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“Mr. Combs has been singled out because he is a powerful black man, and he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished,” declares a Tuesday filing by the incarcerated Sean “Diddy” Combs to toss out the government’s claim the Bad Boy Records founder violated the Mann Act, officially known as the White-Slave Traffic Act.

Facing dozens and dozens of civil lawsuits claiming assaults, abuse and retaliation, Combs has been behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since his September 16 arrest on criminal charges. The day after the arrest, Combs entered a not guilty plea and has consistently denied he raped or abused anyone — even walking back his apology from the 2016 hotel security footage of him beating then girlfriend Cassie Ventura. Failing on several occasions to get released on $50 million bail, Combs is set to go to trial on racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in...

On Tuesday afternoon, the president signed an executive order asserting that the “President and the Attorney General will interpret the law for the executive branch,” while granting the president and the executive branch oversight over independent agencies.

In a press conference shortly after the order was signed, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf said that the directive would “reestablish the long-standing norm that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”

That is not at all what the Constitution says,...

After almost two decades leading the Republican Senate Caucus, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has finally been replaced.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who is currently the Senate’s Republican whip, will be the new Senate Majority Leader. Republican senators voted to replace McConnell in a secret ballot on Wednesday. Thune will assume the mantle when the new Congress is sworn in early next year. Republicans won back the Senate majority earlier this month, turning four seats red.

Thune, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) were all in the running.

Ted Olson, the conservative attorney who formed an unexpected alliance with a liberal counterpart to mount a legal challenge to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, has died. He was 84.

His law firm Gibson Dunn, where he was a partner, confirmed his death, but did not give a cause.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., another partner at the firm who also was part of the Prop 8 legal team, said in a statement, “Ted has been the heart and soul of Gibson Dunn for six decades and made us who we are today. He was not just an incomparable lawyer, mentor, role model, and friend, but he has made immeasurable contributions to the rule of law, our Constitution, and our country. We will miss him with all our hearts.”

Following the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008, a group of activists and entertainment industry figures, including Chad Griffin and Rob Reiner, teamed together...

In an excerpt from his new book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church, author Gareth Gore examines the ties binding Supreme Court kingmaker Leonard Leo and Opus Dei, a radical organization on the fringes of the Catholic Church that is accused of serious abuses and dedicated to the complete “re-Christianization” of the world.

Leonard Leo was born on Long Island in the mid-sixties. When he was only a toddler, he lost his father — a pastry chef — to cancer. At the age of five,...

Conservative J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge, announced Monday that he is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race, citing the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Luttig, whom Politico described as being in “the top of the conservative legal world,” was appointed by George H.W. Bush. He also worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House and clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Luttig is a counselor and special advisor for Coca-Cola and previously worked as senior advisor to Boeing.

Leonard Leo, best known as the architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, is not happy about President Joe Biden belatedly proposing reforms to rein in an increasingly lawless, right-wing policy factory.

“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence,” Leo wrote in a statement blasted out to reporters. “It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with.”

Alex Aronson, executive director at the watchdog Court Accountability, says, “Leo’s...

A new report by the watchdog group Fix the Court has exposed the enormous number of gifts Supreme Court justices have received since the early 2000s. The data, released on Friday, paints a disturbing picture of the ethical landscape at the highest levels of the judiciary.

The data shows that over the past two decades, Supreme Court justices have collectively accepted nearly $5 million in gifts, with one justice, Clarence Thomas, accounting for the vast majority of this figure. Thomas, nominated to the Supreme Court by former President George H.W. Bush, has received $4,042,286 in 193 gifts since 2004. The group has identified an additional 126 “likely but not confirmed” gifts received by Thomas.

The report also highlights the discrepancy between the gifts received and the number of gifts reported by the justices on their financial disclosure forms. According to the data, out of the nearly 200 gifts received by Thomas, he only reported 27 on his official filings.

