Category Archives: US Supreme Court

Obama says Trump violated ‘core tenet’ of democracy with election ‘hooey’ – as it happened

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– Maanvi Singh and Vivian Ho

As the United States has become more diverse, it has also become more racially segregated, according to a new nationwide analysis from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

More than 80% of America’s large metropolitan areas were more racially segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, the researchers found, even though explicit racial discrimination in housing has been outlawed for half a century. The levels of residential segregation appeared highest not in the American south, but in parts of the north-east and midwest: the most segregated metropolitan area in the US according to the study is New York City, followed by Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.

Related: ‘Where you live determines everything’: why segregation is growing in the US

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The Great Dissenter review: a superb life of John Marshall Harlan, champion of equality

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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

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Anti-abortion movement bullish as legal campaign reaches US supreme court

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A case that could undermine the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and a punitive Texas law are the culmination of a decades-long push

The anti-abortion movement in the US is emboldened and optimistic after the supreme court announced it would hear a direct challenge to laws underpinning the right to abortion in the US, and Texas enacted a law intended to ban abortion after six weeks.

The high court decision to take up the case and the Texas move come during the most hostile year for reproductive rights in the nearly half-century since pregnant people won the constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy in the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade.

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US supreme court agrees to consider major rollback of abortion rights

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Court will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a 15-week ban on abortion, setting up a showdown

The US supreme court agreed on Monday to consider a major challenge to reproductive rights, saying it will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Related: ‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court

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US supreme court denies Alex Jones’s appeal in Sandy Hook shooting case

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Conspiracy theorist was fighting Connecticut court sanction in defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of victims of the shooting

The US supreme court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the Infowars host, Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was fighting a Connecticut court sanction in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Related: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay $100,000 in Sandy Hook case

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FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’

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A Democratic senator has asked attorney general Merrick Garland to facilitate ‘proper oversight’ into concerns on the investigation

The FBI is facing new scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justice, after a lawmaker suggested that the investigation may have been “fake”.

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate “proper oversight” by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

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US supreme court sides with Germany in Nazi art dispute

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Court ruled unanimously that Germany had sovereign immunity in US courts from claims over the Guelph collection

The US supreme court rejected a suit on Wednesday by the heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers for compensation from Germany for a storied collection of medieval art treasures.

Related: Nazi art dispute goes to US supreme court in landmark case

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‘This is not justice’: supreme court liberals slam Trump’s federal executions

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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

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Supreme court rejects Trump-backed Texas lawsuit aiming to overturn election results

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Court blocks baseless effort by Republicans to undo Joe Biden’s victory in four states

The US supreme court has unanimously rejected a baseless lawsuit filed by Texas seeking to overturn the presidential election result, dealing the biggest blow yet to Donald Trump’s assault on democracy.

In a brief, one page order, all nine justices on America’s highest court dismissed the longshot effort to throw out the vote counts in four states that the president lost: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Texas sues four states over election results in effort to help Donald Trump

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Long-shot lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin is latest legal effort intended to reverse Biden’s victory

The state of Texas, aiming to help Donald Trump upend the results of the US election, decisively won by Joe Biden, said on Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the US supreme court, calling changes they made to election procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic unlawful.

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Nazi art dispute goes to US supreme court in landmark case

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Heirs of Jewish art dealers bring case over Guelph Treasure that defence lawyers say could open floodgates

A 12-year wrangle over a rare collection of medieval ecclesiastical art sold by Jewish art dealers to the Nazis in 1935 will arrive in front of the highest court in the US on Monday, in a landmark case defence lawyers say could open the floodgates for restitution battles from all over the world to be fought via the US.

The supreme court will hear oral arguments on whether the dealers’ heirs can sue in US courts to retrieve the church reliquaries, known as the Guelph Treasure or Welfenschatz, from Germany.

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Conservative US supreme court justices suggest Obamacare will be upheld

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Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts indicated law could be upheld even if court deems one part of it unconstitutional

Two conservative supreme court justices have suggested the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could be upheld, as oral arguments began in a suit backed by the Trump administration which threatens the healthcare of millions amid a global pandemic.

