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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
March 10, 2026
How the DOJ is using civil rights law to attack school desegregation
In conservative push to redefine the 14th Amendment, Los Angeles schools are on the front line
By Russell Payne
Staff Reporter
Published March 10, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)
(Salon) In February, the Department of Justice joined a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified School District brought by conservative activists, seeking to use the 14th Amendment to repeal a desegregation policy previously ruled unconstitutional.
....(more)....
The designation was rolled out as part of a 1976 desegregation program, which aimed at improving educational opportunities across the city’s schools. These majority non-white schools are subject to two programs that non-PHBAO schools are not: specifically, smaller class sizes and increased parent-teacher conference requirements. The difference in class size maximums varies by grade level, per school district data, and PHBAO schools are mandated to have two parent-teacher conferences per year.
....(snip)....
While a student’s race or ethnicity is not considered for admission to a magnet school and white students do often attend PHBAO schools, 90% of Los Angeles schools are designated as PHBAO, the lawsuit claims that the program is illegal for having any racially conscious policy.
....(snip)....
The fight over schools in Los Angeles is happening against a backdrop of the conservative legal movement’s push to redefine the 14th Amendment, according to Myron Orfield, a professor of civil rights and civil liberties law at the University of Minnesota. Orfield said that the end goal of the current conservative legal push is to leave states without any tools to directly address racial inequality and to direct resources reserved for addressing racial inequality towards addressing allegations of anti-white discrimination. ......................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/10/how-the-doj-is-using-civil-rights-law-to-attack-school-desegregation/
How the DOJ is using civil rights law to attack school desegregation
How the DOJ is using civil rights law to attack school desegregation
In conservative push to redefine the 14th Amendment, Los Angeles schools are on the front line
By Russell Payne
Staff Reporter
Published March 10, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)
(Salon) In February, the Department of Justice joined a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified School District brought by conservative activists, seeking to use the 14th Amendment to repeal a desegregation policy previously ruled unconstitutional.
....(more)....
The designation was rolled out as part of a 1976 desegregation program, which aimed at improving educational opportunities across the city’s schools. These majority non-white schools are subject to two programs that non-PHBAO schools are not: specifically, smaller class sizes and increased parent-teacher conference requirements. The difference in class size maximums varies by grade level, per school district data, and PHBAO schools are mandated to have two parent-teacher conferences per year.
....(snip)....
While a student’s race or ethnicity is not considered for admission to a magnet school and white students do often attend PHBAO schools, 90% of Los Angeles schools are designated as PHBAO, the lawsuit claims that the program is illegal for having any racially conscious policy.
....(snip)....
The fight over schools in Los Angeles is happening against a backdrop of the conservative legal movement’s push to redefine the 14th Amendment, according to Myron Orfield, a professor of civil rights and civil liberties law at the University of Minnesota. Orfield said that the end goal of the current conservative legal push is to leave states without any tools to directly address racial inequality and to direct resources reserved for addressing racial inequality towards addressing allegations of anti-white discrimination. ......................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/10/how-the-doj-is-using-civil-rights-law-to-attack-school-desegregation/
March 10, 2026
Lindsey Graham is the little war devil on Trump’s shoulder
The South Carolina senator and noted war hawk pushed Trump on Iran. Now he says "Cuba is next."
By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published March 10, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)
(Salon) Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satirical masterpiece “Dr. Strangelove” brilliantly parodied the lunacy of the nuclear threat during the Cold War. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed,” says Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Air Force Col. Buck Turgidson, one of the film’s most memorable characters, while agitating the president in the war room for a first strike against the Soviet Union. “But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks.”
Unbelievable as it sounds, Turgidson was based on a real-life war hawk. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay advocated immediate airstrikes and a full-scale invasion to destroy the Soviet nuclear missiles. Even after President John F. Kennedy’s naval blockade proved successful, possibly preventing a nuclear war between the superpowers, LeMay called it “the worst defeat in our history.”
....(snip)....
