Supreme Court Smothers Voting Rights Act, Hands GOP a Massive Win

The Supreme Court just threw out Louisiana’s redrawn congressional map in a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act, an essential pillar of the Civil Rights Movement.

In a 6–3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana’s redrawn congressional map, which was redrawn with considerations of race thanks to a group of Black voters who had challenged the state’s original version, was unconstitutional.

“Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” the court wrote in its decision for Louisiana v. Callais.

Justice Samuel Alito delivered the majority decision, joined by the five other conservative justices, while Justice Elena Kagan filed her dissent, joined by the other two liberal justices.

Following the 2020 census, Louisiana’s state legislature drew a new voting map, which produced one majority Black district. A group of Black voters sued, arguing that the map had violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race. A federal district court sided with the voters, and the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the decision, ordering the state to draw a new map. A new map was created that had two congressional districts that were majority Black.

But then, a group of voters who described themselves as “non-African-American” challenged the new congressional map, arguing that because it had been drawn to consider race, it was unconstitutional gerrymandering, in violation of the equal protections clause of the U.S. Constitution. While a panel of federal judges initially blocked Louisiana from using the new map, the Supreme Court paused that decision, allowing the state to temporarily use it.

The Supreme Court’s decision will not only affect election results in conservative-led Louisiana for years to come, but it has severely undermined the ability of voters to challenge discrimination under the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits “discrimination against the minority group, such as unusually large election districts,” according to a 1982 report from the the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

This story has been updated.

Republicans are realizing most Americans don’t like President Trump using the Justice Department to persecute those he believes have personally wronged him.

In the midst of a contentious midterm cycle, some on the right have politely suggested the man in the Oval Office focus on the issues that got him elected. But Trump isn’t one to take advice from others. On Tuesday, his administration announced it was filing charges against former FBI Director James Comey and an aide of longtime White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci.

With an unpopular Middle East war, deportations continuing to frighten residents, a poor job market, and high gas prices, Trump’s personal revenge tour is unsurprisingly unpopular. In a March CNN survey, two-thirds of Americans said the president hasn’t paid enough attention to the most important issues facing the country, a sharp increase from the 52 percent CNN reported a year prior.

“No Republican wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour,’” Barrett Marson, a conservative strategist, told The Washington Post.

Another GOP consultant, longtime Trump critic Whit Ayres, went even further. “[It’s] exactly the opposite of what most Americans would like to see the president and the Department of Justice focused on,” Ayres told the Post. “They’re worried about inflation and the economy, and many of them are worried about how the war in Iran will end.”

Even some Senate Republicans have pushed back against Trump’s allocation of resources. North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed skepticism that the DOJ’s case against Comey held water. The case is built on a photo Comey posted on Instagram last year, in which seashells on a beach are arranged to write out “86 47.” While “86” is a term originally used in the restaurant industry to get rid of or cancel a dish, the DOJ is arguing this constitutes a threat to Trump’s life.

“I’ve used ‘86’ a lot of times,” Tillis told the Post. “I’ve never said it with the intent of killing somebody.”

Tillis also said he would rather see U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle prosecute “drug [and] human traffickers” than go after Comey. “I want to make sure Mr. Boyle, when he gets confirmed, is focusing on that sort of stuff,” he said. “Somebody’s going to have to convince me that this rises to the level of that kind of bad.”

In the latest forecasts, Democrats are heavily favored to reclaim a House majority in November, though redistricting could throw a wrench in that. They have about a 50 percent chance to take the Senate, as well. Republicans need every policy win they can get from the White House, but an ailing Trump isn’t giving them much to work with.

The number of President Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters is dwindling, according to a recent poll.

Only 18 percent of Americans strongly approve of Trump’s job performance, down from 34 percent at the start of his second term, according to an Economist/YouGov poll published Tuesday.

The polls found that just 37 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat approved of Trump’s job handling, while a whopping 59 percent disapproved, matching Trump’s disapproval rating from the beginning of March, which was his highest ever during his second term. Trump’s net approval rating was -22 points, just above the previous low of -23 points at the end of March.

