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
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One other extraordinary dodge today: Barrett said that while she has “read things about climate change”, she does not have “firm views on it”.
Amy Coney Barrett tells Sen. Kennedy: “I have read things about climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it.” pic.twitter.com/kG3cv8XN5Q
The day was characterized by Barrett dodging questions on abortion, voting rights, the Affordable Care Act, and the presidential transfer of power.
Continue reading...Republicans sought to normalise her rushed nomination while Democrats maintained a laser-like focus on the future of Obamacare
That was rich. Senate Republicans, otherwise known as Donald Trump’s Praetorian Guard, lined up on Monday to pay pious homage to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the separation of powers and the halcyon days of political bipartisanship.
Related: What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America
Continue reading...Senate Republicans are facing a shrinking window of time before the November 3 election to confirm Donald Trump’s supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, following the news that at least three Republican senators have tested positive for the coronavirus and more are quarantining after likely exposure.
Related: Confusion mounts over Trump's true condition after doctor's Covid briefing – live
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...Open seat offers chance for both parties to rally their bases as Democrats see chance to take control of chamber
The shock of a sudden new vacancy on the US supreme court has rippled out to some of the most contentious Senate races in the final weeks before the 3 November elections, throwing the vital issue of who might win control of the body into confusion.
The recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while Republicans control the Senate and the White House virtually ensures that her replacement will be conservative, swinging the court into a 6-3 conservative majority.
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
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Tim Alberta, the chap I quoted a while back re Mitch “Mule Piss” McConnell and his single-minded pursuit of judicial appointments, has a fascinating piece up at Politico.
“If there’s one Republican who could be convinced that filling the sudden supreme court vacancy is a bad idea,” he writes, “it’s President Donald Trump.”
Related: Trump names three sitting senators among 20 possible supreme court picks
Any number of variables could tip the scales in such a tight election. But it’s not difficult to deduce that had a supreme court seat not been hanging in the balance, Hillary Clinton would be president right now. When I offered this theory last year to McConnell … he grinned.
“I agree,” McConnell said.
Having been reminded countless times over the past 45 months that his Supreme Court gambit won him the trust of social conservatives – which, in turn, won him the election – Trump surely realizes that this is a moment of maximum leverage. Maybe he doesn’t bother using it; maybe he automatically produces more of the goods, keeping his most important customers satisfied, believing it’s one more accomplishment to point to.
But the president is transactional to his core. This was exactly the word– “transactional” – that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, used when we discussed the supreme court list Trump unveiled in 2016.
News is starting to come out of the Senate Democrats’ caucus call today…
Per source Schumer started with moment of silence for RBG and said “nothing is off the table” next year if GOP moves forward w/nominating process
Related: Battle hymn of the Democrats: why it's time for liberals to fight dirty
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...The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sparked a titanic political fight that could shape the future of US supreme court decisions on abortion rights, voting rights and other fundamental issues for a generation.
Related: What does Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death mean for the supreme court?
Continue reading...Joe Biden says there is no doubt the next US supreme court justice should be chosen by the winner of the country's presidential election, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday.
'She was fierce and unflinching in her pursuit of the civil legal rights of everyone,' Biden said of Ginsburg, who had sat on the supreme court since 1993. 'Her opinions and her dissent are going to continue to shape the basis for law for a generation.'
Biden said her replacement should be selected by the winner of the election in November, citing precedent established by Senate Republicans in 2016, when they blocked Barack Obama's attempt to replace justice Antonin Scalia in an election year
A panel of three federal judges blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from excluding undocumented immigrants from the census totals used to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.
Trump acted unlawfully in July when he ordered the Commerce Department to produce data that would allow him to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count, the panel said. Federal law is clear that only a single data source - the census count of total population - can be used to apportion the 435 seats in the US House among states, the judges wrote. The decennial census does not ask about citizenship status and by requesting a second set of data outside of the decennial census, Trump ran afoul of the law.
Unprecedented wildfires and rushed evacuations in Oregon have wreaked havoc on the state’s incarcerated population, with thousands now packed into a single overcrowded prison that was already a major Covid-19 hotspot.
A destructive and rapidly spreading fire in Marion county prompted the state to evacuate three prisons on Tuesday, transferring 1,450 people to the Oregon state penitentiary (OSP) in Salem. Evacuees are sleeping on the floor and on emergency beds throughout OSP, including in indoor recreational areas, program rooms and other facilities not typically used for housing.
Related: Oregon fires: evacuated prisoners sleep on floor in packed Covid-19 hotspot
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Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.
More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network.
The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention.
Continue reading...Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor, made appearance before Congress amid scrutiny over agency’s management
America’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, conceded on Friday he had implemented recent changes that led to mail delays at the United States Postal Service (USPS) but said he would not reverse the decision to remove mail equipment ahead of the election.
DeJoy, a major Republican donor without prior USPS experience, made his first appearance before Congress amid widespread scrutiny over the mail delays and his management of the agency since taking over in June.
Continue reading...Bipartisan intelligence panel says that Russian who worked on Trump’s 2016 bid was career spy, amid a stunning range of contacts
A report by the Senate intelligence committee provides a treasure trove of new details about Donald Trump’s relationship with Moscow, and says that a Russian national who worked closely with Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 was a career intelligence officer.
The bipartisan report runs to nearly 1,000 pages and goes further than last year’s investigation into Russian election interference by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. It lays out a stunning web of contacts between Trump, his top election aides and Russian government officials, in the months leading up to the 2016 election.
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Just hours after Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate, in her home state of California fierce speculation had already begun as to who might replace her in the Senate if she wins a spot in the White House.
Related: If Kamala Harris wins, who might fill her California Senate seat?
From Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem and Julian Borger in Washington:
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties in a historic Washington-brokered deal under which Israel will “suspend” its plans to annex parts of the Palestinian territories.
Continue reading...Executive order comes as TikTok faces scrutiny from US lawmakers and Trump administration over national security concerns
Donald Trump has issued a pair of executive orders that would ban any US transactions with the Chinese companies that own TikTok and WeChat, saying the US must take “aggressive action” in the interest of national security.
Executive orders issued late on Thursday would prohibit “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” with the companies, beginning in 45 days.
Continue reading...The Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton has called the enslavement of millions of African people “the necessary evil upon which the union was built”.
Related: Trump aims barb at Reagan Foundation in fundraising coin kerfuffle
Continue reading...The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin were on Capitol Hill on Saturday, for talks with aides to Senate Republicans over the next coronavirus relief package.
Related: 'Nobody’s ever seen anything like this': how coronavirus turned the US election upside down
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