Thread by @bansisharma

1. Neomi Rao Gets Kavanaughed

Neomi Rao may be on the national scene for a long time, so I am writing this thread to serialize important news highlighted by Wall St. Journal editorial board.

2. Remember Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook? Democrats pored over every word to try to disqualify him for the Supreme Court. Democrats are now employing a similar tactic as they try to defeat Neomi Rao, President Trump's nominee for the seat vacated by Justice Kavanaugh.

3. Since 2017 Ms. Rao has run the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where she’s managed Mr. Trump’s deregulation effort with distinction and to America’s great benefit.

4. Ms. Rao cleared the Senate for that post with bipartisan support—unusual in the Trump era—after an uneventful confirmation process. She’s certainly qualified for a judgeship.

5. Ms. Rao clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, taught for a decade at George Mason University’s law school, and worked in George W. Bush’s White House counsel’s office. She’s an expert on administrative law, valuable for a court that hears many challenges to federal regulation.

6. But here comes BuzzFeed with the scoop of the year that Ms. Rao “wrote inflammatory op-eds in college.” Yes, apparently this is why some people get into journalism. The story is clearly an oppo-research dump, probably from the left-wing Alliance for Justice.

7. Not long ago, before everyone’s entire life was politicized, college was a period of intellectual development. Students often write with more passion than wisdom. If remarks at age 22 are disqualifying for public life, every Member of Congress might as well resign now.

8. Ms. Rao’s sins aren’t that she was inflammatory but that she is conservative. She wrote that progressives preach tolerance but too often don’t practice it. Some of her writing is sophomoric, but none of it is relevant to how she might rule as a 45-year-old judge.

9. One supposedly damning piece touches on how alcohol complicates student relationships. “It has always seemed self-evident to me that even if I drank a lot, I would still be responsible for my actions,” Ms. Rao wrote in the Yale Herald.

10. She also added, “A man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.” Now the same people who assailed Brett Kavanaugh for drinking too much beer are finding fault with Ms. Rao’s sobriety.

11. The real motive for destroying Ms. Rao is maintaining progressive control of the D.C. Circuit to rubber stamp the left’s agenda on climate change, health care and more. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid packed the court during the Obama years.

12. Ms. Rao replacing Justice Kavanaugh won’t even alter the composition of the court, but here's the real irony. The left is making Ms. Rao a political target precisely because she’s a woman of color.

13. She’s the daughter of immigrants who landed in Detroit from India in a January 1972 snowstorm with little money and no winter coats, as she told Congress in 2017. The left is afraid she might someday be a Supreme Court nominee.

14. If the Senate rejects a nominee as qualified as Ms. Rao, it will have descended one rung lower in the confirmation inferno. Ms. Rao will be another important test of the GOP’s ability to stand up to such sorry tactics.

The End.

Neomi Rao's confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh’s old D.C. Circuit seat is tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1092563271914323969