#that's part of the reason ben ended up r's initial target though him trying to protect Carewyn so much definitely affected that decision too

[scarffile0-blog]

Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Review

Marvel's The Punisher is going to be canceled. That's the harsh truth. Netflix and Marvel are almost certainly severing all ties after four years and a fruitful partnership that, by the time it is over, will have produced three seasons of both Daredevil and Jessica Jones (the third is expected to debut later this year), two seasons each of Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher, and a single season of the team-up series The Defenders.

The choice to end the partnership has little to do with the success or popularity of the comic book series and everything to do with the fact the shows are produced by Marvel Television and ABC Studios, both of which are part of Disney, and Disney is launching its own streaming service later this year. Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil have already received the ax; The Punisher and Jessica Jones will certainly be cut down after Netflix releases their respective seasons that were ordered prior to the decision to dissolve the partnership. To that end, does it matter if The Punisher's second season, which drops Friday, Jan. 18, is any good if it's essentially dead on arrival?

Discover Your New Favorite Show: Watch This Now!

To be frank about it: Not really. Whether or not the new season is good or bad has no effect on the show's future. It is what it is. But none of this will stop people from watching it, and it shouldn't. Despite being too long, the first season of The Punisher was a fascinating character study of Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) the husband and father rather than just an action series about the highly skilled killing machine known as the Punisher, a nickname bestowed upon Frank by others that he himself has never used. That alone garnered enough goodwill to warrant giving the second season a chance.

Regrettably but predictably, the 13-episode second season, which picks up a year after Frank smushed Billy Russo's (Ben Barnes) pretty face into a mirror and cut it to pieces after learning his former friend and brother in arms was responsible for the deaths of his wife and two children, suffers from the exact same problems that have plagued nearly all of Netflix's original programming: It's too long and doesn't have enough story to adequately fill 13 hours of television. The many pieces of the puzzle also don't start coming together until far too late in the game as a result, and by that point, it's rather hard to care.

Still, Frank remains a captivating character in Bernthal's strong and capable hands. At the start of the season, Frank, who has disappeared into the identity of Pete Castiglione, is on the road, moving from town to town and trying to run from the man he is. His attempts to ignore or reject that man is the underlying theme of the season, as is his inability to do so. As one character says, "The only way to win is to not play," and Frank can't or won't resist the challenge. He's looking for any excuse to let the Punisher out. Even after connecting with a small-town bartender (Alexa Davalos) and feeling comfortable enough to reveal his real name to her, he's still itching for a fight, still aching to pull the trigger on anyone he believes is deserving.

Everything We Know About Disney's Streaming Service So Far

So Frank hasn't changed at all after exacting his revenge last season -- not that anyone expected him to. And that is good news for Amy (Giorgia Whigham), a teen girl who is the target of highly trained mercenaries who want to kill her for the items she has in her possession. Compelled by what he describes as an "old-fashioned" need to protect Amy, Frank finds himself embroiled in a new mission that allows him to put to use his own special set of skills even if there is no reason for him to be involved except that it allows him to protect Amy where he failed to protect his own children. Unfortunately, we don't find out what Amy is mixed up in until nearly midway through the season, and although it's topical -- let's just say there is a wealthy, right-leaning couple who wants to control the White House -- it's not quite interesting enough to warrant the initial mystery surrounding it. (For what it's worth, it does result in a tense third hour that feels reminiscent of, but definitely not equal to, Banshee's incredible Season 3 episode "Tribal." Also, if you like violent action dramas, go watch Banshee if you haven't already.)

Even though there's a new villain this season, the violent alt-right Christian fundamentalist John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart), who may or may not be based in part on the comic book character the Mennonite but who is connected to the aforementioned wealthy couple, he's hardly worth mentioning; for all the similarities between the angry men, The Punisher is still defined by the central relationship between Frank and Billy Russo, and that is probably the way it should be.