It’s not all that surprising that Trump is falling out of favor as his so-called “Golden Age” falls apart at the seams.

The president’s handling of the economy has left Americans with a historically poor view of the economy. A Gallup poll published Tuesday found that 55 percent of Americans said their finances were getting worse, up 53 percent from the year before and 47 percent from the year before that. While Americans are worried about paying their bills, Trump’s most urgent desire is to construct a gaudy ballroom adjacent to the White House—now using taxpayer dollars.

Gallup found that Americans are also the most concerned about energy prices that they’ve been since 2008, as Trump’s reckless war with Iran has brought global energy trade to a screeching halt. Trump’s extended military campaign in Iran has also proven to be a sticking point for Americans, increasingly so as it nears the 60-day mark.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, President Trump posted a wild threat to Iran on his Truth Social page.

“Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon! President DJT,” the post read, accompanied by a picture of Trump wearing a dark suit and tie, holding a military rifle and standing in front of several explosions on a hill with the text “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!🇺🇲” at the top.

What this means for negotiations or the ceasefire is anyone’s guess, but U.S. intelligence agencies are exploring how Iran would react if the president declared unilateral victory in the two-month war, Reuters reports. Senior administration officials have reportedly asked for the assessment, trying to figure out if it could help the president and his fellow Republicans in the midterms.

Polls indicate that the war is highly unpopular and could contribute to heavy losses in Congress for the GOP. No decision has been made on the “unilateral victory,” according to Reuters, but intelligence reports indicate Iran would consider it a win with no guarantee that it would help Trump and the GOP politically.

Is Trump attempting to look tough with this post, hoping to scare Iran into a deal that makes him look good, or is it a warning that he plans to escalate the conflict? In either case, Trump has backed himself into a corner with no good solutions.

Publicly, Donald Trump has promised a quick and resolute end to the war with Iran—but talk of the conflict is entirely different inside his inner circle.

The president has told his aides to prepare for an “extended” blockade of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz as negotiations with Tehran drag on, according to U.S. officials that spoke with The Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

That language has permeated recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, reported the Journal. Officials said that Trump assessed his other options—which include reinstigating violence or walking away from the conflict altogether—and decided that continuing to squeeze the country’s economy was the best choice.

His decision has been reflected in his recent social media posts, emphasizing the White House’s intent to prolong the war unless Iran signs away its nuclear program.

“Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in the early hours of Wednesday morning, sharing an AI-generated image of himself wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses with a semiautomatic gun in his hands as a landscape, presumed to be Iran, explodes in the background.

In another post attacking German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump claimed that he was “doing something with Iran, right now, that other Nations, or Presidents, should have done long ago.”

Trump reportedly intends to amp up pressure on Iran until its leadership caves to his key demand: ending its nuclear capabilities. But the reality of Iran’s nuclear progress is still murky.

Prior to the war—which never obtained congressional approval—Trump ordered strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites, hitting Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan on June 22. At the time, the Trump administration claimed that the one-off air raid had set Iran’s program back by “years.”

Joe Kent, then director of the National Counterterrorism Center, sparked a maelstrom in Washington when he resigned over the issue last month. Kent argued in his resignation letter that he could not “in good conscience” support the war in Iran. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he wrote at the time.

In the eight weeks since the war began, the U.S. and Israel have killed thousands of Iranian civilians and obliterated Iranian civilian infrastructure. Thirteen U.S. soldiers have also died in the process.

Meanwhile, the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has caused a global energy crisis, choking off a critical tradeway for the Middle Eastern oil trade. In the U.S., lagging oil and gas deliveries have caused transportation costs to surge, affecting virtually every commodity on the market. At the time of publication, the average cost for a gallon of gas was above $4.22, according to a AAA analysis. In some areas of California, such as San Francisco, Napa, and San Jose, gas was well above $6 per gallon.