Lindsey Graham is the contemporary embodiment of this philosophy. As the quintessential Trump suck-up who sees the president as an opportunity to advance his own personal agenda, he knows all too well — like so many other establishment Republicans — that Trump is barely hanging on to sanity at this point, and that he should never be allowed to wield such massive power. But Graham is the Senate’s version of LeMay — a hawk who wants to see the United States use its mighty military to settle scores and punish any and all who have been a thorn in its side. And he has learned how to persuade Trump to be his instrument in that cause.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Graham has been the most relentless and the most successful of all the hawks pushing for Trump to attack Iran. He finds ways to get next to the president on the golf course and at his resorts to lobby for major military incursions, and he’s also been traveling overseas to tutor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on how best to speak to Trump to get him to agree. Obviously, Trump listened. ......................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/10/lindsey-graham-is-the-little-war-devil-on-trumps-shoulder/
Lindsey Graham is the little war devil on Trump's shoulder
Lindsey Graham is the little war devil on Trump’s shoulder
The South Carolina senator and noted war hawk pushed Trump on Iran. Now he says "Cuba is next."
By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published March 10, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)
(Salon) Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satirical masterpiece “Dr. Strangelove” brilliantly parodied the lunacy of the nuclear threat during the Cold War. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed,” says Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Air Force Col. Buck Turgidson, one of the film’s most memorable characters, while agitating the president in the war room for a first strike against the Soviet Union. “But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks.”
Unbelievable as it sounds, Turgidson was based on a real-life war hawk. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay advocated immediate airstrikes and a full-scale invasion to destroy the Soviet nuclear missiles. Even after President John F. Kennedy’s naval blockade proved successful, possibly preventing a nuclear war between the superpowers, LeMay called it “the worst defeat in our history.”
....(snip)....
Lindsey Graham is the contemporary embodiment of this philosophy. As the quintessential Trump suck-up who sees the president as an opportunity to advance his own personal agenda, he knows all too well — like so many other establishment Republicans — that Trump is barely hanging on to sanity at this point, and that he should never be allowed to wield such massive power. But Graham is the Senate’s version of LeMay — a hawk who wants to see the United States use its mighty military to settle scores and punish any and all who have been a thorn in its side. And he has learned how to persuade Trump to be his instrument in that cause.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Graham has been the most relentless and the most successful of all the hawks pushing for Trump to attack Iran. He finds ways to get next to the president on the golf course and at his resorts to lobby for major military incursions, and he’s also been traveling overseas to tutor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on how best to speak to Trump to get him to agree. Obviously, Trump listened. ......................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/10/lindsey-graham-is-the-little-war-devil-on-trumps-shoulder/
March 9, 2026
Trump’s cable-news Cabinet tries to sell a war
The Trump administration’s media strategy on Iran reveals as much about the conflict’s weaknesses as its goals
By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published March 8, 2026 10:30AM (EDT)
(Salon) Donald Trump has always treated politics like reality television, from counter-programming debates with his own rallies to assigning degrading nicknames to his opponents. Now he is treating war the same way.
In the first week of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran, the Trump administration has revealed something extraordinary about how it intends to wage war: not just with missiles and drones, but with narrative control so aggressive it borders on parody. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s turn at running the most powerful military in human history increasingly resembles one of his “Fox & Friends Weekend” segments. He held only the second Pentagon press briefing since October on Monday, two days into the war. That is not a communications strategy — it is the beginning of a cover-up.
....(snip)....
As Trump’s war with Iran grows more deadly and continues to widen, the Pentagon’s communications strategy is not even pretending to care about transparency, persuasion or even basic credibility. Since he took office in January 2025, Hegseth has done his best to turn independent journalism into a branch of the Defense Department’s communications office. Meanwhile, the people responsible for explaining military action have behaved less like public officials and more like pundits auditioning for the next viral clip.
....(snip)....
Before being tapped on Thursday to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin spent the week across all of cable news trying to sell the president’s war of choice. Speaking to Fox News, Mullin argued Trump was right not to brief Congress ahead of attacking Iran because “you just simply can’t trust” all of the elected representatives, specifically naming Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Both are Muslim. In another appearance, Mullin pivoted seamlessly from discussing military action abroad to denouncing immigration policies at home, treating the two issues as part of the same broader struggle for national survival. ...................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/08/trumps-cable-news-cabinet-tries-to-sell-a-war/
Trump's cable-news Cabinet tries to sell a war
Trump’s cable-news Cabinet tries to sell a war
The Trump administration’s media strategy on Iran reveals as much about the conflict’s weaknesses as its goals
By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published March 8, 2026 10:30AM (EDT)
(Salon) Donald Trump has always treated politics like reality television, from counter-programming debates with his own rallies to assigning degrading nicknames to his opponents. Now he is treating war the same way.