Although their arc has its ups and downs, everything else pales in comparison to the story of Frank and Billy, the latter of whom's face is now scarred but in a sexy way. He has been in the hospital for the last year and is under the care of a psychotherapist (Supergirl's Floriana Lima) obsessed with fixing broken veterans. He has also taken to sporting a mask, much like his comic book counterpart, to conceal his face. But if you were hoping for a more accurate depiction of Jigsaw, who was horribly disfigured, I'm sorry to tell you that you're stuck with the still beautiful face of Ben Barnes. There are certainly worse things.

Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Sees Billy Russo Amassing an Army

This is important because Billy's identity is tied to his handsome good looks, as evidenced by all the references to how pretty he was in the first season. Billy's journey in Season 2 still revolves around what he looks like, but now it's about why he looks that way. After spending an extended period of time in a coma, he doesn't remember what happened to him. He has no idea Frank is the person who attacked him, and he also has no idea why he was attacked. He also doesn't know he was responsible for what happened to Frank's family. Hell, he doesn't even realize he and Frank aren't friends. It seems that Frank and Billy have swapped places in Season 2, with Billy looking for answers while processing the hurt that comes with knowing someone he once considered a brother betrayed him. This means that a great deal of Billy's arc this season involves him being confused and scared, which results in him lashing out and finding comfort in what he knows: being a soldier. And Billy was an excellent and merciless soldier.

The Punisher's second season takes its time setting up the inevitable Frank and Billy showdown, occasionally filling in the gaps by flirting with the idea of making some sort of statement about people like Lima's Dr. Krista Dumont, who tries to fix broken, violent men, but it never really succeeds. Where the show does make some headway is in its exploration of two different themes.

The series asks us to examine the intricacies of redemption and whether or not it's possible for someone who has done terrible things to be redeemed or considered good. Whether that person is Frank or Billy doesn't really matter. They're the same from an outsider's perspective. They've both done horrible things. They've both murdered people. They're both not good people. Isn't that the message Billy was trying to deliver to Frank at the end of Season 1? Does it matter that Frank "has a code," as Madani (Amber Rose Revah) notes at one point this season, or that he cares about and feels for people, as Curtis (Jason R. Moore) also points out? Does one life matter less than another? Does murder exist on a sliding scale? Additionally, does it change things if Billy can't remember the horrific things he has done? Can we punish someone or hold them accountable for their actions if they have no recollection of what they've done? Memory loss won't erase Billy's crimes or eliminate Frank's pain, but it's something the show wants us to consider before addressing its second major theme.

Throughout its second season, The Punisher asks if people can fundamentally change who they are. If given a choice or a chance, can they resist their natural impulses? Can they outrun their true selves? Frank Castle is who he is. Billy Russo is too. His traumatic brain injury doesn't change that. And The Punisher reminds us of that many times over the course of the season, just as it reminds us that Frank Castle is the Punisher.

So maybe people can't change. That doesn't mean they can't evolve into better versions of the people they already are. Of course, in order for that to happen, they have to want it to happen. The other option is that they can simply accept who they are, and if there's one thing that is clear from The Punisher, it's that most of the people who populate this bloody, dangerous world have no real interest in evolving. They can dress it up any way they like and call it whatever they want, but they all come to embrace who they are in their hearts in the end. This journey doesn't always make for good television -- there were multiple episodes this season that were an absolute slog to get through -- but it does encourage interesting debate. It also, at least in this case, leads to some pretty damn cool action sequences. And when a show is (unfortunately) as dead on arrival as The Punisher almost certainly is, maybe that's enough.

Season 2 of The Punisher premieres Friday, Jan. 18 on Netflix.

Source: http://www.tv.com/news/marvels-the-punisher-season-2-review-15472260130007412/

[stopkingobama]

Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet

Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (cc by-sa 2.0)

Senate Democrats are mounting an aggressive effort to reject or delay President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for major Cabinet positions, in a reversal of the deference Republicans showed in speedily confirming President Barack Obama’s nominees eight years ago.

In January 2009, the Senate confirmed 10 of Obama’s Cabinet choices within his first week as president, nine of them by voice vote, in which senators’ yes and no votes aren’t recorded.

