09/21/20 09/21/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy w!w! my sex. no favor for all i k of ourrethren thatat they take their feet off our next. amy: the pioneering supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg has died at the age of 87, setting up a battle in washington over her successor. we will spend the hour looking at justice ginsburg's life and

legacy with journalist dahlia lithwick, as well a man ginsburg once called her favorite plaintiff, and julie cohen, co-director of the oscar-nominated documentary "rbg." >> women are people of equal dignity and they should count equally before the law. >> she capture for the male numbers of the court what it was like to be a second-class citizen. i did see myself as a kindergarten teaeacher in those days because the judges did not think sex discrimination existed. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodmaman. justice ruth bader ginsburg has died at the age of 8 87. she passed away friday at her home in washington, d.c., surrounded by family after succumbing to complications from pancreatic cancer. ginsburg served on the supreme

court for 27 years. she was just the second woman justice to join the court after she was appointed by president bill clinton in 1993. she was the most prominent member of the court's liberal wing, a strong supporter of reproductive rights, women's rights, expanding lgbt rights, and preserving president obama's affordable care act. ginsburg's death came just 46 days before the november election, setting up a fierce succession battle, and sparking fears over the future of roe v. wade. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has vowed to hold a vote on a new justice, even though he refused to hold confirmation hearings in 2016 for presesent obama'a's nominee merrick garland after justice antonin scalia had died. days before she died ginsburg dictated a final statement to

her granddaughter. it read -- "my most fervent wish is that i will not be replaced until a new president is installed." in 2017, ruth bader ginsburg spoke to the bbbbc about the current t state of the u.s. d itits future. run.am optimiststic long said t that thece true symbolism of the itited statates iss notot the bald eagt isis the pendudum. and en the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will go back. amy: mourners paid tribute to ruth bader ginsburg around the country with visuals and gathering. a makeshift memorial formed in front of the supreme court. we will spend the hour on ruth bader ginsburg a and if each of the supreme court after headlines. the confirmed death toll from covid-19 in the united states is poised to surpass s 200,000 t e

highest of any nation by far. on sunday, the washington national cathedral marked the sobering milestone by tolling its bell 200 times -- once for every 1000 lives lost. in new york, families whwho have lost loveded ones to covid-19 9d a march. "trump lieied. 200,00000 died," they y chanted. the e centers fofor disease e cl and d prevention hasas reversed coururse and now sayays people o are asymymptomatic but havave hd contntacwith an infected person should be tested. the earlier r recommendation by the cdc that such individuals do not need testing was reportedly not written by scientists and was published over their strenuous objections. congressmember jahana hayes, the first african american woman to represent connecticut in congress, has become the latest lawmaker to contract covid-19. -- to test positive for

covid-19. global coronavirus cases are approaching one million reported deaths. unicef says the pandemic may have led to 150 million more children liviving in poverty, a 15% increase in the overall nunumber, whicisis now nearlrly2 billion chchildren who l lack sufficient access to education, housing, nutrition, healthcare, sanitation, or water. india remains second in overall covid-19 cases behind the u.u.s, with 5.4 million infections. brazil has the second highest death toll after the u.s. at nearly 137,000. guatemalan president alejandro giammattei h has tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the fourth latin american head of state to contract the ininction. in europe, madrid reimposed a partial lockdown as cases there continue to surge. cases in belgium surpassed 100,000 following a recent

spike. meanwhile, the british health minister says ththe u.k. is at a tipping point and that a second national lockdown is possible if peoplele do not respect containment measures.. under tough new penalties, people who refuse to self-isote after testing posititive for covid-19 or comig into conontact with anan infectd personon can be finened up to $13,000. wildfires are still raging across california and d the west coast. the e bobcat fire, which started two weeks ago, has become ononef los anangeles county's s largest ever, scorching over 100,000 acres with just 15% containment, prompting evacuation orders in communities near the angeles national forest. california's largest wildfire ever recorded, the august complex fire in mendocino county, has burned over 830,000 acres and continues to grow. doctors in oregon and california

said they are concerned by a surge in hospital visits as the toxic smoke envelops the region. the federal emergency management agency, fema, has approveved $13 billion to rebuild puerto rico's power grid -- three years after hurricane maria devastated the island, killing at least 3000 people. trump announced the news days after joe biden introduced his own recovery plan for puerto rico and less than two months away from the election. thousands of puerto ricans relocated to the critical swing state of florida following hurricane maria. trump has previously called puerto rico "one of the most corrupt places on earth." in other election news, voters -- early voting has begun in virginia, minnesota south , dakota, and wyoming friday. residence based long lines to cast ballots. poll workers say the turnout in many locations was exceptionally high compared to previous elections despite the pandemic. a huge trove of leaked documents

