Elections Matter. Oh How They Matter.

You might have noticed that I've been frantically and repeatedly raising the alarm about the fact that Donald Trump has inherited more than 100 federal court vacancies, because the Republican Senate majority spent the last two years refusing to confirm President Obama's judicial nominees, just like they blocked Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court.

They did so to significantly less fanfare, but the consequences are enormous: Federal circuit and district court judgeships are also lifetime appointments, and, with dozens of vacancies waiting to be filled, Trump has, as the Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Robert Barnes put it last December, "a monumental opportunity to reshape the judiciary."

And now it begins.

Adam Liptak at the New York Times: Trump to Announce Slate of Conservative Federal Court Nominees.

Having filled a Supreme Court vacancy, President Trump is turning his attention to the more than 120 openings on the lower federal courts. On Monday, he will announce a slate of 10 nominees to those courts, a senior White House official said, the first in what could be near monthly waves of nominations.

The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, said the nominations were a vindication of a commitment Mr. Trump made during the campaign "to appoint strong and principled jurists to the federal bench who will enforce the Constitution's limits on federal power and protect the liberty of all Americans."

The administration continues to draw on lists of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees, put together with the help of the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, that Mr. Trump issued during the campaign. But it is looking at other sources, too, the White House official said. Mr. McGahn, who has supervised the selection of the nominees, is looking for scholarly credentials and "intellectual boldness," among other qualities, the official added.

Emphases mine.

While I'm sure McGahn has indeed been involved in "the selection of the nominees," the real "supervisor" of this catastrophe is almost certainly Mike Pence.

So brace yourselves for a judiciary shaped for a generation or more by a man who is virulently anti-choice; who believes women should be jailed for miscarriages; who holds vile anti-LGBTQ views; who is a nativist scoundrel; who is a social Darwinist; who is a shameless liar; who is deeply authoritarian; who is a warmonger; who doesn't believe men and women should be alone together; who is just the worst. An utter nightmare for progressives.

Suffice it to say, this is yet another example that blatantly contradicts the dangerous lie that there was no difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

That thing I said after House Republicans passed their disgusting "healthcare" bill...?

Fuck every single person who said or implied there was no difference between Trump & Clinton. We'd never have worried she'd sign this bill.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 4, 2017

Double it for the difference we would have seen in the judiciary between Trump's Pence's nominees and Clinton's.

I hope the Democrats are ready to fight.