Federal Court Throws Out Alabama Republicans’ Racist Congressional Map

A federal court on Tuesday struck down Alabama Republicans’ latest discriminatory congressional map and assigned a special master to ensure the state actually creates a second majority-Black district this time around.

The Supreme Court shocked everyone in June, ruling 5–4 that Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama discriminated against Black voters under the Voting Rights Act. The high court ordered Alabama to redraw the map to include at least two majority-Black districts. But Alabama has repeatedly tried to redraw districts in a way that keeps the status quo and dilutes Black votes.

“Based on the evidence before us, including testimony from the Legislators, we have no reason to believe that allowing the Legislature still another opportunity to draw yet another map will yield a map that includes an additional opportunity district,” the three-judge panel said in the Tuesday ruling. “We are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”

“We are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”

The judges assigned a special master to oversee the remedial map. Alabama has until October 1 to finalize a new map to ensure that there is enough time to prepare for the 2024 election, according to Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen. State officials will need to reassign voters and print and distribute ballots.

More than a quarter of Alabama residents are Black, but currently only one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts is majority-Black. Black voters are scattered throughout the other districts, dramatically reducing their ability to elect their preferred candidates. As a result of the racial gerrymandering, the state only has one Black representative.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in the June Supreme Court ruling that found Alabama’s congressional map illegally diluted Black votes. Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and repeatedly rejected Alabama’s arguments in favor of keeping the current map as “unpersuasive” or of “little merit.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling—and the outcome of the new map in Alabama—could have bigger implications across the South, and even help Democrats retake the House in 2024. Several other states including Louisiana, South Carolina, and Georgia are facing legal challenges to their racially gerrymandered districts. Those states could see a very different map in the coming election.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s former chief of staff and co-defendant in the Georgia indictment may flip, one of the most high-profile defections from Team Trump yet.

Mark Meadows served as White House chief of staff at the end of Trump’s presidency. He was charged alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants with felony racketeering for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. At his hearing last week, Meadows’s legal team signaled that their main defense strategy will include blaming Trump as the principal force behind efforts to thwart the election, Politico reported Tuesday.

Meadows organized and participated in the now-infamous phone call during which Trump begged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes—the exact amount needed to flip the state’s election results to Trump. Meadows also sent an email pressuring Georgia Republicans to sign slates of fake pro-Trump electors.

“What I didn’t want to happen was for the campaign to prevail in court action and not have this [organized]”, Meadows said during his August 28 hearing.

When asked why, he explained, “Because I knew I’d be yelled at by the president of the United States.”

Meadows has already shown himself willing to undermine his former boss in order to save his own skin. In mid-August, Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence said separately that they had no knowledge of Trump declassifying a large number of documents, completely undermining the former president’s main defense in the Mar-a-Lago case.

Other former Trump allies are also starting to turn. In July, a Mar-a-Lago employee named Yuscil Taveras changed his testimony in the indictment against Trump for mishandling classified documents. Taveras was assigned a new public defender in July, replacing his Trump-appointed lawyer, and “immediately” recanted his testimony denying that there had been any conversations about security footage that prosecutors subpoenaed in 2022 as part of the investigation.

Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani may also soon turn on his boss (who is refusing to pay him). Giuliani met in June with special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump in Florida for mishandling classified documents and in Washington for trying to overturn the 2020 election. It’s not clear what happened during the meeting, but it’s not unthinkable that Giuliani may try to reach a deal with prosecutors to save his own skin.

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee ordered Thursday that all court proceedings in Georgia’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants will be televised and livestreamed.

Trump has been indicted four times. In the Georgia case, he faces 13 charges, including racketeering, related to his attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has set the trial date for March 4, 2024, which falls one day before Super Tuesday, the busiest day in the Republican presidential primaries. McAfee says the trials will be accessible to watch through the Fulton County Court YouTube channel.

McAfee also said journalists will be able to use cell phones and computers inside the courtroom for non-recording purposes during the trial and hearings—a departure from the federal election interference case against Trump.

Read more at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

Several Republican figures have spoken out against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell since his second freezing episode while addressing reporters on Wednesday.

The 81-year-old senator was left speechless in the middle of a press conference. The first time this happened was a little over a month ago. In both instances, his aides had to intervene, as he was unable to answer the reporter’s questions.

And Republicans seem to be finally turning on McConnell.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been the most outspoken member of the House to address McConnell’s episode, saying on Wednesday that he is unfit for office. 

“Severe aging health issues and/or mental health incompetence in our nation’s leaders MUST be addressed,” Greene wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Representative Matt Gaetz commented “Yikes” when reposting the video of McConnell freezing.

