Two stories last week by Quin Hillyer at Liberty Headlines:

Senate Democrats Hold Up Trump’s Court Picks by Giving the ‘Slip’: Republicans are chafing over Democratic tactics to stall or block President Trump’s judicial nominees, spurring an ideologically line-blurring debate about informal Senate rules.

The policy at issue, called a “blue slip” privilege, has advocates and defenders on both sides of the ordinary divide between conservatives and liberals.

A “blue slip” is a letter on blue paper sent by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the home-state senators of a judicial nominee, asking if they approve or disapprove of the nominee. At times during the past century, including for most of the past three decades, a senator’s refusal to return the blue slip or a return with a recommendation against the nominee have both been treated as an effective veto on the nomination.

As the Washington Times reported on July 4, Democratic senators in Michigan and Minnesota so far have refused to return blue slips for accomplished jurists nominated by Trump to federal courts of appeals.

[The rest of the story is linked at the headline above.]

 

Trump Gets Oil, Gas Leases Moving Again….

Continuing the Trump administration’s efforts to quicken development and delivery of lower-cost energy, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday announced a plan to speed review of nearly 3,000 applications for oil and gas drilling on public lands.

It is part of Trump’s efforts to create a situation in which the United States can boast “energy dominance.” As reported by the Washington Post in May, “By leaving few fossil-fuels resources in the United States unexploited, the thinking goes, the country can fund infrastructure and bolster national security.”

Western congressmen and conservatives in general were thrilled with the announcement.

The Obama administration, hostile to fossil fuels, had allowed the applications to pile up…..

[The rest of the story is linked at the headline above.]

 

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