Whitehorse ridicules Orange Fart Cloud nominee unable to answer basic legal questions

[47of74]

Yep, the only job requirements the Orange Fart Cloud cares about is how much the nominee kisses ass and how hard reich the nominee is, and not about legal knowledge.

Quote

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) took to Twitter on Thursday night to mock one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, posting a clip of a current member of the Federal Election Commission who has been nominated for a spot on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

In the tweet that begins, “MUST WATCH,” Whitehouse linked to a clip of Trump nominee Matthew Spencer Petersen struggling to respond to basic legal questions from the Judiciary Committee, with the Democratic senator adding at the end at the end of his tweet: “hoo boy.”

In the clip, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) pressed Petersen who finally had to admit he had never taken a deposition by himself or argued a motion in state or federal court.

Under further questioning on basic legal terms, Petersen demurred and was unable to answer, once stating, “Yes…my background is not in litigation,” before later attempting to get completely out of answering the question by saying, “I would probably not be able to give you a good definition right here at the table.”

 

Here's the original tweet;

 

[Destiny]

YIKES.

[formergothardite]

That was a very specific question about blogging about the KKK. And then he said let the record state that they all say no. Did one of them blog in support of the KKK? 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Wow. Senator Kennedy was so polite and professional. I would think it would be difficult to not start rolling his eyes and sighing (or worse) as Matthew Peterson kept waffling and showing his ignorance. I hope I never go to a job interview as badly prepared as he was!

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

Well THAT was cringeworthy, wasn't it? 

I particularly like the guy sitting just behind the Senator with the little half smile on his face listening to Peterson bury himself.

(Will admit I only clicked on this thread to see why  Whitehorse, capital city of the Yukon, was ridiculing Judicial nominees. )

[47of74]

1 hour ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Wow. Senator Kennedy was so polite and professional. I would think it would be difficult to not start rolling his eyes and sighing (or worse) as Matthew Peterson kept waffling and showing his ignorance. I hope I never go to a job interview as badly prepared as he was!

I wish my civ pro professor had been up there to nail Peterson on the finer points of things like the Erie Doctrine, Permissive and Mandatory Joinder, Twombly/Iqbal, and other civ pro fun stuff. 

6 minutes ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

Well THAT was cringeworthy, wasn't it? 

I particularly like the guy sitting just behind the Senator with the little half smile on his face listening to Peterson bury himself.

(Will admit I only clicked on this thread to see why  Whitehorse, capital city of the Yukon, was ridiculing Judicial nominees. )

I was like Jesus I could probably answer the questions better than Peterson and I'm only 1.5 years into school.

[GrumpyGran]

I liked the part where he essentially says "Yeah, I know I'm not qualified for this job, uh-huh, uh-huh."

[Cartmann99]

My legal education is limited to courtroom dramas, but I have been a juror in the last five years, so I should be a judge instead of this guy. 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

My legal education is limited to courtroom dramas, but I have been a juror in the last five years, so I should be a judge instead of this guy. 

Or did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?  Or since this is the Orange Fart Cloud we're talking about, a Trump Hotel last night?  Der Führer seems to think that's all that's needed for someone to be a judge.

[GrumpyGran]

33 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Or did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?  Or since this is the Orange Fart Cloud we're talking about, a Trump Hotel last night?  Der Führer seems to think that's all that's needed for someone to be a judge.

Good Lord, you're scaring me, now he's going to start picking people for jobs out of the lobby of his DC hotel. Or at Mar-A-Lago.

I used to have a boss who hired people for our company after he met them on the golf course.

[47of74]

Here's a Star Trek parody version I put together this evening;

Quote

Nomination hearings for starship Captains tend to be dry affairs.

But a video clip of one of Federation President Trump’s starship Captain nominees struggling to answer rudimentary questions during a hearing held on Stardate 2267.1212 about Starfleet and starship command garnered well more than 250 billion views in a matter of hours throughout the Federation, and led to speculation that this particular starship Captain nomination might fail to win Command Council Approval, which is often seen as a formality.

Admiral Kennedy started by asking Acting Ensign Petersen and the four other nominees who appeared with him: “Have any of you not stood watch on the bridge of a starship?”

Petersen alone raised his hand.

