#gerrymandering

#gerrymandering

President Donald Trump has spent the first nine months of his term bulldozing limits on his power, abetted by a supine Congress. What might be left of checks and balances after four years of unified Republican control in Washington is unclear. Trump sees winning a majority in the midterms as crucial to his agenda, and he is also worried about them, as demonstrated by his cajoling and badgering of GOP-led states to gerrymander House districts to aid Republican candidates.

This week, live from Chicago to celebrate 20 years of the Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the Trump vs. Chicago showdown and the dynamics between progressive and centrist Democrats with former Chicago Mayor and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, what threat President Trump poses to the future of American elections and how to push back, and memorable moments from Gabfest history.

People lined the streets holding home-made signs for passing cars. People stated their love for America and its Constitution. There was as much flag-waving and wearing red, white and blue clothing as on any July 4th. Republican claims beforehand that they were Hate America rallies were so inaccurate as to be laughable. Flag-waving aside, what could be truer to American ways than people exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble and petition their government and tell it what they think of its policies?

Now, the city of San Jose is considering 300-foot-tall buildings immediately behind the church at the future 28th Street/Little Portugal BART station. Today, the General Plan calls for 120-foot-tall buildings there, something that was agreed to by the community and city planners in 2013. The church is a living symbol of immigrants who wanted to maintain a little piece of their homeland and their language through the celebration of their faith and life's milestones with their families, friends and fellow immigrants.

As recently as the autumn of 2022, anti-Donald Trump (or at least non-Trump) Republicanism was alive and well in a good part of the country. Plenty of Republican politicians had deplored his conduct after losing the 2020 election and lived to tell the tale. Many blamed the former president for damaging the party's prospects in the 2022 midterm elections with ill-advised interventions in GOP primaries.

All these programs, measures and laws concerning solar energy, specifically in California, will continue to fall short of the ultimate goal to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and reduce the high cost of electricity for all of us. Also, the use of valuable land to install solar farms is not the best idea either. Like I've suggested before, every commercial and residential rooftop should be utilized in some type of state or federal program to place, at low cost to property owners, solar panels

On Sunday, Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law a legislative redrawing of the state's congressional districts, a gerrymander that will likely result in one fewer Democratic representative in the state's delegation in the next midterm elections, despite no huge ideological shift among voters. The move is part of a broader national scheme, planned by President Donald Trump's political team in coordination with state governors and legislatures, to mitigate potential seat losses in the 2026 midterms.

The English language is extraordinarily adaptable and our tongue friendly and receptive to innovation and creativity. Speakers of American English have welcomed words and coined new ones for accuracy and for fun. Colonialism played its role in this capacity, of course. For instance, 700 years of colonial rule in Ireland gave Americans bog, whiskey, hooligan, shenanigans, and smithereens. If you say heaps of in place of a lot, you got it from droll Australians.

The cost of putting California's partisan redistricting ballot measure before voters this fall is expected to run the state $282.6 million, eclipsing the final bill of the last statewide special election. As Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies signed off on Proposition 50 last month a plan to counteract an effort by Texas Republicans to gerrymander the state's congressional maps and pick up GOP seats in the U.S. House the governor vowed to reimburse counties for the hefty costs of an unexpected election.

When Donald Trump ordered Texas Republicans to conduct a rare mid-decade gerrymander of U.S. House seats to help protect the GOP's fragile trifecta in the 2026 midterms, there may have been some private grumbling about the possibility the gambit would backfire by exposing some incumbents to a bit more competition. But more than likely, Trump was pushing on an open door.