Now, though, the Senate’s top Democrat has put the chamber’s top Republican on notice that at least eight of Trump’s picks are in Democrats’ crosshairs, beginning with one of their own colleagues—Trump’s choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Others targeted are Trump’s picks for secretary of state, treasury, education, labor, and health and human services.

“Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist,” new Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday in a statement to The Washington Post.

“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”

In addition to Sessions, The Washington Post reported, those targeted by Democrats include Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Other Trump choices on the hit list, Democratic aides told the newspaper:

— Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for secretary of health and human services. — Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-N.C., for director of the Office of Management and Budget. — Philanthropist and education activist Betsy DeVos for education secretary. — Restaurant chain executive Andy Puzder for labor secretary. — Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for environmental protection administrator.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., answered the Democrats on Tuesday by releasing statistics and quotations he said illustrate how much deference Republicans gave to Obama’s nominees in 2009—and how much Schumer and other Democrats have said they respected such deference.

Why Democrats Have Few Options

Democrats don’t have the numbers to outright defeat Trump nominees, thanks to a procedural change they made when they last controlled the Senate.

Republicans need a simple majority of 51 votes to move to confirm the president’s Cabinet appointments, rather than the supermajority of 60 previously required, and they have 52 seats. In addition, incoming Vice President Mike Pence will have the power to break any tie votes.

Democrats’ requirement of only a simple majority to avoid a filibuster and put a confirmation to a floor vote, or advance other business, is known on Capitol Hill as “the nuclear option.”

“They have tied their own hands on this,” Heritage Foundation procedural expert Rachel Bovard said of the Democrats, “and because of ‘going nuclear,’ essentially they have put every … nominee at a 51-vote threshold and there’s 52 Republicans.”

Referring to Republican leadership and the Trump transition team, Bovard added in a phone interview with The Daily Signal:

So, if they can get every Republican on board for each nominee, which I think that they’ll be able to do, there’s not much that Senate Democrats can do against that. It’s completely their own fault.

Sixty votes still are required to end debate and proceed to a vote to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court, though a simple majority is required to confirm.

Democrats controlled the Senate in 2009, and would for two years, but Republicans put up little or no resistance to the choices of a new Democrat president, Obama, for top executive branch offices.

Now that Republicans control the Senate, however, Democrats appear to be showing little such deference to a new Republican president’s picks to run major government departments.

‘A Longstanding Tradition’

Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, previously was policy director for the Senate Steering Committee and an aide to several Republican senators and House members.

She told The Daily Signal that Obama’s Cabinet nominees enjoyed an easy confirmation process because of the well-established tradition of senatorial respect for a president’s major appointees, who run executive branch departments as the president expects.

Bovard said of the traditional attitude of senators:

They may not agree with everything that the nominee says or does or pledges, but it has been a longstanding tradition particularly in the Senate just to say, ‘Look, the president has the right to pick his own people.’ That is sort of the underlying trend.

Obama’s immediate predecessors as president, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, also enjoyed relatively speedy Cabinet confirmations.

The Senate confirmed 11 of Bush’s Cabinet appointees in the first week of his first term; it confirmed 17 of Clinton’s nominees in the first week of his first term, according to Senate records.

Interestingly, the Senate used the voice vote more in confirming Obama’s initial Cabinet choices than it did in conforming Bush or Clinton nominees.

The Senate confirmed eight of Bush’s initial Cabinet picks by voice vote, and three of Clinton’s initial choices.

McConnell’s release of confirmation statistics for Obama includes a quote from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

“I think we owe deference to a president for choices to executive positions, and I think that that is a very important thing to grapple with,” Kaine said at a 2013 hearing held by the Armed Services Committee.

In November, the release from McConnell’s office reminded, Schumer suggested he would work with Republicans to get things done in Congress and avoid needless delays.

“We have a moral obligation, even beyond the economy and politics, to avoid gridlock and get the country to work again,” Schumer told Bloomberg. “We have to get things done.”