reveal how global banking giants helpeded to launder vast sums of money for drug traffickers, russian oligarchs, weapons dealers, and criminal networks around the world. buzzfeednews obtained more than 2100 suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the u.s. treasury's financial crimes enforcement network -- or fincen -- accounting for some $2 trillion in suspicious transactions. among many revelations, hpsc -- hsbc laundered over $880 million for latin american drug cartels, barclay's helped associates of vladimir putin avoid financial sanctions on russian oligarchs, and j.p. morgan chase helped donald trump's former campaign chair paul manafort move millions of dollars between shell companies, even after manafort faced charges of money laundering and corruption. the trump administration will reportedly announce sanctions on over two dozen people and entities related to iran's nuclear program as early as

today. this comes after the u.s. unilaterally declared the re-imposition of all u.n. sanctions against iran. but the u.n., including fellow security council members and allies britain, france and germany, all say international sanctions against iran have not resumed and the u.s. has no legal standing to enforce such a move. trump withdrew the u.s. from the iran nuclear agreement in 2018. in peru, preresident martin vizcarra surviveved an impeachmt vote friday as peru grapples with a major economic crisis and one of the world's worst covid-19 outbreaks. vizcarra was accused of intervening in the allocation of government contracts and then obstructing the government's investigation. in belarus, police arrestedd hundreds of women demonstrators saturday as an estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of minsk in the latest protest demanding president alexander lukashko resign llowing his highly contested re-election last month. the protests came as hackers leaked the names and personal

details of over 1000 belarusian police offfficers. policece and securitity forces e engaged in a violent crackdown on demonstrationons since the uprising began in august. in thailand, p protesters are calling for a general strike as they continue to demand democratic reforms and constraints on the power and budget of the monarchy. the months-longs, student-led, anti-government protest movement has seen some of the largest turnout in years despite the pandememic. on sunday, protesters laid a plaque in cement near the royal grand palace that said -- "this country belongs to the people and is not the property of the monarch as they have deceived us." backckn the u.s., in immigratatn news, pauline binam, a cameroonian mother who says she was involuntarily sterilized while held at the privately owned irwin county detention center in georgia, has been granted humanitarian release. binam's attorney says binam's fallopian tube was removed without her knowledge by the same doctor who is accused of

performing forced hysterectomies on a number of other prisoners, and who is reportedly not a board-certified ob-gyn. last week, binam's deportation was halted at the last minute after pressure from immigration rights advocates and membersrsf congress. here in new york city, police arrested 86 people in times square saturday as they gathered for a nonviolent protest demanding the abolition of ice. video of the mass arrest shows officers pulling apart demonstrators who linked arms and sat in the street while violently arresting bicyclists who had temporarily blocked traffic. the protesters were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. in other news from new york city, climate activists unveiled a massive e climate clclock, counngng dowthe e crical t te left for actn n to pventnt t mo destrucve effec of the climatcacatastphe from becoming irrevsisible. the counowown wareveveal on the metromome innionon sare asas climate ekek, asell l ashe u.n. genalal assbly,y, kk off.f. this is gagogolan, who

originated the proje.. >> i hope that when n people see the clockck, it helpsps them thk about what are the things th are st imporntnt to them in thisororld, ingsgs tt theyey and a what to protect defend from climate catasophehe. bebecae these xt seven years e our best sh to do tt. an evevery day, every hour, and every y second couounts. and this friday, september ,, thyouth-led globallilimate ststrikeill l ho actions in over 2500 locatio around the wod. a plned ban tiktok s averd sundayfter trump apoved a dl that wl see oracle and walmart own 20% of the popular video-sharing app's u.s. operations. the e rest will still be owned y the chinese company bytedance. oracle will host u.s. user data. trump said he wanted $5 billion from the deal to go towards his so-calalled patriotic education commission. meanwhile, a federal judge blblocked trump's attempt to s t down the chinese app wechat,

also planned for sunday, ruling trump's executive ororder represesents a violation of free speech. and noted historian stephen cohen died friday at 81 of lung cancer. cohen was a writer and professor at new york university and princeton university, who studied russia, including the rise and fall of communism and russian leadership. stephen cohen appeared on democracy now! many times. here he is in december 2016 speaking about u.s.-russia relations following the election of donald trump. >> we now have three cold war fronts that are fraught with possibility part work in the baltic area. twoine in syria, between nuclear powers, things are very dangerous. we desperately need in this country discussion of american policy toward russia. we can't keep saying anany untrh that this new cold war is solely the fault of putin.

