On Sunday night, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight took on a truly chaotic week. President Trump sweated and bellowed through an unhinged NBC town hall where he voiced his support for the baseless QAnon conspiracy-theory crowd, who allege that Democrats and Hollywood are trafficking and murdering babies. He resumed his COVID superspreader rallies and shared a batshit-insane conspiracy theory that Barack Obama and Joe Biden did […]
Supreme Court of the United States
48 posts
The Supreme Court retains a strong but largely undeserved reputation as a protector of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In fact, there is a long history of right-wing Supreme Court majorities serving as dead hands to enforce reactionary policies favored by political minorities who have lost electoral power, or even wars. Most notoriously, a right-wing court favored the South’s radical, pro-slavery positions before the Civil […]
Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation is a done deal. Democrats don’t have the votes, and not enough Republicans have the principles. Democrats’ only recourse, many have argued, is to increase the size of the court—“Court-packing” is the derogatory term—to offset the illegitimate appointments of Justice Gorsuch (after the stonewalling of Should’ve-Been-Justice Garland) and Justice Barrett. Presuming they win the presidency and flip the Senate, of […]
Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation is a done deal. Democrats don’t have the votes, and not enough Republicans have the principles. Democrats’ only recourse, many have argued, is to increase the size of the court—“court-packing” is the derogatory term—to offset the illegitimate appointments of Justice Gorsuch (after the stonewalling of Should’ve-Been-Justice Garland) and Justice Barrett. Presuming they win the presidency and flip the Senate, of […]
It was another balancing act for Joe Biden tonight, and if Donald Trump hadn’t killed our outrage receptors, many of us would probably find the confusion truly alarming. Even if you’re convinced that Biden is, by far, the lesser of two evils, it’s still worth taking a minute to stop to consider what we might be getting ourselves into with Biden and the Democrats. It ain’t […]
The malfunctioning mics ensured that the Senate Judiciary Committee fell awkwardly silent at times during the third day of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Outside the room, however, the din of politics surrounding the nomination kept getting louder. With the Senate’s ultimate confirmation of Barrett largely a foregone conclusion, both parties set about making the hearings work for them in the final weeks before the 2020 […]
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) used her first allotted questioning time during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to zero-in on the Democratic ticket’s closing campaign message: an unambiguous defense of the Affordable Care Act. “Over the last nine years, Republicans in Congress have tried 70 times—70 times—to repeal or roll back the ACA,” Harris said on Tuesday […]
“This,” began Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), “is not normal right now.” She was the 10th senator to speak on the second day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett—but the first to state the obvious. The signs were everywhere: the masked members of Barrett’s family sitting behind her and the senators sitting in front of her, flanked by bottles of hand sanitizer, ensured […]
After spending hours swatting away Democratic questions about her personal judicial views, Judge Amy Coney Barrett made a significant admission on Tuesday afternoon: that she did not consider the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling to a settled legal matter, or a “super-precedent,” at the U.S. Supreme Court. While Barrett did not signal that she intends to vote to undo Roe if given the opportunity, she […]
In Amy Coney Barrett’s America, the Supreme Court will take health care away from millions of people during a deadly pandemic. That is inevitable, at least, if you believe what Democrats had to say on the first day of Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Democrats had plenty of visual props to reinforce this point: Photos of people with pre-existing conditions on easels, which had the effect of making […]
Amy Coney Barrett’s beet pink dress spoke before she did: it looked sensible, practical, and stoically feminine, an image she aims to project. It was a pretty dress, maybe even stylish by DC’s standards. A flat bow rested on her right shoulder, just underneath a string of pearls. The justice picked a very nice outfit for her first confirmation hearing. Too bad it was curated for […]
When Republicans committed to filling the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court before the November election, they vowed to get it done no matter what came in their way. With hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee set to begin on Monday, just three weeks after Ginsburg’s death, it’s clear that Republicans didn’t anticipate everything that would get in their way. And […]
Stopping Mitch McConnell from his latest SCOTUS power grab will take an act of providence even with three GOP senators sidelined by COVID-19 and Senate rules requiring an in-person vote to advance the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and then confirm her before the election. There is nothing McConnell won’t do to get Barrett on the Supreme Court. If senators infected with COVID can’t be in […]
Dear Judge Barrett, Everyone who knows you says that you are a person of principle, conscience, and strong moral character. Having read much of your writing, I am inclined to agree with them. I therefore urge you to reflect on the profound moral questions that your judicial nomination process raises. I believe that if you do so, you will make the painful but necessary decision to […]
If you think same-sex marriage isn’t in danger of being overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas would like you to think again. Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, today published a blistering attack on the Supreme Court’s landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in 2015, arguing that it should be overturned. Thomas’s opinion is not a court decision, and has […]
“It has been a genuinely extraordinary week for the White House,” said John Oliver at the top of Sunday night’s Last Week Tonight. There’s been so much chaos this past week that the HBO host said they didn’t have time to even address the $750 Trump paid in income tax for two years (as revealed by The New York Times), Melania Trump “essentially saying ‘fuck Christmas’” […]
