sucks that it’s come to this, but if congressional Republicans wanted to put up a national gerrymandering ban or multi member districts etc, it would pass *for sure*. until then fight fire with fire
100% agree, and glad to hear you endorse PR as a way to end the gerrymandering wars eventually.
Orbán rode to power on resentment over the economic stagnation that developed under center-left governments. But he leaves office with Hungarians facing falling wages and higher inflation than similar countries are experiencing. Orbán’s sectarianism and intolerance have sparked neither a religious revival nor a fertility bump; Hungary’s population is shrinking and has become more irreligious, even as Orbán has demonized LGBTQ people, “Muslim invaders,” and Jews. Orbánism, in short, did not make Hungarians more rich, Christian, or free—unless you happened to be one of Orbán’s buddies, in which case you may have gotten rich. As most Hungarians felt their economic circumstances worsen, Orbán provided them with relatively powerless targets to hate.
Orban made grand appeals to “Christianity” and “Western Civilization,” but his “illiberal democracy” was just a scam, a way to make him and his buddies rich while subjecting Hungarians to stagnation and robbing them of their freedom. Sound familiar? (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
They're each going to call into the same video call and have to keep muting and unmuting individually to prevent echo.
One of my favorite things about the Trump Era is that any invocation of civic virtue or decency, no matter how anodyne, is implicitly understood by his supporters as an attack on him and his movement.
This makes me wonder how bad the global memory shortage would be if these AI companies actually optimized their code. Would there even be a shortage at all?
New — I wrote about how journalists proudly using AI to help them write their stories obscures the deeply human process that makes journalism a societal necessity, and one that feeds the soul of those who create it.
Hope you’ll give it a read. I promise I wrote the whole thing.
The US has the fewest parties represented in our national legislature of any country in the industrialized world.
We don't just need better candidates--we need a new political system with more parties.
Astepro is OTC, even! Not sure what its cost is compared to prescription Azelastine though.
With the ongoing mid-decade gerrymandering in many states, are there more politicians from the two major parties in those states or Congress talking about PR as a solution?
"There will be an after. There always is. The Gilded Age ended. The boss system ended. The Solid Jim Crow South gave way to voting rights. This era of dysfunction and discontent will end too. The real question is: What comes next?"
New from me ->
www.vox.com/politics/480...
Great piece. I think the end makes a good point. Proctor has been promoting policies that primarily harm voter turnout. By manipulating the electorate like this, he's doing more harm to our election integrity than good.
Electrolytic capacitors and Li-ion batteries would like a word
We need more people to know about this simple solution to gerrymandering ⬇️
Here's how proportional representation could make map manipulation impossible, and it’s actually achievable. Watch and share to spread the word: https://youtu.be/xN5V0au9Xms
That's generally how reform has happened elsewhere. Parties facing a big loss in the next election will sometimes agree to a more proportional election system to limit the damage.
www.fairvote.ca/dennis-pilon...
on the balance i think partisan gerrymandering is bad but the only way it ends is if democrats weaponize it against republicans everywhere they can. wiping out republican lawmakers in blue states might bring the GOP to the table to end the practice.
No proponents? Were the usual out of state lobbyists busy that day?
Genuinely wonder sometimes how many elite Dems would be Republicans if they were born in a red state instead of a blue one.
Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
I've started playing #CluesbySam. It's a fun logic puzzle!
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cluesbysam.com
If you had predicted with precise accuracy any of our current top stories this week during the ‘24 election, it would have been dismissed as Trump Derangement Syndrome by most of the professional takesmiths.
Instead of whatever this is, we should have a government getting lots of new homes and apartments built, lots of clean energy built, lots of high speed rail and transit and bike lanes built, human rights for everyone, economic & healthcare opportunities for all, & innovation that leads the world.
I resolve to keep advocating for causes that are important to me, which usually means writing testimony in opposition of state bills.
I like electronics and tool repair videos for the same reason. It's very satisfying to see something get fixed up and saved from the landfill. Moreso in the rare instances I'm able to do it myself!
Congress could mandate that states use proportional representation, with parties getting a number of seats proportional to their share of the vote. Advocates are already pushing for some states to experiment with this reform.
So they're moving from Kansas City at the intersection of 70 and 435 to Kansas City at the intersection of 70 and 435.
I’M LOSING MY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY
U.S. Sen. Bob Dole’s disdain for Electoral College in presidential elections still matter of debate | via @kansascarpenter.bsky.social #ksleg
you should quit social media if you can.
if you can't, you should use apps that give you and old-school reverse chronological feed of posts from people you follow. yes, like bluesky.
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/you-should...
wow. WOW.