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 not kill Osama bin Laden in Operation Neptune Spear and instead had SEAL Team Six killed. Never mind the fact that the SEALs who took out bin Laden are still very much alive—including Robert J. […]
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 War and, after that war, played a critical role in nullifying Reconstruction and instituting Jim Crow; the so-called Lochner court devoted years to voiding federal and state health and safety regulations and other progressive laws, […]
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 course. Joe Biden has notably refused to take “court-packing” off the table, but the idea doesn’t poll well, and there are real reasons to fear it—not least the likelihood that Republicans would retaliate as soon […]
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 course. Joe Biden has notably refused to take “court-packing” off the table, but the idea doesn’t poll well, and there are real reasons to fear it—not least the likelihood that Republicans would retaliate as soon […]
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 pretty. Thursday night’s town halls were a stark contrast in style, with the ABC town hall being stylistically like Biden (slow and substantive), and Trump’s NBC event reminding me of him (flashy, interrupting, and entertaining). […]
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 election. Those respective playbooks became clear not long after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September, which opened up the seat that Barrett has been nominated to fill. But by Wednesday, with her confirmation hearings […]
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 evening. “In 2013, Senate Republicans were so desperate to stop its success that they shut down the entire government four weeks after President Trump was elected. Washington Republicans spent nearly a year trying to repeal […]
“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 that reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic were in every frame. The frequent tributes to the previous occupant of the seat Barrett hopes to fill, who died less than a month ago, and the shadow of […]
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 opened a door that President Trump’s previous two nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court did not. In 2018, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said in his confirmation hearing that Roe was “precedent on precedent” and “settled as […]
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 this confirmation hearing look more like a murder trial. Despite all of this, Barrett wasn’t explicitly cast as the villain, but rather, as a pawn. In fact, while invoking the horrific outcomes that would surely […]
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 such an ugly, rotten process. The dress stood out in a room full of anodyne blue and black suits; it spoke of soft prettiness when the proceedings are about the very opposite. Her outfit radiates […]
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 it’s even clearer that nothing was ever going to stop them from putting another conservative on the highest court of the land. President Trump and Senate Republicans weren’t stopped by the COVID-19 outbreak within the […]
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 Washington, he could change the rules about in-person voting, just for SCOTUS nominations, the same way he deployed the so-called nuclear option to end the filibuster so he could confirm Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh with […]
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 withdraw. Source link
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 no legal impact. My husband and I are still legally married, and our daughter has not yet been taken away from us. But Thomas’s screed is a terrifying warning for the millions of LGBTQ Americans […]
“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’” (recordings dropped by former Melania aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff), and Trump refusing to condemn the Proud Boys during the first presidential debate, telling the far-right anti-masturbation hate group to “stand back, and stand by.” All […]
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 to restrict voting rights and curtail immigration. Even if Joe Biden wins the presidency, his policies and legislative remedies will face legal challenges that before Trump took over the courts would have been tossed out. […]
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 importantly, there was a smart young nominee, accompanied by her smartly dressed young family (did I mention the seven children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti?). “I love the United States, and I love […]
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 Christian sect called People of Praise, which believes women are second-class citizens to men and the highest level they can attain within the group is that of women’s-issues advocate, which until recently they called “handmaiden.” […]
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 happen. Two years later, any shred of hope that Democrats might have to block another Trump pick to the high court has been completely crushed. Few on either side doubt that Judge Amy Coney Barrett […]
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, the GOP has faced backlash and charges of hypocrisy for citing the 2016 election as the reason they held up Merrick Garland’s nomination. Interviewing Kennedy on Fox News Sunday, guest host Brit Hume brought up […]
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 say forever: he’s not leaving,” explained Maher during his monologue. “The law-and-order president refused to commit to the peaceful transference of power should he lose. I mean, even banana republics are like, this is bananas. […]