Senate Democrats can do little to derail Trump’s nominees, Bovard said, but they can use various procedural maneuvers to delay the process. Among them: failing to show up to a committee meeting so that a quorum is not present, and, on the Senate floor, prolonging debate for up to 30 additional hours.

‘Confident in the Nominees’

Conservatives in Congress appear eager to work with the department heads and other executive branch officials Trump has assembled, Bovard said.

“I think for the most part conservatives feel confident in the nominees that have been put forward. I think they are trying to give Trump’s Cabinet a chance,” she said. “They have not come out swinging in any direction except forward.”

This positive attitude is largely due to the stalwart conservative convictions of Trump’s picks, Bovard said, citing three:

Betsy DeVos is really well-known to conservatives for her work on school choice, Jeff Sessions has been a titan of the conservative movement for decades, even Ben Carson [Trump’s pick for secretary of housing and urban development] has been a longtime proponent of reforming HUD. So these people aren’t unknown to conservatives.

Questioning his honesty, the Democratic National Committee demanded on New Year’s Eve that Sessions recuse himself from the Senate vote to confirm him as attorney general. A hearing for Sessions before the Judiciary Committee is scheduled for Jan. 10, which is 10 days before Trump is sworn in as president.

The Democratic National Committee accused the Alabama senator of withholding information in filling out the screening questionnaire issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement, Adam Hodge, DNC communications director, said:

Jeff Sessions has fiercely argued in the past that omitting information isn’t just wrong, that it may also be illegal. So what does he do once he’s nominated to be the attorney general? He omits information from his dark past, particularly when he was deemed too racist to be a federal judge.

Based on his own reasoning, and in keeping with Senate tradition, Sessions must recuse himself from voting on his own nomination.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions in the confirmation process, says such attacks are unfounded.

“Sen. Sessions’ four-decade career in public service includes bipartisan victories on criminal justice issues with folks like Sens. [Edward] Kennedy and [Dick] Durbin,” Flores said, citing two Democrats in a written statement provided Tuesday to The Daily Signal. She added of Sessions:

He has bipartisan endorsements that include law enforcement, victim rights organizations, and African-American leaders because they understand he will refocus the Department of Justice on upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety. The time for playing politics should have ended on Election Day.

A Question of ‘Previous Political Activity’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, earlier said Sessions’ questionnaire was incomplete and asked Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone the Jan. 10 hearing to allow for more time to review the materials he submitted.

Grassley, in response, said Sessions has been upfront about his past, including old accusations, and that he submitted more material to supplement his answers. The committee chairman added that hearings would not be postponed.

Among her concerns, Feinstein said, is that Sessions, an early supporter of Trump for president, was not clear enough in explaining his involvement in “any political campaign.”

Grassley replied in a letter to Feinstein: “The question regarding previous political activity is of course designed to ascertain whether and how a nominee has been politically active. There can be no surprise that a sitting United States senator is politically active.”

Feinstein said another concern is that Sessions has not submitted the text of some speeches.

“Regarding the claim that several speeches were not included, of course you also know that we and our colleagues are frequently called upon to speak at a variety of constituent and other events,” Grassley replied. “Senator Sessions explained that he made his best effort to identify and locate copies of such remarks where available.”

The committee chairman added that Sessions produced all items requested in the questionnaire.

Grassley noted that past Cabinet nominees have not been able to provide transcripts for every speech they ever gave. And, he said, Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder,  “supplemented his questionnaire materials several times.”

“In December 2008 alone, Attorney General Holder supplemented his questionnaire responses with more than 200 items of information,” Grassley said.

Ken McIntyre and Sarah Sleem contributed to this report.

Commentary by Rachel del Guidice, the Daily Signal

[americanlibertypac]

Democrats Take Aim at Trump Nominees, Unlike Republicans’ Speedy OK of Obama Cabinet

Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (cc by-sa 2.0)

Senate Democrats are mounting an aggressive effort to reject or delay President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for major Cabinet positions, in a reversal of the deference Republicans showed in speedily confirming President Barack Obama’s nominees eight years ago.

