This week ended with the Senate confirming 8 federal judicial nominees, bringing the total of Trump-appointed federal judges to 172, one-fifth of the federal judiciary.
But liberals and the mainstream media barely paid attention because they all were focused on Jerry Nadler’s law professor show, which was so boring and worthless, even Nadler had trouble staying awake.
This distraction phenomenon is something about which we have written repeatedly:
Trump managed to fill the longest-standing vacancy, the 14-year-old open seat on the district court in the Eastern District of North Carolina. And he filled it with a Federalist Society member who represents the GOP locally:
Richard E. Myers II is a UNC Chapel Hill Law professor and was confirmed Thursday by the Senate 68 to 21. He was nominated by President Donald Trump, who bested two prior presidents in ending the longest running vacancy in the federal judiciary.Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama unsuccessfully tried to fill the position.Trump’s initial nominee, Thomas Farr — who has been connected to white supremacy and voter suppression tactics — also was not confirmed. A Raleigh based attorney, Farr frequently represents the state’s Republican party in voting rights cases. He has been lead counsel for the GOP in redistricting cases and in the voter identification law challenge.Most recently, he served as one of many attorneys representing the legislature in partisan gerrymandering litigation.Farr was nominated to fill the same vacant seat in 2006 by Bush but never got a vote from the Senate.
The implications of Trump’s successes are not lost on liberals who are paying attention (which admittedly is not many since they are obsessed with impeachment):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rammed through eight of President Donald Trump’s lifetime judicial picks in just three days this week, accelerating the far-right court takeover that one commentator warned is “absolutely going to hamstring efforts to make the U.S. into a responsible, civilized country, for as long as we live.”The latest slew of confirmations, according to Bloomberg‘s Sahil Kapur, means that Trump and his Federalist Society allies have now hand-picked “about one in every five American federal judges,” or 170 judges total.”Nearly all are in their 40s or 50s with lifetime appointments and positioned to shape American law for generations,” Kapur noted on Twitter. “It gets a tiny fraction of attention compared to other stuff he does but this is the Trump legacy that’ll echo for generations after he’s gone.” ….Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts have warned that these right-wing judges will have the power to shape U.S. law on climate, reproductive rights, and other major areas for decades to come.
As liberals and the media were focused on impeachment hearings, the judicial confirmation train kept rolling down the tracks:
Also, this week the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing for one circuit court nominee and five district court nominees. The circuit court nominee is the thirty-eight year old Judge Andrew Brasher (M.D. Ala.), who was only confirmed to the federal bench this past May. With a potential impeachment trial looming, the Senate continues to advance and confirm judges at a rapid pace.As of December 5, there are 99 Article III vacancies, 82 of which are current. There are 48 pending nominees: 20 waiting for floor votes, 10 waiting to be reported out of Committee, and 18 waiting for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.
These successes have not come easily, as Democrats have done everything possible to stall Senate proceedings:
By now, the record is well-established that Trump’s judicial nominees face, by orders of magnitude, unprecedented obstruction and opposition. Even though the liberal ABA gives Trump nominees comparable or higher ratings, for example, Democrats have forced the Senate to take a separate vote to end debate, known as a cloture vote, on 129 Trump nominees, or 75 percent of his confirmed judges. During the entire first term of the previous five presidents, the Senate took a cloture vote on an average of 1.5 percent.
Now go back to watching the impeachment farce, which may result in a second Trump term, at the end of which he may have appointed a majority of the federal judiciary.
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