Admiral Kennedy, who was recently promoted to flag rank, has challenged some of Trump’s previous command level nominations, bore down.

Had Petersen ever been officer of the watch?

“I have not,” he responded.

Had he ever been in command of a ship department? No. An away team? No.  Traveled outside of Sectors 002 through 017? No. Even traveled out of Sector 001? No.

How many non-Federation races has he had contact with? Fewer than five?  Even one?
“Probably somewhere around that,” Petersen said.

Had he ever filled out an official log for Starfleet? Had he ever logged a star hour – which is defined as an hour of duty on a starship? No on both counts.

Kennedy then asked the last time Petersen had read the Starfleet Regulation Title concerning starship command — the standards and regulations that govern starship command, where Petersen is hoping to an appointment as Captain of a Constitution class starship.

“In my current position,” Petersen stuttered, “I obviously don’t need to stay as invested in those on a day-to-day basis, but I do try to keep up to speed.” He added that he oversees a number of attorneys in division of Starfleet Legal that handles paternity claims made against Starfleet officers, and advises them on legal strategy.

How about the last time he read the Starfleet General Orders, which are a series of rules that govern Starfleet, Admiral Kennedy asked. The General Orders are amended and republished every year.

“All the way through? Well, comprehensively, would have been at Starfleet Academy,” Petersen said.

Admiral Kennedy kept digging.

“As a starship Captain, you’re obviously going to have contact with alien races who are not members of the Federation. Can you tell me what the ‘Prime Directive of Starfleet’ is,” the Admiral asked, referring to a critical rule that governs Starfleet’s interactions with non-aligned worlds.

“I don’t have that readily at my disposal,” Petersen said. “But I would be happy to take a closer look at that. That is not something that I had to —”

Admiral Kennedy cut him off. “Do you know what a Cochrane deceleration maneuver is,” he asked. A Cochrane deceleration maneuver is a classic and well known battle tactic. Among the more notable users of this maneuver was Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise when he defeated a Romulan ship near Tau Ceti.

Petersen said yes, then tried to evade the question. He reminded the Admiral his background wasn’t in starship combat or even starship operations, and said he hadn’t had time to “do a deep dive.”

“I understand the challenge that would be ahead of me if I were fortunate enough to become a starship Captain,” Petersen said. “I understand that the path that many starship Captains have taken has been a different one than I have taken.”

Kennedy said he was familiar with Petersen’s résumé, then asked again what a Cochrane deceleration maneuver was.

“I would probably not be able to give you a good definition right here at the table,” Petersen said.

Petersen received his law degree from the University of Mars in 2259 and spent three years at Starfleet Legal in San Francisco, where he specialized in paternity law as it concerns Starfleet officers. He was granted the rank of Acting Ensign two months ago so that Starfleet could consider him.

 

[Soulhuntress]

   This is the Best People?

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

On 12/15/2017 at 8:56 AM, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Wow. Senator Kennedy was so polite and professional. I would think it would be difficult to not start rolling his eyes and sighing (or worse) as Matthew Peterson kept waffling and showing his ignorance. I hope I never go to a job interview as badly prepared as he was!

Sorry to quote myself, but I found an article that explains that Senator Kennedy actually felt sorry for Mr. Peterson.

Quote

"I don't want to - I mean, I don't want to see him suffer, he's a nice guy," Kennedy told CNN in calling for his nomination to be withdrawn. "But you can't just walk into a federal courthouse for the very first time and say, 'Here I am, I think I want to be a judge.' It just doesn't work that way."

 

On 12/15/2017 at 8:48 AM, formergothardite said:

That was a very specific question about blogging about the KKK. And then he said let the record state that they all say no. Did one of them blog in support of the KKK? 

I found an answer to this, too. A previous nominee has been linked to a post supporting the KKK.

Quote

Brett Talley, nominated for a federal district court seat in Alabama, was thwarted after he was reported to be the author of a 2011 message board comment defending the Ku Klux Klan. Democrats had objected to his nomination from the beginning, noting that he had never served as a judge nor tried a case.

Great nominees, Drumphy!