Conservative activist Ned Ryun went on Fox News and said McConnell is “very much expendable.” He predicts that Senator John Thune could replace him.

“Great for [McConnell] blocking Garland, but that only worked because Donald Trump won,” Ryun told Laura Ingraham on Fox, referring to McConnell’s blocking of a Supreme Court justice during the Obama administration.

Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is also pushing for McConnell’s resignation.

“It looks like he’s gonna have a stroke,” O’Reilly told News Nation’s Chris Cuomo. “Every American should email Senator McConnell’s office tomorrow, every American and say, ‘Please, please resign for the sake of your health.’”

Democrats are pushing for a subpoena of Jared Kushner’s Saudi-backed investment firm.

Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, on Thursday sent a letter to Chairman James Comer about Kushner, former President Trump’s son-in-law, and his work with Affinity Partners. Kushner founded the firm six months after leaving the White House, thanks in large part to hefty investments from the Saudi government and other Gulf nations.

The whole thing reeks so badly of corruption that even Comer earlier this month said Kushner “crossed the line of ethics” by accepting $2 billion from Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Raskin is demanding Affinity Partners be subpoenaed for records that committee Democrats have been after for more than a year. And he’s reminding Comer about his own skepticism of what Kushner has done.

“I am encouraged by your recent acknowledgment that ‘what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics’ and your repeated assertions that our Committee is ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions,’” Raskin wrote in his letter. “In light of these concerns, I urge you to pursue a serious and objective investigation by issuing a subpoena to Affinity.”

Raskin noted his February request to Affinity for documents “regarding its receipt of billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies shortly after Mr. Kushner left a senior White House position he used to reshape U.S. foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in Saudi Arabia’s favor—a request you have thus far allowed Mr. Kushner to ignore and defy.”

There’s already plenty of evidence about why Kushner’s work is so troubling.

A report from The Intercept during the Trump years found that MBS bragged about having Kushner “in his pocket.” Kushner was also deeply involved in a $110 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia in 2017, according to reporting from The New York Times. And, of course, his father-in-law is the Republican Party’s front-runner for 2024—meaning Kushner could be making similar deals again soon.

While a lot of Raskin’s letter is focused on Saudi Arabia, other Gulf Nations are also closely involved with Kushner’s private equity firm. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar invested about $200 million each in Affinity.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a stark warning to potential looters post–Hurricane Idalia: “You loot, we shoot.”

DeSantis made the statement—just days after a mass shooting in his state—during a press conference Wednesday, in response to reports of looting in the town of Steinhatchee on Florida’s Gulf Coast, after the Category 4 hurricane made landfall.

“People have a right to defend their property,” he said. “This part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates and proponents of the Second Amendment, and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters, and I would say it’s probably here—‘You loot, we shoot.’” 

“You never know what’s behind that door if you go break into somebody’s house and you’re trying to loot; these are people that are going to be able to defend themselves and their families,” DeSantis added. “We are going to hold you accountable from a law enforcement perspective at a minimum, and it could even be worse than that depending on what’s behind that door.”

DeSantis made the comment just five days after a racist mass shooting in Jacksonville, where three Black people were fatally shot. The Florida governor was later booed while speaking at a vigil for the victims.

The New York attorney general’s office says there is “no shred of doubt” that former President Donald Trump inflated his net worth—by as much as $2 billion in one year.

New York Attorney General Letitia James made the claims in court filings public on Wednesday, related to the multimillion-dollar civil suit against Trump, the Trump Organization, and Trump’s adult children for defrauding insurers and other entities.

The attorney general’s office had evaluated over 10 years’ worth of Trump’s financial statements.

“Mr. Trump’s net worth in any year between 2011 and 2021 would be no more than $2.6 billion, rather than the stated net worth of up to $6.1 billion, and likely considerably less if his properties were actually valued in full blown professional appraisals,” the attorney general’s office said.

Trump’s corrected financial statement “reduces Mr. Trump’s net worth by between 17-39% in each year, or between $812 million to $2.2 billion, depending on the year.”

The $2.2 billion disparity happened in 2014, one year before Trump announced his bid for president.

Trump has denied any intent to defraud insurers and lenders. Also in court filings made public Wednesday, Trump claimed he was too busy trying to avert a nuclear holocaust to do any business fraud.

“I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected,” Trump said in an April deposition.

The former president stated during the same deposition that he had “virtually” no role in his company since running for office in 2015 and that his son, Eric Trump, was more involved.

