Donald Trump pledges to nominate a ‘very brilliant’ woman to supreme court – video

Speaking at a campaign rally in North Carolina, the US president told supporters he had a duty to nominate a candidate to fill the supreme court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 'It will be a woman,' Trump said. 'A very talented, very brilliant woman.'

Democrats including Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have said Republicans should follow the precedent that GOP legislators set in 2016 by refusing to consider a supreme court choice in the run-up to an election

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Trump vows to nominate a woman for US supreme court vacancy within a week

President says he has ‘obligation’ to fill the vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Donald Trump has promised to put forward a female nominee in the coming week to fill the supreme court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pushing the Republican-controlled Senate to consider the pick without delay.

Taking the stage at a North Carolina rally to chants of “Fill that seat”, the president said he would nominate his selection despite Democrats’ objections.

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Trump vows to select Ginsburg replacement ‘without delay’ – live

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

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How Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death could affect Senate races – and Trump v Biden

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

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: death of liberal justice gives Trump chance to reshape the US for generations

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?

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‘An amazing woman’: Donald Trump reacts to death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg – video

The US president reacted with visible surprise when reporters informed him the 87-year-old supreme court justice had died. 'She led an amazing life,' Trump said after a rally in Minnesota. 'What else can you say? She was an amazing woman who led an amazing life. I'm actually saddened to hear that.'

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Biden: successor to ‘giant’ Ginsburg should be decided by US election winner – video

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

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Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – a life in pictures

The supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old.

Ginsburg was the second woman appointed to the court in history and became a liberal icon for her sharp questioning of witnesses and intellectually rigorous defenses of civil liberties, reproductive rights, first amendment rights and equal protections under the law

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Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg – video obituary

The supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguably the single most important female lawyer in the history of the American republic, has died from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old.

Appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg was a stalwart of the court’s liberal bloc, which Donald Trump appears now to have the opportunity to confine to a minority for a generation.

Later nicknamed RBG, Ginsburg was an icon, especially for women, and provided an essential vote in watershed rulings that combatted gender discrimination and protected abortion rights, equal pay, civil liberties and privacy rights.

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The US election is in 100 days: what are the biggest threats to it?

Fears that voter suppression would keep significant numbers of voters from the ballot box have been exacerbated by Covid-19

The 2020 election is shaping up to be a presidential contest unlike any other in American history.

Even before the pandemic, there were deep concerns over how voter suppression would shut significant numbers of Americans out of the ballot box. Covid-19 has exacerbated those fears as states rapidly ramp up their vote by mail apparatus to curb long lines and crowds at the polls.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves hospital and ‘doing well’ at home

  • Supreme court justice, 87, treated for possible infection
  • Ginsburg had procedure to clean stent, spokeswoman says

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been released from a Baltimore hospital after being treated for a possible infection, a court spokeswoman said on Wednesday, in the latest health issue for the US supreme court’s oldest member.

Ginsburg, 87, returned home and is “doing well,” spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement. Ginsburg underwent a procedure at Johns Hopkins hospital on Tuesday to clean a bile duct stent that was inserted last August, the court said.

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Trump’s taxes may be released to Manhattan grand jury, supreme court rules

Court also rules in a separate decision that the president does not have to turn over his financial records to Congress

The supreme court has ruled that a Manhattan grand jury may have access to some of Donald Trump’s financial documents, dealing a major blow to the president in his fight to keep his tax records secret – although the records were not expected to become public ahead of the November election.

Prosecutors in New York had sought the documents as part of an investigation into whether Trump had improperly handled hush payments, including one to the pornographic film actor star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

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Supreme court strikes down abortion restriction in major victory for campaigners – live

A vigil held in the memory of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old who black man who was killed by police in Aurora, Colorado, turned violent when police pepper began to pepper spray the crowd, saying that those at the vigil were unlawfully gathering in front of a police station.

Here’s a look at the scene:

Jacksonville, Florida, the city that is slated to host the Republican National Convention in August, announced that it will adopt a mandatory mask requirement for all indoor locations where social distancing is not possible.

