Alabama Rushes to Eliminate Its Only Two Democrats in Congress

Another Republican governor has joined Donald Trump’s gerrymandering wars in light of the Supreme Court ruling.

Alabama is pushing ahead with a racist redistricting scheme after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Republican Governor Kay Ivey called Friday for a special session next week of the Alabama state legislature to pass new congressional and state Senate maps, and prepare legislation to hold special primary elections.

The move came one day after Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to implement new congressional and state Senate maps that were redrawn in 2023 before being barred by the Voting Rights Act.

In Wednesday’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the court’s six-justice conservative majority effectively dismantled Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race. While the decision did not eradicate it entirely, the court has raised new hurdles for those seeking to prove a racial gerrymandering claim, and gave its blessing to those who would claim partisan gerrymandering as a legal defense.

The new maps would effectively redraw Alabama’s two Black-majority districts: the 2nd district and the 7th district.

Alabama’s 2nd congressional district, led by Representative Shamari Figures, contains Mobile and Montgomery and would see its Black population shrink from 49 percent to 40 percent, according to the Alabama Reflector.

Alabama’s 7th congressional district, led by Representative Terri Sewell, is Alabama’s oldest majority-Black district and has consistently sent Black Democrats to Washington since 1993. This district includes Selma, as well as parts of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Montgomery.

CJ Pearson, a right-wing influencer, wrote on X that the decision “will likely lead to a COMPLETELY REPUBLICAN DELEGATION!” Pearson, who was one of the first to report Ivey’s move, said that it had been the result of lobbying by Marshall, attorney general candidate Katherine Robertson, and Secretary of State Wes Allen.

Pope Leo Appoints Bishops Who Warned America Is Regressing Under Trump

Pope Leo XIV has named three new bishops who aren’t big fans of Donald Trump.

Pope Leo XIV has named three new bishops in the United States, each of whom have been vocal critics of President Trump.

Evelio Menjivar, a formerly undocumented immigrant, will be the new bishop for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia, and Gary Studniewski and Robert Boxie III will be auxiliary bishops in Washington, D.C. The appointments indicate a deliberate choice on the pope’s part to select representatives in the United States who will be similarly unafraid to raise their voices against the Trump administration.

Menjivar, who immigrated from El Salvador to the U.S. in the trunk of a car when he was a teenager, decried Trump’s immigration crackdown last year in the National Catholic Reporter. “The federal government has pursued a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration ‘enforcement,’” he wrote. “We must stand with those at risk … and we cannot let the dark side of anti-immigrant animus take hold.”

Father Studniewski, a former U.S. Army chaplain who serves in the Capitol Hill area, called the January 6 insurrection “very disturbing, very disheartening.”

“It was a normal day, until all that sickening unrest in the afternoon,” he told Today’s Catholic in 2021. And Father Boxie, who serves at Howard University, was deeply critical of Trump’s war on diversity, equity, and inclusion last year.

“In a lot of ways we have made great progress, but in so many ways, I feel like we’re regressing,” said Boxie. “It’s really frustrating—especially this moment that we’re living in. The attacks on ‘DEI’—I don’t even know what that means anymore. It’s a term that’s been hijacked. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people.”

Trump Says It’s Not “Constitutional” for Congress to Block Iran War

Donald Trump has hit the 60-day deadline for needing to get congressional approval on his war in Iran.

President Donald Trump claimed Friday it’s unconstitutional to seek congressional approval for war.

Speaking to the press outside the White House, Trump whined that he should not have to comply with the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the president to withdraw his forces from a conflict after 60 days unless Congress declares war or approves an extension.

“There’s no other country that’s ever done it, it’s never been uh, as you know—most people consider it totally unconstitutional. Also we had a ceasefire so that gives you additional time,” he falsely claimed.

Trump claims it's unconstitutional to seek congressional authorization for war pic.twitter.com/W2rnTOXbDn— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2026

Trump claims it's unconstitutional to seek congressional authorization for war pic.twitter.com/W2rnTOXbDn

“We’re on our way to another victory, a big victory. And I don’t think that it’s constitutional what they’re asking for. These are not patriotic people that are asking,” he said.

The irony is that the War Powers Resolution is the only reason Trump’s reckless military campaign in Iran could even be considered constitutional in the first place. According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, Congress has sole power to declare war. The 60-day window is an exception to that rule.

If the War Powers Resolution were totally void, Trump’s war in Iran would be illegal. (It already is, according to international law.)

Trump has simultaneously tried to sidestep Congress’s 60-day deadline by buying into the argument that the clock stopped when a ceasefire was announced halfway through April.

However, the U.S. is........

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