that was stephen cohen, who died amy:that was stephen cohen, who died friday. he is survived by his three children, four grandchildren, and his spouse katrina vanden heuvel, editorial director and publisher of the nation. and those are sosome of the headlines. this is democracy now!, dedemocracynow.org, the e quarae report. i'm amy goodman. we spend the hour looking at the life and legacy of ruth bader ginsburg, as well as the futurue of the supupreme courtrt. ginsbuburg died onon friday at e age of 87 after serving 27 years as a supreme court justice, becoming the most prominent member of the court's liberal wing. ginsburg first gained fame in the 1970's when she co-founded the women's rights project at the american civil liberties union, where she argued six gender discrimination cases before the supreme court. winning five. e once fously qued the abolitiost sarahrimke dung onof her ol argumes. posion in 18

but rah grimke, not abolitiostnd advoce of pele right f men and wen. eaid, i ask no favor r my sex. all i ask of our brethren is that t they take their feet off our necks. amy: ruth bader ginsburg became a federal appellate judge in 1980 and then in 1993 was sworn in as just the second female supreme court justice. during her senate confirmation hearing, she openly dedefended a women's right to have an abortion. tothis is something central a woman's life, to her dignity. it is a decision that she must herself. and w when government controls that decision for her, , she is being treated as less than a

fully adult human responsible for her own choices. amy: the senate confirmed ginsburg 96 to 3. as a supreme court justice, she was a strong supporter of reproductive rights, women's rights,expanding lgbtq and expanding president obama's affordable care act. some of ginsburg's most memorable opinions were dissents. in 2013, she dissented when they struck down a section of the key butting rights act. she wrote -- ginsburg was known to be a leader on the court's liberal wing, but she sometimes sided with her conservative colleagues. she joined the conservative majority approving a natural gas pipeline being built under the

appalachian trail. she also approved the trump administration's policy of expediting deportation of people seeking asylum. ginsburg's death has set off battle in washington. she died on september 18 -- just 46 days before the november election. in 2016, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for merrick garland, president obama's pick to replace justice antonin scalia who died 269 days -- nearly nine months before the election. at the time, mcconnell said -- "the american people should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme court justice.e." bubut now mccoconnell l has vowo hold a vote on trump's pick to replace ginsbuburg, setting offa battle in the senate w where the republicans maintain a 53-47 advantage. the democrats need 51 votes to block a potential nominee. two republican senators, lisa murkowski and susan collins, have already said they oppose voting on ginsburg's replacement before the election. president trump is expected to

nominate a replacement for ginsburg as soon as tuesday. top contenders include federal judges barbara lagoa and amy coney barrett. if the senate confirms trump's nominee, it will give conservatives a six to three advantage on the court. it would also mean the majority of the justices on the court were selected by presidents that did not win the popular vote. daysys before she died, ginsburg dictated a final statement to her granddaughter. it read -- "my most fervent wish is that i will not be replaced until a new president is installed." over the weekend, vigils were held outside the supreme court and across the country to remember ruth bader ginsburg. later in the program, we will be joined by a man ginsburg once called her favorite plaintiff and we will be joined by julie cohen of "rbg." but we begin today's show with dahlia lithwick. she is senior legal

correspondent at slate.com. her latest piece is headlined "what ruth bader ginsburg would want america to do now." welcome to democracy now! thank you for joining us. i know this is a deeply painful day for you both personally and polilitically. talk about how you c ce to knoww justice ginsbuburg, what she met to you, what you think about what is happening today. >> thanks, amy. ththanks for having me.. i got to know her actually lateish in my career. i have been covering the court for sosome time and justice ginsburg gave an interview to "the wall street journal" and he asked her whwho she read edging and d become a a look and then e said,, i read that girl at slate dahlia lithwick, then n she cald me spicy.. i think shshe liked the fact i s irreverent. shorortly after r that, i got to

