Earlier today, the White House released its first slate of federal judicial nominees since Joe Biden took office in January. As the Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino told Fox News, this means it's "payback" time for liberal dark money groups.

President Biden has announced his first tranche of judicial nominees and as I explained on @FoxFriendsFirst this morning, it's payback time.

That is, payback time for the left-wing dark money groups that spent millions to elect him and Senate Democrats. pic.twitter.com/u8iy23Qw27

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) March 30, 2021

The victories of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue on January 5th in the Georgia Senate runoffs are crucial for preserving President Donald Trump's legacy in one of the most critical areas — the federal judiciary. If their Democratic opponents win, Republicans will lose their majority in the U.S. Senate:

As the two Senate races loom, party control of the Senate hangs in the balance, with the upper chamber currently made up of 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. If Democrats win both runoff elections, raising the total to 50-50, the Democrats will take control of the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote.

Without a Republican majority in the Senate, there would be no safeguard in place to block President Joe Biden from appointing radical jurists to the federal bench.

Judicial confirmations are continuing full speed ahead thanks to the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham. As reported by Carrie Severino for the National Review:

The Senate has recessed for Thanksgiving break, but not before processing a number of judicial nominees. Five new trial judges were confirmed last week, four to various district courts and one to the Court of International Trade.

One of the hallmarks of the Trump Administration has been placing judges on the federal bench. As of June, President Trump had his 200th federal judicial nominee confirmed by the Senate. Notably President Trump has appointed two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. One of the most lasting effects of these appointments has been the strengthening of religious liberty which has been under attack over the past several decades. In this past year’s term alone, the Court handed down 3 major victories for religious liberty in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, and Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania.

While Democrats have been obstructing President Trump's nominees to an unprecedented extent, Joe Biden has yet to discuss his most important nominees, those to the Supreme Court. 

On the first, cloture had been invoked 32 times combined on the nominees of the previous four Presidents in their first times terms.  As of today, for President Trump's nominees, it has been invoked 298 times!  Cloture is a delaying tactic traditionally reserved for the most controversial of nominees.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have used it multiple times for people who have passed with no opposition.  Most recently on February 20 for Silvia Carreno-Coll who was confirmed in a 96-0 to be a U.S. District Judge.  Hardly controversial. 

We continue our Top 10 Blog posts for 2019.  Numbers 6-10 are here.  

5. February 7: SENATE JUDICIARY ADVANCES AG NOMINEE BARR AND 44 JUDICIAL NOMINEES

Senate Judiciary Dems playing an awkward game of praising Bill Barr's character and competence while saying why they're voting against him, which boils down to Pres. Trump, with some background of unitary executive theory.

The American Bar Association has shown bias so extreme that some of its leaders are leaving or complaining of their evaluation of Ninth Circuit nominee Lawrence VanDyke.  While some of their not-qualified rating is at best subjective and biased, some of it seems to be based on an outright subversion of what he said:

The ABA letter falsely claims that Lawrence VanDyke "would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community." In fact, he flatly told the secret ABA evaluator (Marcia Davenport) that he would be fair to all litigants.

— Mike Davis (@mrddmia) October 30, 2019

Many experts have concluded last night’s CNN Democratic Presidential debate was won by Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Moreover many “conservatives” liked Mayor Pete.  However, on the issue that RNLA has been tracking- the candidate’s positions on judicial nominees and court packing- Mayor Pete was again a trainwreck last night. His position last night:

Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. 

Demand Justice, a far left group run by former Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon that has become the left’s voice on judicial nominations, came out with their “short list” of potential liberal Supreme Court nominees.  The list is extreme to say the least.  How extreme?  As Carrie Severino points out:

Amazing: there must be hundreds of federal judges Obama put on the courts, and only 4 make this list. This list would have been way too liberal for Obama.

— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) October 15, 2019

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for four judicial vacancies. The nominees include Charles Eskridge (nominated for the Southern District of Texas), Peter Phipps (nominated for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals), William Stickman IV (nominated for the Western District of Pennsylvania), and Jennifer Wilson (nominated for the Middle District of Pennsylvania). The nominations for the U.S. District Court positions are especially important because 118 vacancies remain unfilled.