Trump is seizing the courts - only a Democratic win in November can stop him

[dajoki]

Trump is seizing the courts – only a Democratic win in November can stop him
Trump’s transformation of the federal judiciary means the stakes have never been higher in an election than they are for Democrats
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/29/trump-seizing-courts-democratic-win-november-could-stop-him

He is 37 and less than 10 years out of law school. He had never tried a case, nor served as co-counsel at trial, when he was tapped last year for America’s federal bench. But he did go on Fox News to push the cause of Brett Kavanaugh when Trump’s supreme court pick was mired in sexual abuse claims two years ago.

And now he is bound for the second highest court in the land.

Conservative Justin Walker’s nomination to serve as circuit judge on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, announced by Donald Trump on 3 April, barely caused a ripple in a world transfixed by a deadly pandemic. But it was a wake-up call for Democrats: the fight for the White House and Senate in November will also be a fight for the rule of law.

The Trump administration has brought a laser-like focus to nominating and winning Senate confirmation for 193 judges – two supreme court justices, 51 circuit court judges (a quarter of the total), 138 district court judges and two US court of international trade judges – at a pace unmatched since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

“I’ve never in my lifetime seen an election whose stakes were higher,” said Laurence Tribe, who was born in 1941 and is a constitutional law professor at Harvard University. “The transformation of the federal judiciary into a series of puppets for a very rightwing ideology will have lasting impact for decades.”

Trump and Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, aim to guarantee a long-term conservative skew on decisions that affect millions of people, including abortion rights, environment regulations, gun control, immigration rules and access to healthcare (having failed to overturn Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill, the administration is now trying to do so in the courts).

The new wave of judges is dominated by young white men often rushed through the Senate with little regard for standard procedure. Critics say the chief criterion for selection is no longer experience or qualifications but ideology.

<<snip>>

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100213359449

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. tRump judges will have to face intense scrutiny going forward under Biden and new Senate. . . . nt

[LastDemocratInSC]

2. If the judicial appointees had an ounce of character

They would have declined the appointments knowing they are unqualified.

[Wounded Bear]

3. It's not really Trump, it's the Repub party doing it...

but it is still an outrage.

[dajoki]

4. He's being told who to appoint...

but they are there to protect him among their other plots.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. This is what it has always been about.

This is why Moscow Mitch wouldn't allow the Senate to convict and remove him, even though he has need removal since the first week of his presidency.

It's about the judiciary. It always has been. They can not win without cheating, and stacking the courts with right-wing assholes and fanatics is the only way the Republicans/conservatives can keep minority rule going forward.

Moscow Mitch has until January to complete this, and he knows it.