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      Women march against Trump and Republicans in major US cities

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      Thousands of mostly young women in masks rallied on Saturday in Washington DC and other US cities, exhorting voters to oppose Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans in the 3 November elections. The latest in a series of rallies that began with a massive women’s march the day after Trump’s January 2017 inauguration was playing out during the coronavirus pandemic. Demonstrators were asked to wear face coverings and practice social distancing. Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, opened the Washington event by asking people to keep their distance from one another, saying the only superspreader event would be the recent one at the White House. She talked about the power of women to end Trump’s presidency. “His presidency began with women marching and now it’s going to end with woman voting. Period,” she said. More

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      Senators stir ghosts of Scalia and Ginsburg for Amy Coney Barrett hearing

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      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.As proceedings commenced in a brightly lit and deeply sanitized hearing room, Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s third nominee to the supreme court, described herself as an originalist in the tradition of her mentor. Like the late Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked, she subscribes to a theory of constitutional interpretation that attempts to understand and apply “meaning that [the constitution] had at the time people ratified it”.That time was the 1780s, when only white and land-owning men could vote. Oddly, Scalia often produced opinions that delighted conservatives. Outside the Capitol on Tuesday, a group of conservative women gathered to sing and pray, hands extended heavenward.Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican committee chair, asked Barrett if it was appropriate to call her the “female Scalia”. She demurred.“If I am confirmed, you would not be getting Justice Scalia,” she said. “You would be getting Justice Barrett.”All of the young conservative women out there, this hearing to me is about a place for youLindsey GrahamThat, of course, is exactly what Democrats fear.In several rounds of questioning, Democratic senators portrayed the would-be justice as a rightwing crusader, chosen to undermine the civil rights legacy of the justice she hopes to replace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, a world-famous champion of women.Outside the Capitol on Monday, progressive activists had worn blood-red robes and bonnets, symbols of female oppression taken from The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel.Barrett has roots in a charismatic Catholic group, People of Praise, which has been cited as an inspiration for Atwood. Such citations are wrong, but in the hearing room on Tuesday Democratic senators nonetheless painted a determinedly dystopian picture, of an America ruled by a conservative court.In their telling, millions – constituents with names, faces and gut-wrenching stories the senators took took pains to tell – stand to lose access to life-saving services provided by the Affordable Care Act; poor women who cannot afford to travel for an abortion will be forced to make dangerous choices; same-sex couples may no longer have the right to marry.Barrett declined to answer questions on such issues – and in doing so, perhaps provocatively, cited RBG. A dictum Ginsburg set forth during her 1993 confirmation hearing: “No hints, no forecasts, no previews.”“These are life and death questions for people,” insisted Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the panel. Barrett’s repeated refusal to answer questions on abortion was “distressing” Feinstein said, noting that Ginsburg was far more forthcoming about her views on the issue.“I have no agenda,” Barrett said, not for the first or last time.But Donald Trump does.The president chose Barrett from a list of what he called “pro-life” judges. He has said he hopes, even expects, the court will overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that established the right to abortion.The president tweets of what he expects a supreme court nominee to do politically for himDick DurbinThe president has also insisted he needs a ninth justice on the court before the election, in case the result is contested.“Who came up with this notion, this insulting notion, that you might violate your oath?” Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, wondered sarcastically, in response to Republicans’ accusation that his party was impugning Barrett’s judicial independence merely by asking where she stood on key issues.“Where could this idea have come from? Could it have come from the White House? Could it have come from the president’s tweets of what he expects a supreme court nominee to do politically for him? That is where it originated.”Despite it all, the hearing played out with an air of inevitability. Graham was clear. This was “the hearing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court”, rather than the traditional opportunity to “consider” her nomination. More

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      Lindsey Graham, reverse ferret: how John McCain's spaniel became Trump's poodle

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      Opinion

      US Senate

      Lindsey Graham, reverse ferret: how John McCain’s spaniel became Trump’s poodle

      Sidney Blumenthal

      On Monday, the senator who praised Hillary and helped get the Steele dossier to the FBI will preside over a hearing for Amy Coney Barrett, a nominee to tilt the supreme court right for years to come. His is a quintessential Washington tale More

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      Trump deserves four more years, says ex-counsel who called him 'King Kong'

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      Don McGahn, the former White House counsel credited as an architect of Donald Trump’s makeover of the federal judiciary, has defended Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the supreme court, declaring the conservative judge he vetted was “the right person at the right time”.Perhaps more surprisingly, in a rare public appearance on Sunday McGahn also laid out why he believed Trump deserves four more years in power, despite having incurred the wrath of his former boss who blamed him for failing to protect him from the Mueller inquiry, and reportedly having compared an angry Trump to King Kong.“He promised justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia, a great justice,” McGahn told CBS’ Face the Nation. “[Barrett] clerked for Scalia, became a protege of his and I think she’s a fantastic judge. There’s no reason why the Senate shouldn’t confirm her.”McGahn resigned in October 2018, amid the special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian influence on the Trump administration, with which McGahn cooperated extensively as a witness.The Mueller report confirmed that McGahn refused orders from the president to have the special counsel fired.Trump called the allegation “fake news” but tweeted he was “never a big fan” of McGahn. Nonetheless, as White House counsel McGahn masterminded the ascension not only of two supreme court judges, Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, but also hundreds of conservatives to the federal bench.McGahn has never spoken publicly about his links with the special counsel and Trump’s orders to fire Mueller, having resisted a congressional subpoena for months before a federal appeals court ruled he was not compelled to testify.McGahn was however quoted by Michael Schmidt, a Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times journalist, in his recent book Donald Trump v the United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President. Schmidt said McGahn insisted his cooperation with Mueller “damaged the office of the president”, not the president himself.On Sunday, Schmidt tweeted his surprise that a man who secretly insulted a president whom he said uttered “some crazy shit” would now break his silence to express public support.“Despite calling Trump ‘King Kong’ behind [his] back for unnecessary destruction and having to serve as chief witness against him in Mueller investigation, McGahn believes so much in mission of remaking federal judiciary that he says Trump deserves four more years,” Schmidt wrote.McGahn told CBS he thought Trump had earned the right to a second term.“He had the economy going wonderfully [before the coronavirus pandemic hit], he made a number of promises on the campaign trail that he kept,” he said.“One is his judicial selection, which he’s done. He’s set a record number of judges on there, on the circuit courts, and this really matters.” More

