Your author cares much more about district court judges than he does about Fifth Circuit judges because (a) every appellate case starts as a district court case, and the profound majority end that way, and (b) most district court cases are decided on the facts, so review is on an abuse-of-discretion standard, where, pretty well everything gets affirmed.
So it is without much comment that I point out the nomination of Kurt Engelhardt, Stuart Duncan, James Ho, and Don Willett to the Fifth Circuit. I will say that Judge Engelhardt has always been reasonable in my not-too-frequent interactions with him, and reading Willett opinions is fun - which, good writing is hard. I couldn't pick Mr. Duncan or Mr. Ho out of a lineup, as we don't run in the same circles.
More interesting (for me) is Barry Ashe at Stone Pigman being elevated to the Eastern District. I've never had a case with soon-to-be-judge Ashe, but it is interesting that Judge Ashe isn't a maritime guy, like the three Obama appointees. He is a federal court litigator, which is encouraging. He's 61 (+/-), which is a little more experienced than expected, but I suppose that's the advantage of being a district court judge: more of the important work, less of the spotlight.