In January 2009, the Senate confirmed 10 of Obama’s Cabinet choices within his first week as president, nine of them by voice vote, in which senators’ yes and no votes aren’t recorded.

Now, though, the Senate’s top Democrat has put the chamber’s top Republican on notice that at least eight of Trump’s picks are in Democrats’ crosshairs, beginning with one of their own colleagues—Trump’s choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Others targeted are Trump’s picks for secretary of state, treasury, education, labor, and health and human services.

“Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist,” new Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday in a statement to The Washington Post.

“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”

In addition to Sessions, The Washington Post reported, those targeted by Democrats include Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trump’s pick for treasury secretary.

Other Trump choices on the hit list, Democratic aides told the newspaper:

— Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for secretary of health and human services. — Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-N.C., for director of the Office of Management and Budget. — Philanthropist and education activist Betsy DeVos for education secretary. — Restaurant chain executive Andy Puzder for labor secretary. — Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for environmental protection administrator.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., answered the Democrats on Tuesday by releasing statistics and quotations he said illustrate how much deference Republicans gave to Obama’s nominees in 2009—and how much Schumer and other Democrats have said they respected such deference.

Why Democrats Have Few Options

Democrats don’t have the numbers to outright defeat Trump nominees, thanks to a procedural change they made when they last controlled the Senate.

Republicans need a simple majority of 51 votes to move to confirm the president’s Cabinet appointments, rather than the supermajority of 60 previously required, and they have 52 seats. In addition, incoming Vice President Mike Pence will have the power to break any tie votes.

Democrats’ requirement of only a simple majority to avoid a filibuster and put a confirmation to a floor vote, or advance other business, is known on Capitol Hill as “the nuclear option.”

“They have tied their own hands on this,” Heritage Foundation procedural expert Rachel Bovard said of the Democrats, “and because of ‘going nuclear,’ essentially they have put every … nominee at a 51-vote threshold and there’s 52 Republicans.”

Referring to Republican leadership and the Trump transition team, Bovard added in a phone interview with The Daily Signal:

So, if they can get every Republican on board for each nominee, which I think that they’ll be able to do, there’s not much that Senate Democrats can do against that. It’s completely their own fault.

Sixty votes still are required to end debate and proceed to a vote to confirm a nominee for the Supreme Court, though a simple majority is required to confirm.

Democrats controlled the Senate in 2009, and would for two years, but Republicans put up little or no resistance to the choices of a new Democrat president, Obama, for top executive branch offices.

Now that Republicans control the Senate, however, Democrats appear to be showing little such deference to a new Republican president’s picks to run major government departments.

‘A Longstanding Tradition’

Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, previously was policy director for the Senate Steering Committee and an aide to several Republican senators and House members.

She told The Daily Signal that Obama’s Cabinet nominees enjoyed an easy confirmation process because of the well-established tradition of senatorial respect for a president’s major appointees, who run executive branch departments as the president expects.

Bovard said of the traditional attitude of senators:

They may not agree with everything that the nominee says or does or pledges, but it has been a longstanding tradition particularly in the Senate just to say, ‘Look, the president has the right to pick his own people.’ That is sort of the underlying trend.

Obama’s immediate predecessors as president, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, also enjoyed relatively speedy Cabinet confirmations.

The Senate confirmed 11 of Bush’s Cabinet appointees in the first week of his first term; it confirmed 17 of Clinton’s nominees in the first week of his first term, according to Senate records.

Interestingly, the Senate used the voice vote more in confirming Obama’s initial Cabinet choices than it did in conforming Bush or Clinton nominees.

The Senate confirmed eight of Bush’s initial Cabinet picks by voice vote, and three of Clinton’s initial choices.

McConnell’s release of confirmation statistics for Obama includes a quote from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

“I think we owe deference to a president for choices to executive positions, and I think that that is a very important thing to grapple with,” Kaine said at a 2013 hearing held by the Armed Services Committee.

