Texan lawyer and Linda Coffee won landmark 1973 case, safeguarding right now under threat from US supreme court
Sarah Weddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.
Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.
Continue reading...Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not the only great supreme court justice to have made her name with dissent in the name of progress
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent collar is a small part of a larger history. Unlike some other high courts, the US supreme court accepts strong dissent. Ginsburg stood in the tradition of John Marshall Harlan – the only justice with the courage, foresight, humanity and constitutional vision to object to the odious 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision that approved racial segregation.
Related: How the Word is Passed review: After Tulsa, other forgotten atrocities
Continue reading...Gavin Newsom responds after Judge Roger Benitez compares AR-15s to Swiss army knives ‘good for both home and battle’
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, slammed a federal judge’s decision to overturn his state’s three-decade-old ban on assault rifles as “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians”.
Related: America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery | Carol Anderson
Continue reading...The supreme court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer have excoriated the Trump administration for carrying out its 13th and final federal execution days before the president leaves office.
Related: Dustin Higgs becomes 13th and final federal prisoner executed under Trump
Continue reading...Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the storming of Capitol Hill on Wednesday continues to stoke fierce debate, supporters and critics split on partisan lines as they contest what the suspension means for a cherished American tradition: freedom of speech.
Related: Insurrection Day: when white supremacist terror came to the US Capitol
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s grip on the US presidency appeared increasingly tenuous on Saturday as Democrats advanced plans to impeach him for a second time, political allies continued to abandon him and Twitter banned his account, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.
Continue reading...Confirmation of a sixth conservative on the nine-member court is due on Monday, the result of ruthless Republican politics
The almost certain confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court on Monday represents a “power grab” by Republicans facing possible wipeout at the ballot box, activists and analysts say.
Related: Revealed: ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse
Continue reading...Amid talk of originalism, harking to a time when only white men with property could vote, Republican ears pricked up
Depending on your point of view, the woman seated before the Senate judiciary committee for her first day of questioning was either the female Scalia or the anti-RBG. Or maybe, of course, both.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett dodges abortion, healthcare and election law questions
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s pick for America’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an “ideological fanatic” who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden.
Related: 'Not special any more': how the Senate has failed the American people
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A quick glance at the guest list for Amy Comey Barrett’s nomination ceremony today makes troubling reading. Among the guests were representatives from Judicial Watch, which has described climate science as a “fraud”; the Heritage Foundation (which has also pushed back against climate science); and the Family Research Council (which has opposed abortion, divorce and LGBT rights).
Attendees at Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Amy Coney Barrett:
•Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino
Heritage Foundation's Kay Cole James
•Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton
•Family Research Council's Tony Perkins
•Cleta Mitchell—a lawyer tied to many GOP 'dark money' nonprofits https://t.co/q5BzTkPBs9
Now that Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated for the supreme court, the senate hearings are likely to last from 12-15 October. And, as is more than likely, she will be confirmed by the Republican-held Senate by 29 October, well before the 3 November elections.
Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, has issued a statement saying the process should be delayed until after the election.
Election Day is just weeks away, and millions of Americans are already voting because the stakes in this election could not be higher. They feel the urgency of this choice – an urgency made all the more acute by what’s at stake at the U.S. Supreme Court.
They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance. They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don’t want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned.
Continue reading...Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, made an urgent plea on Sunday to the conscience of Senate Republicans, asking them to defy Donald Trump and refuse to ram through his nominee to the supreme court before the November election.
Related: Rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell shows power trumps principle | Robert Reich
Continue reading...Susan Collins of Maine is among vulnerable Republican senators as polls indicate voters trust Biden more on justice picks
On the question of supreme court nominees, the Republican senator Susan Collins has repeatedly threaded the same political needle. It is one with a shrinking eye.
Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed America long before she joined the supreme court | Moira Donegan
Continue reading...A Virginia Republican congressman who angered social conservatives in his district when he officiated a gay wedding has lost his party’s nomination.
Related: The Skywalker window: what Democrats must do to destroy Trump's Death Star
Continue reading...The president’s West Point speech went smoothly but protests have focused a harsh light on his use of the military
Donald Trump attempted to solidify his bond with the US army on Saturday, delivering the graduation speech to cadets at the United States Military Academy and boasting of a “colossal” $2tn rebuilding of American martial might.
Related: Top US military general Mark Milley apologizes for Trump church photo-op
Continue reading...US president Donald Trump has claimed he has ‘total authority’ to supersede decisions made by state governors to ease social restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘When someone is president of the United States the authority is total', Trump said during a White House press briefing. Reporters questioned the assertion, asking: ‘You said that when someone is the president of the United States their authority is total. That is not true. Who told you that?’ Trump replied ‘We are going to write up papers on this'. Although claiming he had the authority to ‘call the shots’ for each state's lock-down regulations, Trump insisted he was ‘getting on very well with the governors’ and is ‘certain there won’t be a problem’
Outraged by what they see as a coverup in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, grassroots activists are planning a massive “payback project” designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box.
Related: By denying witnesses, Republicans made clear even a smoking gun would not be enough
Continue reading...Donald Trump wants his impeachment trial to end before his state of the union address in just two weeks’ time, Lindsey Graham said on Sunday.
Related: Alan Dershowitz: Trump impeachment acquittal would make me unhappy
Continue reading...The Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, has not ruled out including evidence from the Mueller report in articles of impeachment against Donald Trump that could be published as early as next week.
On Sunday, Nadler told CNN’s State of the Union evidence showed the president’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal was part of “a pattern”, indicating “that the president put himself above this country several times”.
Continue reading...The House judiciary committee released a report on the constitutional grounds for impeachment on Saturday. Shortly after that, Donald Trump once again insisted the whole thing was a “witch hunt” and “a total hoax”.
Related: White House dismisses invitation to take part in key impeachment hearing
Continue reading...Republicans may argue Trump’s actions were not impeachable – but scholars say it’s a solid example of a high crime
Was what he did really so bad? And even if it was bad – was it truly impeachable?
Related: 'I guess that's revealing': David Rubenstein on Trump and the weight of history
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