[Flossie]

I've watched 'Legally Blond' 1 & 2.  Can I be a judge now?  I'm actually blond and if necessary I'll get a little dog to carry around.  Will I have an aide to walk said dog for me if I'm chosen for this judge job thingy?  Also, I don't look good in pink, but I look very good in green.  Can I have green robes?

Is this a good time to discuss salary, health insurance, Paid Time Off, vacation days, sick days, and personal days?  Who makes my travel arrangements, and how soon do I get to take a personal plane so I'm not bogged down in traffic and don't have to run the risk of dealing with the general public when I'm trying to sleep during the trip?  I'll also need a limo to take me around town and to and from the airport.  Does that come with a fully equipped bar?

[GrumpyGran]

20 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I found an answer to this, too. A previous nominee has been linked to a post supporting the KKK.

Oh, this explains it. Sessions must be coming up with the nominees. Guys he meets at Klan rallies. Just because they said they haven't supported the Klan...

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump judicial nominee Matthew Petersen pulls out after struggling to answer basic questions"

Spoiler

Matthew Petersen, a nominee to the federal judiciary, has withdrawn from consideration days after a video clip showed him unable to answer basic questions about legal procedure, the White House confirmed Monday.

Petersen, nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the third Trump judicial pick to withdraw in the past week amid criticism from Democrats and others about their qualifications.

White House spokesman Raj Shah confirmed that Trump had accepted Petersen’s withdrawal but declined to comment further.

The video of Petersen that went viral Thursday captured five minutes of pointed questioning by Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) at Petersen’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before.

It was posted on Twitter by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who wrote that it showed Kennedy asking Peter­sen “basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one.”

As of Friday, the White House was standing by Petersen, with a spokesman saying that he was qualified and that “the President’s opponents” were “trying to distract from the record-setting success the President has had on judicial nominations.”

Petersen, a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, has been a member of the Federal Election Commission since 2008 but has no trial experience. His tenure on the FEC overlapped with that of now-White House counsel Don McGahn for about five years.

“While I am honored to have been nominated for this position, it has become clear to me over the past few days that my nomination has become a distraction — and that is not fair to you or your Administration,” Petersen wrote to Trump in a letter dated Saturday. “I had hoped my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television. However, I am no stranger to political realities, and I do not wish to be a continued distraction from the important work of your administration and the Senate.”

Until last week, Trump’s record of getting judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate stood out as a bright spot for a president who has struggled for big wins on Capitol Hill. The Senate has confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, 12 circuit court judges and six district court judges.

Early last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told the White House to “reconsider” the nominations of two nominees, Jeff Mateer and Brett Talley, both of whom were reported to have endorsed positions or groups that embrace discrimination. A day later, both nominations were pulled.

Democratic senators had also questioned the qualifications of Talley, Trump’s nominee for a U.S. district court seat in Alabama, and Mateer, who was nominated to serve on the bench in the Eastern District of Texas.

During Wednesday’s confirmation hearing, Kennedy started by asking Petersen and four other nominees who appeared with him, “Have any of you not tried a case to verdict in a courtroom?”

Petersen, under consideration for a lifetime appointment on the bench, alone raised his hand. Kennedy then bore down.

Had Petersen ever handled a jury trial? “I have not,” the nominee responded.

Civil? No. Criminal? No. Bench trial? No. State or federal court? No.

How many depositions had he taken — fewer than five?

“Probably somewhere in that range,” Petersen said.

Had he ever argued a motion in state court? Federal court? No on both counts.

Kennedy then asked the last time Petersen had read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — the standards that govern civil cases in U.S. district courts.

“In my current position,” Petersen said, “I obviously don’t need to stay as invested in those on a day-to-day basis, but I do try to keep up to speed.”

The inquisition continued for a few more minutes.

Petersen had been rated “qualified” for the bench by the American Bar Association.

On Monday, shortly before the White House confirmed Petersen’s withdrawl, Kennedy told a New Orleans television station that Trump called him Saturday to talk about the nominee.

“He has told me, ‘Kennedy, when some of my guys send someone who is not qualified, you do your job,’” Kennedy told WWL-TV.

Kennedy said he was suprised when he learned that Petersen had no litigation experience.

