Free Republic

Judge Amy Coney Barrett initially failed to disclose two talks she gave in 2013 hosted by two anti-abortion student groups on paperwork provided to the Senate ahead of her confirmation hearing to become the next Supreme Court justice. Barrett, President Donald Trump's nominee to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gave the talks in 2013 in her capacity as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. The seminar was co-sponsored by the school's Right to Life club and constitutional studies minor, and the lecture was held by the law school's Jus Vitae club. Late on Friday night, hours after...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served as a “handmaid,” the term then used for high-ranking female leaders in the People of Praise religious community, an old directory for the group's members shows. Barrett has thus far refused to discuss her membership in the Christian organization, which opposes abortion and, according to former members, holds that men are divinely ordained as the “head” of both the family and faith, while it is the duty of wives to submit to them. Portions of two People of Praise directory pages for the South Bend, Indiana, branch were shared with...

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has emerged as President Donald Trump's overwhelming favorite to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to several people familiar with the deliberations, who say the President's view was solidified during a lengthy meeting at the White House on Monday. Trump has not finalized his decision, and with days to go until he announces his pick on Saturday, his thinking could change. But for now, Barrett -- currently sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago -- is his clear front-runner and is viewed inside the White...

A New Yorker called 911 when she thought she saw a person in the iconic red robes from “The Handmaid’s Tale” on the ledge of a Manhattan building Tuesday — but it turned out to be just be a crimson umbrella on a rooftop. “This morning I called 911 because I thought a woman dressed as a handmaid was about to jump off a building,” Casey McCormick posted on her Instagram story, and later on Twitter. “The police were in constant contact with me as they figured out where to go and how to find the woman,” McCormick added. The...

A “sexy” Halloween costume inspired by the dystopian novel and TV series The Handmaid’s Tale is no longer being sold after receiving a barrage of online criticism for sexualizing the show’s subject matter — women subjugated by an oppressive government. The online retailer Yandy, which designed and sold the costume, issued an apology Thursday following the backlash. “Over the last few hours, it has become obvious that [the costume] is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than empowerment,” the company wrote in a statement shared on Twitter. “This is unfortunate as it was not our intention on...

Exciting news, America! In case you haven’t heard, we’re living in The Handmaid’s Tale. Normally, I would take this shot of news with a chaser of instant panic, given that The Handmaid’s Tale — first published by Margaret Atwood in 1985 and now elevated to larger-than-life status with a much-ballyhooed new miniseries on Hulu — is a downright nightmarish story. In Atwood’s dystopian world, a sinister cabal of fundamentalist Christians (it’s always those dastardly Christians, it seems) seizes power, transforming what remains of the United States into the cruel Republic of Gilead. In this terrifying new world, certain fertile women...

Like her co-star, Strahovski is perturbed by parallels between the reality of the Hulu series and reality itself, finding the timing of the project to be particularly interesting, beginning production pre-election, watching the election results come in, and continuing on with the series following this apparent turning point. “The Handmaid’s Tale is a human story, and women’s rights are human rights, and it’s all about equality, but at the end of the day, it’s not equal,” the actress says of the series’ resonance. “You need a feminist movement—you need to label that with something in order to shed light on...

Last night, Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. A frightening and incredibly gripping piece of visual storytelling from cinematographer-turned-director Reed Morano, it stands as a remarkable piece of art that speaks to atrocities committed against women around the world and throughout history. While writer and executive producer Bruce Miller began developing the 33-year-old novel before the rise of Donald Trump, the story of women who have been stripped of all agency to exist solely as breeding vessels for the patriarchy seems all too prescient in a 2017 when immigrants are being separated...