interview her for the first time when "glamour" named her there woman of the yeaear and she gave me an amazing interview. just most recently, i got to sit down with her in late january, right before the court shut down for covid. i got to spend an hour just talking a about her experience bebeing one of nine women who started at harvard law school in a class ofof 500 man. i have been incredibly blessed in my connections to her. as to what shehe meant to me, i started law school just as she was being elevated to the bench. i think i i can say with great confidence that had i not seeeen sandra day o'connor and ruth bader ginsburg on the supreme court, i would not probably have felt there was a place for me at law school. i know thousands andhohousan ofomen feethe sasa. marker of what a

womacacan do what every turn is fac with closed doors, lost portunities, unbieievabl diriminanaon, and how at ery rn she tk tha t turn ound, anturned iinto anheruccess.. i juju think the arc of her fe s been tfight fothe w wen whcamefter andndo bearar the responbility othe womewho came befe who could not finish the fight. about what you feel are her most important contributions.s. well, you have identified --- i i think she sort of hasas thre acts in america. the first is her unbelievable the negation career. at the women's rights project at the aclu, she almost single-handedly became the

architect of a series of what looked to be small, incremental cases that fought consistently to do away with gender didiscrimination built in the l. the genius of those cases -- i know you're g going to talk abot this later -- issue would bring them on behalf of men, not women, that men who were subject to discriminatory laws because the law assumed men went out to work and women stayed home as caregivers. and she built slowly, the same way ththurgood marshall built in the way of race equality, one case a after another after anotr to dismantle that patriarchal view of the world. so there is that piece of it, which is the legal career that ends up really enforcing the idea of equality under the constitution. then there is her time on the court and the enormrmous seriesf cases shshe both authored and later r dissented in wherere sht

a fact. most famously, when the virginia military institute, she forced them to accept women cadets, writing it is discriminatorory o assume womomen cadets can't go o that s school. changed the landscape forever. i think this third act, which we really only saw in the lastt decadede, where she became this 5' less than 100 pounds rbg and everyone h headed toback and had the e earrings and everybody knew her dissent by heart, she became this larger-than-life, certainly larger than one associate justice on the court. and i think she became a symbol, particularly in the last fofour years for women who felt powerless andd hopeless that you don't get to feel powerless and helpless. you just keeeep fighting. amy: and how she became the notorious r.b.g.? -- for the end

of her career, shehe was writing many more dissents than n she ws writing majority opinions.s. her dissent in the shelby county case, the one that gutted the heart of t the voting rights ac, that l line about doing away wih preclearance is like checking your umbrella because it worked. that got set to musicic. a whole bunch of young women really, i think, constructed this idea t that she was in fact not all that different from a rapper a and that she was this icon and that t her words needed to be disseminated beyond the fofour corners of opinions out into the world. at that point, her hobby lobby dissent then was also said to music. time and time and time again, things that she did that might have been ignored by mass

culture got pushed out under the guise of this is this tiny little woman with the tilted crown. she is changing the world, not within the auspices of the court, she is writing dissent, bubut the words she is giving particularly young people and particularly to young women, the language of dissent, the language of using the law and your words to affect change. it just became a a phenomenon. the likes i've neverer seen on e coururt. amy: dahlia lithwick, she wasn't the most progressive member, probably sononia sotomayor is. in the last years, she sided with conservative majority when it came to building a natural gas pipeline, when it came to approving the trump administration policy of expediting deportation of people seeking asylum, ultimately calling:'s mood to take a knee dumumb.

>> i think the ways that we misapprehended ginsburg are really at the core of what you just said, which is i really truly belieieve that she was the small conservrvative rep the court. if you thought she wasas out burning her bra, breaking thihis down, taking things apart, then yoyou kinda missed thehe real s. because shshe was fundamentallya creaturere of the 1950's and 1960's. she was very, very much not a 191970's radical, certainly nota pipink pussy hat radical. when s she was on the d.c.c. cot circuit -- court of appeals, like turbos with antoninin scala a morere than anyone else.e. she was fundamentally a moderate centririst, often conservative, jurist. she was very, very, very much

given a not for nott hiring nearly enough minority clerks. all of that t is -- amy: what african-american clerk. >> and i think we have to be very honest about the fact that arcrchitect ofe the gender quality world we live in now and also that she was very, very effective in part because she was a get along person. she was very much conciliatory. always cared about the corm. meeting people where they were. she was but those things, amy, and i think in some ways we hahe to respect bototh parts of this. amy: i want to turn to donald trump at the north carolina rally he held on saturday were nominated wowoman to justice ruh babader ginsburg and seemed to imply he had until inauguration day 2021. pres. trump: but the white house and the senate majority have a moral duty to fulfill the promises they made to the voters

