Supreme Court Says Gerrymandering Fix Up To Voters, Not Judges

Supreme Court Says Gerrymandering Fix Up To Voters, Not Judges

In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court has ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not unconstitutional.

The majority ruled that gerrymandering is outside the scope and power of the federal courts to adjudicate. The issue is a political one, according to the court, not a legal one.

“Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority decision. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.”

So for now, partisan gerrymandering, in which politicians get to choose their voters rather than voters choose their representatives, will remain a fact of American political life.

What is the background to this decision? And what does the decision mean for democracy in the U.S.?

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

As the Trump wrecking machine increasingly rattles much of America, progressives, Democrats and centrists alike got an unexpected blow in the gut on Friday with news that beloved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, was in surgery at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. Notorious RBG, as the pop icon Justice is called, is recovering from her third bout with cancer with the removal of two nodules from her left lung.

Sloan Kettering doctors insist that Ginsburg’s lung cancer did not spread to other areas of her body, leaving weeping Americans believing that she will make a full recovery.

Weeks ago, Ginsburg fell in her office, fracturing several ribs. During her treatment, scans revealed the cancerous growths. Even cancer surgery didn’t get in the Supreme’s way, as Her Honor cast a deciding vote from her hospital bed against US President Donald Trump’s attempts to place new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the US.

Amy Schumer & Emily Ratajkowski Arrested Protesting Brett Kavanaugh Vote For Supreme Court

Amy Schumer and Emily Ratajkowski were arrested today, as protesters infiltrated the Hart Senate Office Building in DC, to rally against an affirmative vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Before entering the Senate Building, Schumer and Ratajkowski joined Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to address crowds outside of the Supreme Court. Gillibrand told the crowd that the FBI had failed to seriously investigate the claims by Dr. Blasey-Ford that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her. "It was not intended to get to the bottom of this. It was not intended to find the truth. It was intended to be a cover, a cover for those who don't want to look at the truth," Gillibrand said.

Shortly after Gillibrand finished, Schumer and EmRata were arrested, writes Harper’s Bazaar. On Twitter, EmRata shared the experience along with a photo of her carrying a sign which read Respect Female Existence Or Expect Our Resistance. She wrote, "Today I was arrested protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault. Men who hurt women can no longer be placed in positions of power."

Projection Artist Robin Bell Strikes Kavanaugh's DC Courthouse With Brutal Messages

Projection artist and activist Robin Bell has turned his highly-effective visual projections on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, targeting his federal courthouse in DC with interchanging slogans: ‘Brett Kavanaugh Is A Sexual Predator’, ‘Brett Kavanaugh Lied Every Time He Testified’, ‘Brett Kavanaugh Must Withdraw’, and ‘#Believe Survivors’.

Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee has been accused of a sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, allegations he has denied. The two will appear in front of the Senate Judicial Committee on Thursday. On Wednesday, another woman, Julie Swetnick, walked into the national spotlight, claiming that Kavanaugh had been present while she was gang raped in 1982. And on Wednesday evening, a fourth anonymous, but highly-detailed charge against Kavanaugh was revealed.

On Tuesday night, Bell pulled up in front of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States courthouse in a specially modified light projection van, beaming his message onto the facade of Kavanaugh’s workplace in an effort to highlight the allegations against the nominee and create a public shaming against the Supreme Court nominee. The guerrilla intervention was a collaboration with the women’s advocacy group Ultra Violet.

“It was good to be able to help amplify other people’s voices on this one,” Bell told artnet News in a call. “We made a statement that we believe survivors, that this is who this person is, and that we’re going to go to where he works and project it on the building. It’s somewhat cathartic.”

“I’ve been getting a lot of messages and I can tell you [the projection] really helped people who feel hurt right now and are trying to not allow someone like Kavanaugh to be in power, to continue to be in power, and get to the Supreme Court,” Bell continued.

Kavanaugh's Ex Yale Roommate Says He Drank Excessively, Way Beyond Intake Of Other Yale Students

The media is REALLY behind the curve on the Kavanaugh confirmation, still not reporting the fact that on Friday 49 Yale law profs and two former deans of the Yale Law School demanded a full investigation of Kavanaugh.

The so-called liberal media is also not reporting that on Monday Kavanaugh's former roommate at Yale issued a statement that "he remembered Kavanaugh as "frequently drinking excessively and becoming incoherently drunk," in a statement released on Monday.

The numbers of people around Kavanaugh who claim that they cannot say w/100% certainty that the alleged sexual attack or harassment incidents happened -- because they were not there -- are very comfortable saying that Kavanaugh drank excessively and way beyond the normal intake for other Yale students.

And his own participation and leadership in groups like the '!00 Kegs or Bust' group at Georgetown Prep does not refute these claims in any way. Rather, they enhance them.

The hearings for a Supreme Court Justice are focused on character. This is not a jury trial.

James Roche said he is inclined to believe the sexual misconduct allegations made by Debbie Ramirez, a fellow classmate at Yale University, who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party.

Roche, who lived in a two-bedroom unit with Kavanaugh during their freshman year, described Ramirez as "being exceptionally honest, with a trusting manner," and said he believed Kavanaugh may have been "capable" of behaving in the alleged manner.

Fellow Yale professors have also alleged that Kavanaugh picked only attractive law clerks. Married Yale Law School professors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld are under intense scrutiny after The Guardian reported on Thursday that the two faculty members separately told female law students interviewing with Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90 that the Supreme Court nominee prefers female clerks who are good-looking and attractively dressed.

Last year, Chua privately told a group of law school students that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female clerks “looked like models,” according to The Guardian’s account, which was based on interviews with anonymous law students. She recommended that female clerks dress in an “outgoing way,” The Guardian reported.

Sen. Susan Collins Tells ABC 'This Week' That She Will Oppose Any SC Judge Nominee Who Would Overturn Roe v. Wade

Sen. Susan Collins Tells ABC 'This Week' That She Will Oppose Any SC Judge Nominee Who Would Overturn Roe v. Wade

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), is potentially a key swing vote  in passage of Donald Trump’s next Supreme Court nominee. And while the pressure on Collins will be enormous, the senator said on ABC's 'This Week' Sunday that she would oppose any individual who would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.

“A candidate for this important position who would overturn Roe v. Wade would not be acceptable to me because that would indicate an activist agenda that I don’t want to see a judge have,” Collins said “And that would indicate to me a failure to respect precedent of fundamental tenet of our judicial system.”

Collins, who is one of two pro-choice Republicans in the Senate -- the other is Lisa Murkowski from Alaska -- joined other 'swing' senators at the White House last week to discuss the vacancy. “I emphasized that I wanted a nominee who would respect precedent, a fundamental tenet of our judicial system,” Collins said in CNN’s State of the Union, adding that she asked the president to “broaden” his list of 25 possible nominees.

Male Supreme Court Justices Mansplain Judicial Law To Female Justices, New Study Concludes

Male Supreme Court Justices Mansplain Judicial Law To Female Justices, New Study Concludes

If you thought America's female supreme court justices are spared the growing epidemic of 'mansplaining', think again. A new study of oral arguments from Northwestern University researchers found that as more women have joined the Supreme Court, "the reaction of the male justices and the male (lawyers) has been to increase their interruptions of the female justices."

Interruptions are often regarded as an assertion of power through verbal dominance, according to the study's authors Tonja Jacobi, a professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Dylan Schweers, a J.D. candidate at the school. If that's the case, then women in positions of power should be interrupted less. Yet at the pinnacle of legal power, female Supreme Court justices "are just like other women," they write for Scotusblog, "talked over by their male colleagues."

US Supreme Court Delivers A Huge Win For Abortion Rights

Today's 5-to-3 Supreme Court decision was the institution's most sweeping statement on abortion rights since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. The majority of justices were generally skeptical of abortion restrictions in a restrictive Texas law that theoretically made the medical procedure -- which is far safer than a colonoscopy and almost any other medical procedure -- safer for women. Instead, the majority of justices found that Texas had crossed the line, placing an "undue burden" on Texas women seeking to exercise their abortion rights.  The Texas law -- which has been adopted in other states -- already reduced the number of medical health facilities offering abortion services in half. Had it stood, the number would have declined to about 10 for a 2013 high of about 40.

The decision on Monday means that similar restrictions in other states are most likely also unconstitutional. The opinion was so detailed and encompassing that it imperils many other kinds of restrictions on abortion.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. Roberts and Alito wanted to send the law back to the lower court to hammer out the problems whereas Thomas accepted the law in its current form.

20 Yrs After Clarence Thomas Hearing, Anita Hill Is 'Reimagining Equality'

20 Yrs After Clarence Thomas Hearing, Anita Hill Is 'Reimagining Equality'

Anita Hill has a new book ‘Reimagining Equality’. A series of talks and seminars focused on the anniversary of the Clarence Thomas hearings for supreme court justice have returned Hill to the soft flow of the limelight, if not the harsh glow of cameras confronting her during her testimony about her experiences dealing with Thomas as his subordinate at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The hearings also changed the trajectory of Hill’s life. The questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee, then a panel of white men, was “hurtful,” she said, and she does not believe a white woman would have met the same reception. But she also said she does not regret her involvement.

Anita Hill will be delivering the keynote address at New York’s Hunter College Oct. 15 conference ‘Sex, Power, and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later.’

Many women like myself who watched the Anita Hill interrogation in horror — by a panel of only white men — were stunned by their questions and know that the Daily Beast article is not an exaggeration.