| THE BIG STORY
Republicans have succeeded in putting Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court
On Monday evening, the Senate voted to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. It’s a seismic event that cements an even deeper conservative majority on the bench that could last for decades.
The vote followed a month of Republicans moving at a break-neck pace to seat Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee. The Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Barrett, with one Republican, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, breaking ranks to join Democrats in opposing her nomination.
The court’s conservative-leaning members now outnumber the liberals 6–3. Justices now routinely serve into their eighties, setting the stage for the 48-year-old Barrett to shape American law for decades.
Barrett joins the court at a high-stakes time. Legal fights over mail-in voting are pending before the court, and Trump has said he is “counting on” the Supreme Court to “look at the ballots.” She also joins in time to hear arguments on Nov. 10 in the latest major legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.
Pool / Getty Images STAYING ON TOP OF THIS The Supreme Court gave Republicans a win in Wisconsin, ruling that ballots that arrive after Election Day won’t count
The Supreme Court voted 5-3 to block an extended timeline for Wisconsin to accept absentee ballots in the presidential election. The court’s five conservative-leaning members stuck together, and the three remaining liberal-leaning justices dissented.
The background: In September, a federal district judge had entered an injunction that extended the deadline for Wisconsin to accept absentee ballots from Nov. 3 to Nov. 9 as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
In a 2-1 decision, an appeals court stopped that order from taking effect, keeping the deadline at Nov. 3. Now the Supreme Court has voted to keep that decision in place.
👉 Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “no one doubts” the challenges of holding an election during a pandemic, but that didn’t mean judges could “improvise” election rules and replace what state legislatures had adopted.
👉 Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority’s decision “will disenfranchise large numbers of responsible voters in the midst of hazardous pandemic conditions.”
ELECTION SNAPSHOTS Trump gets very angry when people talk about the virus that has killed 225,000 in the US. Down in the polls with COVID-19 cases surging, Trump is desperately searching for a message that absolves him of responsibility and will resonate with voters.
The coronavirus is pushing women out of work and away from Trump. White women in Wisconsin helped Trump win the presidency in 2016. Now they’re carrying a disproportionate amount of the pandemic’s economic burden.
Texas voters who contract COVID-19 before Election Day will need a doctor’s note to vote absentee. A voting rights group had argued that getting a doctor’s sign-off would be too burdensome for many voters, particularly people of color.
Ohio Democrats want to make their Republican Senator the next Susan Collins. The fallout over Sen. Rob Portman’s support for Judge Amy Coney Barrett is another example of how 2022 is beginning before 2020 ends.
FIGURING IT OUT “We’re in hard times right now.” Meet the nurses turning to OnlyFans to get by.
It wasn’t long ago that people stood in the streets and cheered for first-responders. During the early uncertain days of the coronavirus, there was often a sense of camaraderie and gratitude for people whose work kept the rest of us safe.
But cheering doesn’t pay the bills. Otillia Steadman spoke to the nurses turning to the online sex work platform OnlyFans to get through this precarious time.
Kate Zen, a sex workers rights advocate, told us, “This is the way it’s always been. Not just during this pandemic. For a lot of the people ... sex work is not necessarily their only occupation, or the main occupation even, it’s this emergency source of informal income that they can get when they’re in a bind.”
SHOE SHOWOFF People are copying Blake Lively’s drawn-on shoes after her post went viral, and she think it’s hilarious Last week, when actress Blake Lively and her also-famous husband went to vote, they took adorable photos, and they each posted them on social media.
Except here’s the thing. The aforementioned husband’s photo featured Lively barefoot but Lively’s photo kinda sorta featured shoes?
It turns out that Lively drew the shoes on herself, and once the internet noticed this, it became a huge meme. Luckily for all of us, Lively is loving the viral joke, and now she’s participating in it.
Here are the shoes, by the way:
Chic. Instagram Do what you can to give yourself the benefit of the doubt today, Elamin P.S. If you like this newsletter, help keep our reporting free for all. Support BuzzFeed News by becoming a member here. (Monthly memberships are available worldwide). 📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Elamin Abdelmahmoud and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here.
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