'Here, the District Court interposed itself into Alabama’s ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected.'
Former Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan urged a federal judge this week to toss out her conviction on obstruction charges for helping an illegal immigrant evade arrest last year, as part of a last-ditch effort before she is sentenced. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, heard arguments in […]
At Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Democratic senators questioned Mullin about the DHS budget, and ICE’s continued abuses.
SCOTUS delivered yet another crushing blow to voting rights on Tuesday night, issuing a 6–3 decision over the shadow docket.
Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused to commit to complying with federal court orders. During a tense Senate Appropriations hearing Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, pressed Mullin four times to confirm DHS would follow court directives to halt illegal or unconstitutional conduct. But Mullin repeatedly declined, "I will never break the Constitution," Mullin repeated."We're going to enforce the law."Murphy countered, saying federal courts determine whether agencies obey the law, warning the committee: "If you're a Republican or Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out." Mullin's stance echoes documented mass noncompliance by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, under his predecessor, Kristi Noem. Republican-appointed Judge Patrick Schiltz found ICE violated 96 court orders in a single month, according to NPR, stating, "ICE is not a law unto itself." Murphy cited that ruling directly at Mullin. Confirmed in March with 54-45 votes, Mullin replaced former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and pledged a softer enforcement approach at his confirmation hearing.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday to address the 2027 budget demands from his department. However, many of the questions dealt with more than the budget. At one point, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) addressed President Donald Trump's attitudes toward NATO. She brought up one of his comments from earlier this year, in which Trump claimed NATO had never done anything for the United States. She asked whether Rubio agreed with the sentiment. Rubio replied, "I think what the president was speaking to at that moment was that in the past NATO has allowed the U.S. to use the bases and airspace for whatever purposes it needed. That is no longer the case." Trump likely wasn't talking about that at the time, as the war with Iran didn't begin for several months later. McBride pointed out that fact. She repeated the question, asking once more whether Rubio agreed that NATO had never done anything for the U.S. Rubio tried to dodge the question before McBride said she was reclaiming her time.McBride rattled off some of the facts about how NATO has stepped up to help the U.S., particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Many soldiers from around Europe died as part of the "War on Terror" that lasted 19 years. But Rubio got coy when McBride asked about Greenland. "I assume you are aware that the ally that lost more [soldiers] per capita is Denmark? "Denmark?" Rubio asked. "I thought it was — I thought the U.K. had suffered more."McBride explained, "per capita." The U.K. has about 11 times as many people as Denmark. "You are aware that Greenland is part of Denmark?" she asked. "For now," Rubio quipped. She continued the conversation, asking more about Trump's efforts to seize the island. Rubio said the president believes the U.S. must have "complete control" of the area for military purposes. There's already a shared airbase on Greenland.
In an unsigned shadow-docket order on Tuesday night, June 2 in the case Allen v. Milligan, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a congressional map in Alabama that eliminates a largely Black district. This decision follows the High Court's controversial 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, decided on April 29. And Slate legal analysts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern believe that the June 2 order makes Callais even worse.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, was highly critical of the Alabama order — which, she argued, "disregards both democratic values and the rule of law." Lower federal court judges found the Alabama congressional map to be racially discriminatory, but the High Court's right-wing supermajority disagreed."Although the supermajority described its handiwork as a straightforward application of April's decision in Louisiana v. Callais," Lithwick and Stern explain in Slate, "Tuesday's decision dramatically expands the scope of that ruling. It is not a mere aftershock from Callais, but a separate earthquake of the same or perhaps even greater magnitude. Following years of twists and turns in the legal system, this case has become the vehicle by which the Court's conservative supermajority not only applies its own brand-new 'updates' to Section 2 of the storied Voting Rights Act of 1965, but also, sweeps what remains of constitutional protections against discriminatory voting practices out the back door."The legal analysts continue, "It commits these crimes in an unsigned, blithely dismissive order that lacks any substantive reasoning, as it pretends to be honoring some jurisprudential lodestar it celebrates as 'our colorblind Constitution.'"The June 2 order on Alabama, according to Lithwick and Stern, expands "Callais' jury-rigged standards."The Callais ruling inspired plenty of heated debates. While some conservatives and libertarians saw Callais as a victory for fairness, quite a few liberals and progressives countered that it decimated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and gave the green light to racial discrimination. NAACP President Derrick Johnson is among the critics of Callais and the June 2 Supreme Court order that followed it. Appearing on MS NOW, Johnson told host Ana Cabrera, "It seems the Supreme Court is endorsing racially discriminatory behavior by the state of Alabama."Similarly, Lithwick and Stern view the High Court's Alabama order as a victory for "blatantly racist gerrymanders.""In reality, the Alabama map was determined, over many years and many pages of fact-finding, to have been a product of intentional discrimination," the Slate legal analysts write. "For instance, the state admitted that it had tried to keep residents with 'European heritage' — that is, white people — in the same district while aggressively slicing up non-white communities into different districts. Under the new regime, the Roberts Court's conservatives don't care. In fact, Tuesday's order expressly approved of the state's desire to keep those white voters together while divvying up Black voters to prevent the latter group from electing their preferred representative. It is now open season on minority voters in any state that seeks to crowd them out of their voting booths."
What the Roberts court has just wreaked goes beyond handing an extra House seat to the GOP in the upcoming election.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had a troubling exchange with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy in which he refused to commit to following all court orders on immigration.“‘ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.’ That’s not a Democratic-appointed judge, that is a Republican-appointed judge describing the scale of illegality,” Murphy said in a Senate Appropriations hearing on Tuesday afternoon. “You always struck me as somebody who cared about the rule of law, and so maybe the easiest question is this: When DHS gets a court order telling them that something they are doing is either illegal and unconstitutional … can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE is doing, something DHS is doing as illegal, unconstitutional, [or] tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?”Mullin refused to give a yes-or-no answer, dodging the question at least four times. CHRIS MURPHY: Can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE or DHS is doing as illegal or unconstitutional and tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We will never break the Constitution and we're not going to break the law,… pic.twitter.com/PESeUu577W— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 2, 2026Mullin: Ranking member Murphy, I will tell you that we will never break the Constitution, and we’re not going to break the law, but we’re going to enforce our nation’s laws. And we’re gonna enforce the laws that you guys passed and that we implement. We will never go outside that, and if we do, we’ll hold each other accountable for that.Murphy: But that doesn’t sound like the same thing as committing that you will obey a court order. Obviously, the entire structure of the federal government gives the power to the courts to divine whether you are obeying the law or not. I think it’s an easy thing to say—will you, will you not implement court orders?Mullin: If we didn’t think courts were politicized, then I would probably be able to answer that, but we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law.Murphy: So you’ll pick and choose which court orders you obey based upon whether—Mullin: Don’t put words in my mouth.Murphy: Then what are you saying, then?Mullin: What I’m saying is, we’ll enforce the law, and we’re never going to break the Constitution.Murphy: You just said that you will not follow every court order, because—Mullin: Chris, senator, don’t start putting words in my mouth. That’s not what I said. I said I will never break the Constitution.Murphy: Will you implement court orders when they tell you to stop?Mullin: You’re making an assumption on court orders I haven’t seen.Murphy: Will you or will you not?Mullin: I’m going to enforce the law, and I’ll never break the Constitution.