“If you look at Biden, he certainly does business and politics at the same time. But I felt I wanted to be a legitimate president,” Trump said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rejected $350 million in federal funds meant to help tackle climate change—just months before Hurricane Idalia flooded his state.

DeSantis used a line-item veto in June to reject a $5 million federal grant to set up a rebate program for Floridians who retrofit their homes with energy efficient appliances. This in turn meant that Florida couldn’t access the $341 million the Inflation Reduction Act allotted to fund the program. The Sunshine State has until August 2024 to reapply for the money.

The governor also rejected an additional $3 million in IRA funds to help fight pollution, as well as the Solar for All program that helps low-income people get solar panels. The IRA is a major part of Biden’s overall climate agenda and the largest investment to address climate change in U.S. history.

DeSantis’s decision to reject the funds came just before the start of hurricane season, which took a devastating turn Wednesday when Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida. The storm has already knocked out power for nearly 500,000 people in northern Florida and Georgia, according to the tracker website PowerOutage.us.

Idalia has unleashed disastrous flooding and storm surge onto Florida. The sheriff of Citrus County, located in the center of the state’s west coast, told CNN that flooding could be six feet deep once the tide comes in.

The storm also grew quickly, with its wind speeds nearly doubling to 130 miles per hour from 75 mph in the 24 hours before making landfall. Idalia is now one of just 10 storms since 1950 to speed up by at least 40 mph in the 24 hours before touching down in the U.S.

The intensifying storm can be directly attributed to climate change. Hurricanes strengthen over warm ocean waters, and warmer air holds more moisture that can add to storms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned Monday that areas off Florida’s coast are more than four degrees hotter than the usual average in August.

To make matters worse, DeSantis hasn’t just blocked his state from accessing clearly necessary climate funding. His terrible climate-related policies have also chased multiple insurance carriers out of Florida. Floridians have seen their insurance costs skyrocket as the state gets hammered by climate change. A longer and stronger hurricane season has flooded the Sunshine State and destroyed homes and businesses. It’s quickly getting too expensive for insurance companies to keep reimbursing people for damages.

The Labor Department on Wednesday proposed to extend overtime protection to 3.6 million salaried workers.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, virtually all nonsupervisory salaried workers earning below a designated annual ceiling are entitled to time-and-a-half pay whenever they work in excess of 40 hours. For decades after the FLSA was enacted in 1938, the Labor Department kept that ceiling high enough that most salaried workers—as recently as the 1970s, 65 percent—qualified for overtime pay.

But the Reagan administration, as part of its quiet repeal of the New Deal, stopped raising the ceiling, and as inflation accumulated, overtime coverage eventually applied to below 10 percent of Americans. Where once overtime protection was enjoyed by the middle class, it is now reserved only for the poor.

In 2016, the Obama administration enacted a regulation that more than doubled the cutoff to $47,476, bringing the limit within shouting distance of median household income. But a hard-right federal judge in Texas threw that out. President Donald Trump raised the ceiling to a still-stingy $35,308. That was allowed to stand.

Now the Biden administration proposes raising the ceiling to $55,000, with inflation adjustments every three years. That’s still well below median household income (about $71,000), but it’s a start. Whether the proposed regulation will pass muster in federal court is anybody’s guess.

A new poll from Gallup shows the vast majority of Americans approve of labor unions.

Gallup found that 67 percent of Americans approve of unions nationwide, in a poll conducted earlier this month. This is the fifth consecutive year that the number has surpassed the longtime average of 62 percent and is a dramatic increase since the all-time low of 48 percent approval in 2009, after the Great Recession.

Approval has taken a slight, four-percentage-point dip since last year. One reason why this may have happened could be the drop in Republican approval. In 2022, 56 percent of Republicans approved of labor unions, and in 2023, that number dropped to 47 percent.

The numbers from Gallup match previous polls that say the same thing: Americans like unions. An AFL-CIO poll published Tuesday found that 71 percent of Americans support labor unions. That number increases to 88 percent for Americans under the age of 30.

The poll also has inspiring numbers for workers currently on strike, or those threatening to do so.

United Auto Workers last week voted to authorize union strikes against General Motors, Ford Motor, and Stellantis. Gallup found that 75 percent of Americans side with UAW members, compared to just 19 percent who side with the auto companies. Seventy-two percent of Americans also side with television and film writers, and 67 percent side with television and film actors over Hollywood.

The number of strikes and striking workers has dramatically increased over the last three years. This year, 119,000 workers went on strike from January to May—nearly the same number as in all of 2022. This has been a hot strike summer. The Writers Guild of America has been striking for over 115 days, since the beginning of May. We’ve also seen strikes from actors, hotel workers, and nurses.