“Just because you’ve seen “My Cousin Vinny” doesn’t qualify you to be a federal judge,” Kennedy said, referring to the 1992 comedy starring Joe Pesci, who played a lawyer fresh out of law school who represented two young New Yorkers put on trial in rural Alabama for a murder they did not commit.

Petersen’s defenders argued that trial experience was not necessary and that he was a quick learner.

“I wasn’t aware that being trial lawyer was a precondition to being a district court judge, particularly in the District of Columbia,” said Jan Baran, a partner at Wiley Rein who hired Petersen to his election law group out of law school and worked with him for three years.

“Judges in the D.C. court usually handle one of two types of cases; the most frequent would be cases involving administration agencies, which Matt Petersen has a great deal of experience with,” Baran said.

About damned time.

[GrumpyGran]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump judicial nominee Matthew Petersen pulls out after struggling to answer basic questions"

  Reveal hidden contents

Matthew Petersen, a nominee to the federal judiciary, has withdrawn from consideration days after a video clip showed him unable to answer basic questions about legal procedure, the White House confirmed Monday.

Petersen, nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the third Trump judicial pick to withdraw in the past week amid criticism from Democrats and others about their qualifications.

White House spokesman Raj Shah confirmed that Trump had accepted Petersen’s withdrawal but declined to comment further.

The video of Petersen that went viral Thursday captured five minutes of pointed questioning by Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) at Petersen’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before.

It was posted on Twitter by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who wrote that it showed Kennedy asking Peter­sen “basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one.”

As of Friday, the White House was standing by Petersen, with a spokesman saying that he was qualified and that “the President’s opponents” were “trying to distract from the record-setting success the President has had on judicial nominations.”

Petersen, a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, has been a member of the Federal Election Commission since 2008 but has no trial experience. His tenure on the FEC overlapped with that of now-White House counsel Don McGahn for about five years.

“While I am honored to have been nominated for this position, it has become clear to me over the past few days that my nomination has become a distraction — and that is not fair to you or your Administration,” Petersen wrote to Trump in a letter dated Saturday. “I had hoped my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television. However, I am no stranger to political realities, and I do not wish to be a continued distraction from the important work of your administration and the Senate.”

Until last week, Trump’s record of getting judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate stood out as a bright spot for a president who has struggled for big wins on Capitol Hill. The Senate has confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, 12 circuit court judges and six district court judges.

Early last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told the White House to “reconsider” the nominations of two nominees, Jeff Mateer and Brett Talley, both of whom were reported to have endorsed positions or groups that embrace discrimination. A day later, both nominations were pulled.

Democratic senators had also questioned the qualifications of Talley, Trump’s nominee for a U.S. district court seat in Alabama, and Mateer, who was nominated to serve on the bench in the Eastern District of Texas.

During Wednesday’s confirmation hearing, Kennedy started by asking Petersen and four other nominees who appeared with him, “Have any of you not tried a case to verdict in a courtroom?”

Petersen, under consideration for a lifetime appointment on the bench, alone raised his hand. Kennedy then bore down.

Had Petersen ever handled a jury trial? “I have not,” the nominee responded.

Civil? No. Criminal? No. Bench trial? No. State or federal court? No.

How many depositions had he taken — fewer than five?

“Probably somewhere in that range,” Petersen said.

Had he ever argued a motion in state court? Federal court? No on both counts.

Kennedy then asked the last time Petersen had read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — the standards that govern civil cases in U.S. district courts.

“In my current position,” Petersen said, “I obviously don’t need to stay as invested in those on a day-to-day basis, but I do try to keep up to speed.”

The inquisition continued for a few more minutes.

Petersen had been rated “qualified” for the bench by the American Bar Association.

On Monday, shortly before the White House confirmed Petersen’s withdrawl, Kennedy told a New Orleans television station that Trump called him Saturday to talk about the nominee.

“He has told me, ‘Kennedy, when some of my guys send someone who is not qualified, you do your job,’” Kennedy told WWL-TV.

Kennedy said he was suprised when he learned that Petersen had no litigation experience.

“Just because you’ve seen “My Cousin Vinny” doesn’t qualify you to be a federal judge,” Kennedy said, referring to the 1992 comedy starring Joe Pesci, who played a lawyer fresh out of law school who represented two young New Yorkers put on trial in rural Alabama for a murder they did not commit.