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      Who is Amy Coney Barrett? Trump's anti-abortion supreme court nominee

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      Subject to confirmation by the Senate, Amy Coney Barrett will be the youngest justice on the US supreme court, a position from which she will be set to influence American life for decades yet to come.Donald Trump’s nomination of the 48-year-old comes two years after her name surfaced as a possible replacement for the retiring Anthony Kennedy, whose seat was ultimately filled by Brett Kavanaugh after contentious confirmation hearings.Republicans want Barrett confirmed before the presidential election, on 3 November. Democrats lack the power to block her but the process is likely to be no less contentious than that which Kavanaugh survived.To the fore is Barrett’s religious faith, prominently her association with People of Praise, a charismatic Christian group with what is described as an authoritarian internal structure.Arguments from both political factions have been publicly rehearsed: will Barrett’s religious convictions affect her performance as a supreme court justice, or should they have nothing to do with determining her fitness for such an important role?Conservatives argue public questions about religious beliefs should be excluded. Liberals suggest Barrett’s beliefs could overshadow her ability to administer unconflicted jurisprudence on issues such as abortion and contraception, thereby threatening foundational values of religious liberty.Barrett clerked for the late conservative justice Antonin Scalia, who argued that there is no constitutional right to abortion. The gravest threat Barrett poses, according to many on the left, is to Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that ensured abortion rights.In 2017, Trump nominated the Louisiana native and Notre Dame Law School graduate to the Chicago-based seventh US circuit court of appeals.Answering a White House questionnaire, the mother of seven – who adopted two children from Haiti – said she admired justice Elena Kagan, an Obama-appointed abortion rights supporter, for bringing “the knowledge and skill she acquired as an academic to the practical resolution of disputes”.But during her confirmation hearing, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein memorably said Barrett had “a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail” and added”: “The dogma lives loudly in you.”Barrett has said she is a “faithful Catholic” but her religious beliefs do not “bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge”. She has also said legal careers ought not to be seen as means of gaining satisfaction, prestige or money, but rather “as a means to the end of serving God”.People of Praise, the group to which Barrett belongs, emerged out of the revivalist movement of the 1960s, which blended Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism. Founded in South Bend, Indiana, in 1971 and with 1,700 members, the group describes itself as a community that “support[s] each other financially and materially and spiritually”.“Our covenant is neither an oath nor a vow, but it is an important personal commitment,” it says on its website. “Members should always follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, and by the experience and the teachings of their churches.”There’s nothing particularly extreme about People of Praise – other than women are not given senior positionsWilliam CashOn Saturday William Cash, chairman of the Catholic Herald, told the Guardian members of People of Praise were on “the conservative side of the church and are unlikely to be the sort of progressives who are fanatical about Pope Francis”.“There’s nothing particularly extreme about People of Praise – other than it is very hierarchical and women are not given senior positions,” he said.The former reporter saw questions about Barrett’s Catholicism and the supreme court in the context of the White House race.“Not only is Biden Catholic, albeit in a very liberal way that will alienate many ‘trads’,” Cash said, “but Melania Trump is also a practicing Catholic and has even had a private audience with Pope Francis in Rome, describing it as one of the most important moments of her life. So Melania, Amy Coney Barrett and Biden are from opposite poles of the US Catholic planet.”Former members of People of Praise and religious scholars have described an organization that appears to dominate some members’ everyday lives, in which so-called “heads”, or spiritual advisers, oversee major decisions. Married women count their husbands as their “heads” and members are expected to tithe 5% of their income to the organization.According to a former member, Adrian Reimers, “all one’s decisions and dealings become the concern of one’s ‘head’, and in turn potentially become known to the leadership”.Heidi Schlumpf, a national correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, called the group’s level of secrecy “concerning”.Trump may sense in Barrett’s nomination a last chance to energise religious conservatives in his race for re-election. The president met evangelical leaders at the White House before introducing Barrett to the press.In 2012, as a professor at Notre Dame, Barrett signed a letter attacking a provision of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform known as Obamacare, that forced insurance companies to offer coverage for contraception, a facet of the law later modified for religious institutions.Republican attempts to bring down the ACA have repeatedly fallen short. If Barrett is confirmed before the November election, one of her first cases shortly after it could determine its fate. More