, and that is exactly what we are going to do. we said if for any reason we have a vacancy on the united states supreme court, we will fill that vacancy. we are not going to say -- by the way, we have plenty of time. there's a lot of time. january 20,ng about right? amy: you can hear the people chanting "fill her seat." trump, not nominating a third justice to lifetime apartment on the supreme court. if you can talk about what he said he is going to do, who some of the top candidates are to fill ruth bader ginsburg's place? >> i thinknk the single most important thing to do is not waste a lot of our brain cells trying to reconcile the message that h he and mitch mcconnell ae putting out now with the message that mitch mcconnell put out in

2016 with nine months left ago, they said it is way too late for president to nominate someone. we will let the voters decide. i think we can agree hypocrisy does not begin to touch on that. the question is, can he rush someone through? i should note for your audience that the polling i saw effective yesterday said 63% of the country, including 50% of republicans, don't think somebodydy should be jammed onto thee court just in order to fill the seat. i guess he will press through. ththe folks were on thee shortlt he has said he wants to nominate a woman, so it is largely women, probably the front runner is amy coney barrett. he said when he had her on the shortlist voyage ultimately became the kavanaugh seat, he was saving her for the ginsburg seat.

he has been fully vetted. she's only 48 years old. she sits on the seven certain -- circuit court of appeals. she's only been on the bench for a couple of years. i think it is fair to say on case after case after case,, includining abortion, including age discrimination, asasylum-seekers and guns, she s ofn on the hard right side the fence. often, in fact, gettingng disdainful statements from reagan and bush h appointees abt how radicalal her worldview is. the other thing about her is she very, very much has written about how religion informs her judicial thinking. and when that was raised at her lower court hearings, it was seen as a huge affront. so she brings to the table the ability to be deeply religious.

impolitic to- appear in the question hererbout itit. babarbaraa lagoa is 52, on the h circuit. she is one of the judges that just ruled that all of those taxes and fees that felons need to pay prior to voting is not a popoll tax and t that it can be enforced, which would disenfranchise thousands and thousands of formally written franchised felons in florida. joananarsen is probably the third pererson on t the shortli. amy: on the issue of barbara lagoa, she is cuban-american, from the swing state of florida, ati swing staten purse onx eyes. >> would serve him well in florida. person,sen is the last 51 years old on the sixth circuit.

trunk is still looking at several other very, very young women. we will know i guess as soon as tomorrow. amy: i want to turn to alexandria ocasio-cortez. on sunday, she the democrat, senate democratic leader chuck 's high went to ginsburg and urgedn brooklyn supporters to call on senate republicans not to vote on any supreme court nominee. >> we must use every tool at our disposal from everyday people, especially in swing states. we need everyday people to call on senators, to call on folks on the bubble, to call republican senator's to make sure that they hold us vacancy open. and we must also commit to using every procedural tool available that we by the

time necessary. in that is alexandria ocasio-cortez. pretty rare to see her and chuck schumer together. they were by themselves in front of james madison high school. dahlia lithwick, what are those things you think could be done right now for people deeply concerned about a t third trump appointed to t the supreme cour? >> i think they have to make noise and i think that i is what she was sayiying. that demsbe the case have won the popular vote in seven out of the eight elections from 1992 until now and yet the gop is appoiointed 14 out of 18, now seat 15 out of 19 supreme court seats. it is a majority -- minority have a majority court because minority-majority president and

senate ratifying it. i think what she is saying is we have to stop behaving as though the court belongs to the republicans. theyey campaigign on it, they ve on it, get thehe single minded issue for thehem, and democrats have tended in the last few election cycles to act as though maybe we just read to seeds occasionally. the court is so profoundly misaligned both with popular opinion polling and with the will of this country. i think the idea that you seceded that because it is not an issue for democrats is what is really going to have to change. i think she is right.. it means calling or senators. it means writing the op-ed's the letters, and really signaling to the senate that both willll be lost. seats will be lost if what is done in the next couple of weeks is allowed to go through.

