The Dictatorship

In key Southern red state, democracy suffers dramatic back-to-back setbacks

Published

2 months ago

May 4, 2026

In key Southern red state, democracy suffers dramatic back-to-back setbacks

After Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices further gutted the Voting Rights Act last week, it stood to reason that Louisiana Republicans would do what they’ve long wanted to do: redraw the state’s district map so that the state’s two Black congressmen would almost certainly lose. There was, however, a logistical problem.

The Pelican State’s electoral process, which included balloting in May, was already in motion, and by any reasonable measure, the high court’s ruling came too late in the year to accommodate partisan plans for the 2026 cycle.

Gov. Jeff Landry apparently didn’t care, and just one day after the Louisiana v. Callais ruling came down, the Republican governor suspended scheduled primary elections and directed the legislature to move forward with plans to approve a new district map.

The brazen and undemocratic move, executed two days before early voting began in Louisiana, led to chaotic conditions that were as predictable as they were unavoidable. The New York Times reported:

The signs were stark, in bold, capital letters at early voting sites in Louisiana on Saturday: “ATTENTION! NOTICE OF CANCELLATION.”

The normally scheduled House primaries had been scrapped, the bulletins said, and any votes cast for those races would not be counted. It was an unusual message directed at Louisianians who showed up for the first day of early voting, and a reflection of the dizzying scramble that is playing out after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s congressional map.

Under Landry’s plan, some of the state’s May 16 contests can proceed as planned, but congressional primaries have been suspended at his command. The result, the Times’ report added, was understandable “bewilderment” among local voters who weren’t altogether sure whether the state would count their ballots.

The governor’s gambit is now facing spirited legal challengesbut as it happens, this coincided with a different GOP effort in Louisiana that also undermined democracy.

A Louisiana man named Calvin Duncan was convicted of murder in 1981 and imprisoned for almost three decades before being fully exonerated in 2021, when a judge agreed that he had been unjustly convicted and vacated Duncan’s sentence. In the months and years that followed, he rebuilt his lifegraduated from law school at age 60 and even ran a successful campaign to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court, vowing to help reform the justice system that had unjustly sent him to a maximum-security prison for a crime he did not commit.

That didn’t sit well with Landry and the GOP-controlled legislature, which, as my MS NOW colleague Jarvis DeBerry recently explainedscrambled to eliminate Duncan’s job before he could be sworn in on May 4.

They did exactly that. On the same day that the governor suspended the state’s congressional primary elections, Landry also signed into law a measure that folded the criminal clerk’s responsibilities into the city’s civil clerk’s office.

Duncan filed a federal lawsuit, which has fared well, at least so far: The Times-Picayune in New Orleans reported“A federal judge on Sunday blocked a state law that would have abolished the Orleans Parish criminal clerk of court position, clearing the way for Calvin Duncan, who was elected to the post last year, to assume office Monday. U.S. District Judge John deGravelles … declared Senate Bill 256 unconstitutional and enjoined Gov. Jeff Landry and Secretary of State Nancy Landry from enforcing it.”

The ruling was encouraging, but it doesn’t negate the fact that the GOP’s effort to eliminate Duncan’s position was emblematic of a larger truth: Democracy suffered some brutal blows in Louisiana last week.

UPDATE(May 4, 2026, 12:34 p.m. ET): Shortly after this piece was published, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the lower court ruling from taking effect and prevented Duncan from assuming the office to which he was elected to serve.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

ICE arrest of nun adds to clashes between Team Trump and the faith community

Published

4 hours ago

July 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

ICE arrest of nun adds to clashes between Team Trump and the faith community

A few months into Donald Trump’s second term, the president’s administration launched a task force that would, according to the Republican White House, eradicate “anti-Christian bias” within the federal government. At a launch event in April 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi began by attacking Joe Biden, who Bondi said had “abused and targeted Christians.”

The slander was baseless. And a year later, when the task force tried to bolster its accusations with a lengthy written report, the allegations against the former president and his Democratic administration largely fell apart.

But more than a year after Team Trump started making a concerted effort to convince Americans that Joe Biden and his White House “abused and targeted Christians,” it’s the incumbent president and his administration that continue to clash with the faith community — up to and including a recent arrest of a nun. MS NOW reported:

The arrest of a Catholic nun from Nigeria by federal immigration officers in southern Texas [last week] made for an unlikely alliance on Capitol Hill as lawmakers from both parties demanded her release and asked the question: Why aren’t border officials focused on real threats to public safety?

Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, 56, was walking the block between her home and the Catholic Church where she attends Sunday Mass in McAllen, Texas, when she was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The agents arrested her, taking her rosary, and brought her to a nearby detention facility.