Petersen’s defenders argued that trial experience was not necessary and that he was a quick learner.

“I wasn’t aware that being trial lawyer was a precondition to being a district court judge, particularly in the District of Columbia,” said Jan Baran, a partner at Wiley Rein who hired Petersen to his election law group out of law school and worked with him for three years.

“Judges in the D.C. court usually handle one of two types of cases; the most frequent would be cases involving administration agencies, which Matt Petersen has a great deal of experience with,” Baran said.

About damned time.

Thank God. Seriously. they were going to have to hire another lawyer to lawsplain everything to him!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why a Louisiana GOP senator keeps bringing down Trump judicial nominees"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: John Neely Kennedy, a freshman Republican senator from Louisiana, complained three weeks ago that the White House was ignoring his concerns about the subpar quality of President Trump’s judicial nominees. “It’s like talking to the wind,” he told reporters.

Now that he has helped torpedo three of those would-be judges in just the past week, they’re paying attention. Trump himself called up Kennedy over the weekend after a video went viral of the senator humiliating his pick for a district court judgeship. During a confirmation hearing, Kennedy pressed Matthew Spencer Petersen, who is currently the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, on his lack of relevant experience and stumped him with a series of basic legal questions.

If you haven’t watched the cringeworthy clip yet, it’s worth five minutes (you can also read our annotated transcript of the exchange here):

The White House withdrew Petersen’s nomination on Monday. “I had hoped my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television,” Petersen said. “However, I am no stranger to political realities, and I do not wish to be a continued distraction …”

“Just because you’ve seen ‘My Cousin Vinny’ doesn’t qualify you to be a federal judge,” Kennedy told the New Orleans TV station WWL, referring to the 1992 movie about an inexperienced New York lawyer who exonerates two men wrongfully accused of murder in Alabama. “And my job on the Judiciary Committee is to catch him. I would strongly suggest he not give up his day job.”

-- Bowing to opposition from Kennedy and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Trump also withdrew two of his nominees for district court judgeships late last week: Brett Talley, a former speechwriter for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) who writes horror books and has participated in ghost-hunting activities but never tried a case, reportedly wrote a 2011 message board comment defending the Ku Klux Klan. Jeff Mateer, who was up for a judgeship in Texas, gave public speeches advocating discrimination against the LGBT community and called transgender children proof that “Satan’s plan is working.”

-- What’s Kennedy play here? His spokeswoman told me that he was not available for an interview on Monday, so I asked several plugged-in observers in Louisiana and Washington why he’s doing this. Beyond genuine unease with less-than-stellar nominees, three theories emerged:

1) He’s exacting revenge against White House counsel Don McGahn.

Trump declined to nominate Kennedy’s first choice for U.S. attorney in New Orleans, defense lawyer Kyle Schonekas. That’s a process McGahn oversees.

Kennedy has also complained that he was not consulted before Trump picked Kyle Duncan for the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit. He said he found out about it only when McGahn called to tell him. This prompted a long delay in returning Duncan’s blue slip.

Petersen, the nominee Kennedy grilled during last week’s hearing, was mentored by McGahn at the Federal Election Commission. Talley, one of the other nominees Kennedy felled last week, is married to McGahn’s chief of staff. Earlier this year, Kennedy became the first Republican senator to vote against one of Trump’s judicial nominees when he opposed Gregory Katsas for a spot on the D.C. Circuit. Katsas was McGahn’s No. 2 as deputy White House counsel. (Kennedy said his work in the White House created conflicts of interest that “a first-year law student could see.”)

Making matters worse, when White House spokesman Hogan Gidley was asked Friday about Petersen wilting during his confirmation hearing, he suggested that Kennedy is one of “the president’s opponents” and said he was “trying to distract from the record-setting success the president has had on judicial nominations.”

Kennedy said Trump told him during their Saturday call that he did not personally interview Petersen and blamed his own staff for the crummy nominations. “He has told me, ‘Kennedy, when some of my guys send someone who is not qualified, you do your job,’” the senator told WWL Monday. (A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the conversation.)

2) Kennedy, as a former Democrat, still has lots of trial lawyer friends.

