How the US Senate Finally Handed President Trump a Major Victory

There are plenty of reasons to be furious with the Republican "led" Congress in Washington.

The biggest swamp creatures, including Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Jeff Flake, have stymied Trump--and our--agenda for the last ten months. They attack the President rather than working for Americans' best interests.

But one bright spot has emerged and the US Senate has given President Trump a major victory.

Jake Novak for CNBC reports:

President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat.

Late last week, Grassley decided not to honor a Senate tradition of holding up hearings for judicial nominees who aren't cleared by their own home state senators. That tradition is known as the "blue slip courtesy" born out of time before nationwide communication technology when a given state's senators had access to much more information about nominees than their colleagues from the rest of the country. Grassley correctly noted that Democrats were now trying to use the blue slips tradition to replace the filibuster, and he's having none of that. 

So happy that Judiciary Chairman Grassley is putting the proper process ahead of the partisan bickering and bigotry of the Democratic minority. These antiquated measures were permitted for too long. The same goes for the time-honored filibuster tradition. It should only be used if US Senators actually get off their butts and talk a piece of legislation to death.

And that brings us to the Democrat who provided the initial generous source of President Trump's solid triumph: Former Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat, Harry Reid. Reid is a major reason this good fortune has befallen President Trump because Reid was the one who killed the filibuster rule for judicial nominees in 2013. And when he killed it, it was gone for good.

There were a few Democratic US Senator who slammed then-Majority Leader Harry Reid for killing the filibuster for federal district and circuit court nominees. The truth is, however, that the measure needed to go. During the Bush Administration, the Democratic minority (until 2007), went out of their to block qualified, well-vetted and well-informed nominees to the federal bench. The most notorious case was Miguel Estrada of California. US Senator Dianne Feinstein blasted the nomination because Estrada had no substantive scholarship or leadership to justify the appointment. The truth is that he was a well-qualified constitutional conservative, and the Democrats feared his incredible potential influence if confirmed.

Novak also points out that Reid's impatience worked even more for Republicans, since when they gained the majority in 2015, they stalled everyone of Obama's judicial nominees, and there was nothing the newly-imposed Democratic minority could do about it.

In fact, President Trump has twice as many vacancies to fill as President Obama faced in 2009. This is real winning. And there's more to this story:

But this isn't just about sheer numbers, it's about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush's two terms in office.

Young conservative confirmations will ensure a long-lasting imprint on the federal judiciary and prepare a strong bench of candidates for the Supreme Court. In fact, one of the most important appointments has been Neil Gorsuch, cut from the same perfect ideological cloth as the late Antonin Scalia. The Democrats showed how out of touch and desperate they are by going after this nominee with all their political capital. They should have waited, since replacing one conservative with another would not have altered the balance of the court.

Instead, the plunged ahead and attacked Gorsuch with everything imaginable. They went so far as to throw up unprecedented assaults to this nominee, and thus gave the GOP majority the justification to kill the filibuster rules for all federal nominees.

More winning for the country!

Sure, the tax reform and Obamacare repeal bills may be jeopardized by internal spats between the GOP and the White House. But real history is being made in the courts all thanks to a bad bet made by Senator Reid and remarkable cooperation between the Trump team, Senator Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While the fights with other senators like Flake et al may grab headlines, these judicial confirmations will have a much bigger impact.

Final Reflection

One key point in Novak's article is that the press is ignoring this unparalleled victory for the President and the Republicans. One other article, which I wrote about and shared with Townhall.com and Barbwire.com, featured that this country is going to be substantially more conservative for the next generation because of the rapid and rising number of judicial confirmations under the Trump administration.

Indeed, this is great news for taking back our country, for making America great again. We need judges who respect the Judeo-Christian ethic of our nation, men and women who honor the timeless values and traditions which make Western Civilization possible, and have made the United States the most prosperous, blessed nation on earth.

We should be glad for some substance of pro-Trump leadership in the US Senate, and this victory may explain in growing measure why Trump went along with supporting Luther Strange in the contentious Alabama US Senate special election primary earlier this year. Also, the US Senate, feeling the heat from the conservative grassroots across the country, are pressuring more members to get the President's agenda going forward. The US Senate's decision to repeal the onerous Obamacare individual mandate, for example, is a response from a rest conservative base and independent electorate which want the Swamp drained and the rights of American citizens retained.

The US Senate has made one key victory happen, but there need to be more victories very soon--which includes the final resignation of Majority "Leader" Mitch McConnell.