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US Supreme Court decision on Voting Rights Act to cost 18 Black members of Congress their seats in US Congress.

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Republicans gave US Congress 63% rating when DJT was elected in Jan 2026- this has since dropped in Gallup polls to 20% in 5 months. Overall US Congress has only a 10% approval rating one of the worst in its history. Only once was this exceeded- in 2013 when Obama was president with the budget impasse and 16 day federal government shutdown.

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Cornyn is a 5 term Republican senator from Texas who was once a rival of Mitch McConnell for Senate Majority Leader. He lost in the Texas Republican primary to challenger Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas. Paxton got the Texas Republican base to back him with CJT's endorsement. The result Paxton wins by 64% to 36% and heads into a fight for the Senate seat with Talarico of the Democrats. Texas voted for DJT by a margin of 14%. Democrats are targeting this Senate seat with huge fundraising. Ted Cruz defended his Senate seat against Rep. Allred with ad spending reaching $210 million in 2024. Talarico has raised $27 million in 3 months, Paxton $7 million. It shows that regardless of which party, both parties spend heavily and raise enormous sums making them beholden to special interests that make it difficult to change aspects of the system such as runaway pharmaceutical costs, cost of living, or to regulate banks, social media, cyber currency, and AI. The result is that Congress has less credibility and poor approval ratings with the public than ever. US Congress has disapproval rating of 90%, only 10% approve of its conduct and performance. Among Democrats 3%, Republicans 20%, and Independents 11%. ...

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AI stakes are big enough to expect the US Congress "the most underachieving branch of the US government ," to be jolted into action says The Editorial Board of the Washington Post. Illinois wants to set the national standard after California and New York set rules for AI. Senator Bill Cunningham of Illinois says the 3 states could together cover 40% of the AI market in the US. Illinois laws would have the following rules-

1. Chatbots would remind users they are not human every 3 hours.

2. companies using Ai for customer service would disclose they are not areal person.

3. Teachers cannot use AI to set grades in schools and colleges.

4. Landlords would not be allowed to set monthly rent using AI. 

5. BanAI companions for minors.

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Watch key moments of King Charles Address to the US Congress April 28 2026. This is the most warmly and most embraced speech in the US Congress in decades. The last time a British monarch was in the US, and addressed the US Congress was Queen Elizabeth in the Suez crisis of 1956. Looking back the Suez crisis was precipitated by a Arab nationalist military officer taking over (nationalizing) the Suez Canal in Egypt from British and French control. As this was when the British and French Empires existed in Africa and Asia, and the US was for freeing people requiring breakup of these Empires.  It should be remembered American General Stilwell carried out this policy in China by fighting the Japanese Empire in China, and also India. America was never on the side of Empires as some would have us believe, and there is no better example of American spirit and generous heart than General Joe Stilwell in China for 1900-1950. Today Keir Starmer and Macron's move to represent the British and French as innocent bystanders is anything but, as the British and French created 50 years of wars in the Middle East by creating the artificial states of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq of Shia and Sunni people out of the defeated Ottoman Empire by 1921. King Charles was making the best of the bad situation in his speech as he supports US position of naval blockade to prevent Iran (or for that matter any place in the Middle East a powder keg of a region like the Balkans in 1914 that started WWI) from getting nuclear weapons. ...

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Some estimates of the cost of the Iran War for the US are about $13 billion over 10 days of the war. US president DJT asks Congress for $200 billion to finance the war. Iran refuses to back down on the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. Much of the oil going through the Straits of Hormuz goes to Asia, 90% from Kharg Island in Iran goes to China. Oil from the UAE goes through the Straits to Japan and India.