In the first week of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran, the Trump administration has revealed something extraordinary about how it intends to wage war: not just with missiles and drones, but with narrative control so aggressive it borders on parody. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s turn at running the most powerful military in human history increasingly resembles one of his “Fox & Friends Weekend” segments. He held only the second Pentagon press briefing since October on Monday, two days into the war. That is not a communications strategy — it is the beginning of a cover-up.
....(snip)....
As Trump’s war with Iran grows more deadly and continues to widen, the Pentagon’s communications strategy is not even pretending to care about transparency, persuasion or even basic credibility. Since he took office in January 2025, Hegseth has done his best to turn independent journalism into a branch of the Defense Department’s communications office. Meanwhile, the people responsible for explaining military action have behaved less like public officials and more like pundits auditioning for the next viral clip.
....(snip)....
Before being tapped on Thursday to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin spent the week across all of cable news trying to sell the president’s war of choice. Speaking to Fox News, Mullin argued Trump was right not to brief Congress ahead of attacking Iran because “you just simply can’t trust” all of the elected representatives, specifically naming Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Both are Muslim. In another appearance, Mullin pivoted seamlessly from discussing military action abroad to denouncing immigration policies at home, treating the two issues as part of the same broader struggle for national survival. ...................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/08/trumps-cable-news-cabinet-tries-to-sell-a-war/
March 9, 2026
Democrats should go all-in on Texas — and Talarico
Turning the Lone Star State blue will be expensive. Hesitation to go all in on a candidate will cost even more
By Jason Kyle Howard
Senior Ideas Editor
Published March 9, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)
(Salon) If faith is indeed “the substance of things hoped for,” as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews, then James Talarico’s win on Tuesday in the Texas Senate primary was surely, at least for the Lone Star State’s Democrats, “the evidence of things not seen.”
What has not been seen for nearly 40 years is a Senate victory for the party, and the 36-year-old Talarico, a state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, has gotten Democrats excited. After his decisive six-point primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, they are hoping, as they have for at least 10 election cycles — that the massive state, with its 31 million residents, of which at least 40% are Latino, will turn finally blue. That Republicans are staring down a lengthy, costly and nasty runoff between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden MAGA firebrand, has only increased excitement on the left.
But as stoked as some rank-and-file Democrats are, national party leaders and many high-dollar donors, according to POLITICO, are hesitating to go all-in for Talarico. At the root of their doubts and anxieties, Elena Schneider reports, is the “massive injection of cash” it would take to even contest the state, “while there are other, cheaper options on the Senate landscape.”
....(snip)....
But Texas is a special case — and Talarico could prove a singular candidate.
For starters, the political environment ahead of November’s midterms is shaping up to be similar to 2018, the year of the blue wave that came during Donald Trump’s first term when Democrats took control of the House and won governorships, as well as other statewide races. That year in Texas, Beto O’Rourke came within 2.6 points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz. .................................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/09/democrats-should-go-all-in-on-texas-and-talarico/
Democrats should go all-in on Texas -- and Talarico
Democrats should go all-in on Texas — and Talarico
Turning the Lone Star State blue will be expensive. Hesitation to go all in on a candidate will cost even more
By Jason Kyle Howard
Senior Ideas Editor
Published March 9, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)
(Salon) If faith is indeed “the substance of things hoped for,” as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews, then James Talarico’s win on Tuesday in the Texas Senate primary was surely, at least for the Lone Star State’s Democrats, “the evidence of things not seen.”
What has not been seen for nearly 40 years is a Senate victory for the party, and the 36-year-old Talarico, a state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, has gotten Democrats excited. After his decisive six-point primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, they are hoping, as they have for at least 10 election cycles — that the massive state, with its 31 million residents, of which at least 40% are Latino, will turn finally blue. That Republicans are staring down a lengthy, costly and nasty runoff between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden MAGA firebrand, has only increased excitement on the left.
But as stoked as some rank-and-file Democrats are, national party leaders and many high-dollar donors, according to POLITICO, are hesitating to go all-in for Talarico. At the root of their doubts and anxieties, Elena Schneider reports, is the “massive injection of cash” it would take to even contest the state, “while there are other, cheaper options on the Senate landscape.”
....(snip)....
But Texas is a special case — and Talarico could prove a singular candidate.
