Joe Biden has dismissed questions about Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith, saying that they should ‘not be considered.’ The increasing media and political fracas surrounding Barrett’s Supreme Court hearing has seen a bitter tit-for-tat.

Republican Senator Senator Josh Hawley has accused the Democrats  of blatant “anti-Catholic bigotry.” Hawley went so far as to suggest that it was an attempt to “return to the days of the religious test” which would “bring back the veto power of the powerful over the religious beliefs and sincerely held convictions of the American people.” Hawley reserved his greatest critique for the comments of Senator Diane Feinstein at Barrett’s previous judicial hearing: “The dogma lives loudly within you, and hat is a concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.”

He condemned Feinstein’s remarks and asked Democrats to abstain from similar vitriol in the hearings.

The Democratic Presidential candidate, his running-mate Kamala Harris, and colleagues on the Senate Judicial Committee have stressed their focus as being on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), something which Barrett opposes. They have said that Donald Trump has only promised to nominate justices who will undo the act.

The junior Senator of New Jersey, Cory Booker proposed that undoing the ACA would force Americans to decide “between buying medicine and buying groceries.” Mazie Hirono, a cancer survivor, suggested she may not have survived without the provision of care afforded her by the act.

All this has come amid outrage from conservatives over the Democrats’ reluctance to reject the idea of packing the Supreme Court. Though Biden claimed yesterday that he was ‘no fan’ of packing, but he has also refused to rule it out.

Despite the furor over SCOTUS, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham predicts that Barrett will be confirmed no later than the 27th October, the Tuesday the week before the election.

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