John Sauer, a lawyer arguing Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case, generated significant controversy when he asserted, in response to a judge’s hypothetical, that a president could not be prosecuted if he were to order the assassination of a political rival — unless he were first impeached and convicted.

With that case now before the Supreme Court, Sauer is arguing that justices should not be concerned with “lurid hypotheticals” that “almost certainly never will occur, and would virtually certainly result in impeachment and Senate conviction … if they did occur.”

The former solicitor general of Missouri,...

Updated: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said that he is stepping down as the Republican leader in the Senate, ending a tenure longer than anyone else in that position.

McConnell, 82, said on the Senate floor, “This will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.” He said that it was “time to move on,” although he said that he intended to remain in the Senate through the end of his term, which runs through 2027.

Elected in 1984, McConnell has served as Senate leader longer than anyone else, but his future in that position has increasingly been in doubt after a couple of incidents last year when he froze up as he was speaking to reporters. He had been hospitalized earlier in the year after suffering injuries from a fall.

McConnell also has seen increasing fissures in his party on issues that were once a given for Republican support,...

On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito continued his criticism of the high court’s landmark same-sex ruling in a five-page statement that gave a detailed explanation as to why the court declined to hear a case that involved a Missouri lawsuit.

The case, Missouri Department of Correction v. Jean Finney, involved a dispute when jurors who voiced religious concerns about same-sex marriage were dismissed from an employment discrimination case.

In his statement, Alito agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the Missouri lawsuit. However, he said he believed it “exemplifies the danger” he anticipated in the 2015 Obergell v. Hodges case.

He further explained, “Namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be “labeled as bigots and treated as such by the government.”

Alito wrote that the way Obergefell v. Hodges written in 2015 “made it clear that the...

Warning: Contains Spoilers for Oppenheimer!

Roger Robb's role as an attorney after the Aec hearing was not as high-profile as expected, with only one notable case involving Barry Goldwater's libel suit against Fact magazine. Robb's career took a significant turn when President Nixon nominated him to become a judge for the United States Court of Appeals, a position he held until his death in 1985. Robb's impact on the legal landscape extended beyond his time as Oppenheimer's attorney, with his successors including notable figures like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Oppenheimer tells the story of a lot of real-life historical figures, and here's what happens to Roger Robb after the Aec hearing. Roger Robb is one of the most significant characters in the Christopher Nolan film, with his antagonism toward J. Robert Oppenheimer driving much of the film. However, Roger Robb's story does not end at the conclusion of Oppenheimer,...

Cast members from Veep and The West Wing reunited for a virtual fundraiser for the Wisconsin Democratic Party on Sunday, an event that was a mix of amusing memories, their own brushes with fame and warnings about what was at stake in the upcoming midterms.

During the event, actors re-enacted an abortion-themed scenes from each of their shows. They also played a quiz in which contestants had to guess if lines came from Veep, The West Wing or the real world, with an eye toward highlight some of the statements made by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-wi). Democrats see a pickup opportunity with their candidate, Mandela Barnes.

By the end of the two-hour event, about 686,000 had been raised.

“I’m doing this because I am a concerned citizen. I am a patriot. And I believe that democracy is, without hyperbole, is on the line right now, and I know that Wisconsin is a pivotal state,...

Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat, technically speaking. The senator from Arizona ran as one four years ago, but since arriving in Washington, she’s shown more interest in thwarting, rather than advancing, the party’s agenda. She’s been a favorite of corporate interests, conservative donors, and, not surprisingly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who on Monday called her “the most effective first-term senator” he’s ever seen.

McConnell was gushing over Sinema on Monday morning before she spoke at the McConnell Center in Kentucky — an inauspicious place for a Democrat to show their face,...

Click here to read the full article.

Ken Starr, a former federal appellate judge and a prominent attorney whose criminal investigation of Bill Clinton led to the president’s impeachment, died Tuesday at age 76, his family said.