Even if Donald Trump gets voted out of office in November (and actually leaves), Trump-appointed judges with lifetime seats on the federal bench have already dramatically changed the face of our courts in Donald Trump’s image on a whole range of issues. The effects of the relentless push by Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to pack the courts with Trump’s picks is being directly felt in rulings […]
Amy Coney Barrett, the smart young nominee, accompanied by her young family (including seven children—two of whom were adopted from Haiti), entered the fray today. Noting the number of justices on the Supreme Court, she joked: “I’m used to being in a group of nine—my family.” It was a beautiful scene in the Rose Garden. The flags were flying—God knows there were plenty of flags—but, more […]
On Sunday night, John Oliver returned from a brief Emmys-timed break to the Last Week Tonight desk. And the Emmy winner began by addressing the news of President Trump nominating Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late, great Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Barrett, a disciple of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, is anti-LGBT, anti-reproductive rights, and anti-immigrant. She belongs to a fringe Charismatic […]
When the last U.S. Supreme Court seat opened up, Democrats held out hope that they could stop President Donald Trump’s nominee and force the GOP to compromise. “If we can successfully block this nomination,” said Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) upon Brett Kavanaugh’s selection in 2018, “it could lead to a more independent, moderate selection that both parties could support.” That, of course, did not […]
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) conceded on Sunday that Republicans were being hypocritical on their push to confirm Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the election, insisting that whatever party is in power will “do what they think is right.” With Republicans rushing to get the Supreme Court seat left open by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death filled just weeks ahead of the November election, […]
On Friday night, Bill Maher took a victory lap. For years, the Real Time host has predicted that Donald Trump would refuse to step down from the presidency should he lose re-election—and this past week, Trump publicly announced that he would not commit to a peaceful transition of power should he lose. “This week, the president fuckin’ flat-out said it—what I’ve been saying he’s going to […]
Moments after President Trump formally nominated her to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court on Saturday, Judge Amy Coney Barrett promised to “be mindful” of Ginsburg’s legacy while also employing the “judicial philosophy” of Justice Antonin Scalia. “I will be mindful of who came before me. The flag is still flying at half-staff for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg…She was a woman […]
President Donald Trump is reportedly expected to nominate federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The president is scheduled to officially announce his choice on Saturday at 5 p.m. But on Friday evening, CNN, CBS News, and PBS, quoting sources, reported that Trump’s pick is Barrett. In choosing Barrett, who currently serves on the […]
President’s Trump’s plan to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Saturday to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court is a shocking political spectacle. The formal announcement Saturday will come the day after Ginsburg became the first woman and the first Jew to lie in state at the Capitol, and less than 40 days before the presidential election. In 2016, Republicans refused to consider President […]
Everything about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death has felt wrong. I don’t mean surprising—she was an 87-year-old woman who had battled cancer multiple times and been hospitalized earlier this year; it’s not uncommon for people with that medical history to die. But every second of what’s happened since the news broke of her death has felt like some kind of perversion of what should be happening. In […]
When I look at the smears already being aimed at potential Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett, I’m left with one conclusion: This is how we got Donald Trump. Long before Trump took that now-famous escalator ride, conservatives were regularly attacked in pretty unfair ways. The closer to an election or confirmation vote, the more vicious the attacks. In recent years, decent, mainstream conservatives have […]
In anticipation of the potential nomination of a staunch Catholic woman to the Supreme Court, allies of President Donald Trump are mounting a preemptive attack on Democrats who may seek to question Judge Amy Coney Barrett about her faith—before any such questions have even been raised. But Democrats say that they have zero interest in taking the bait. “There’s no evidence in the run-up to this […]
The rest of the country may have moved on to the Supreme Court fight at hand, but on Wednesday night, Samantha Bee still had something to say about the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “This week, we, like everyone, are mourning the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” she began. “Ginsburg fought tirelessly for women’s equality and civil rights throughout her career, including more than 27 […]
As the U.S. Senate barrels toward confirming a new Supreme Court justice before Election Day, Senate Democrats face mounting pressure from their party’s activist base to take drastic measures to not only to fight the confirmation process but literally not partake in it. A boycott of all hearings for President Trump’s nominee to the high court is currently a pipe dream among a cadre of prominent […]
One week after Election Day, the Supreme Court is set to hear the latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act—and a newly confirmed conservative justice could easily usher in a decision that overturns the sweeping health-care law once and for all. Democrats might not have the power to stop President Donald Trump’s nominee to the court from being seated before it hears that case on […]
After taking the summer off and hosting the virtual Emmy Awards on Sunday, Jimmy Kimmel is back in his Hollywood theater this week. And the late-night host has a theory about why the Republican Party is so eager to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the 2020 election. Kimmel began his monologue on Tuesday by recognizing National Voter Registration Day. “If you don’t register, […]
How fast the Supreme Court nominee talk began, with the monumental life that precipitated it surreally relegated in its shadow. It’s there in Donald Trump’s creepy, elated stump speeches, and Mitch McConnell’s pathetic justifications for his own hypocrisy; in the liberal scramble to avert their idea of disaster; and in the glassy eyes of pundits who rack up their appearance fees chatting ever so amiably about […]