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Obama Affordable Care Act ACA and its downfall are covered by two experienced authors over 2 book written over 2 decades. The authors are James Morone and David Blumenthal followed the healthcare issue over 25-30 years through the Clinton, Edward Kennedy and Obama efforts and wrote two books. The first was "The Heart of Power" on the healthcare situation from FDR to 2008. The last titled "Whiplash" in 2026, for which the authors are interviewed in Harvard Medicine magazine. C-SPAN has a book program on this book at a Washington DC bookstore. From the discussion on C-SPAN between Senator Michael Blumenthal, borther of one of the authors, James Morone and David Blumenthal physician, couple of conclusions are seen that may be new to readers. Q. What was the one single factor that doomed the Affordable Care Act? A. The deep antipathy towards the Obama administration influenced the response to the Obama handling of healthcare. The likelihood of Republicans accepting healthcare from a black person was simply not there say the book's authors in the discussion and Q&A on C-SPAN. Yet there were other reasons for the ACA failing. Obama had not gauged the mood of the nation well. UK Labour's Starmer won by a big majority in 2024 yet that does not reflect the mood of the British nation just 2 years later- by election year 2012 Obama's campaign was faltering and had to be rescued with Hispanic votes and a weak candidate in Utah's Mitt Romney. Obama lacked maturity and came in the way Bush came in when the list of candidates were mediocre in the US, similar to the period in the UK with David Cameron and Boris Johnson. To take on the health care issue required someone with the experience and caliber of LBJ, which Obama clearly lacked, coming from the minority community was not going to help in credibility. Obama's presidency was thus premature and to gain experience he would have done better in a key cabinet position such as at Department of State where an intellectual could have influenced world opinion in favor of emerging countries, a doable and necessary. Obama's lack of experience showed when he told Republicans two words in the first months in 2008- "We Won," perceiving arrogance it would set Republicans against him. The years 2008-2016 cost the US dearly in that the US needed a withdrawal from all of the Middle East which would require a strong president  with deep roots of support in all parts of the country including the south, to avoid recriminations. In the end by continuing the wars Obama weakened the US and let China move ahead. Q. Did Obama consider Medicare for All? A. Obama told Congressmen of his party according to Morone- if you can get 60 votes in the Senate for Medicare for All we can try.  Q. Would it take a major upheaval for Medicare for All to be accepted now that the health system is failing all Americans in 2026? A. It will take a world war or a economic depression- some major disaster for Medicare for All to be accepted in the US, say the authors. A pandemic happened in 1918 and again in 2019 the results were not positive, as the authors believe it unleashed the war on science after the vaccination for and against camps, leading to the culture wars in America seen today. Q  Obama's analytical mind thought he learned from the Clinton efforts in healthcare that failed. But he did not see things from the heart. There is good reason to think that the lessons learned of moving fast, letting Congress write the legislation, settling for what can be done not what needs to be done, were exactly the wrong lessons to be learned as opposed to writing off the Clinton experience entirely as Clinton's, and starting from scratch without preconceptions. In the end Obama if he was older, had more experience, and listened to the mood of the country would have realized that healthcare was for another day, and got right down to the most difficult challenge, to end the wars in the Middle East. Even small steps in the right direction would still have earned appreciation him today. Instead Bush and Obama, the most inexperienced of presidents will be remembered for wars they continued that weakened America.       ...

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India's prime minister Narendra Modi addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on June 8, 2016. The close ties between India and the U.S. were enhanced by the good personal relationship between U.S. president Obama and Modi. With a change in administration in 2017 both sides are eager to secure the foundations of the relationship, with India's agreement to the Climate Change Agreement, and other steps.

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This report in The Guardian explains what a split Congress means in the US as the Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate in the midterms of 2022. This means legislative logjam says The Guardian.  The narrow majority also means there will be difficulty for the Republican Speaker to control the House with 3 newcomers from New York and others as moderates, and a mix of views within Republicans.

