Posts on Thursday, May 28, 2026

As RedState reported, in 2023, a district court three-judge panel blocked the use of 2023 maps drawn by the Alabama legislature and forced them to draw a second majority-minority district. After the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Louisiana v. Callais, Alabama petitioned for redress of this ruling, and SCOTUS vacated the district court decision in early May, sending it back to the district court to review the case. On Tuesday, this same three-judge panel once again blocked the use of 2023 maps on the same basis: that the maps are deliberately discriminatory and violateg

Though I find it pretty amusing that there are various "political experts" out there among the Commentariat™ who are now suggesting that the seat currently held by the departing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) might be flippable, I'm not yet ready to declare any race a "sure thing" one way or the other, considering the current political climate, where things you once thought would never happen have actually happened. It's hard not to, though, when one considers the goldmine of material Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico has put out there over the years for Trump-backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the newly minted GOP Senate nominee, to exploit.

Spoiler alert: Naaah. But it's certainly fun to fantasize. Yes, John Cornyn may have been a slightly safer bet than Ken Paxton in a general election. Given the relative difference between how the two would have voted over the next six years, the gain from nominating Paxton probably doesn't justify the assumed risk of dethroning the incumbent Cornyn. It might take more money to fight for the seat in the general election, but that assumes that Democrats would have left Texas alone had Cornyn eked out a win over Paxton. In the end, though, Texas is Texas,

The US military has carried out new strikes on Iran, targeting a military site in Bandar Abbas, a strategic port city. US Central Command (Centcom) said its forces also shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones "that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz". The site in Bandar Abbas was struck as it was about to launch a fifth drone, Centcom said. Iranian media reported that explosions were heard to the east of the city. The strikes come amid a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, and protracted negotiations to end the three-month war that has choked traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and shot up global energy prices.

The Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether E. Jean Carroll, an 82-year-old former magazine writer who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, committed perjury in civil lawsuits against the president. Carroll accused Trump in a civil case of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1996 and later defaming her by dismissing her claims as a “hoax.”

Marco Polo’s Garrett Ziegler has identified the “sitting” federal district court judge found to have committed judicial misconduct, perhaps most notably, for having sex in her chambers. Ziegler concisely reports the facts and identifies “the subject judge,” as the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council Order gingerly puts it, or “the Subject Judge,” as the 20-page memorandum attached to the Order gingerly puts it. Ziegler has identified Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia as the Subject Judge. More cautiously, Josh Blackman comes to the same conclusion via a longer and more detailed route here. Professor Blackman has sought a response from Judge Ross