In 2020, he was recruited to the legal team representing President Donald Trump in the nation’s third presidential impeachment trial.

For many years, Starr’s stellar reputation as a lawyer seemed to place him on a path to the Supreme Court. At age 37, he became the youngest person ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also had served. From 1989-93, Starr was the solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, arguing 25 cases before the Supreme Court.

Despite his impressive legal credentials, nothing could have prepared him...

At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.

This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court.

In the fifth season premiere of Paramount+’s brilliant “The Good Fight,” liberal feminist attorney Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) learns of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just moments before she is set to deliver an oral argument to the highest court in the land. Five episodes after the character hears this devastating news, Ginsburg appears to Diane in the form of legendary performer, writer, director and comedian Elaine May, who dons the icon’s signature dissent collar for an incredibly memorable and perfectly calibrated guest appearance.

Diane dreams up Ginsburg at a particularly tumultuous time, personally and professionally. As a white woman at the top of a historically Black law firm, Diane has been facing pressure to resign her named partner position. Her husband Kurt’s (Gary Cole) staunch Republican ideals and job offer from the National Rifle Association haven’t helped her case either and jeopardize her marriage.

When My Cousin Vinny arrived in theaters on March 13, 1992, nobody had any idea we’d still be talking about it 30 years later. A midmarket, fish-out-water comedy about a streetwise Brooklyn attorney (Joe Pesci) who travels to Alabama with his plucky girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) to help his innocent nephew (Ralph Macchio) beat a bum murder rap, the film didn’t get much promotion out of the gate. Instead, the studio that produced it, 20th Century Fox, invested heavily in higher-profile offerings like Alien 3 and White Men Can’t Jump. Wayne’s World...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, and his replacement will likely shape U.S. political life for decades.

Right now, all eyes are on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal judge serving on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Senate has already confirmed Jackson twice: once in 2013, when she became a federal trial-court judge, and then again in 2021, when she was elevated to the federal appeals court. Her most recent confirmation vote was bipartisan, with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski voting along with all Democrats to support her.

It’s been a little less than six months since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at the age of 87. Before her death, Ginsburg’s vocal dissents on the Supreme Court and her status as one of the longest serving female justices gave her a certain cache. Art and pop culture came to immortalize the “notorious Rbg.” In 2018, the documentary riffing off that designation, simply titled “Rbg,” secured two Oscar nominations for its look at Ginsburg’s life and career. It was then followed by Mimi Leder’s scripted biopic, “On the Basis of Sex.”

Ginsburg’s death rocked an already bleak 2020, and as the government slowly starts to come out of things, complete with a new President and a predominately conservative Supreme Court, audiences are getting a new documentary: Freida Lee Mock’s “Ruth: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words.” Premiering on Starz, the film’s premise is...

Few types of films are more awkward to sit through than listless and unremarkable biographical documentaries that fall short of their inspiring subjects. Touring the film festival circuit since 2019 and finally available to the general public via virtual cinemas, Freida Lee Mock’s “Ruth – Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words” unfortunately yields one such bumpy viewing experience.

On one hand, it is tough not to adore the central figure of “Ruth,” the legendary and influential Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last September and has been a lifelong, passionate teacher and practitioner of law, fighting against various forms of unconstitutional discrimination in the U.S. On the other, it’s curiously difficult to stay engaged with Mock’s film that merely puts forth a paint-by-numbers assembly of the wealth of material it has at its disposal.

“Ruth” consists of a collection of talking-head interviews, historical photographs and,...

President-elect Joe Biden has selected Merrick Garland as his nominee to be the next attorney general, the Associated Press and other outlets reported.

Garland, who sits on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to advance his nomination, or even meet with him.

Garland has served on the appeals court since 1997.

If confirmed, Garland would have one of the highest-profile Cabinet positions, with enormous influence on criminal and civil prosecutions. Perhaps his biggest impact on the entertainment industry will be on who he selects to lead the Antitrust Division, which reviews major mergers and acquisitions.