For all of the president’s and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s chest-thumping about Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers targeting the “worst of the worst,” Ugboaja is a nun. She was wearing her habit and walking down a public sidewalk en route to Sunday Mass when she was hauled off.

The idea that she somehow represented a threat to public safety in Texas is plainly insane.

Fortunately, Ugboaja was ultimately released from federal detention after a backlash from members of Congress, but this was hardly a rare clash between the Republican administration and the faith community. In fact, this incident comes on the heels of Team Trump suing a Catholic diocese in New Mexico in order to seize 14 acres of land for additional border barriers.

There have been related controversies surrounding the Pentagon’s list of officially recognized religionsTrump picking fights with Pope Leo XIV, the administration stripping funding from Catholic charities, and instances in which federal agents have shot faith leaders with pepper balls.

If these developments unfolded during a Democratic administration, is there any doubt that Republicans and conservative media outlets would launch hysterical campaigns about the “Democratic war on religion”?

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The Dictatorship

Trump’s financial disclosure shows his corruption hitting a new low

Published

4 hours ago

July 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Christmas. 6, 2026, 10:50 AM EDT

ByRichard W. Painter,Norman IronsandVirginia Canter

As former White House ethics lawyers who served administrations of both parties, we upheld a clear bipartisan norm: Presidents and senior officials must avoid even the appearance that their official power is entangled with personal gain. Presidents and senior officials were expected to divest conflicting assets, use blind trusts or hold broadly diversified funds — all to avoid the mingling of their public office and their private interests.

President Donald Trump has shattered that principle. His most recent financial disclosure reveals an extraordinary $2.2 billion in gains during his first year in office. The sheer scale of the sums — $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency alone — is unparalleled. The issue is not simply how much money Trump made or that he made it at all; it is that the money comes from industries his administration regulates, foreign relationships his administration oversees and markets that can rise or fall based on the policies, enforcement decisions, diplomatic relationships and public signals of the office he holds.

Unlike Trump, most Americans cannot afford to hedge their bets through the buying and selling of oil company stocks.

Not surprisingly, the White House says there are no conflicts of interest, and Trump himself claims that an independent firm handles his investments. But the truth is that Trump is financially capitalizing on the presidency in a way never before seen in American history.

The clearest example is cryptocurrency, where his personal financial interests overlap with his administration’s regulatory decisions, market signals and foreign relationships. Since returning to office, Trump’s administration has moved toward a more permissive approach to digital assets. Meanwhile, Trump and his family maintain significant financial interests in that industry. His administration has promoted the United States as a crypto hub, supported new stablecoin rules and moved away from aggressive enforcement against major crypto firms. Through regulation, enforcement decisions, stablecoin policy and public signals from the White House, the president can influence the rules and market confidence around assets from which he personally benefits.

Woefully inadequate regulation means he is leaving American investors exposed to crypto scams and a market of volatile speculative assets that can collapse as quickly as they surge. Trump’s own meme coin shows the danger. The president can benefit from the attention and trading activity generated by his name while retail investors are left exposed when the price falls. The official Trump meme coin ($TRUMP) is down 97.7% from its all-time high; according to one analysisalmost a million investors have lost a combined $3.8 billion on the coin. Meanwhile, Trump banked $636 million in revenue from the venture.

The foreign conflicts are just as alarming. The shadowy nature of crypto transactions makes it difficult to understand all that is happening behind the scenes. But what we are seeing is shocking enough. To pick but one example: In early 2025, World Liberty Financial, a Trump family-backed crypto venture, issued USD1, its stablecoin pegged to the dollar. Within weeks, the United Arab Emirates-owned investment fund MGX used USD1 in connection with a $2 billion investment in crypto company Binance. (The Trump family World Liberty and Binance deny wrongdoing.) Stablecoins can generate income through the reserves that back them, meaning wider use of USD1 may benefit World Liberty.

In other words, a foreign power — a key player in an unpopular and expensive war with Iran that Trump began without the consent of Congress — is financing a business venture that is partly owned by the president and his family. Ordinary Americans pay for this war with sky-high gas prices. Unlike Trump, most Americans cannot afford to hedge their bets through the buying and selling of oil company stocks.

Congress has both the power and responsibility to act.

No president ever has had these kinds of business dealings, let alone with foreign governments, since our nation’s founding. In fact, the founders included a clause prohibiting foreign emoluments in our original Constitution specifically to prevent this type of corruption. During Trump’s first term, we and others warned that these protections exist because financial dependence can distort judgment, compromise foreign policy and entangle the nation in decisions made for private benefit.

