[WideRight05]

Knowledge is never a bad thing, Wide, but this list is just another cheap, clumsy Trump political device. Putting together a list of conservative judges does not cost Trump anything and it should get him some support from conservatives who are on the fence between voting for him and casting a protest vote.

Putting Don Willett in the list was a shrewd but cynical move. Trump would never nominate a vocal Trump critic to any position, let alone a lifetime appointment that would place him in a position to swat down part of Trump's agenda. OTOH, if Willett is an ambitious man with his heart set on being on the SC, then maybe he will tone down his tweets about Trump.

Putting Willett on a list of 11 judges when the winner in November is unlikely to appoint more than 4 justices is a no brainer. But the list, like Trump's many strong positions that are now being called "suggestions" does not bind Trump in any way. If Trump is elected, he is a likely one term president, and he will be relatively immune to political pressure from the right.

Even if Trump were serious about this list, calling the 11 judges on the list pro-life does nothing to improve their chances of ever winning Senate confirmation. Trump should have released the list and then left it to others to speculate on the judicial philosophies of the jurists. He should have stressed their records as judges who believe the Constitution means what it says and left it to others to characterize the judges as pro-life Constitutionalists.

In other words, it looks like a great list, but a great list of other people does not make Trump look any more fit for the job. I would have been much more impressed if Trump could describe the attributes that his nominees for the Supreme Court will have instead of having one of his minions throw together a list for him.

This is a man who lied about self financing his campaign for the entire primary season, despite ample evidence that he was not being honest. I hope people do not really believe that this list is any kind of commitment to appoint judges who will make conservatives happy. It isn't. It is a list of names that was assembled for purely political purposes.

It’s tough at times to really try to think this out, because I’m giving Trump's list of judges much more consideration and thought than most of his supporters who didn’t give the slightest scintilla to any of the other candidates. It turns out, actually, that it seems like this is list was more put together by The Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups. Relating to Don Willett, I’ll put it this way. If BGR had an award for favorite poster, would you consider TRT for it?

Of course not, and I say that it would go that way vice versa as well. That’s what was done in the case of Don Willett as you mentioned. Willett is one of the few judges probably in the entire country that actually utilize social media. Based on what I have read about him, I like him so far. But unfortunately, I can’t see him getting on the court. From time to time, he has made an occasional critical post of Trump. Thus, why in the world would Trump want to put someone on that list that is critical of him? That just doesn’t make sense. Unless, Trump had very little to do with the list.

I really don’t mind that, what matters to me is that the right person gets picked. However, we have to remember that we are very likely going to be back to a Democratic controlled Senate. I anticipate Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk if Illinois likely losing their elections. Kirk is liberal for the most part socially, Portman I just can’t trust. Even if we still had them given that they are moderates, I still see somebody being nominated similar to Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, or Sandra Day O’Connor. Republicans may have a majority right now, but people like Susan Collins, Kirk, and Portman combined with a few weak RINOs tend to offset that. So even if they somehow retained the Senate after having to defend all these seats, it will be difficult to get a strong conservative on the court.

I can tell you that a couple of these judges, particularly Pryor and Sykes, seem very wishy-washy. I am going to wait and see if Donald Trump releases an additional list of judges. If he does, then I will see what he decides to go by in his criteria for nomination. Since we bypassed other candidates that I feel would have a much better grip on this, we can only hope he does the right thing.

Yes, he did lie about his finances. When you first mentioned that I honestly didn’t think he would want to pay that back to himself, just because it’s a fairly small amount by his standards of money. I found it odd that he would still give himself a loan like that though and sure enough, he’s now using the donations to pay himself back for it. Trump has ran his campaign trying to distinguish and separate himself from being a typical politician, but this issue with his money is one that goes to show he is not to be trusted.

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but if I see three or four judges on his list that could turn out like Kennedy, O'Connor, and Souter, then it won't interest me. Right now it’s still likely I will be voting for Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party.