For starters, the political environment ahead of November’s midterms is shaping up to be similar to 2018, the year of the blue wave that came during Donald Trump’s first term when Democrats took control of the House and won governorships, as well as other statewide races. That year in Texas, Beto O’Rourke came within 2.6 points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz. .................................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/09/democrats-should-go-all-in-on-texas-and-talarico/
March 8, 2026
Morrissey was always a jerk
Despite a new album and an unswayable fan base, Morrissey wants nothing more than to validate his victimhood
By Andi Zeisler
Senior Writer
Published March 7, 2026 1:30PM (EST)
(Salon) At his recent show at London’s O2 arena, Morrissey did the thing.
By “the thing,” I don’t mean that he wore a shirt unbuttoned almost to the waist and stuffed a small floral arrangement into his pants, though he did do that. No, the thing Morrissey did was complain — into a microphone, from an enormous stage, to a sold-out crowd — about how unfair it is that he has been silenced. “The fact that I’m on this stage is an incredible accomplishment in itself,” he said. “Because, as you know, the jealous bit*hes tried to get rid of me.”
....(snip)....
2026 is, on paper, a big year for Morrissey. “Make-Up Is a Lie,” his 14th solo album, dropped on Friday; his tour in support of it, despite a predictable flurry of cancelled shows, is underway; and it’s the 40th anniversary of The Smiths’ breakthrough album, “The Queen Is Dead.” But as his lament to the O2 arena’s sold-out crowd made clear, it’s simply another year in which Moz will revel in victimhood and rail against his legion of music-business enemies: The thought-police punters, the overwoke music press and a record industry so united in thwarting his genius that simply being onstage is an accomplishment.
“Being a former Morrissey fan is like being trapped in an abusive relationship with your first great love. No matter what he does or says, you somehow dust yourself down and immediately hark back to the bliss of early discovery,” wrote Kevin Maher in a recent Times of London essay. Within the piece itself, Maher makes it clear that the only way to tell the difference between a former Morrissey fan and a current Morrissey fan is to be caught in the act of a jangly reverie that slingshots us back to simpler days, when Steven Patrick Morrissey was the wordy, literate, excruciatingly sincere Pope of Mope.
We all know better, of course. “Never meet your heroes” isn’t the shibboleth of Morrissey fans, since the 66-year-old singer is known for unfailing kindness to fans. The warning is more along the lines of “Never read your hero’s political opinions, but also good luck trying to avoid hearing about them.” ..................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/07/morrissey-was-always-a-jerk/
Morrissey was always a jerk
Morrissey was always a jerk
Despite a new album and an unswayable fan base, Morrissey wants nothing more than to validate his victimhood
By Andi Zeisler
Senior Writer
Published March 7, 2026 1:30PM (EST)
(Salon) At his recent show at London’s O2 arena, Morrissey did the thing.
By “the thing,” I don’t mean that he wore a shirt unbuttoned almost to the waist and stuffed a small floral arrangement into his pants, though he did do that. No, the thing Morrissey did was complain — into a microphone, from an enormous stage, to a sold-out crowd — about how unfair it is that he has been silenced. “The fact that I’m on this stage is an incredible accomplishment in itself,” he said. “Because, as you know, the jealous bit*hes tried to get rid of me.”
....(snip)....
2026 is, on paper, a big year for Morrissey. “Make-Up Is a Lie,” his 14th solo album, dropped on Friday; his tour in support of it, despite a predictable flurry of cancelled shows, is underway; and it’s the 40th anniversary of The Smiths’ breakthrough album, “The Queen Is Dead.” But as his lament to the O2 arena’s sold-out crowd made clear, it’s simply another year in which Moz will revel in victimhood and rail against his legion of music-business enemies: The thought-police punters, the overwoke music press and a record industry so united in thwarting his genius that simply being onstage is an accomplishment.
“Being a former Morrissey fan is like being trapped in an abusive relationship with your first great love. No matter what he does or says, you somehow dust yourself down and immediately hark back to the bliss of early discovery,” wrote Kevin Maher in a recent Times of London essay. Within the piece itself, Maher makes it clear that the only way to tell the difference between a former Morrissey fan and a current Morrissey fan is to be caught in the act of a jangly reverie that slingshots us back to simpler days, when Steven Patrick Morrissey was the wordy, literate, excruciatingly sincere Pope of Mope.
