Stall, block, and thwart: Your Republican ‘leadership’ at work

Republicans couldn't find the time or the courage to defund Planned Parenthood, but at least they are getting somewhere when it comes to confirming their own president's nominees to various posts within the federal government, including the all-important judiciary.

As the prophet Nipsey Russell once said: "Riiiiiiiiiiiiight."

Turns out President Trump’s nominees are being confirmed at a historically low rate, according to a press release from the White House. Apparently the Swamp doesn't want to be drained.

As of February 20, the GOP-led Senate had confirmed only 51 percent of Trump's nominees, in contrast to President Barack Obama (79 percent), President George W. Bush (65 percent), President Bill Clinton (66 percent), and President George H.W. Bush (74 percent). And in addition to blocking the president’s nominees, Senator Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are using the nomination process as a weapon to thwart other Senate business by forcing cloture votes — which require 30 hours of debate time on the Senate floor — at an unprecedented rate.

In fact, there were more cloture votes on Trump's nominees after just one year in office than during the first terms of the last four presidents combined.

Morton Blackwell at The Leadership Institute is famous for saying "personnel is policy." Indeed, by leaving so many of Obama's people in place within the bureaucracy, the Republican leadership in Congress is effectively awarding Obama the third term that the Constitution forbids.

Since it's March Madness, allow me to use a basketball analogy to put a finer point on it. One of the reasons college basketball began using a shot clock in the late 1980s is because of the success of legendary North Carolina Coach Dean Smith and his "four corners offense." Smith's teams went into a stall tactic whenever they had the lead late in games. His players would spread out across the four corners of their end of the court. Then they would just dribble and pass the ball among themselves as long as they could to run out the game clock.

It was basketball rigor mortis, but it was also a brilliant strategy.

It's also exactly what Republicans in Congress are permitting Schumer and the Swamp to do to the Trump presidency right now. This partially nullifies the 2016 election results, because we continue to be subjected to administrative applications and interpretations from a viewpoint that lost the last election.

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost wonder if it might be because Congress is more comfortable with Obama's holdovers remaining in place, and this is how the Swamp closes ranks. Will of the people be damned.

However, rather than just assume the most sinister motivation, I'm sure there's another perfectly reasonable bad reason why this is taking so long.

In the meantime, does anybody know what they do up there on Capitol Hill all day?

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