Two stories (follow the links in the headlines) by Quin at Liberty Headlines;
Conservatives love Trump’s judicial nominees:
With a huge assist from Senate Republicans who receive little credit for their work in this area, President Donald Trump – despite three recent stumbles – is setting records for securing confirmations of his judicial nominees.
As noted by USA Today, “The Senate has confirmed 20 judges starting with [Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch] including 12 to powerful appeals courts that are the last stop before the Supreme Court – more than any president has achieved in his first year in office.” (This breaks the record of 11 held by Presidents Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.)
The next sentence in the newspaper’s story contained a crucial kicker: “[The new judges’] average age of 50 means they are likely to serve for decades in the lifetime posts.”
As almost every one of the nominees has rock-solid credentials as conservatives in the legal sense (hewing closely to the text of the law), this success rate at confirming appellate judges – and young ones at that – is leading conservative scholars (and activists) to rejoice….
Will Trump fill swamp…with rancid pork?:
Many conservative activists reacted with disgust and anger this week as congressional Republicans and President Trump floatedproposals to end the ban on pork-barrel “earmarks” in federal spending bills.
Earmarks are directives in appropriations bills to finance specific local projects that might not otherwise be eligible, or at least not obviously so, for funding within the bill in question.
Probably the most infamous earmark was the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska – a project slated to cost $398 million, to reach a community of just 50 people.
After negative publicity, that earmark was revoked in 2005.
Negative public reaction to the Alaskan bridge catalyzed a national movement against earmarks that culminated in a general congressional ban on the practice beginning in 2011.
A number of congressmen, however, have long argued that earmarks allow Congress to exercise more specific control of taxpayer money – and also, by providing constituent rewards as lures for cooperation, help legislators achieve compromises necessary to reach agreement on “must pass” legislation.
That was the argument adopted by Trump on Tuesday…. [The rest, here.]