We all know better, of course. “Never meet your heroes” isn’t the shibboleth of Morrissey fans, since the 66-year-old singer is known for unfailing kindness to fans. The warning is more along the lines of “Never read your hero’s political opinions, but also good luck trying to avoid hearing about them.” ..................(more)
https://www.salon.com/2026/03/07/morrissey-was-always-a-jerk/
March 8, 2026
(Guardian) Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off for alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.
With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.
Janessa Goldbeck, chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, said: “Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person. He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal and a permission slip from President Trump to deploy carnage wherever he wishes against whomever he wishes.” ...............................(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/08/pete-hegseth-pentagon-trump-iran
'A very dangerous person': alarm as Pete Hegseth revels in carnage of Iran war
(Guardian) Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off for alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.
With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.
Janessa Goldbeck, chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, said: “Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person. He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal and a permission slip from President Trump to deploy carnage wherever he wishes against whomever he wishes.” ...............................(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/08/pete-hegseth-pentagon-trump-iran
March 8, 2026
The Supreme Court Has Dawdled Too Long To Gift Republicans The Midterms
It's now "functionally impossible" for Republicans to redraw House maps for the 2026 midterms if the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act.
By Paul Blumenthal
Mar 8, 2026, 08:00 AM EDT
|Updated an hour ago
(HuffPost) When the Supreme Court ordered last year that the case of Louisiana v. Callais be re-argued, it raised a potential nightmare scenario: If the court ruled the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional when applied to redistricting or otherwise gutted it, it could enable Southern states to decimate Black voters’ power, eliminating up to 19 House seats currently held by Black Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
But that scenario rested on a decision gutting the Voting Rights Act coming soon after the court heard the re-argument on Oct. 15. And it didn’t happen — at least, it hasn’t yet. A decision hasn’t been released, and at this point, the earliest it could come is late March. That will be too late for almost all Southern states to redraw their maps if the court rules as expected and guts the Voting Rights Act.
“We’re at the point where it’s functionally impossible for most Southern states to redraw their maps, unless they do something extraordinary like move or redo primaries,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit.
It’s a simple matter of calendars. In some states, primaries have already happened. In others, deadlines to finalize and print ballots and then send them out to military and overseas voters are coming up fast. .....................(more)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais_n_69ab48e0e4b03ae2f886b7a6
The Supreme Court Has Dawdled Too Long To Gift Republicans The Midterms
The Supreme Court Has Dawdled Too Long To Gift Republicans The Midterms
It's now "functionally impossible" for Republicans to redraw House maps for the 2026 midterms if the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act.
By Paul Blumenthal
Mar 8, 2026, 08:00 AM EDT
|Updated an hour ago
(HuffPost) When the Supreme Court ordered last year that the case of Louisiana v. Callais be re-argued, it raised a potential nightmare scenario: If the court ruled the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional when applied to redistricting or otherwise gutted it, it could enable Southern states to decimate Black voters’ power, eliminating up to 19 House seats currently held by Black Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
But that scenario rested on a decision gutting the Voting Rights Act coming soon after the court heard the re-argument on Oct. 15. And it didn’t happen — at least, it hasn’t yet. A decision hasn’t been released, and at this point, the earliest it could come is late March. That will be too late for almost all Southern states to redraw their maps if the court rules as expected and guts the Voting Rights Act.
“We’re at the point where it’s functionally impossible for most Southern states to redraw their maps, unless they do something extraordinary like move or redo primaries,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit.
It’s a simple matter of calendars. In some states, primaries have already happened. In others, deadlines to finalize and print ballots and then send them out to military and overseas voters are coming up fast. .....................(more)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais_n_69ab48e0e4b03ae2f886b7a6
March 8, 2026
Mar 8, 2026 Pod Save America
California Governor Gavin Newsom sits down with Jon and Tommy before a live audience in Los Angeles to discuss Trump's war on Iran, the crowded California gubernatorial primary, and his new book Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. The governor talks about his close childhood friendship with the Getty family, issuing the first same-sex marriage licenses nationwide as San Francisco Mayor, and his surprising childhood pet, Potter the otter.
Pod Save America: Trump Still Can't Explain WHY America Is at War with Iran
Mar 8, 2026 Pod Save America
California Governor Gavin Newsom sits down with Jon and Tommy before a live audience in Los Angeles to discuss Trump's war on Iran, the crowded California gubernatorial primary, and his new book Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. The governor talks about his close childhood friendship with the Getty family, issuing the first same-sex marriage licenses nationwide as San Francisco Mayor, and his surprising childhood pet, Potter the otter.
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