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Where do you place a winner of the Democratic primary in Maine, Graham Plattner, an oyster farmer who dropped out of college at George Washington University, served briefly in the Middle East wars of Bush and Obama, and had PTSD. Is he working class, middle working class or is he from a downwardly mobile professional class considering he has parents who are well educated and father a prominent lawyer in Maine? Plattner easily defeated a 3 term governor of Maine with his average working class demeanor and language. He is for universal health care, (Medicare for All) universal child care, affordable housing, affordable college. Politics in the US has been moving away from the simple divisions before 1950 created by the Industrial Revolution- the workers in factories and the owners of capital allied with the professional middle class. The few owners of capital mostly college educated allied with people from the non college educated workers in factories who are conservative in their values and beliefs and on the other side the college educated professional middle class now downwardly mobile because of the many recessions and high unemployment from frequent financial crises, with college costing $80,000 a year putting them in deep debt. There is today in the WSJ a story of a professional worker who at $194,000 a year salary is not able to payoff $15000 debt which owners of capital have set at 26% interest and is in downward spiral. Some of this comes from large college and other debt. There is says WSJ Analysis $1.25 trillion in credit card debt alone with highest delinquency rates in decades in 2026. Cost of living has only made things worse and some of this happened as Biden poured money into the economy to help people hurt by the pandemic, yet with some short run consequences with demand strong businesses including hotels, restaurants and grocery stores, auto dealers, jacking up their prices by over 20% in 1 year and Biden failing to respond, getting overwhelmed by open borders migrants under Mayorkas and Harris (also hit by a sudden Venezuelan migrant influx). This is the America one has today- a confusing mix. This in reality means Democrats may take issue with Democrats, Republicans take issue with Republicans, and Democrats join with Republicans on issue by issue basis. It might actually be rational than irrational. On cultural issues if the country has gone over its head and moved too fast on some issues that are not for the general public good, people of different backgrounds can come together to get the best path. On economic issues things are never so straightforward, there are unpredictable consequences and the rules of economics are really not so straightforward either.  Providing relief can mean the government shouldering the burden as during the pandemic which it should, yet with caution as businesses can use the excess demand to raise prices and one is back to square one with everybody worse off as happened with Biden. Migrant flows and fears of insecurity in public spaces can lead to a severe public "discomfort that can waylay the best intentions of a Harris or Biden, leading to public "backlash." In fact the title of a recent book is "Whiplash." Current books include Floridan Marco Rubio's "Decade's of Decadence- How our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity." Rubio means it. Its authentic because as Rubio says repeatedly, his parents could make a living in the 1960's working in a factory with decent wages, low cost of living and low cost of college, the arithmetic between salaries and what you needed for decent home in suburbs and sending children to good public schools, then to college, all adding up. The result is that Rubio could go to college and serve in the Florida legislature. Rubio says in 2026, after the elites under Bush and Obama and faulty economic theory shipped all of our factories to China, that the story of his parents and his education would simply be impossible. This is what he told people in India on his first visit last week. His parents were Cuban immigrants, yet he identifies with Spain and with western civilization, a devout Roman Catholic. Rubio is a Republican, and is in large contrast with Alejandro Mayorkas, also from Cuba, and Biden's Head of Homeland Security. This is the mix of people and representatives in Congress,  business people, small business owners, professionals, that we have today in 2026 in the US. Plattner and Rubio, one a Democrat and one a Republican- both have something in common. Plattner also has general disdain for "the corporate interests, the billionaires, the Washington DC elites, and the establishment politicians."  The winds are blowing in the direction of getting things right- remembering that Eisenhower continued the work of the Kennedy and LBJ administrations (Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System for instance, and LBJ gave America Social Security and Medicare). Before that Franklin Roosevelt a Democrat built on the work of his uncle Republican Theodore Roosevelt (TR gave America the idea of good governance and built the US Navy, FDR fought the Depression and stabilized a faltering economy after mistakes made by Republican Herbert Hoover could have happened even if Hoover was a Democrat. FDR was himself from a wealthy New York family and when he first met fellow New Yorker Frances Perkins before his struggle with polio, a haughty New York gentleman. That was before Frances Perkins as FDR's Labor Secretary joined forces with Roosevelt to give New York a modernized administration governance structure by 1940 that was applied to all 51 states after 1950. It allied labor with capital with fairness for all, and was the first such modern structure of this size the world had ever seen, which was the fundamental strength of the United States of America. It was imitated in Asia, first in the Shanghai region then China, and first in the Ahmedabad region and now India. The US is faced with the challenge of recreating and rebuilding this today, as first China, then India remind America of its roots which they have followed in their own style and culture.  First good governance, then good institutional structures, alligning labor and capital with fairness for all, strong affordable + accessible educational and healthcare systems, and investments of capital and labor for infrastructure + industrial development. ...

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A red wave fails to appear, says this report in The Guardian of the US 2022 midterm elections for the US Congress. A key Senate seat in Pennsylvania goes to Democrat Fetterman. Other races are tight and the final results will take time. Ron De Santis wins Florida as a Republican with a wide margin and is seen as looking for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. The Georgia Senate seat looks to be headed for a runoff.

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A look at how Black Republicans have fared in US Congress - just 10 of them. There are 57 Democratic Black members of Congress in the US, 31 are women.

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US Congress action on housing crisis- it includes modular housing, better access to home loans, and simplifying environmental review process to speed up building and cut costs. Bills in Congress direct agencies to increase home loans for under $150,000.

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Christine Lagarde on the need to complete the planned reforms giving more voting power to emerging market countries China, S. Korea, Brazil, Mexico, India and others. This woud not change the U.S. voting power of of over 16%. The reforms would also increase contributions from these countries. This issue is likely to come up in meetings of finance ministers in Australia in 2014.

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Proposed ban on investors in housing market proposed by DJT to improve affordability in housing is facing resistance in  the US Congress. Speculative investments in the housing market drive up prices in the housing market at a time of severe housing affordability crisis.

