Republicans steamrolling Dems to confirm Trump judicial nominees

Republicans steamrolling Dems to confirm Trump judicial nominees

This may be the least covered major story of the Trump era, so far at least.

While the media and Democrats are obsessed with increasingly bizarre Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, and failed attempts to flip Special Election congressional seats, an enormous change to the federal judiciary is well underway.

We have been covering this story, and the relative lack of media coverage, for months. Most recently, I wrote While you were focused on COMEY, Trump nominated another group of CONSERVATIVE Judges:

While everyone was focused on Comey’s prepared statement, Trump went about his business filling vacancies in the federal judiciary.

I wrote about this a month ago, Trump begins counter-packing federal courts, Dems can’t stop him thanks to Reid Rule:

As we have pointed out repeatedly, Trump has an unprecedented opportunity to nominate a substantial percentage of the federal judiciary.

There are currently over 100 vacancies, and many more are likely to open up, Liberal nightmare: Trump could appoint half federal judiciary. Yet Democrats, so blinded by the light of #TheResistance, appeared oblivious to the approaching Tsunami of Trump lower court nominations.

Today the first waves of the Trump judicial nomination tsunami hit the beaches in D.C.

Those ten nominees received mostly rave reviews, as detailed in that prior post.

The second wave of conservative nominees landed on Wednesday ….

I ended that post with this caution:

Now Mitch McConnell and the Senate Judiciary Committee need to do their job and get these people quick hearings and up or down votes.

It appears that Republicans in the Senate are moving rapidly on the nominations. And some liberal media is beginning to pay attention.

Huffington Post alerted readers earlier today, Donald Trump Is In The Perfect Position To Dramatically Remake The Courts

Most days, it seems like President Donald Trump is sabotaging his own agenda, one tweet at a time. But the White House has been quietly plowing ahead in one area that will affect generations of people: the courts.

Trump is unbelievably well-positioned to fill up federal courts with lifetime judges. He inherited a whopping 108 court vacancies when he became president ― double the number of vacancies President Barack Obama inherited when he took office….

It is, in effect, the perfect combination of factors for conservatives eager to tilt the nation’s courts to the right. Trump has piles of seats to fill, a list of nominees recommended to the White House by outside conservative groups, and a Republican Senate eager to confirm them.

Yesterday, The Atlantic cautioned that these nominations could be Trump’s Most Lasting Legacy?

With the investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign, the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the already controversial healthcare bill and the never-ending saga of Press Secretary Sean Spicer, it would seem that the Trump administration is in a tailspin, grappling daily with an onslaught of unforced errors and unforeseen consequences, too busy putting out the latest fire (or dousing it with gasoline) to pay too much heed to actually moving the ball forward.

But amid all the he said-he said allegations and endless rounds of Recusal Jeopardy, there is one corner of the universe where Team Trump has been successfully executing on its campaign promises, ticking off agenda items with the humming efficiency of a well-oiled machine: reshaping the nation’s courts.

See what they did there? Blaming Trump himself for creating so much noise that no one heard the tsunami of judicial appointments coming. But in reality, it’s outlets like HuffPo and The Atlantic which have created the noise.

Politico is woke on this issue, offering this *alarming* post today about how Republicans are not allowing Democrats to completely muddle the process, Democrats raise alarm on Senate judicial confirmation hearing

The Senate Judiciary Committee is plowing ahead with confirmation hearings for two of President Donald Trump’s nominees to the federal courts next week, almost certainly without formal ratings from the American Bar Association — a move infuriating Democrats who say the nonpartisan group needs more time to rate Trump’s judicial candidates.

The nominees are Timothy J. Kelly and Trevor McFadden, both picked to serve as federal judges for the D.C. district. Trump formally nominated the two on June 7, and their confirmation hearing is scheduled for next Wednesday.

There is an important point in the Politico article. Republicans are not abiding by the voluntary vetting of candidates by the notoriously liberal American Bar Association. If the ratings come in, so be it, but Democrats try to stall those nominations anyway. So why even wait for the ABA rating?

Republicans have also hinted that the so-called “blue slip” rule — a longstanding custom that hearings aren’t scheduled for judicial candidates without the consent of their home-state senators — could be done away with for circuit court nominees.

A Grassley spokesman noted that of the judicial nominations Trump has sent to the Senate, some have already garnered “well qualified” ratings from the ABA, including Joan Larsen for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and Amy Barrett for the 7th Circuit.

“But the home-state senators apparently need more time to review them,” spokesman Taylor Foy said. “So the committee is moving forward with other nominees, as it has in the past.”

Evading the “blue slip” custom would remove another Democrat ability to counter the nominations. Rollcall explains:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says that he is likely to give more weight to objections from Democrats on district judge nominees than more powerful circuit court picks.

“I think the blue slip is more respected for district court judges historically than it has been for circuit,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley said Thursday in an interview with Roll Call and the Associated Press for C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program.

The Judiciary Committee’s process has generally required senators to return a blue slip of paper consenting to hearings and markups of nominees for federal judgeships from their home states, but the Republican from Iowa argues that’s not a hard-and-fast rule.

“It’s much more a White House decision on circuit judges than the district court judges,” Grassley said. “I mean this is going to be an individual case-by-case decision, but it leads me to say that there’s going to have to be a less strict use or obligation to the blue slip policy for circuit, because that’s the way it’s been.”

Grassley’s comments, which came during an interview focused on the Judiciary Committee’s agenda for the Sunday edition of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program are of immediate interest because of Trump’s announced slate of federal judicial nominees.

So it’s full steam ahead for nominees, damn the torpedoes and the obstruction of Democrats.

Liberals, who are still licking their Special Election wounds, don’t appear *woke* about what is happening.

They are too busy chasing Russian phantoms, insane conspiracy theories, and pumping millions of dollars and celebrity endorsements into failed virtue-signaling candidates.

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