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Supreme court to hear Obamacare case that may lead to 20m losing insurance

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Court will hear a case a week after election day that could result in the law being overturned – or only one provision eliminated

For more than a decade, Republicans have sought to destroy the signature achievement of the Obama administration – the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Exactly one week after election day, they might succeed.

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Biden attacks Trump’s ‘rushed and unprecedented’ confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett – US politics live

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Donald Trump Jr has just retweeted Derek Hunter saying that “Leftists really seem to want dead police officers” in connection to the shooting of Walter Wallace Jr in Philadelphia.

Police shot and killed a guy coming at them with a knife who was given ample opportunity to drop it and didn't. Leftists really seem to want dead police officers. https://t.co/askRXGpEzs

Related: Philadelphia protesters take to streets after police killing of black man

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany once praised Joe Biden as “a man of the people” capable of “coming off as human” and “resonating with middle class voters”.

In an interview with a New York radio station in 2015, she also said that though she thought Donald Trump would be more likely to beat Biden, then considering a run for president, than Hillary Clinton, “I think the juxtaposition of kind of the man of the people and kind of this tycoon, is a problem.”

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Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment is a wake-up call for women voters | Cecile Richards

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It’s not only Roe v Wade on the line. Parental leave, affordable childcare, equal pay, the Affordable Care Act - all are under threat

The pandemic and its collateral economic crisis have illustrated like never before that women are the backbone of America. Before Covid-19, women made up more than half the workforce, nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, and the majority of caregivers. One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential. Right now, millions of women are pulling off an impossible balancing act: working while trying to keep their families safe and healthy during a terrifying time. Others have lost jobs, have had their wages or hours cut, and more than 800,000 women have left the workforce.

This crisis is disproportionately burdening women, especially women of color. They need immediate relief, but instead of solving this crisis, Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have focused on one thing: pushing through a supreme court nominee who wants to take away healthcare for millions and strip away rights women have had for decades. And they’re doing it against the will of the majority of Americans, who believe that voters should decide who makes the next appointment to the court.

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Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to supreme court in major victory for US conservatives

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Senate’s confirmation of Barrett, 48, cements rightwing domination of court for years to come

The US Senate has confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, delivering Donald Trump a huge but partisan victory just eight days before the election and locking in rightwing domination of the nation’s highest court for years to come.

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McConnell revels in moving Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court vote forward – video

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After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.

'By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,' he told the chamber.

The Senate voted 51-48 to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place on Monday

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‘Power grab’: how Republican hardball gave us Amy Coney Barrett

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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

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Democrats refuse to participate as Amy Coney Barrett nomination advanced – video

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Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination was advanced by a unilateral Republican vote to the full Senate despite Democrats’ refusal to participate in the Senate judiciary committee hearing for what they called a ‘naked power grab’.

Democratic senators stood outside the Capital and boycotted the vote to install Donald Trump’s third supreme court nominee less than two weeks before the election.

No supreme court nominee has ever been installed so close to a presidential election and, just four years ago, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and senator Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the judiciary committee, said that installing a nominee in an election year would be a shameful defiance of the will of voters

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Amy Coney Barrett committee vote due before Trump and Biden head for debate – US politics live

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There’s been quite the online reaction to the scenes of Rudy Giuliani in the new Borat movie. In the film the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat’s daughter, who is posing as a TV journalist.

It’s just one release in the run-up to the US election seeking to make a political impact. Charles Bramesco writes for us this morning asking can entertainment really affect an election?

The run-up to the presidential election has brought about an explosion of topical projects announcing themselves as a noble bulwark against the encroaching threat of another Trump term. And with them, the age-old debate over what any of this actually accomplishes has been reignited. Every time a film introduces itself as the one we need right now, it must first answer the question of whether a film is what we really need. As of late, the arguments have not been especially compelling.

Related: Borat v Trump: can entertainment really affect an election?

The Washington Post’s over-worked fact-checkers have written this morning that in the run-up to the election, Trump is averaging more than 50 false or misleading claims a day. You’ve got to feel for them…

As President Trump entered the final stretch of the election season, he began making more than 50 false or misleading claims a day. It’s only gotten worse — so much so that the Fact Checker team cannot keep up.

As of 27 August, the tally in our database that tracks every errant claim by the president stood at 22,247 claims in 1,316 days.

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