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won a no confidence motion in Parliament by 275 to 256 margin with 10 abstentions and will push for the ratification of the nuclear deal with the USA.

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This WSJ podcast looks at the U.S. $2 trillion aid plan passed by Congress for businesses and families in response to the coronavirus health crisis.

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New US Homeland Security head, Markwayne Mullin in 2026, is from Cherokee Nation the only Native American in the Senate. The president call him "the Highly Respected." He replaces a controversial term of Kristi Noem, a South Dakota governor,  who failed to get support even among Republicans in Congress after the handling of the situation in Minnesota.

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WSJ was effective in calling to the attention of the US president that tactics of one Border Patrol officer were against the American tradition and appeared to be not what police, ICE and Border Patrol, DHS itself was doing in the past. Greg Bovino of Border Patrol led sweeps in LA, Chicago and other cities in what people inside ICE and DHS including Border Head Homan  considered  "unnecessarily aggressive"  and less effective tactics. By being provocative in tactics this attracted more protestors on streets, made law enforcement look worse than when it was using the normal approach of ICE, and by reducing the local authorites cooperation required more and more Border patrol and ICE agents till it became unworkable and attracted critics from within the government and Republicans in Congress. Even DJT said that the this agent was an "out there kind of guy." In Congress many Republicans including Kennedy of Louisiana went on the floor of the Senate asserting the right of peaceful protest enshrined in the US Constitution and called for soul searching to get effective but the right kind of law enforcement that was the tradition in America. Anotehr aspect of what happened in Minneapolis is the troubled history of the city as this is where George Floyd and unarmed man during Covid lost his life in a situation with Minneapolis police, which had already created a sense of unease in that city, compared to Chicago, and Los Angeles BP and ICE sweeps which did not end up like this. In Nashville, and Washington DC National Guard not ICE operated which has different training.  ...

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US president DJT in his State of the Union made immigration a major issue saying Democrats could not be trusted with Borders after the disasters of recent years. The president told Congress in his State of the Union address 2026-

“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens—not illegal aliens."

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After segregation in housing and schools since the 1867 Lincoln Emancipation, particularly in the US Southern states, protests happened in the South led by Martin Luther King Jr. to change this. situation. Voting Rights Act 1965 signed by LBJ ensures right to vote for Black people in the South- it follows protests in Selma Alabama and LBJ's 1965 "We Shall Overcome" speech that followed Selma. The first Blacks elected to US Congress were from seats redrawn to give Andrew Young a seat in Atlanta, and Barbara Jordan one in Houston. In 1993 2 more seats were added. James Clyburn was given a seat in South Carolina- he was a key supporter for president Joe Biden. Others followed. Today in 2026 there are 62 Black Members of the US Congress. This is about 11.6% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 100 seats in the Senate total of 535. As a percentage of the population Black people are 16.4%- or 56 million out of US population of 342 million. The Supreme Court is essentially saying it is time to pause this as enormous progress has been made 12% out of 16% already achieved in representation for black people in the US considering the other inequities in American society, the changes in culture and in technology, inequities in world trade and for rural America. In a 2013 5-4 decision Shelby vs Holder US Supreme Court  swing to this conclusion with Alito, Scalia and Thomas joined by Kennedy and Roberts. This already struck down the core of the Voting Rights Act as unconstituional. Roberts wirties in that decision- Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Times have changed - in 2026 the Court reaffirms this. In Louisiana vs. Calais the Court voted 6-3, striking down the last aspects of the Voting Rights Act, because white voters in Louisiana objected to use of race to redraw districts. The equal protection clause of the 14th and 15th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibit using race to redraw political representation maps. ...

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WSJ reports that Tech companies spent heavily in 2022 to block legislation in the US. Congress. This means the US Justice Department had to step in with the Executive Branch determined to dismantle the edifice of anti competitive behavior that Google, Apple and other companies have built. States are also stepping in with the US Justice Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland seeks nothing less than to breakup Google as is clear from his statement on January 25 announcing the US Justice Department lawsuit. 

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US shifts to Naval Blockade strategy, says ceasefire on, no war powers authorization needed from Congress. Naval blockade started on April 13 on its 18th day on May 1. It means Iran's economy is affected by lack of oil revenues to finance the economic needs the longer the blockade goes on, with US goal to remove danger of nuclear materials inside Iran requiring ti to be shipped out to Russia or a third safe country. This is a goal that is supported by all nations that do not want to see nuclear weapons in a dangerously volatile region with 5 decades of wars by 2025.