This is exactly how Democrats used to talk about Republican redistricting back when Rs were handily winning the partisan gerrymandering wars (and thus rejecting Dem federal legislation to prohibit it).
Open phones for the next 90 mins on @siriusxmprog.bsky.social #127 - you don't have to subscribe to join the conversation with your hot takes, smart questions, terrible jokes or veiled threats.
866.997.GRIT
A group of Ecuadorian fishermen survived a US drone strike, were detained at gunpoint, hooded, phones wiped, ship blown up, disappeared to El Salvador, then released without charge.
“They knew we were fishermen. Even the Salvadorian authorities said things had been handled very badly.”
I have switched my newsletter from Substack to my own website, Sign Up Here and get a copy of This Eternal Coil #1 for Free
luisgodoyii.com/newsletter/
The GOP entered this redistricting under the rather childish delusion they were going to gerrymander, and nobody would gerrymander them. In TX, MO, and a half dozen other states, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind
I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals
Don’t underestimate the backlash to Trump publicly ordering up a mid-decade redraw in Texas because Republicans are “entitled to five more seats.” And then getting it. That moment killed the (then still robust) Democratic resistance to maximal warfare with their own gerrymanders.
dramatic evidence here for a key point of the newly-released book MUSKISM: Musk isn't a libertarian trying to live and do business outside of the state, he is a colonizer of the state, bending it to his personal interests
www.harpercollins.com/products/mus...
After more than $250 billion in revenue and billions more in subsidies, Tesla has never paid taxes... that's thanks in part to tactics like pretending $18b in profits came from places like Singapore and the Netherlands
www.reuters.com/legal/transa...
you might be surprised by how often Tesla's data recording systems randomly break, fail to function properly, go missing, or are otherwise mysteriously unable to perform their functions precisely when they are needed most
then again, you might not be surprised at all
electrek.co/2026/04/13/t...
noticing a pattern lately of big-name Valley VCs trying to start/fund companies within Musk's broken ecosystems: first space startup customers for Starship, and now media outlets for X, The Everything App
they know how utterly busted the SpaceX IPO is, and are desperately trying to fix it
Fifteen minutes before the President announced he was pausing strikes on Iran, somebody moved $500 million in oil futures. Somebody knew. Somebody told them. Or somebody is them.
New piece ↓
open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...
I think a lot of 21st century business is going to involve people discovering that IP and branding just aren’t worth what they used to be after a couple decades of PE strip mining the goodwill from things like Newsweek and Pixar
Into my veins
And here’s the problem. This is about the drama and the conflict, not about improving public health. The false equivalence in this whole effort is mind-boggling. This is not debate and dialogue. It’s sanewashing MAHA.
Before CA tried it, I thought passing a partisan gerrymander by referendum sounded impossible, even in a heavily partisanly skewed state. It just sounds awful to uninformed wing voters. I'm still surprised Dems pulled it off in a very blue state, let alone in a slightly blue state.
Cf. the Bezos Post, "Republicans gerrymandering in Texas is fine, actually" b/w "Democrats gerrymandering in Virginia is a threat to democracy"
Democrats did not step back. We fought back. When they go low, we hit back hard. We won Prop 50 in California, reclaimed a seat in Utah, pushed back extremists in Ohio and halted toxic GOP efforts in Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska and Kansas. Tonight, thanks to the relentless work of Virginia Democrats, led by Governor Abigail Spanberger, Speaker Don Scott, State Majority Leader Scott Surovell and President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, “YES” won and Donald Trump lost. Virginians spoke with a crystal-clear voice, voting to stop the MAGA power grab and protect the integrity of free and fair elections. This war is not over. Next week, Ron DeSantis is hauling the Florida legislature back into a special session to redraw maps because Republicans know they are on the verge of an epic defeat in November. DeSantis is clearly more interested in illegal gerrymandering than lowering the high cost of living or fixing our broken healthcare system. Right now, nearly 5 million Floridians are facing higher premiums because Republicans failed to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. If Florida Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create more prime pick-up opportunities for Democrats, just as they did with Trump’s dummymander in Texas. We will aggressively target for defeat Mario Díaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Kat Cammack, Anna Paulina Luna, Laurel Lee, Cory Mills and Brian Mast. We are prepared to take them all on, and we are prepared to win. Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”
Hakeem Jeffries puts out a FAFO:
"We will aggressively target for defeat Mario Díaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Kat Cammack, Anna Paulina Luna, Laurel Lee, Cory Mills and Brian Mast....
Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time"
The implicit media consensus is that urban voters should not be able to overrule rural voters, but that rural voters should be able to overrule urban voters, an assumption so axiomatic and unquestionable that nobody even understands they're making it.
Nothing subtle or complicated about what's happening. Did I mention the only refugees we're taking from the entire world are white people from South Africa?
Matt Damon playing a 14th century French knight that looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Mullet. Beard. Smells like horse shit, pine tar, and cigarette smoke.
Matt Damon while playing Odysseus who also looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Long, skinny beard. Smells like horseshit, pine tar, and perhaps Mediterranean herbs.
Matt Damon playing a 19th century cowboy that looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Mustache. Shaggy hair. Smells like horse shit, pine tar, and definitely chewing tobacco.
Every time Matt Damon takes on a period role he ends up looking like a third baseman for the Phillies.
Virginia redistricting will pass
The new Virginia map will become 10D - 1R until the next redistricting cycle
A U.S. state map showing the national impact of mid-decade congressional redistricting on each party in the 2026 elections. Republicans gerrymandered maps to target five Democrats in Texas, two in Ohio, one in Missouri, and one in North Carolina. Democrats responded by targeting five Republicans in California and four in Virginia. A court also replaced Utah's Republican gerrymander with a fairer map that helps Democrats. States with new maps benefitting Republicans are in red and states with new maps benefitting Democrats are in blue. States that did not redistrict are in gray.
Trump sparked a mid-decade redistricting frenzy after urging Republicans to re-gerrymander congressional maps nationwide—but they didn't expect Dems to respond.
The GOP targeted 9 Dems in 4 states—in response, Dems targeted 9 Reps in 2 states.
A court also replaced Utah's GOP map with a fairer map
Germany began automatically granting birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born after 1/1/00. Study finds that "immigrant youth who acquired citizenship at birth are substantially less likely to engage in criminal activity, with estimates indicating a 70% reduction in crime."
Not good that the litmus test to be a Republican these days is whether you’re willing to outright fucking DENY REALITY.
A cartogram showing the partisan intent behind congressional redistricting in every state for the 2026 elections, with each state’s size corresponding to how many districts it has. States retain their general shapes and locations relative to each other, but they are spaced out to accommodate the change in sizes. The graphic illustrates how Republicans gerrymandered states with 32% of districts in red and Democrats gerrymandered states with 27% of districts in blue. A court, commission, or divided legislature drew a relatively neutral map in yellow states with 29% of districts, and gray states with 1% of districts only have one district each.
The GOP drew 3 times more congressional seats than Dems did for 2024—but that disparity would be far smaller for 2026 with new Dem maps in CA & VA.
This cartogram shows the partisan intent behind each state’s map, though it doesn't measure the effect of more extreme new GOP maps in MO, NC, OH, & TX
Remember, Democrats have repeatedly advanced measures to ban partisan gerrymandering and Republicans have voted against them time after time.
This is the game Republicans wanted to play. OK, then.
So much false equivalence in media on gerrymandering in Texas vs California & Virginia. California and Virginia maps approved by the voters. That's a huge difference not enough people pointing out