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 of enormous talent and consequence…Particularly poignant to me was her long friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia, my own mentor. They disagreed fiercely in print without rancor in person,” Barrett said. “[Scalia’s] judicial philosophy is mine […]
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 Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump will please conservatives certain to see the pick as solidifying their hold on the court for many years to come. Her selection will inevitably put abortion and Trump’s […]
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 Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, 260 days before that year’s election. The nomination is also a remarkable achievement for the religious right. In less than four years, Trump will have selected […]
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 my nights of anxiety and insomnia since her death, robbed by the news cycle insistent on the politics of it all to be sad, I started feeling despair. I thought about how the justice once […]
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 been accused of owning a racist rock (Rick Perry), giving forced, homophobic haircuts, declaring a “war on women” and not paying taxes (Mitt Romney), and not knowing how many houses they own (John McCain). In […]
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 selection by Trump that anybody thinks it’s a good idea, on the left, to try to talk about her time as a professor at Notre Dame or her religious affiliations in the context of opposing […]
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 years on the Supreme Court. On behalf of the entire staff of Full Frontal, I’d like to say fuuuuuuuuuck.” Bee aimed to honor Ginsburg as more than “just a meme your Aunt Bev cross-stitched on […]
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 progressives. But as elected Democrats weigh all of the available options to resist Republicans’ Supreme Court pick, Hill aides say that there has been talk about the idea. The notion hasn’t been discussed formally by […]
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 Nov. 10. But in the meantime, they’re working to make sure Republicans who vote for the president’s pick are tagged with the painful politics of health care. But if Republicans are at all concerned about […]
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, you can’t vote,” he told viewers. “And if you don’t vote, you won’t get a sticker. And also, there’s a psychotic individual in the White House who could use some removing right now.” “It’s hard […]
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 the violations of our democracy. It’s there in Meghan McCain’s foghorn petulance which makes The View so often unwatchable. Everyone is in on the game, ghouls at a poisonous feast. Source link
Most everyone following the heated U.S. Senate contest in South Carolina recognizes that the opening of a U.S. Supreme Court seat—six weeks before Election Day—has shifted the balance of the race. Which candidate will ultimately benefit, though, depends on who you ask. Sen. Lindsey Graham was already facing a determined challenge from Democrat Jaime Harrison before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last Friday. Less than a day later, Graham officially discarded his stance from 2016 that high court appointments shouldn’t be made in an election year—and fully embraced his role as President Donald Trump’s warrior in securing a third Supreme Court […]
Seth Meyers spent several minutes Monday morning exposing the blatant hypocrisy of Republican senators trying to jam through President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee when they wouldn’t even allow a vote on President Obama’s four years earlier—all while admitting the entire exercise won’t have any effect whatsoever on their behavior “Now look, I get that highlighting their hypocrisy is mostly pointless,” the Late Night host said. “Hypocrisy only matters if you have shame. They don’t. Mitch McConnell certainly isn’t capable of feeling shame. He looks like a haunted wooden doll you’d find at an estate sale and has the same level of […]
There’s a Jewish tradition that someone who dies on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, must have been a tzaddik, a righteous person. After all, God waited all year to carry out the decree. Perhaps that offers some comfort to those mourning the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Hebrew name, Yita Ruchel bat Tzirel Leah), who finally succumbed to cancer at the age of 87, after convincing many of us that she was immortal. But the themes of Rosh Hashanah offer another lesson as well: a warning to those Republican senators pondering whether or not to support Senate Majority Leader […]
While attention focused on President Trump’s taxes, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority spent much of this year’s session quietly chipping away at the ability of Democrats to cast ballots in November. It has been clear since the Supreme Court literally handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000—based on a decision so shoddily and dishonestly reasoned that the court declared its own ruling was not to be relied upon in the future—that conservative justices are not above using their power to tilt or even decide elections. In fact, it’s happening right now. As Trump’s ongoing rants against voting by mail […]
This week, the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s exceptions to the Affordable Care Act, which will allow universities and employers to deny insurers free birth control due to moral objections. The outcry from women’s rights advocates was swift. Many insisted that contraception is an imperative part of health care for women. On Twitter, former California congresswoman Katie Hill was quick to note that birth control does more than just prevent pregnancies. It also helps to treat some conditions like endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. “Nothing to do with contraception,” Hill wrote. “Just with health, & preventing unimaginable pain. Clearly, people still don’t […]
