judges
Bud Light’s Bad Bet, Teen ID’s Intel Leaker, Dems Fight Over Feinstein
Listen to “Bud Light’s Bad Bet, Teen ID’s Intel Leaker, Dems Fight Over Feinstein” on Spreaker.
Mitch Keeps Working, Insane Georgia Dems, Another Police Defunding Failure
Listen to “Mitch Keeps Working, Insane Georgia Dems, Another Police Defunding Failure” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for cranking out as many judicial confirmations as possible before the end of the session. They also discuss the truly crazy comments of Georgia Senate hopefuls Rev. Warnock comparing the GOP tax cuts to Herod’s slaughter of babies in Bethlehem and Jon Ossoff being clueless on the job of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And they shake their heads as officials in Austin, Texas, finally realize that shutting down and defunding the police cadet academy was probably a bad idea.
Mitch Gets Back to Business, Media Suddenly Love Mitt, Iowa’s Still Not Done
Another wild day in a very busy week! So grab a stool and join Jim and Greg as they break down the latest headlines. First, they get a kick out of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately following up the impeachment trial by filing cloture on five more judicial nominees. They also feel like wretching as mainstream media figures who savaged Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign suddenly extol him as a man of faith and principle because he voted the way they wanted him to. But they also spend time highlighting figures on the right who were way over the top in their condemnation of Romney. And they try to make sense out of the latest scraps of conflicting information coming from Democrats in Iowa while also looking ahead to New Hampshire.
What We’re Politically Thankful For
Listen to “What We’re Politically Thankful For” on Spreaker.
As America pauses for Thanksgiving Day this week, join Jim and Greg as they each list three things for which they are politically thankful. They both start out discussing encouraging signs in the judicial world. Then Jim explains which Democratic presidential candidates he’s thankful for and which figure he’s thankful for doing just about everything the wrong way. Greg discusses the political figure he thinks is setting a good example for conservatives to follow while in office and which groups he finds encouraging in a time of great cynicism and polarization.
SCOTUS & Property Rights, Flake Foils Confirmations, Stormy Blasts Avenatti
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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Neil Gorsuch and other Supreme Court justices for blasting civil asset forfeiture in an Indiana case that may soon limit the government’s ability to seize property from suspected and convicted criminals. They also sigh as Jeff Flake forces the cancellation of committee votes on two dozen judicial nominees because he can’t get a floor vote on legislation to protect special counsel Bob Mueller. They also imagine the sanctimony primary between Flake and John Kasich as both seem interested in launching irrelevant 2020 presidential campaigns. And they react to Stormy Daniels revealing that attorney Michael Avenatti has filed suits and made statements in her name that she never approved and that Avenatti won’t tell her how he’s spending the money many people have donated to her legal cause.
Mitch Wins Again, Kanye Chaos, Sinema Smacks Arizona
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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America relish the Senate confirming 15 more judges and 21 more executive branch nominees in another major tactical win for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They also marvel at the reaction to the Oval Office meeting involving President Trump and Kanye West, as conservatives suddenly think Kanye is profound and Democrats suddenly trash him and declare him mentally ill because he likes President Trump. And they discuss newly discovered video of Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema declaring her state “the meth lab of democracy.”
Corruption Crackdown, 9th Circus on Guns, Vote Dem to Fix GOP?
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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the West Virginia legislature for impeaching four of the state’s five state supreme court justices for gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. They also roll their eyes as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a California law requiring any guns subsequently purchased in the state must include features that don’t actually exist. And they unload on “conservatives” from Michael Gerson to Steve Schmidt, who contend that conservatives need to vote for Democrats because supposedly the only way to save the Republican Party is to burn it to the ground.
Trump Judges Well, Gruber’s Obamacare Fiction, Left Targets Guns After Stabbings
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud President Trump for what appears to be a very solid slate of nominees to fill federal appeals and district court judicial vacancies. Their jaws hit the floor as Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber blames Trump for skyrocketing health care premiums and for insurers getting out of the individual marketplace. And they scratch their heads as gun control advocates claim a fatal stabbing at the University of Texas is a strong argument against allowing students to carry guns on campus.
Lower Courts Await Trump Nominations
President Trump received wide acclaim from his supporters for the selection and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but legal experts are urging Trump to make good selections soon for scores of vacancies on lower federal courts.
More than three months into his administration, Trump has sent just one nominee for a federal appeals court opening. There are 18 others to fill. He also has the opportunity to nominate more than 100 federal district court judges, but has yet to act.
Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel and Policy Director Carrie Severino says it is vital to get strong defenders of the Constitution on these courts as soon as possible.
“They’re incredibly important,” she said. “All of these are lifetime seats on the federal courts. Remember, the Supreme Court takes less than one percent of the cases appealed to it every year. That means well upward of 99 percent of cases are decided at the lower courts.”
“Many of those district court cases don’t even get up to the appellate level. They might end there. So it’s a huge, huge impact on American law,” said Severino.
Severino says we can just look to the Obama years to see how much impact a president can have on the judiciary.
“Normally, a two-term president can turn over two-thirds of the judiciary. Barack Obama certainly did that. When he came into office, one out of the thirteen courts of appeal had a Democratically nominated majority of judges. When he left, nine of thirteen did,” said Severino.
During the campaign, Trump rolled out a list of 21 possible choices for the Supreme Court vacancy. The list included Gorsuch. While Trump may not have a formal list for all these other vacancies, Severino fully expects the same careful vetting to pick quality judges.
“[Gorsuch] has been one of the signature accomplishments of his first hundred days in office. I can’t imagine why the president would want to diverge from an incredibly successful strategy so far and frankly, some of the people on that list could be candidates,” said Severino, noting that District Judge Amul R. Thapar, who was on Trump’s list, is now nominated to serve on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A big reason for Severino’s confidence in the Trump administration to get these picks right stems from what she observed in the Gorsuch process.
“Candidate Trump always said, ‘I’m going to ask the smartest people and get all the experts.’ When it came to judges, boy, he really did. He didn’t come up with a list for the Supreme Court by himself. He knew the right people to ask and I think they know the right people to ask for these spots as well,” said Severino.
She says what they should be looking for is simple and should be familiar to Trump by now.
“You want someone who is going to be faithful to the text of the law, faithful to the original understanding of the Constitution, putting the law before one’s political instinct on where they want the case to come out. We want people who are going to be judges first. I think that’s what we got with Gorsuch. I think it’s going to be the same type of vetting process,” said Severino.
With so many politically charged cases now coming before courts, Severino says it is vital to get judges whose character can withstand the firestorm.
“You don’t know what the next issue is going to be. We couldn’t have seen all these issues coming when the people currently on the bench were nominated. That’s why it’s so important to have a vetting process that doesn’t just say, ‘Here’s some topics. How do you feel about free speech? How do you feel about immigration or this and that?'” said Severino.
“We don’t need to know what their politics or policy preferences are in these things. You need someone who actually understands the judicial philosophy here, because that’s what’s going to help them get the next question down the road – that we haven’t even seen yet – correct,” said Severino.
But while Obama, succeeded in steering the federal judiciary to the left, Severino says Trump can have a huge impact in the opposite direction.
“A two-term president gets to replace two-thirds of the judges. Currently, our president is Donald Trump and it looks like he’s going to make some great picks for those slots,” she said.
Severino says Trump’s influence on the bench may actually be bigger.
“He may have more front-loaded opportunities than most presidents do, because this does seem like a very large number of vacancies. There are a lot more, I think upwards of half the federal appellate judges who are either retired or eligible to take senior status. So there could be many more coming,” said Severino.