In November, the release from McConnell’s office reminded, Schumer suggested he would work with Republicans to get things done in Congress and avoid needless delays.

“We have a moral obligation, even beyond the economy and politics, to avoid gridlock and get the country to work again,” Schumer told Bloomberg. “We have to get things done.”

Senate Democrats can do little to derail Trump’s nominees, Bovard said, but they can use various procedural maneuvers to delay the process. Among them: failing to show up to a committee meeting so that a quorum is not present, and, on the Senate floor, prolonging debate for up to 30 additional hours.

‘Confident in the Nominees’

Conservatives in Congress appear eager to work with the department heads and other executive branch officials Trump has assembled, Bovard said.

“I think for the most part conservatives feel confident in the nominees that have been put forward. I think they are trying to give Trump’s Cabinet a chance,” she said. “They have not come out swinging in any direction except forward.”

This positive attitude is largely due to the stalwart conservative convictions of Trump’s picks, Bovard said, citing three:

Betsy DeVos is really well-known to conservatives for her work on school choice, Jeff Sessions has been a titan of the conservative movement for decades, even Ben Carson [Trump’s pick for secretary of housing and urban development] has been a longtime proponent of reforming HUD. So these people aren’t unknown to conservatives.

Questioning his honesty, the Democratic National Committee demanded on New Year’s Eve that Sessions recuse himself from the Senate vote to confirm him as attorney general. A hearing for Sessions before the Judiciary Committee is scheduled for Jan. 10, which is 10 days before Trump is sworn in as president.

The Democratic National Committee accused the Alabama senator of withholding information in filling out the screening questionnaire issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement, Adam Hodge, DNC communications director, said:

Jeff Sessions has fiercely argued in the past that omitting information isn’t just wrong, that it may also be illegal. So what does he do once he’s nominated to be the attorney general? He omits information from his dark past, particularly when he was deemed too racist to be a federal judge.

Based on his own reasoning, and in keeping with Senate tradition, Sessions must recuse himself from voting on his own nomination.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions in the confirmation process, says such attacks are unfounded.

“Sen. Sessions’ four-decade career in public service includes bipartisan victories on criminal justice issues with folks like Sens. [Edward] Kennedy and [Dick] Durbin,” Flores said, citing two Democrats in a written statement provided Tuesday to The Daily Signal. She added of Sessions:

He has bipartisan endorsements that include law enforcement, victim rights organizations, and African-American leaders because they understand he will refocus the Department of Justice on upholding the rule of law and ensuring public safety. The time for playing politics should have ended on Election Day.

A Question of ‘Previous Political Activity’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, earlier said Sessions’ questionnaire was incomplete and asked Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone the Jan. 10 hearing to allow for more time to review the materials he submitted.

Grassley, in response, said Sessions has been upfront about his past, including old accusations, and that he submitted more material to supplement his answers. The committee chairman added that hearings would not be postponed.

Among her concerns, Feinstein said, is that Sessions, an early supporter of Trump for president, was not clear enough in explaining his involvement in “any political campaign.”

Grassley replied in a letter to Feinstein: “The question regarding previous political activity is of course designed to ascertain whether and how a nominee has been politically active. There can be no surprise that a sitting United States senator is politically active.”

Feinstein said another concern is that Sessions has not submitted the text of some speeches.

“Regarding the claim that several speeches were not included, of course you also know that we and our colleagues are frequently called upon to speak at a variety of constituent and other events,” Grassley replied. “Senator Sessions explained that he made his best effort to identify and locate copies of such remarks where available.”

The committee chairman added that Sessions produced all items requested in the questionnaire.

Grassley noted that past Cabinet nominees have not been able to provide transcripts for every speech they ever gave. And, he said, Obama’s first attorney general, Eric Holder,  “supplemented his questionnaire materials several times.”

“In December 2008 alone, Attorney General Holder supplemented his questionnaire responses with more than 200 items of information,” Grassley said.

Ken McIntyre and Sarah Sleem contributed to this report.

Commentary by Rachel del Guidice, the Daily Signal