Originally published at: Texas Starts a Nationwide Gerrymandering War - TPM – Talking Points Memo
When the Republican-controlled Texas legislature, at Donald Trump’s urging, first pushed through a plan to do a highly unusual mid-decade redistricting, Democrats hoped they might overplay their hand — that in carving up Democratic-held districts on what is an already heavily gerrymandered map, they would be unable to avoid diluting Republican districts, making them more…
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Trump as a kitchen gadget… beats looking at his face.
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I think Warren has a valid point. The question is how to use that to make some kind of progress, either in getting Democratic priorities across the line or shutting down the Trump/Congressional two-step that is creating a de facto line item veto to gut Democratic and bipartisan priorities.
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“Without the generally younger pool of immigrants, the United States is bound for economic trouble.”
This isn’t news and for open racists it’s not an effective argument. There is a clear attempt to address these issues in the eugenics part of Project 2025 (e.g., forced birth, limiting healthcare for the ill and aged. The base has been warned to expect “temporary hardship.”
ETA: For release Monday: The Trump administration revoked a Biden era abortion rule on Friday that allows veterans to receive abortions under their medical package. These are the people Trumpers want breeding every year.
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Progress will only come from pressure on the spineless Republican congresscritters exerted by the base and/or the billionaires. This’ll be a long summer for them.
Heather Cox Richardson concluded today’s Letter with a link to:
Trump’s mental decline is undeniable — so what now?
If the billionaires want to keep their wealth and status at home or abroad, they need to start acting now.
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Remember Trump only knows finance, real estate, debt and bankruptcy.
He sees the old as a debt/asset liability. If he can clear the liability, the balance sheet looks better.
Bankruptcy and soylet green united at last
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They are, but they are still in pillage mode.
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Time to let the cat out of the box.
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Yes, but “rock and a hard place.” Since R’s can’t be trusted to negotiate in good faith, and Trump can impound or simply ignore funds allocated for Dem priorities, there is no point in pushing for funding on those. All that’s left is shutting down the government to stop funding for things we don’t want.
Is that a good idea? Historically, the party that forces a shutdown gets the blame, because the public never sees or understands the goals behind it, only the pain the shutdown causes.
I guess the contrary view is that it would show the voting public that at least Dems are doing something to fight back. Maybe that reverses the usual dynamic if Trump’s polling is still cratering, but it’s still a risk going into the midterms. A temporary shutdown-for-show might not work anyway, if all the R’s line up on the other side when push comes to shove.
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Memo authored by Hegseth’s brother.
Fascists start wars to distract an unhappy populace (See yesterday’s I-moved-the-subs! squeak from Trump). The Trumpers may be about to eff this up. You can’t embed the military in deeply unpopular domestic operations and have them wage war against Greenland/Canada/Mexico/Russia. Even if the goal is to replace military elites with the brand-knockoff ICErs.
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The Republicans never seem to pay any price for any of their depredations, including shutting down the government. Depends how you sell it, I guess. We do know that TSF and the Repubs will strip out any Democratic priorities before the ink’s even dry, so Dems should act accordingly.
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Sternly written letter!
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Yes, Warren has a valid point. Isn’t this just restating the problem that already faces the resistance? The Rs have control of the WH, the executive branch, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court. Even if they weren’t on a lawless rampage. The Ds have very limited power to effectively oppose, let alone to control, anything. Infighting and blaming them for not accomplishing the impossible, or for picking their battles, because pointless heated opposition to everything just looks like losing all day everyday and also accomplishes nothing. It’s all down to 2026 and perhaps the states. Oh, and redistricting.
And what is a bipartisan priority, and when was one last spotted in the wild? Serious question.
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Eew.
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It’s funny how the Religious sect of Trumpers pretty much ignore the Son of God in their support for DonOLD. But now how to treat immigrants as mentioned in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy-all in the OT by the way, is also being ignored.
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We Need Immigration, Actually
A Census data dump that political data wonks and demographers had eagerly anticipated is in, and it tells a striking story: The entirety of the country’s population growth between July 2023 and July 2024 came from nonwhite populations, particularly Latinos and Asians.
There are about a million ways immigration is beneficial to a society and almost zero ways it’s harmful, and yet, due to racism and xenophobia, we can’t have nice things. In fact, we’re heading in the exact opposite direction of where we should be headed in regards to immigrants and our lack of economic growth and lackluster economic numbers will soon reflect the poor (not to mention immoral) choices we’ve made as a country.
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The article on Trump’s mental decline is excellent. Interesting, it is an opinion piece in The Hill, which is supposedly non-partisan, but in my limited experience (I don’t read it) has a right wing slant to it.
Unsure what anyone is expecting the billionaires to do that is helpful for the rest of us?
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Speaking of corrupt Texas…
I was down a rabbit hole on Rita Coolidge. The Rifftrax guys did this really weird movie called Copper Mountain from 1983…it was almost a feature length commercial for the ski hill. Really bad but as far as Rifftrax movies usually go…a fairly polished turd. Jim Carrey and Alan Thicke and a few other recognizable faces.
But playing on an outdoor stage and later inside at the ballroom were appearances by Ronnie Hawkins, and a band with Bill Coleman (Chicago - Hard Habit To Break) and Rita Coolidge (what a voice she had!). So I got taken to some weird site “Decider” on Rita and Kris Kristofferson’s rocky marriage and the next article was about “Hunter Wives”…a Netflix show about gun-toting rich Texas wives. BARF! Another sure sign of our final decay.
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