Nobody is buying the Department of Justice’s latest attempt to get revenge on former FBI Director James Comey—not even the president’s conservative allies in the media.

In a scathing response published Tuesday in the National Review, Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy tore apart the Trump administration’s second “bogus” indictment of Comey, calling it“even more absurd than the previous indictment.”

Comey’s offense? He posted a picture of seashells arranged on the beach in North Carolina that read “8647.” He claimed he’d come across the shells, already arranged, while taking a walk and assumed it was a political message. Some accused the former FBI director of calling to “86,” or kill, the forty-seventh president, Donald Trump.

McCarthy wrote: “After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service—which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

“This farce, then, is nothing more than a continuation of Trump’s lawfare campaign against a political enemy. It is inconceivable that Comey could be convicted of a crime in these circumstances, but the president’s minions are putting him through the anxiety, expense, and stigma of the judicial process,” McCarthy added.

It seems that “farce” may be as good a label as any for the DOJ’s latest attempt to nab Comey for, well, anything at all, it seems. The charges against Comey that were approved by a grand jury include making a threat against the president and transmitting it in interstate commerce, according to court documents.

A former Department of Justice official told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Comey’s latest indictment “might be the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime.”

On Tuesday, King Charles III delivered a speech to Congress full of the stuff President Trump opposes. 

During his remarks, Charles mentioned that the Magna Carta—the foundational legal document signed by England’s King John in 1215—was cited multiple times in U.S. law, noting that it brought about limits on executive power.  

“The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances,” Charles said, getting an immediate standing ovation from Democrats in the audience, but delayed applause from Republicans. 

Charles could very well have been referring to Trump, who has tried to push the limits of his authority as president and ignored Congress with the aid of conservative justices on the high court. 

When Charles mentioned Christianity, he also connected it to interfaith solidarity, a concept that is alien to the president. 

“The Christian faith is a firm anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally—” the king started before being interrupted by applause. “Guides us not only personally, but together as members of our community,” he continued. “Having devoted a large part of my life to interfaith relationships and greater understanding, it is that faith in the triumph of light over darkness, which I have found confirmed countless times.

“Through it, I am inspired by the profound respect that develops as people of different faiths grow in their understanding of each other,” Charles said. 

Charles’s largest applause lines came from his mention of American and British participation in NATO, which Trump has threatened to leave over what he perceives as the organization’s lack of help with the Iran war, and how it is still needed for the defense of Ukraine. 

“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder, through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security,” Charles said. “Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.”

One wonders what Trump will think if he ends up seeing any part of the speech. At the White House Monday, Trump was happy to meet with the king. Will he change his mind and let loose a barrage of insults on Truth Social? 

King Charles III—whose brother Andrew was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein and has been accused of sexual misconduct—made no mention of the sexual predator or his victims during his joint address to Congress, even after saying that he would.

Earlier on Tuesday, HuffPost reported that Charles refused an invitation from Representative Ro Khanna to meet face to face with survivors of Epstein’s abuse, promising to instead acknowledge them during his speech. The California Democrat stated that the king “owed that to the survivors” given the mountain of controversy surrounding his brother’s actions.

“I thought it would have been an incredible moment and statement to show that it doesn’t matter how much wealth you have, how much power you have, no human being is dispensable, and that the survivors deserve justice,” Khanna said, regarding the invitation to meet with Epstein’s survivors. “He unfortunately declined that request.” A roundtable with survivors was held in Charles’s absence.

“It’s unfortunate,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told HuffPost, stating that Charles missed a real chance “to give back to just, basically, humanity, and show all the people in the U.K. and the world that he actually cares.”

Even with that rejection, Khanna still held out hope.

“I’m told he’s going to be making some statement about the survivors this afternoon in his address,” he said initially. “I hope his flunkies don’t take out the acknowledgment from his text.… I fully expect the king to be acknowledging the Epstein survivors when he speaks to our nation.”