amy: and the possibility of a bind administration increasing the numbmber of justices on the court? aoc say it. heard i think not of the structural court reforms that are being floated, whether it is term limits, whether it is adding seats to the lower court and the supreme court, whether it is jurisdiction-stripping -- there are a lot of thoughthtful ideas circulating about how we do structural couourt reform to kid of reverse the minority-majority ruled that has absolutely taken hold in thisis country, and i think what shshis saying g is we can't be afraid to say there will be consequences if ththe court is treated as though it is mitch mcconnnnell and donald trump's facing. amy: dahlia lithwick, thank you for being with us stuck condolences to you. this is a personal loss as well for you, interviewing her just before the covid lockdown.

dahlia lithwick, senior editor at slate.com, senior legal correspondent and supreme court reporter. to latest piece we will link "what ruth bader ginsburg would , wantnt america to do now."." of "rbg," juliee cohen. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: a saturday vigil outside the supreme court forr. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. we continue to look at the life and legacy of supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg, who by the end of her life was internationally known simply by her initials rbg, o or as one best-selling biograpaphy put i , "the notorious rbg." a 2018 documentary film about her legal career, personal history, and unexpected celebrity premiered at sundance and became a suprise smash hit. it's called "rbg." this is the film's trailer. sex.ask no favor r my all i ask of our brethreis th they ta their feeoff r necks. ♪

>> we welcome todajujusticruth der r giburg. >> she has become suchn icon. would you mind signg g this cocopy > and4 years d d and everybody wants to te e a ctcture th m me. - notoris rbg r.g. >> the close thing to hero i know >> she change the wod d for amameran womom. >> i became a lawyer when wonn re not wanted by theegegal profofeson. thousands of state andedederal laws discriminated oththe bas of gender. she was following the footeteps of the btle foforacial uality. he wanteequal prection f men. men and womenre perso of ual dnity andhey shou counequally fore theaw. he captud for thmale mbers ofhe court wt it was like tbe second-class in asce. >> theiscriminory line almostnevitablhurts won.

did sesemyself as kind of a kindergarten teach in thos daysecause t judges d not think sex discrimitition existe fortune the gre g good ,o sre life with a partner truly traordiny for hi genetion. he was t first b i ever knew who rere thai hahad brain. is a center of power on and off the court. >> every time justiceininsbur wrote didissenthe inteet wod explode. >> i came up with a colele of slogans. >> surely would not be in isis om today withouthe determinedfforts omen and women who kt dreams alive. amy: tha is the trailer for the oscar-nominated documentary "rbg." in this clip from the film, justice ginsburg talks about the first time she argued before the supreme court, in the cacase

frontiero v. richardson in 1972. centering on a female air force lieutenant who had been denied the same housing and medicical benefifits as her male collelea. ginsnsburg argued the air fofo's statute for housing alallowances treaeated women as inferi, and the supreme ururt rud inin h favor 8 to 1. >> there was done single question. i just wt t on sakining. wondered,rehehey justst iulgingnge and not listening? omethinging them they he not hed before and are ey payinattentio luedoe justis were he i d't thk they we expeing to he to deawith somethinas powerful as a she force of her argument th w was st all-eompassing. and they were there tal about a ttttle stute in e

gornment ce.e. szed the ment to ange erican siety. >> i'asking t crt to osition-- wearnened forcib stated in 1837 sarah cemke, ted abolionist adcate of ual righ for men and won. she said, "i ask noavor fory sex. all i ask of our brethn is at theyake theifeet off our necks." any curricular ginsburg. we're joined by julie cohen, along with betsy west, is the director and producer of the academy-award nominated documentary "rbg." welcome back to democracy now! we h had you on whwhen the filmm premiered at the sundance film festivival and t through the heh challenges that justice ginsburg has faced and now sadly today come in the aftermath of her death. can you talk about what we don't

know about ruth bader ginsburg, how she was shaped, her early years in the cases she argued before the supreme courtrt? myself a bibitther because listening to those clips , i'm still aninsburg bit emotional. i have not been able to watch the film again since hearing of her death on friday evening. quietst listening to that but centered and super determined voice -- i found it moving in life and now that shee has passed away, is moving as well. shahapedinsburg was hugely, like many of us are, byy heher mother. both her parents were from immigrant families. both from extremely modest backgrounds.