Donald Trump is right about one thing: he lost at the Supreme Court today. Bigly, as he might say. In two 7-2 decisions, both written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court affirmed that both Congress and the New York District Attorney have the right to subpoena Trump’s (and any sitting president’s) tax returns and other financial records. Trump’s “imperial presidency,” in which he has asserted, over and over again, that he is immune from prosecution or judicial review or impeachment or even investigation, has finally come to an end. He is not. Of course, the practical results in the cases […]
The most telling revelation I ever received about Donald Trump was from a New York hedge-fund bro for whom I did some occasional speechwriting. In late summer 2015, I went to him and said, “We have to stop this guy. He’s a billionaire. He could fund his own campaign.” The hedge bro looked at me and laughed: “Trump’s not a billionaire. I’m a billionaire. Trump is a clown, living on credit.” I was reminded of that by Trump’s Twitter meltdown—a hissy-fit, foot-stomping ragefest against the Supreme Court—after winning a major portion of one case over his mysterious tax returns. He understands […]
Fox News was ready to declare “victory” for President Donald Trump on Thursday morning after the Supreme Court ruled by a 7-2 margin that he must turn over his tax returns to the Manhattan District Attorney. But then Judge Andrew Napolitano stepped in to say not so fast. “It sounds like in a strange way that might lead to victory for the president because if it goes back to the lower courts it would seem that any further action would be postponed until after the election,” anchor Jon Scott said shortly after the ruling came down. But Fox’s Senior Judicial Analyst […]
The overall numbers are damning for Democrats. President Trump has confirmed 200 judges, including 53 to the critically important appeals court, the most for any president in a single term since Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. President Obama confirmed 55 appeals court judges, two more than Trump and including nine African-Americans, but it took him eight years. Trump has also appointed 143 federal district judges, and of course two Supreme Court judges (the remaining two are international trade court judges). We focus most on the Supreme Court, but in fact it hears only about 80 cases a year, while at the […]
Is John Roberts the savior of liberalism? In the last seven days, the Chief Justice, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, has voted to strike down Louisiana’s restrictions on abortion clinics, preserve DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, and protect LGBTQ Americans from being fired for being gay or trans. So is JGR the new RBG? Source link
With almost 125,000 Americans dead and tens of million more still out of work, the U.S. government Thursday night filed its brief in opposition to the Affordable Care Act with the Supreme Court. If they succeed, 20 million people would lose their medical coverage amid a raging pandemic and a deep recession. For good measure, the Foundation for Moral Law, the non-profit helmed by Kayla Moore, wife of the Trump-approved ex-Alabama judge with an eye for under-age girls, is siding with the government. The reality is that Americans place greater faith in Joe Biden than the president when it comes to […]
By Alison Dundes Renteln, The Conversation The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in the important and much-anticipated case, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, that the LGBTQ community is protected from employment discrimination. The 6-3 ruling took many by surprise, in part because two conservative justices were in the majority, and one of them, Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote the majority opinion. In this transformative moment in U.S. history, when the public supports the recognition of fundamental human rights, including the right to marry the person of one’s choice, the law appears to be catching up with society. And the U.S. Supreme Court […]
On Tuesday, Melissa Zarda was dealing with two things at home in Kansas City, Missouri: the loud barking and mischief of her new foster puppy Winnie, a cattle dog/pitbull mix, while—above the din—relishing the hard-fought, historic victory she had just won in the Supreme Court in the memory of her beloved, deceased brother Donald. His was one of three cases featuring LGBTQ people fired for their sexual orientation or gender identity that SCOTUS yesterday ruled, 6-3, were illegal under the sex discrimination provisions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The ruling—embracing the cases of gay men Zarda and […]
It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Trump administration rolled out its new rule denying trans people access to proper healthcare on the fourth anniversary of the massacre at the LGBTQ Pulse nightclub, in which 49 people died in Orlando, Florida. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Trump administration published the rule during LGBTQ Pride month. The cruelty is the obligatory scattering of garnish for the Trump administration; the sting long after the slap has been delivered. The cruelty is relished just as much as the intended harm. The cruelty, as the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer once observed, is the point. The […]
All Aimee Stephens wanted to do was the job that she loved. “We’re human beings,” Stephens told this reporter just before her landmark LGBTQ case was heard at the Supreme Court last October. “We deserve the same basic human rights as everyone else has. That’s all we’re asking for. We are not asking for anything special. We just want the basic human rights that we should already have anyway.” Stephens, whose case alleging she was fired for being transgender went all the way to the Supreme Court, died on Tuesday in Metro Detroit, aged 59. Hers was the first case about […]