Congress has both the power and responsibility to act. It can pass legislation barring presidents, vice presidents, senior officials and members of Congress from trading individual stocks, holding cryptocurrency interests that overlap with official duties, or maintaining business arrangements that create conflicts while they serve. It can require meaningful divestiture, the creation of blind trusts and enforceable stricter disclosure rules.

Legislators also have the power to investigate Trump’s existing financial arrangements. They can examine the president’s crypto earnings, foreign-linked transactions, stock trades and other business interests to determine who paid, who benefited and whether official policy was affected.

Congress must use both its lawmaking and investigative powers. That will certainly happen if the president’s party loses one or both chambers in the midterm elections this fall. But it should not wait. The president’s allies may fear his political power, his threats of primary challenges and the campaign money he can help steer against them. But their constitutional duty is to protect the presidency from corruption and the public from the abuse of power.

Americans should not have to wonder whether consumer protections are weakened because the president profits from crypto, whether foreign policy is shaped by foreign-linked business deals or whether law enforcement decisions (such as pardoning the founder of a firm involved in that UAE deal) are influenced by the president’s private balance sheet.

The presidency is not supposed to be a profit center. Congress should stop treating Trump’s corruption as a political inconvenience and start treating it as a constitutional crisis.

Richard W. Painter

Richard W. Painter was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007 under President George W. Bush. He is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota and is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

Norman Irons

Norman Eisen is a co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action and publisher of The Contrarian. Eisen previously served as a U.S. ambassador and in senior White House and congressional staff roles.

Virginia Canter

Virginia Canter is chief anticorruption counsel for Democracy Defenders Fund and former chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

The Dictatorship

Retired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. raises alarm about increasingly politicized military

Published

4 hours ago

July 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Retired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. raises alarm about increasingly politicized military

As Donald Trump’s second term got underway, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. knew his job was on the line, but he hoped to continue serving as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To that end, he attended Trump’s inauguration ceremony as an apparent sign of support, and after the event, the general told reporters that he planned to remain at his post.

The president had a different plan. At the start of a broader military purge that’s still ongoing, Trump fired the country’s highest-ranking military officer about a month after the Republican returned to the White House.

More than a year later, Brown has had an opportunity to make new assessments from the outside looking in, and he apparently has some serious concerns. The Wall Street Journal reported:

CQ Brown, the retired general forced out of his post as the nation’s top military officer last year, has provided his most direct critique of the Trump administration’s handling of the U.S. military, questioning the deployment of troops in U.S. cities and warning against tainting the armed forces’ service with politics.

In an essay published Friday with two co-authors, Brown cautioned that sending the military into American cities for “politically contentious missions” like fighting crime risked compromising its traditionally apolitical role and diverting it from its combat mission.

The essay in Foreign Affairs magazine that Brown co-authored was striking on its own terms. “[W]hen presidents use the armed forces for more politically contentious missions, such as addressing domestic crime in cities, the work of the military becomes more fraught,” it read. “Resorting to a military solution rather than fixing the underlying incapacity or dysfunction in civilian institutions diverts the military from focusing on its primary combat mission. And, as [George] Washington knew, it is not the military’s job to save the republic from political impasses. Indeed, if you ask too much of the military, you risk the entire enterprise.”

But as the Journal noted, the Foreign Affairs piece also roughly coincided with Brown raising public concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s efforts to strike officers from military promotion lists and push out high-ranking personnel.

“What is starting to happen now, it is not about merit,” the forced out general said at a discussion of civil-military relations hosted by the Aspen Institute. “All of these people who are being removed are very well experienced.” (He did not mention Hegseth or Trump by name.)

Part of what makes these developments notable is the retired general’s title: Brown isn’t just another voice, he’s the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffand a highly decorated and broadly respected military leader who spent more than four decades serving in uniform.

What’s more, the retired general has a reputation for restraint, not political broadsides. When he starts issuing public warnings about the politicization of the armed forces, it’s wise to heed his concerns.

But just as notable is the body of evidence bolstering Brown’s observations. It was just last week, for example, that JD Vance delivered remarks to active-duty troops at Naval Air Station Oceana, where the vice president made little effort to suppress his partisan political instincts.

Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine noted shortly after Vance’s remarks, “The use of an address to troops to make political speeches openly attacking a former commander in chief is scandalous, and to their credit the troops are reacting just as they should.”

Vance, however, was following his boss’ lead: Trump has spent much of his second term treating active-duty American troops as if they were just another MAGA constituencydeserving of red meat partisanship.

Last fall, The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols highlighted what he described as an ongoing “civil-military crisis,” arguing, “Trump and his valet at the Defense Department, Secretary of Physical Training Pete Hegseth, are now making a dedicated run at turning the men and women of the armed forces into Trump’s personal and partisan army.”

Is it any wonder that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appears worried?