire process by which Justice Neil Gorsuch ascended to the high court would have to be deemed constitutionally invalid and, therefore, subject to retraction. This is obviously too great a cost for McConnell to risk.
McConnell's only real option, then, is to concede that the McConnell Rule is law and then argue, as he did on June 28, that it applies only to "constitutionally lame-duck" presidents. But there are three problems with this argument.

First, once again, McConnell in 2016 tried justifying the McConnell Rule by arguing that it really reduced to the Biden Rule. When Biden announced the supposed Biden Rule (on June 25, 1992), however, President George H.W. Bush was not a lame duck but, rather, a first-term president running for reelection. The McConnell Rule, then, must apply in the context of a first-term president as well.

Second, President Obama was not a lame duck when McConnell announced the McConnell Rule in mid-February 2016. On the contrary, he had 11 months remaining in his term, which is nine more than what is normally considered to be a lame-duck period.

Third, even if we concede that 11 months left in a presidency somehow constitutes a lame-duck period, then four months left for the current Senate certainlyconstitutes a lame-duck period. And it would be entirely arbitrary and unjustifiable to apply the McConnell Rule only to lame-duck presidents and not to lame-duck Senates.

Like the rest of the judiciary, the Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, a nonpartisan check on the other two branches. So when McConnell officially schedules confirmation hearings for Trump's nominee, Senate Democrats need to do more than complain. They need to take him to court. And the court needs to tell McConnell, at long last, that his power extends only to facilitating the Senate's advice and consent role, not to forcibly converting the judiciary into a mere extension of the Republican Party.

Ken Levy is the Holt B. Harrison Professor of Law at Louisiana State University's Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Follow him on Twitter @tardigrade18.

A top Republican senator...suggested [that]....the Kremlin’s election interference was really no big deal

It's nothing more than the left would do, and it is an incredibly disingenuous position for anyone to take, that Democrat presidents have not received input and advice from all sorts of left-wing groups when their time to make a nomination came.

Shelby himself was the center of attention ahead of the Moscow trip after he appeared to justify Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, saying: “We’ve done a lot of things, too.”

President Donald Trump appeared to equate US actions with the authoritarian regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview released Saturday, saying, "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?"

Trump made the remark during an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, saying he respected his Russian counterpart.
"But he's a killer," O'Reilly said to Trump.
"There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump replied.

Once in power, this included refusing to hold hearings for judicial candidates submitted by the opposing party and ignoring provisions of the Constitution when not politically expedient.

What provisions of the Constitution have been ignored?

2: He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States,

The blocking of judicial nominees was payback for the Democrats blocking W's nominees to various positions in the last two years of his presidency.