Biden also would get a vacancy to fill on the D.C. Circuit with the nomination. The appeals court can have enormous influence over laws passed by Congress and regulations implemented by federal agencies.

Update, 10:44 Am Pt: The White House said that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to Devin Nunes in a ceremony on Monday morning. No pool reporters were present for the event.

Previously: Donald Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to one of his staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill: Devin Nunes, who represents a Central California district.

The award is the highest civilian honor, and is presented to “individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

The White House said in a statement, “Congressman Nunes pursued the Russia Hoax at great personal risk and never stopped standing up for the truth. He had the fortitude to take on the media, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, the Democrat Party, foreign spies, and the full power of the Deep State.

Update, 6:36 Pm Pt: Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice at another White House ceremony amid the pandemic.

Unlike her introduction ceremony in September, which became a “super-spreader event” in the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci, most of the attendees in the crowd on the South Lawn wore masks and sat in chairs that were spread apart.

The White House played up the pageantry, unusual for a Supreme Court justice. With the Marine Band playing and large American flags spread on the White House facade, the event had the feel of a victory lap for Trump, who is trying to overcome a deficit in the polls in the week before the election. He largely stuck to a Teleprompter script before Barrett was sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas.

“A judge declares independence not only from Congress and the president, but also from the private beliefs that might otherwise move her,...

On Monday, Senate Republicans confirmed President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in a 52-48 vote. The confirmation gives Trump his third appointment to the nation’s highest court in his first term in office.

It's official: Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/TrIL0OW5Hp

— Axios (@axios) October 27, 2020

Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is in a tough battle to retain her seat, was the only Republican to vote against Barrett.

Barrett will give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the court by...

In high school, 15-year-old Heidi Schreck won enough prize money giving Constitution-themed speeches at American Legion halls to pay her way through college. A quarter-century later, Schreck spun her memories of all that youthful idealism into a hit Broadway show, “What the Constitution Means to Me,” which has proven to be every bit as much a “living, breathing document” as its subject since its 2019 debut at the Hayes Theater.

No doubt, in teaming with “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” director Marielle Heller to release a filmed version of her show on Oct. 16, she hoped that her words might impact the 2020 presidential election. What Schreck couldn’t have imagined is that the same week the special dropped on Amazon Prime, Senate lawmakers would be posing that very question to Donald Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, asking this female “originalist” what the Constitution means to her.

Like her mentor Antonin Scalia,...

A little more than a year before he finished his second term in the White House, President Barack Obama nominated Myra Selby for a lifetime appointment on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The former Indiana Supreme Court associate justice, who is black, never got a chance to take the job. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked her appointment, reserving it for Obama’s successor.

After Donald Trump took over, he nominated a Notre Dame law professor and former Antonin Scalia law clerk named Amy Coney Barrett for the same opening.

A shiny new Emmy hasn’t dampened “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver’s fire. On an information-packed Sunday night edition of the late night talk show, Oliver returned after a month-long hiatus with plenty to say about current events. In opening the show, Oliver took the long view, zipping from a stat-filled look at the rushed process to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s empty Supreme Court seat with President Trump’s pick, Amy Coney Barrett (described by Oliver as the “female Antonin Scalia”) through a disheartening look at how her installation into the highest court in the land could swing the court to a conservative majority.

“When Barrett is confirmed, a president who lost the popular vote will have picked a quarter of the federal judiciary and a third of the Supreme Court and his choices will have been rubber-stamped by a Senate Republican majority representing 15 million fewer than the Democratic minority,...

John Oliver kicked off his main segment of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight by addressing the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 and President Trump’s pick to replace her on the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.

Oliver played a CBS This Morning clip noting that Barrett “is a favorite of religious conservatives for her strong anti-abortion rights views and, if confirmed, would move the court to the right for a generation.”