The 66-year-old came to the Senate in January after 17 years as the state treasurer. He matriculated from Vanderbilt and got his law degree at the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the law review. Then he studied civil law at Oxford.

Kennedy was legal counsel in the 1980s to then-Democratic Gov. Buddy Roemer. After an unsuccessful bid for Louisiana attorney general in 1991, he went back into private practice. He became a partner in 1993 at Chaffe McCall, New Orleans’s oldest law firm, where he was a corporate and civil trial attorney.

In 2004, Kennedy ran as a pro-John Kerry Democrat against Republican David Vitter for the Senate seat he now holds. It was open because of John Breaux’s retirement. (For a fun walk down memory lane, here is the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s opposition research file on him from that time.)

After getting whipped, Kennedy decided to become a Republican. The national GOP rallied behind him when he challenged then-Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in 2008, but she beat him by six points. He stayed on as treasurer through all of this and became increasingly vocal in his criticisms of Bobby Jindal as the then-governor’s approval rating slipped. After Vitter ran for governor in 2015 and said he wouldn’t seek another term in the Senate, Kennedy jumped into the race.

But he’s still got a lot of his old friends, and they don’t like the ideological edge of Trump’s picks.

3) Kennedy wants to run for governor in 2019, and he thinks this may help him.

“One very important thing to know about Kennedy is that everyone thinks he’s running for governor,” said Robert Mann, who teaches political communication at Louisiana State University and writes a column for the Times-Picayune. “It’s assumed, and he’s not done anything to tamp down the speculation that he’s coming back. Everything he does in Washington has got to be viewed through that lens. … It’s an office that he’s wanted for a long time, and running for governor would be a free shot for him. If he loses, he’s still got the Senate seat.”

Kennedy would face John Bel Edwards, a moderate Democrat who has an approval rating just above 50 percent. To pick off some of those voters, he’d want to establish his independent bona fides. He might also see the writing on the wall that this will be a bad environment for Republicans after Roy Moore’s loss in last week’s Alabama special election.

Kennedy has looked for other areas to establish some independence, as well: He was one of two Republicans to defect when the Senate voted to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule that made it easier for Americans to sue their banks and credit card companies when they are wronged — instead of being forced into an arbitration process that’s tilted in favor of financial institutions.

Fueling speculation, he’s been wading into state-level issues back home that would typically be outside a senator’s purview. Last week, for example, Kennedy demanded that the former state police superintendent reimburse the state government for the nine years that he lived rent free at the state police compound. In doing so, he also took a whack at the governor for raising taxes. “Sen. Kennedy is not one to pass up an opportunity to get a headline,” Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo told the Baton Rouge Advocate.

-- Bigger picture, the most consequential legacy of Trump’s first year will be packing the courts. Republicans have literally changed the rules of the Senate related to filibusters and broken with century-old precedents related to blue slips to ram through a record number of judges, several of whom would never have passed muster to get nominated in normal times. In addition to a Supreme Court justice, the Senate has confirmed 12 circuit court judges and six district court judges this year. Several more are in the pipeline.

The White House has prioritized picking younger candidates (these are lifetime appointments) who have demonstrated loyalty to Trump (and fealty to his agenda). Multiple nominees have been rated Not Qualified by the nonpartisan American Bar Association, yet they got confirmed on party-line votes anyway.

Kennedy has voted for almost all these candidates, including a pivotal vote to put John Bush on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bush was a Kentucky blogger who quoted from alt-right “birther” websites, disparaged gay rights and compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery. He made it through only because of his longtime loyalty to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom ambitious Republicans are always terrified to cross.

Another Trump pick, Damien Schiff, called Justice Anthony Kennedy a “judicial prostitute” on his blog.

-- The failure of three nominees in the last week may slow the breakneck pace and deter the administration from sending over so many controversial picks with so little courtroom experience. At the very least, the guys Trump is putting up for these crucial posts — 15 of the 19 judges who have been confirmed are men — might start preparing more earnestly and boning up on the kind of basic legal knowledge you’re supposed to learn during the first year of law school. “There are still lots of other nominees in the pipeline who deserve the same intense scrutiny that made those nominees’ flaws glaringly apparent,” said Marge Baker, vice president of the liberal group People For the American Way.

...