Previously reserved for Paul *spits* Ryan, I am very sad for our country to have to announce that there is a new recipient.
From this point forward, I'm going to honor John Thune with the *spits* award.
They are worthless birds of the same turncoat feather with one distinct difference between them. While Ryan actively worked to promote and advance a RINO agenda diametrically opposed to the Make America Great Again mandate from voters that catapulted him into the Speaker's chair in the first place, Senate Majority Leader Thune doesn't seem to have done much work at all. Particularly if it's been something near and dear to Republican voters' hearts.
I mean, we didn't ask for a lot when electing Donald Trump, and most of what we asked for were things that needed to be STOPPED. Not new, shiny stuff. We wanted the borders closed again. We wanted these invaders removed. We wanted elections secure and citizens to be the only ones casting ballots. We wanted conservative jurists in our courts. We wanted choice restored to us in what vehicle we drove, what our appliances could do, and what schools we sent our kids to. We wanted our freedom restored.
Stuff like that.
A laundry list of cleaning up and cleaning out the chaos and destruction wrought by the most corrupt, dystopian, and authoritarian regime ever to inhabit the White House.
None of it was outrageous, and none of it was rocket-science level difficult.
Hardly any of it happened, and most of what did only undid those bureaucratic Biden snares because Trump administration officials fearlessly began unwinding them the second they were confirmed.
We had a Republican Senate that the House Speaker would have to shame into staying for a weekend to do their jobs on critical votes or negotiations.
How is that possible?
The simplest thing is confirming judges. For all his obstinate faults, Mitch McConnell was a machine at doing so, and what Trump jurists we have on the benches right now are largely due to the Turtle's Promethean efforts to ram them all through.
What has this Senate been doing for almost two years with their free time, that it took Tuesday's drubbing to suddenly find a little get-up-and-go? Especially as Trump had even fewer picks this term than his first.
Senate Republicans are preparing to rush through judicial nominees after the midterms, aiming to get many of President Donald Trump’s picks locked in before this Congress ends.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is planning to hold two judicial nomination hearings in November, when the Senate is scheduled to be in D.C. for less than two weeks. Additional hearings are expected during the three-week December session.
Holy smokes. Grassley inconvenienced Democrats.
...Over the objection of Democrats, Grassley last month scheduled two judicial nomination hearings on back-to-back weeks starting November 10, a break from the panel’s typical practice of only holding such hearings once every two weeks.
Doing so would allow the panel to take up nine judicial nominees pending before the committee. Another 13 have already appeared before the committee and could be voted on by the full Senate before Christmas.
“I expect every judicial nominee who has been nominated to date to be confirmed,” said Rob Luther, a George Mason University law professor who worked on judicial nominations in the White House Counsel’s Office during Trump’s first term. “And I don’t think they’re going to leave until that happens.”
A White House official said it expects all of the pending judicial nominees to be confirmed this year.
Top priorities for confirmation would likely include four pending nominees to three intermediate appeals courts, including Trump’s two latest picks for the conservative-dominated 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, U.S. District Judge Anna St. John and Phelps Dunbar partner Todd Butler.
But Luther said that once January rolls around, judicial confirmations will slow to a trickle as Democrats prevent Trump from appointing judges to the federal appeals courts or filling any vacancies on the Supreme Court, which gained its 6-3 conservative majority during his first term.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was on Laura Ingraham's show last night (and God bless him, he looked so tired), and she asked him about the federal judge backlog.
His answer was great (at 3:50).
I'D ROLL IN COTS TO THE U.S. SENATE CLOAKROOM
He said he'd have cots brought in and senators could freaking sleep in cloakrooms and offices until their last day of the term to make sure they got every last judge blessed. Basically, an old mob-type 'go to the mattresses' to make sure the job gets done.
Then my governor went on the most glorious rant (at 4:55) about the Senate and how they've piddled away these two years, and all I could do was say, 'YES.'
Every last word is true and a brutal indictment of one man: John *spits* Thune
...Well, here's the problem...If you're gonna do huge conservative things that are gonna reorient the country for a generation, fine.
BUT I SAW NO INDICATION THAT THE CURRENT GROUP OF REPUBLICAN SENATORS WERE INTERESTED IN DOING THAT TYPE OF BOLD, CONSERVATIVE CHANGE...
And he lets rip on all the things Thune never bothered to codify that can now be easily reversed by the incoming Democrats because they were never made law.
Worse, he calls the Senate out for not even attempting to do any of them.
Why haven't we done:
- immigration - shut off H1B visas
- codified Trump's immigration executive orders
- stripped immigration jurisdiction from the federal courts over deportation cases
The SAVE Act.
I'm sure you all can think of more.
It's just...Jiminy. Brutal is all I can say.
It just makes you angrier.
Every second with all three branches was precious, and so much of it was squandered willfully.
Arrogantly.
Nice to hear it laid out straight instead of dancing around the truth, for once, not that the governor gives a rip.
I doubt DeSantis was on the Thune Christmas card list in any event.
Editor’s Note: Republicans are fighting for election integrity by requiring proper identification to vote. It's common sense, yet Democrats are spreading lies about the impact of such a measure.
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