“Trump is about to replace a liberal icon with an extremely conservative justice who’s been called the ‘female Antonin Scalia,'” Oliver said ...

John Oliver kicked off his main segment of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight by addressing the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 and President Trump’s pick to replace her on the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.

Oliver played a CBS This Morning clip noting that Barrett “is a favorite of religious conservatives for her strong anti-abortion rights views and, if confirmed, would move the court to the right for a generation.”

“Trump is about to replace a liberal icon with an extremely conservative justice who’s been called the ‘female Antonin Scalia,'” Oliver said ...

John Oliver returned to his desk after a month-long break – and an Emmy win – to focus on the furor in Washington over Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor. He offered few jokes in between his long-winded objection over Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Oliver started his segment with the GOP’s efforts to rush the Supreme Court justice confirmation process of Barrett. Oliver was unhappy that the legacy of liberal stalwart Ginsburg was being replaced by the extremely conservative Barrett. Oliver continued to describe Barrett as having staunch anti-abortion views and called her the “female Antonin Scalia.” He detailed the effect the confirmation could have for years to come listing key cases that have been decided by a single vote like upholding the Affordable Cart Act, preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy and striking down a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana. Oliver noted that in the future the...

Hollywood insiders expressed deep concerns on Saturday as President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death this month of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

As a federal judge and as a legal scholar, Barrett has a track record as a social conservative who stands in staunch opposition to many liberal causes and policies that have been embraced by Hollywood heavyweights, such as abortion, education, health care and immigration policy.

Barrett at present serves as a federal judge on the Seventh Circuit — serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin — to which she was nominated by Trump in 2017. She spent 15 years as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. Earlier in her career she clerked for arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 1998 and 1999.

In a Rose Garden ceremony, Trump introduced Barrett as “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.

On Saturday, Donald Trump formally nominated Amy Coney Barrett to take the place of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.

Barrett is a conservative 7th Circuit appeals judge from Indiana who has been a federal judge for three years. Early in her career she also served on George W. Bush’s legal team in the Bush v. Gore decision that handed the presidency to Bush despite his popular vote loss in 2000.

In his announcement Saturday, Trump described Barrett as a “towering intellect” who had “unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”

In a statement released shortly after Barrett’s nomination was announced, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called out the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to have the Affordable Care Act struck down, which would eliminate its protections for people with preexisting conditions. “Today, President Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the successor to Justice Ginsburg’s seat.

President Donald Trump formally announced Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a move that will solidify the high court’s turn to the right.

An appellate judge since 2017, Barrett appeared at a White House Rose Garden ceremony on Saturday along with her husband Jesse and her seven children.

Her selection is all but certain after reporters staked outside her Indiana home observed her and her family leaving and then tracked a flight from South Bend, In to Washington.

If confirmed, Barrett will be the sixth conservative on the court, and could be a deciding vote when the justices hear oral arguments on Nov. 10 on a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a fact that Democrats plan to highlight in the final weeks of the presidential election. She had criticized Chief Justice John Roberts 2012 opinion that upheld the health care law.

President Trump has announced his nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

Who it is doesn’t really matter — at least not in terms of the nominee’s legitimacy of the appointment.

The GOP made clear on the night of Ginsburg’s death that they planned to rush a conservative into her seat while they have the power to do so. Never mind that the voting process had already begun, which probably should have given pause to the Republicans. Four years ago, they refused to even consider...

President Donald Trump plans to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court vacancy following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, multiple media outlets, including CBS News, CNN and The New York Times, reported on Friday afternoon.

Trump plans to announce his choice at a White House ceremony on Saturday afternoon.

The president told reporters that he had made a decision, but told of reports that Barrett was the pick, he said, “I haven’t said that…They’re all great.”

The choice of Barrett would not be a surprise: She has been widely viewed as a front runner for the high court, and met with the president earlier this week. She also was reported to have been a leading contender for the last Supreme Court vacancy in 2018, when the president ultimately selected Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Barrett, 48, has been on the Seventh Circuit Court of...

Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a meaningful disagreement back in 1993, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden chaired it at the time. They were discussing societal change, and specifically how it should come about. Should a court move ahead of a populace’s attitudes and its regressive laws to expand constitutional protections, or should it be more prudent?

Biden seemed perplexed by Ginsburg’s predilection for moderate judgment, which was understandable. Others have done far better than I could in eulogizing the late Supreme Court justice,...

The gym in the basement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s apartment complex was small and dank, with low-tech equipment and fluorescent lighting, not a promising setting for what we hoped would be one of the most important shoots of our documentary about Justice Ginsburg’s life. After the justice had surprised us by agreeing to our request to film her workout routine, we were told we could shoot exactly 30 minutes of the 60-minute session. We were skeptical that RBG could do 20 pushups or hold a sequence of planks as had been reported, and expected we’d be told to shut off the cameras before the more taxing exercises began. “Until our time is up,” we told our cinematographers, “just keep rolling.”

While we were fretting, our lead character had been preparing for her star turn. Rbg entered the gym in an outfit better than any wardrobe supervisor could have dreamed up: her trademark scrunchy,...

Prior to the 2016 election, Republicans urged White House officials to hold off on picking a successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia until after the presidential election. More than four years later and the GOP wavers on their stance as the scramble to fill the vacant seat left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg begins. From inconsistent to “moral black holes,” the hosts of late night TV have their opinions on the GOP’s moves.

After paying tribute to “fierce defender of democracy” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Late Night host Seth Meyers went on to chastise President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans’ efforts to try and fill the open U.S. Supreme Court Justice seat as soon as possible.

“It’s still worth taking stock at how insulting and transparent their lies were and remembering that for the future. It’s not just hypocrisy, it’s nihilist,” Meyers said. “They’re moral black...

A Supreme Court seat has opened in an election year, and you’ll never guess who is strongly in favor of filling it — all of the people who were against it last time. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues would like to fill the vacancy created by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, despite the fact that they spent the better part of 2016 vehemently opposing the idea of having a Supreme Court fight so close to ballot-casting time. (For reference, Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death was 269 days before...

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reflected on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, telling reporters that she “stood for all of us” as she pursued “the highest American ideas of equality and justice under the law.”

Biden also said that a vote on her successor should not take place until after the election. “The voters should pick the president, and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider. This was the position the Republican Senate took in 2016, almost 10 months to go before the election. That’s the position the United States Senate must take today.”

Donald Trump Tells Reporters He Hadn’t Heard Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death: “You Are Telling Me Now For The First Time. She Led An Amazing Life”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he would bring to the floor whoever President Donald Trump nominates. In 2016, McConnell blocked President Barack Obama...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senior liberal voice on the high court and a lifelong advocate of women’s equality, has died. She was 87.

The court said she died of metastatic pancreatic cancer Friday evening at her home in Washington, D.C., where she was surrounded by her family. Ginsburg had announced over the summer that she had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment, but she said that she would “remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.”

According to NPR, just days before her death, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter that read in part, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Career In Pictures – Photo Gallery

Chief Justice John Roberts said: “Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature.

The Trump administration is pushing dramatic changes to the American retirement system that will benefit Wall Street but push average citizens into plans that are riskier, less profitable, and loaded with high and hidden fees.

In the past two months, the Trump’s Labor Department has introduced two pending changes to deregulate vulturous private equity firms and multi-trillion dollar retirement managers like Vanguard, Fidelity, and BlackRock. A third proposed change would restrict retirement investments with an underlying environmental, social, or governance mission — mainly to boost the struggling fossil-fuel industry.

If finalized,...

In his seemingly endless efforts to thwart a robust democratic participation in November’s election, on Thursday night President Trump told Sean Hannity that he planned to send law enforcement to polling places on election day. He told the Fox News host, “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement. And we’re going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorney generals.”

Rest assured, he can’t do this.

As usual, Donald Trump was not entirely...

When the Supreme Court convenes by teleconference on Monday, the news media will mark a milestone: The justices are allowing a live audio access of oral arguments.

As of now, the move is temporary, as the coronavirus crisis has forced the high court, like so much of the country, to work remotely. In normal times, oral arguments would be open to the public and the media, but with strict rules against cameras and recording devices, while audio was made available days later.

C-span is set to provide the live audio of the arguments on its TV and radio channels, as well as on its website and app.

For decades, the public affairs network, which is funded by the cable industry, has sought permission to bring cameras into the court, bringing it in line with its coverage of the House and Senate chambers and many events at the White House. That has not happened,...

In Adam McKay’s satirical Dick Cheney biopic “Vice,” the character spends years plotting to render the executive power of the presidency limitless. This concept — dubbed “the unitary executive theory” — paved the way for Cheney’s ability to expand presidential powers beyond congressional oversight after 9/11.

While Cheney himself never responded to his characterization in the movie, the portrayal didn’t go unnoticed by his Republican peers. On Friday, Attorney General William Barr took a bizarre stab at the movie during a lengthy speech to the conservative legal group the Federalist Society. Barr defended his controversial stance that the president is impervious to laws that apply to other citizens, even as Congress engaged in impeachment hearings across town. The attorney general used “Vice” to illustrate what he said was a mischaracterization of the stance. And now, in a statement exclusive to IndieWire, McKay is responding to the claims.

Barr brought up “Vice” early in his speech.

Washington — While much of D.C. made sense of the revelations found in the explosive intelligence-community whistleblower complaint on Thursday, the Trump administration’s methodical campaign to demolish every regulation in sight and cozy up to corporations took a big step forward.

The Senate Thursday evening narrowly confirmed Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to run the Department of Labor. A longtime corporate lawyer whose client roster has included Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Walmart, and Juul Labs, Scalia will now lead the federal agency tasked with...

TV shows have been taking on politics for decades. Long before “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “House of Cards” hit the small screen, viewers got inside looks at presidential campaigns, White House senior staffers, and the world of counterterrorism. Take a look back at the greatest political TV shows of all time.

Yes, Minister (1980-82)

We start our list on the other side of the pond. This classic British show starred Paul Eddington as the minister of the (fictional) Department of Administrative Affairs, with Nigel Harthorne and Derek Fowlds as his two secretaries. The show inspired numerous spinoffs and was a favorite of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.

Tanner ’88 (1988)

This early political mockumentary miniseries from Garry Trudeau (“Doonesbury”) provided a behind-the-scenes look at the fictional campaign of former Michigan representative Jack Tanner as he sought to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. The series starred Michael Murphy in the title role,...

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver lobbied for one U.S. state — but preferably not Florida, for snarky reasons — to cement gender equality in the constitution by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.

“It’s been an especially rough few years in America for women — from abortion bans to the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice with ‘resting beer face’ to the election of a president who thinks of their genitals as handles,” the comedian cracked. And while June 4th marked the 100th anniversary of Congress passing the 19th amendment, securing women’s right to vote,...

John Oliver used the bulk of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight (aside from comparing potential UK prime minister Boris Johnson to “what Kevin McCallister [Macauley Culkin in Home Alone] would eventually look like if his parents never came home”) to weigh in on the perpetual limbo of the Equal Rights Amendment, which needs one more state to ratify it.

The Era was originally passed in Congress in 1972, almost 50 years after it was originally introduced. Since then, the debate has been politicized and muddled by interpretations, and has been one state short (still) of the 38 needed to ratify.

Oliver doesn’t buy the interpretation arguments

“You can’t interpret [the Era] as not addressing gender discrimination, because that is all it addresses,” Oliver said, with the...