McConnell Personally Derailing the President’s Nominees

[longknife]

Senate has only confirmed 7 of the president’s 56 judicial nominees with 149 vacancies on the books. That and an unnamed number of other nominations. Most have cleared committees and simply wait for McConnell to allow floor votes.

We not clearly see who the true obstructionist is.

Full story @ Conservative Leaders Urge Mitch McConnell To Push Through Trump Nominees

GOP Lawmakers Urge Confirmation of Trump Ex-Im Nominee @ GOP Lawmakers Urge Confirmation of Trump Ex-Im Nominee

 

[longknife]

And here is an astonishing rebuttal of the above:

McConnell Changes Senate Rules to Speed Up Judicial Confirmation Process

* No longer will “blue slips” be allowed to deny a nominee a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on confirmation. In the past, senators have sometimes barred a nominee from their state by refusing to return their slip to the committee, thus preventing a hearing and confirmation.

“The majority”—that is, Republicans—will treat a blue slip “as simply notification of how you’re going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball,” McConnell told me. The use of blue slips, he noted, is not a Senate rule and has “been honored in the breach over the years.” Now it won’t be honored at all.

* The so-called “30 hours rule”—which provides for 30 hours of debate on a nominee—won’t be overturned. But McConnell vowed to set aside time for these debates. And he can make this happen because he sets the Senate schedule.

The majority leader has been under pressure recently from conservative groups to get more court nominees approved by the Judiciary Committee—and more rapidly—and sent to the Senate floor. McConnell had long prodded the committee to increase the number of hearings, then report the nominees out as quickly as possible for Senate floor votes.

Is this because he fears he might lose his leadership position in the next session of the Senate?

Full story @ BREAKING: McConnell Changes Senate Rules

Judiciary war escalates: McConnell gives blue slips a pink slip @ Judiciary war escalates: McConnell gives blue slips a pink slip - Hot Air