That didn’t happen, either. Instead, Charles merely mentioned the need to “support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today.” King Charles made time to discuss everything from the sacred U.S.-U.K. partnership to NATO, to Christianity, but he didn’t acknowledge the heinous crimes of his brother’s friend and the women who still live with the trauma of his abuse.

Epstein’s survivors have yet to comment on the king’s omission.

The White House has literally elevated Donald Trump to “king” status.

While King Charles of Britain delivered an address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, the Trump administration was cooking up a P.R. photo to exploit the royal leader’s fleeting visit.

“TWO KINGS,” the official White House account posted on X, paired with a crown emoji as well as a photo of the king and Trump outside the Oval Office.

Charles was visiting Washington ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to encourage diplomatic relations. In a concise speech, the king spoke beyond America’s current political divide, asserting to Americans and their representatives that a U.S.-U.K. partnership is “more important” than ever and that the “challenges we face are too great for any one nation to bear alone.”

Directly addressing House Speaker Mike Johnson, Vice President JD Vance, and the present members of Congress, Charles said that “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since Independence.”

“The actions of this great nation matter even more,” he continued. “President Lincoln understood this so well, with his reflection in the magisterial Gettysburg Address that the world may little note what we say, but will never forget what we do.”

But the MAGA movement—and its leader—has rarely taken care of its verbiage, let alone fretted about the consequences of its actions. The captioned image of Trump and the king is just one example that is likely to be portrayed as a joke among Trump’s political acolytes—but his allies have not shied away from opportunities to humor the alleged bit and its rhetorical attack on American democracy.

Trump referred to himself as a king in February—an odd inclusion amid a string of rants attacking New York City’s locally popular midtown congestion-pricing policy. Moments later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted an AI-generated picture of Trump wearing a jeweled crown and fur-trimmed cape. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also elevated the disturbing quip at the time, resharing Trump’s kingly comments after rubber-stamping them with a “100” emoji.

Earlier this month, Trump circulated another controversial AI-generated image on his Truth Social that painted him as Jesus Christ, cloaked in red and white robes and surrounded by light. The blasphemy seemed to be the first major instance in which the president spurred searing bipartisan backlash for his actions, prompting him to delete the post and do an about-face on the meaning of the image. He later claimed to reporters that he believed it depicted him as a doctor.

The Trump administration’s various projects to reshape the government—even the symbolic ones—are costing U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

In its latest legislative proposal, the Department of Defense has formally asked Congress to codify its rebrand as the “Department of War,” assuring it that the name change would have “no significant impact” on future spending.

Yet the military agency also acknowledged that it has already spent some $50 million in implementing the new title. The vast majority of that price tag, roughly $44.6 million, was tied to the agency’s enterprise systems, infrastructure, and administrative support, reported Inside Defense Tuesday.

That money was potentially spent in vain. While Donald Trump declared the identity switch via an executive order in September, the department’s name remains unchanged by law. Ultimately, Congress alone is responsible for the redesignation.

However, the $50 million already spent could turn out to be just a fraction of the overall cost to cast a more aggressive identity on America’s military agency. In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that renaming the DOD could cost as much as $125 million or more if the title was used across the entire agency.

“Costs would be at least a few million dollars if DoD phased in a minimal implementation, but they could be as large as $125 million if the name change was implemented broadly and rapidly throughout the department,” the CBO wrote at the time. “A statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how Congress and DoD chose to implement the change.”

Despite Trump’s repeat campaign pledges to slash government spending, practically all of the MAGA leader’s sweeping government reforms have come with hidden fees. This week, Republicans began pushing their congressional colleagues to sign a $400 million check to construct Trump’s White House ballroom.

Led by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the cohort has claimed that the space needs to be built expeditiously as a matter of national security. Citing the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday, Republicans have argued that the president is not safe without the proposed 90,000-square-foot dance hall and the attached underground military complex.

None of them have yet explained how the Secret Service—which also manned security at the Saturday night dinner—would have hypothetically fared differently at the White House location.