Wednesday, while the media continued to focus on the fallout over the impotency of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in leading the Democrat’s unnecessary government shutdown, Republican leaders in the Senate concentrated on the courts. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, moved forward with hearings on President Trump’s judicial nominees — including consideration of the president’s nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Michael B. Brennan.

Trump nominated Brennan to fill the Wisconsin seat on the court of appeals in early August, but Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., held up Brennan’s appointment by refusing to signify her acquiescence to the president’s nominee by returning her “blue slip.” But because “blue slips,” as Grassley explained, do not serve as “single-senator vetoes,” Grassley moved forward with the hearing with hopes of finally filling the circuit court seat that has been vacant since January of 2010, explaining: