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News and Analysis
October 25, 2017 3:37 pm | By 51279Meet Bob Marshall: Extremist Who Says Disabled Children Are God’s Punishment, Gay People Should Be Jailed, And Schools Should Have More Guns
Virginia Republican Bob Marshall, a state delegate representing the state’s 13th district, is a figurehead in a conservative movement that seeks to prevent and roll back any and all expansion of rights for women and LGBTQ people. He was once…
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News and Analysis
October 18, 2017 2:48 pm | By 28188Katsas Hearing Reinforces Why He Should Not be Confirmed
Greg Katsas, President Trump’s nominee for the powerful D.C. Circuit, had his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Unfortunately, the information he provided—and that which he failed to provide—demonstrate why senators should reject the nomination. As we noted in our…
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News and Analysis
October 17, 2017 2:53 pm | By 53562A Deep Dive into the First SCOTUS Term of the Trump Era
This month’s member telebriefing was focused on the new Supreme Court term—the first of the Trump era, with Neil Gorsuch in a stolen seat—which is taking on some major cases that will have a huge impact on the lives of…
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News and Analysis
October 11, 2017 8:01 am | By 28186The Latest Chapter in Trump’s Plan to Fill Our Courts With Judges Who Won’t Stand Up to His Abuses of Power
This piece originally appeared in Huffington Post. One of the many objections to President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court was Gorsuch’s troubling record in the Bush Justice Department of advocating and defending broad assertions of presidential power that…
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News and Analysis
October 6, 2017 5:01 pm | By 28188Jeff Sessions’ Love Letter to the Religious Right
Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice has released its long-awaited guidance on how the federal government should interpret and apply the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to all federal government programs. The guidance addresses a number of issues,…
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News and Analysis
October 3, 2017 9:04 am | By 28188Jeff Mateer And The “Kill The Gays” Conference
Many of President Trump’s judicial nominees have sought to ensure that LGBTQ people be considered dangerous and unworthy of equal protection under the law. But Texas district court nominee Jeff Mateer actually attended an infamous “kill the gays" conference back…
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News and Analysis
September 26, 2017 8:34 am | By 28189Trump v. Mueller?
This piece originally appeared in Huffington Post. After a relatively quiet summer, September has seen a flurry of media reports that suggest special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian-interference investigation is heating up. Whether it’s the FBI raid on former Trump campaign manager…
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News and Analysis
September 25, 2017 9:27 am | By 28183Protest Isn’t Unpatriotic — Attacking The First Amendment Rights Of Black Athletes Is
Freedom of speech shouldn’t have to be explained to the president. Addressing an almost all-white audience on Friday, President Trump called on NFL owners to fire athletes who take a knee during the national anthem, a protest begun last year by Colin…
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News and Analysis
September 21, 2017 1:29 pm | By 28188Trump’s Texas Judicial Nominee Jeff Mateer Is Unfit to Serve
Just when you think Donald Trump’s judicial nominees can’t get any more extreme, along comes Jeff Mateer of Texas. Yesterday, CNN and Right Wing Watch reported on Mateer’s long history of extremism against LGBTQ people, including his assertion that transgender…
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News and Analysis
September 20, 2017 8:55 am | By 53562Senator Chuck Schumer Joins PFAW Members to Talk Health Care and Other Urgent Issues
On Monday evening PFAW was joined on our member telebriefing by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. Senator Schumer thanked PFAW members for their activism which has led to hard-fought wins during the Trump administration. But he also had an urgent…
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News and Analysis
September 18, 2017 9:02 am | By 43665Video: A Two-Minute Update on Trump’s Sham Voter Suppression Commission
While we already knew that President Trump’s so-called “election integrity” commission was a sham, this week brought a few new pieces of evidence that shredded any credibility the commission might have had left. In a short video, PFAW Senior Fellow…
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News and AnalysisSeptember 14, 2017 4:46 pm | By 28188
No Such Thing as Exceptions to the Blue Slip Rule
In their effort to stack our nation’s federal courts with as many far-right ideologues as possible, Republicans have been threatening to do away with the blue slip policy. Conservatives are outraged that Democratic senators dare to exercise a right they…
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News and Analysis
September 12, 2017 8:56 am | By 28188Eric Dreiband Follows the Jeff Sessions Model: Lie
Eric Dreiband—President Trump’s nominee to run DoJ’s Civil Rights Division—learned something important last January. When Jeff Sessions lied under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing, Republicans rewarded his dishonesty by confirming him as the nation’s top…
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News and Analysis
September 8, 2017 5:15 pm | By 28188The Religious Right’s Bankrupt Attacks on Democratic Senators’ Questioning of Amy Coney Barrett
Right wing organizations are at it again, with phony accusations that Democrats are anti-Catholic. This time, their targets are the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The senators’ crime: asking a judicial nominee questions about an article she wrote that…
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News and Analysis
September 7, 2017 9:10 am | By 28188Bennet Helps Advance Far Right Trump Nominee for 10th Circuit
With Republican senators rubber-stamping all of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees—they’d confirm a ham sandwich if Trump nominated one—blue slips are the only tool Democrats have to protect our nation’s circuit courts from being taken over by ideological extremists hand-picked by…
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News and Analysis
September 6, 2017 9:07 am | By 43665
Trump Judicial Nominee Amy Barrett Poses Grave Threat to Reproductive Rights
President Trump has made it clear that he wants to fill our nation’s courts with people who will reinforce, rather than challenge, his extreme agenda. As a candidate, Trump signaled his eagerness to use the courts to roll back women’s…
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News and Analysis
August 30, 2017 10:25 am | By 28178Trump Emboldened White Supremacists — And Now They Know He Has Their Back
This post originally appeared in HuffPost. There were “very fine people” taking part in the white supremacist event, Trump contended, red-faced and belligerent. It was a sickening new low, even from a man who spent his presidential campaign energizing white…
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News and Analysis
August 30, 2017 10:05 am | By 55374“Whose Streets” is the Epitome of Resistance!
This movie highlights the struggles of people trying to voice their grievances over not only another killing of an unarmed black man by the police but also many years of systemic oppression experienced by the local Black community. Instead of…
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News and Analysis
August 23, 2017 5:03 pm | By 28188GOP Efforts to Break Up the Ninth Circuit Would Harm Justice
Don’t like losing in court? Don’t like it when the independent judiciary set up by our nation’s founders shuts down your plans as illegal and even unconstitutional? Hate it when judges who are supposed to be insulated from politics issue…
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News and Analysis
August 17, 2017 11:03 am | By 53561Khizr Khan: Trump “has failed us.”
Khizr Khan, People For the American Way Foundation board member and Gold Star father, appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 on Tuesday night to condemn the appalling lack of leadership from Trump this week. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump doubled down on…