That makes things a bit awkward since the Republican National Committee actually moved its convention to Jacksonville after the state it was supposed to be held in, North Carolina, said it would likely impose some restrictions to shrink the size of the convention. North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said he could not agree to guarantees Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee were seeking that would allow the convention to be the big, people-packed convention it was planned to be.

At 5 p.m. today, the City of Jacksonville will be adopting a mandatory mask requirement for public & indoor locations, and in other situations where individuals cannot socially distance.

Please continue to practice personal responsibility to help stop the spread of this virus. pic.twitter.com/dcAuolVMyZ

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US supreme court rejects Trump’s bid to end Daca program

John Roberts wrote in 5-4 majority opinion the administration’s decision to end program was ‘arbitrary and capricious’

The US supreme court has rejected Donald Trump’s bid to end the program that made it possible for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children to live and work in the US without fear of deportation.

More than 652,800 people, including doctors fighting the coronavirus, were waiting on the decision about the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly known by its acronym Daca.

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Roe v Wade plaintiff admits abortion rights reversal ‘was all an act’ in new film

Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe, reveals she was paid by evangelical Christian groups to take anti-abortion stance

Norma McCorvey, most notable for being the plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the 1973 landmark supreme court case Roe v Wade that led to abortion becoming legal in the United States, made a stunning admission just before her death in 2017, it has emerged.

“This is my deathbed confession,” she explained.

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Supreme court grills Trump lawyers over president’s unreleased tax returns

Trump has refused to release documents but Sonia Sotomayor says there is a tradition of Congress ‘seeking records and getting them’

As the supreme court heard arguments concerning Donald Trump’s tax returns on Tuesday, justice Sonia Sotomayor told a lawyer for the president “there is a long, long history of Congress seeking records and getting them” from occupants of the Oval Office.

Related: McConnell tells Obama to 'keep his mouth shut' after Trump criticism

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US supreme court tackles politics’ most tantalising mystery: Trump’s tax returns

The president’s tax documents have been reported on by various outlets, even winning the New York Times a Pulitzer

The US supreme court is in its second week of working by telephone during the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday it will hear the highest-profile arguments so far presented remotely: regarding the release, or not, of Donald Trump’s tax returns.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, he bucked tradition by refusing to release such information. Saying he was under audit, which would not in fact have precluded action, he promised to release his returns in due course. He has not.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg in hospital for treatment on gallbladder

The key liberal US supreme court justice is resting comfortably and will be able to continue to work

US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has had a series of health scares, has undergone non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition and was resting comfortably, a court spokeswoman said.

Ginsburg, 87, had a gallstone that had caused an infection and was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a spokeswoman said. Ginsburg was expected to participate in the court’s oral arguments on Wednesday remotely from the hospital.

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Trump is seizing the courts – only a Democratic win in November can stop him

Trump’s transformation of the federal judiciary means the stakes have never been higher in an election than they are for Democrats

He is 37 and less than 10 years out of law school. He had never tried a case, nor served as co-counsel at trial, when he was tapped last year for America’s federal bench. But he did go on Fox News to push the cause of Brett Kavanaugh when Trump’s supreme court pick was mired in sexual abuse claims two years ago.

And now he is bound for the second highest court in the land.

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Supreme court hears first major abortion case since Trump appointees joined bench – live

Remade conservative majority will hear oral arguments in case that could result in grave new restrictions on abortion access – follow live

The session just ended, so we’re just getting some insight into what kinds of questions the justices asked.

Questions focused on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients.

The focus of a lot of the arguments at #SCOTUS today was on whether doctors can sue on behalf of patients – a question of "standing". Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out overturning precedent on standing would draw into question 8 cases just in abortion law.

Oral arguments just ended at the Supreme Court – Chief Justice John Roberts is going to be the focus of a lot of analysis, as the liberal and conservative wings of the court appear to have already developed strong opinions on the case

Activist, actress and author Busy Phillips, who has been outspoken about the abortion she had when she was 15-year-old, gave an impassioned speech on the importance of protecting the right to abortion at the pro-choice rally in front of the Supreme Court.

“I will never stop talking about my abortion.” - @BusyPhilipps #MyRightMyDecision pic.twitter.com/LGGCW5kkkv

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