cancer when ruth bader was in high school and was quite ill for a period of time. mother so clolose to her and so saddened by her mom's impending death, but her mother used the opportunity to impart a lot life lessons to young ruth bader to really instill inn her a deep, deep ambition, a desire to put her allll in educucation. love,m m told her, go find that is important,t, but you ned to be independent t -- like, d't rely o on a man to bring you wht you need in your life. you need to make sure you can fend for yourself. and she also had served up life philosophies which were,

basically, don't stste yo time on usess emotions. guilt -- forget those things. rbrbg allyly tk that aice toto heart. i'm not saying eever got angry. surere, she di everyoneoes. but her inclination bas o on whatat her mom said was always o moderate that anger and reay try to not show it so look for peacand coconciliatinstability wherever s could fd d it. in oure to her -- docuntary, w had a number of clclips herer arguing those eay cacases r gegend equality before the prememe court in the 1970's. shis arguing at thipoint beforehis grou onine mal to puho -- you ve yourlf in n e contexof that

time.. women'sights, wn he fir came out, ople did n get it. like, don'understand what a women cplaining abou treatathem polily. weive tm rings en we propose them.m. like, we don't sesee y a woma would complaining abo her trtmenent any way of tw aboutthe her argents, fo also que condesceing toer -- - bu w were also quite cdescendi to her. here s is, and esteeme laer beforthe hight court the lanand they're kin maki fun of heat times atook it likeater off ducks back. she neve let ttondescenon geher dn. to thk she lidd herselfs a kindergarten teacher. t just a teacherbut aa kindnderrten teacher. d that ihow she oked at these sreme cou justiceas kiergarten stunts who st

need to be hooled. and sh didindeed, hool em. carred latater iher anashe has becomththis blic fige of theotorious r.b.g. to schoing a loof uss stop n only aut legal a constutionalririncips, but about hototo hdldle th triy emional cllenges at come up forll of , particarly ople that are fighting for the rights. amy: the case united states versus virginia, the cases also -- a and we will talk about t ts inin a minute -- where she useda man to dememonstrate what inequality was all a about. >> yeah. such a clever -- she was a deeplyly strategic person. she was not choosing what cases to pursue just on whim or like that sounds like a good case. she was thinking, how might i win? and, by the way, she was very

consciously modeling her strategy after one that it happened 10 or 15 years before she was arguing her cases with the string of supreme court cases argued by a young thurgood marshall before he was a justice, when he was a young lawyer argued d cases for racial equality. thurgood m marshall, i believe, argued more than 30 c cases befe ththe supreme court. had an extraordinarywin record. ththe reason he achieved so much for racially quality and for forwarding the idea of race equality under the 14th amend of the constitution, paparticularl, was by y being strategic. he did not take every case. he looked at cases he thought were winnable. one tiny step at a time posted jujustice ginsburg was a student of supreme court jurisprudence. she was aware of what thuhuood marshahall h had achieved. when she started to look into

gender equality cases, she wanted to b be l like thurgood marshallll in terms of picking cases very strategically. and i it occurred to heher there were a n number of ways having o willll tell you about t his ownn cases having to deal with the benefits.lty -- death there were instances where say amen having to pay for c childce and that kindnd, there were also werewhere men vivictimized by gender discrimination. inin heriew w wa likikpeople shoulde taken their own termss, t as r rresentates of eir gender. shehougughthat was ing to b a point that might ablble sink in to se of the male justes who jt had thout to edea of wen'rights a all. a: a your thghts on r

paing and at happens next? i am inedibly s about her passing. i would hope,s i knowustice giburg ped, thasome of theseiery disnts she's been writg, partilalarly er t the pa 10 yea, would timately becomehe basisf later supremmajority onions, wre her oughts a her leg ide become the law of the land. amy: julie cohen, thank you for being with us, codirected and produced the academy award winning film "rbg." when we come back, we hear from the man ginsburg once called her favorite plaintiff. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: ruth bader ginsburg loved opera. she also performedd in one. this is democracy now!, democrcracynow.org, ththe quarae report. i'm amy goodman. justice ruth bader ginsbururg dd friday at the age of 87. we look now at one of the cases for which she first gained fame in the 1970's when she co-founded the women's rights project at the american civil liberties union and argued six gender discrimination cases before the supreme court. the case's name was weinberger

v. wiesenfeld. justicice ginsburg and her plaintiff stephen wiesenfeld explplain the case in n this clp from the award-winning documentary "rbg." also hear from feminist icon, gloria steinem. but it begins with justice ginsburg. >> a young man had a tragic experience. his wife had an entirely healthy pregnancy and he was t told that she hadd a healthyhy baby boy,yt his wife had died. was amnioticm embolism. at that particular point, no one had ever survived that.t. they kept her alilive for about four hours. by 3:30 in the afternoon, she died. jason was a very easy child. my attitude toward raising a child is that a child is not there for me, i am there for him. and that is what my job was. >> he determin h he was goi to a careging parent to tha

