“I Dissent”: Kagan Rips Supreme Court for Destroying Racial Equality

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warned that her colleagues have demolished a foundational right with their attack on the Voting Rights Act.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 to render the Voting Rights Act obsolete.

Louisiana v. Callais was first brought to the court in 2025 by a group of white voters, who argued that a congressional map drawn to create a Black-majority district in Louisiana was unconstitutional. The conservative judges ruled that while Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act outlaws race-based gerrymandering, Louisiana’s map did not fit the bill, and in fact unnecessarily employed racial statistics when drawing borders.

Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor all dissented. In a scathing 48-page opinion, Kagan, joined by her fellow liberal justices, warned the ruling “demolishes the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”

“The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history,’” Kagan wrote. “It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court.”

Kagan noted the ruling functionally eliminates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and allows legislators to wipe out minority districts whenever they feel like it.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote. “Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic. The majority claims only to be ‘updat[ing]’ our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks.… But in fact, those ‘updates’ eviscerate the law.”

Kagan continued: “A plaintiff will have to show—contrary to Section 2’s clear text and design—that the legislators were ‘motivated by a discriminatory purpose.’ That, as Section 2’s drafters knew, is well-nigh impossible.”

She concluded: “I dissent because Congress elected otherwise. I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.”

Pentagon Reveals Total Cost of Iran War—and It Will Blow Your Mind

The assistant Defense secretary said they plan to ask for even more money.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Jules Hurst finally revealed the Pentagon’s estimated price tag for the U.S. military onslaught in Iran—and it’s a doozy.

“We’re spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury,” Hurst said during a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. “Most of that is in munitions, there’s part of that obviously is [Operations and Maintenance] and equipment replacement.”

under questioning from Rep. Smith, a DoD official estimates the cost of the Iran war so far is $25 billion pic.twitter.com/aDzsLXIkpB— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 29, 2026

under questioning from Rep. Smith, a DoD official estimates the cost of the Iran war so far is $25 billion pic.twitter.com/aDzsLXIkpB

Hurst confirmed the Pentagon planned to develop a supplemental funding request through the White House once they had made a “full assessment of the cost of the conflict.” The Department of Defense has previously asked the White House for $200 billion for the war.

Washington state Democrat and Ranking Member Adam Smith, who’d asked the Pentagon representatives to eventually provide an estimate, appeared surprised to get such an immediate response. “I’m glad you’ve answered that question because we’ve been asking for a hell of a long time and no one’s given us that number,” he said.

As Trump’s military campaign in Iran has neared the 60-day mark, the Pentagon has neglected to deliver real cost estimates since it claimed to have spent more than $11.3 billion in the first six days alone. Every dollar spent on Trump’s war has come from American taxpayers, and was spent without congressional approval.

The American Center for Progress previously estimated that the war had reached a $25 billion price tag at the end of March. For context, the group estimated that with that amount of money, the U.S. government could for one entire year pay for Medicare coverage for 3,106,000 people, or provide 29,614,000 children with free school lunches, or shelter 3,147,000 people in Section 8 housing.

Instead, Trump chose to spend it on weapons, all while telling Americans there wasn’t enough money for childcare, Medicaid, or Medicare. For the amount of money the Pentagon has spent on this war, the government could have provided 1,780,000 children with free childcare for a year.

In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Ex-Official Warns People Fleeing in Droves as Trump Weaponizes DOJ

Donald Trump is causing the rule of law to be “eroded.”

Justice Department attorneys are decamping from the Trump administration, leaving behind an enormous staffing void within the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Thousands of experienced attorneys and staff have left the DOJ since Donald Trump returned to office, choosing a hasty exit over the possibility of being forced to prosecute unconstitutional cases at the president’s behest.

“What’s happening is long-term prosecutors are resigning because they’re refusing to go along with vindictive prosecutions, which are by their nature unconstitutional,” Stacey Young, an 18-year veteran of the agency, told MeidasTouch’s Scott MacFarlane. “In some cases, when prosecutors say no, they’re fired from their jobs for doing so, illegally.”

“And we’re also seeing people resign because of the culture those types of prosecutions create. So, the effect, the consequences, are devastating. The DOJ is losing countless lawyers because of it, the rule of law is being eroded, and the reputation of the department has really disintegrated,” Young said.

There were an estimated 10,000 attorneys working across the........

© New Republic