Inside Trumps Plan to Dramatically Reshape U.S. Courts

[question everything]

Last edited Fri Feb 23, 2018, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

A few days after Donald Trump was elected President in November 2016, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell placed a call to incoming White House counsel Don McGahn. McConnell knew Trump had a chance to change the ideological makeup of the federal court system in a way not seen since the Reagan era, but only if McConnell and McGahn could get him to tighten up a disorderly political operation, and fast. “I said, Don, we’ve got an opportunity here to have a huge long-term impact on the country,” McConnell recalls, sitting in a cushioned chair in his Capitol office one day last month. He made McGahn a promise to move qualified judges through the Senate confirmation process as quickly as the White House could send them.

The conversation launched what may prove to be the most important legacy of the Trump presidency. Amid the dramatic infighting, global feuds and impulsive tweets that marked the President’s first year, Trump, McConnell and a group of ambitious conservative lawyers set in motion an enormous effort to reshape the federal judiciary. Trump’s team helped get a record-breaking 12 appeals-court judges confirmed during his first year, four times as many as President Obama did in the same time frame. Trump has nominated roughly 80 federal judges, 24 of whom have already been confirmed by the Republican-led Senate. And he’s just getting started: Trump still has 139 open seats on the bench to fill, a number that has only grown since he became President. “We’re filling up the courts with really talented people who understand and read the Constitution for what it says,” Trump tells TIME. “It’s already having a tremendous impact. These appointments are going to be one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, we do.”

The judges Trump picked are on the whole smart, experienced and conservative. The American Bar Association evaluated 60 of them and rated 56 as qualified or well-qualified. They are mostly white and male, and several have spurred controversy with their comments about hot political and social debates. On the bench, their views will shape a sweeping array of issues. Conservative judges tend to be sympathetic to claims about gun rights, religious freedom and free speech.

More..

http://time.com/5139118/inside-trumps-plan-to-dramatically-reshape-us-courts/

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On edit:

I have opined on this before: we have been busy with the Russia probe that I doubt will change anything, will affect our day to day life, and about sexual harassment - we've heard mostly from successful professional women. Many women, working on factories floor or sweatshops or fast food places, where they are actually raped, cannot afford to come out as "MeToo" and certainly cannot afford to just walk out of the job. Their day to day lives will not be affected by the "MeToo" movement with all its Hollywood glitz. But meanwhile the Republicans are making important, long lasting changes. This in addition to changing many rules and regulations that do not need votes in Congress.

[J_William_Ryan]

1. Agreed.

Trump judicial appointments could likely bring about the end to the rule of law, subjecting citizens’ rights and protected liberties to the ‘will of the majority.’

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[hydrolastic]

3. Holy cow it just can't be that bad!

[Hortensis]

6. Yes, it can. Because, it's NOT Trump's plan.

It's part of a continued effort begun long ago by wealthy hard core, and even extremist, right wingers.

The Kochs alone have gotten their people into most cabinet positions. VP Pence and both the next two in the presidential succession, Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch, are Koch allies/agents; no coincidence. The Kochs put something like 44 of their people in high appointed offices.

I don't have any guess for how many people the Koch alliance has gotten into the judiciary over the past 40 years, but it's a...lot, and they've been shaping the law for all that time. Some have lifetime appointments.

That's the Kochs alone. Sure, they're the biggest, but there are other players too, mostly coordinating but also doing their own thing.

[Control-Z]

4. You should have kept your comments to yourself.

"...sexual harassment - that affect mostly successful professional women..."

Excuse me? Seriously. Wtf is that about?

[question everything]

5. OK, did not expressed it correctly

We hear about celebrities who do have a choice of getting out of the hotel rooms (except for Matt Lauer's captive in his locked office). Who can quit their jobs.

Most sexual assaults happen to women in fast food restaurants or production floors, working at minimum wage and have no choice, cannot afford to quit their jobs. Cannot even afford to come forward as "MeToo."

The glamorous "MeToo" do not help them and they do not make a real change, for generations to come, in our lives. Not yet.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. trifecta of destruction

Ripples of the disaster of 2016 will affect at least a generation and probably more. The most selfish, greedy evangelists of hate control the body that makes the law, the body that executes the law, and is busily stuffing the body that interprets the law with their own ilk.

The obstructions to their orgy of demolition of government are their selfishness -- leading to backstabbing -- and the men and women working in the bureaucracy who act as a sort of flywheel, resisting drastic and sudden changes while trying to do the right thing.