child. he went to theocal socll curity office an asked about the befitsts tt he tught a sole sviviving parent could get. he was told that benit is called aothers befit. and did notualify. so hwrote a tter to e itor of s local newsper ansaid,'veeard a l about women's lib, l me tellou my story. >>o the editor,t is beemy miortune tdiscover male cannot clect socl securi benefits aa woman n. had i en payin into th soci securitsystem a h diedshe woulhave beeable receiveenefits. but ma homakers caot. wonder igloria sinem kno abouthis? ruttook a ce inhich a man was diriminategainst i order to show e depth and the importce of se discrimination.

very intelligent thing to do. amy: that was gloria steinem. justice ruth bader ginsburg would later call the supreme court win her "favorite case." the plaintiff stephen wiesenfeld became a lifelong friend -- she officiated both his and his son's weddings. well, stephen wiesenfeld joins us now from asheville, north carolina. welcome to democracy now! your thoughts today onon the passingg of your dear friend and also the significance of this case? >> good morning to you. thank you for having me here. my grief was h heavy on friday night and still l is todayay. itit is on two l levels. one bebeing aa personal level, t more important is it is a national tragedy. she was the protector of freedoms of problems that occur in society, ending gender-based

disco nation, the difference between the races, the difference between creeds. her belief was from the united states constitution where in the preamble says "we the people." she considered everybody to be "we the people." everyone should be treated equally under the law. just to continue for a moment on what julie was saying, the way the laws have been written, before 1970, before ruth bader ginsburg came along, the stereotypes male thats pain -- males pay men the systems, they received a salary, ththey takake care of their families. women are at home and raise children and take care of the house. in 1978 andeen 1972 a six-year period, took their very conservrvative court and taught them that thee stereotots when they hurt one gender, hurt

the other gender as well. used my case to point that out. there were three points of view that she dealt with the casese. the first wasas the point of viw of the woman. my wife worked for seven years as a schooltlteacher before shee gave birth and passed d away. she paid money into the social security system. assembly situated male working seven years in the school system paying into the social security system when he passed away, his wife would receceive social securityenenefits. when a w woman passesed away, te male, surviving husband, did not receive the benefit. ruth bader ginsburgg felt this made t the woman's money, the salary she earned, work less than the male's. the money got lost even though she was paying into the system. it did not provide insurance

benefit for the surviving spouse. amy: in these last few minutes we have, can you talk about when ruth bader ginsburg contacted you and what the decision meant for you, the supreme court decision that she won so overerwhelmingly? because itacteded me had written n a letter to thee editor that you jujust played. worked d at rutgers university, a teacher there, was friends with ruth who also was working at the university, and contacted me and a asked me if i would like to pursue this further. i said, that acactually happenso be wirire at the letter, becausi was looking for someone to give .e direction she put me in touch with ruth bader ginsburg. ruth had just become co-founder of the women's rights project of the american civil liberties union. they helped us along with the

case. amy: and the day the supreme court handed down its unanimous decision in your favor? >> march 19, 1975. 11:30 in the morning. it was a wednesdayay. a neighbhbor called me andnd toe about it. a couple of minutes later, radio station called and i gave the interview. and then ruth was on the phone. there used to be pavements on the highway, phone booths. she stopped at one and called me and gave me the news. her question to me was, h how dd they vote? it was important burden of the decision. the next phone call, she found out it was 8-0. at the douglas being ill time. amy: decades later, she would officiate over your second son we racealso the

at home, his wedding, too, jason's wedding g apoplexy aske. in 1998, my son jason married in crowe gables, florida. she came to visit for the weekend. elaineed my second wife in 2014. there we went to the supreme with and were married their immediate families around us. amy: condolences on this loss that is personal for you as well as global, stephen wiesenfeld, plaintiff and they 1975 weinberger v. wiesenfeld case. justice ruthth bader ginsburg oe called him her favorite plaiaintiff. thisis update, president trump s just said he plansns to announce his pipick to replace ruth h bar ginsburg on friday or saturday. he said the shortlist is down to

five people. that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

. the suburban railway station see these waves. tim uses his to the platforms of believing this undercover police were taking up positions throughout the station. in this particular case we got some information. at a meeting. between is involved in the drug war so i. a