In an effort to stop the gerrymandering Donny has demanded from Texas, the state’s Democrats have fled, leaving insufficient votes to move forward with the evil plan – for now. Evil Texas Governor Greg Abbott has threatened to “remove” the Democratic lawmakers from their office if they don’t come back. That seems unconstitutional, to me, but I’m not very familiar with Texas state law.
The GOP knows the policies they’re pursuing are incredibly unpopular. Every day, more and more people are speaking out. When this country was a constitutional republic, the people could get rid of lousy lawmakers at the ballot box. It’s part of the reason there has been so little pushback to the insanity coming out of Washington, DC. Americans figure they’ll just vote the scoundrels out in the mid-terms.
That used to work. The GOP, and, specifically, evil Donny, are afraid it might work again so they formed a plan and the plan is simple: cheat. The anti-American GOP intends to gerrymander districts to eliminate Democratic seats and give the state five more Republican seats, thus extending the artificial hold Republicans have on the House of “Representatives.”
It’s not like this is back-room politics. They’re doing it right out in the open, where everyone can see. There’s not much the Texas Democrats can do about it, except leave the state, depriving the legislature of a quorum. So that’s what they did. But, come on, how long can they keep that up? They get fined $500 a day while they’re gone and their campaign funds aren’t allowed to pay the fines. Besides, historically, it only serves to slow, not defeat, legislation.
Texas is already considered one of the more gerrymandered states in the nation. Other known gerrymandered states include North Carolina (Swing, red in 2024), Maryland (Blue), Pennsylvania (Swing, red in 2024), Kentucky (Red), Louisiana (Red), Arkansas (Red), Utah (Red), Texas (Red), Ohio (Red), West Virginia (Red), and Wisconsin (swing, red in 2024).
Maryland seems to be an outlier as a gerrymandered blue state. It should be noted that the swing states that went red in the last “election,” likely went red as a result of Elon Muck’s money and his ‘knowledge of the tabulating machines’ – according to 47. But if the red states are already heavily gerrymandered – really, the only way the GOP can hold seats – all they can do is gerrymander more.
There are some blue states threatening to respond in kind, California and New York among them. California was once heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP and we suffered terribly under the heavy hand of conservatism. The citizens managed to eliminate the rigging and California went blue again but the method we used to get back to fair also makes it very difficult for California to respond with it’s own, blue gerrymander. Newsom is trying anyway.
When I re-wrote the US Constitution, I included a bit that required each state’s congressional districts to be “as close to square shaped as possible.” The hope is that the requirement eliminates gerrymandering altogether. It’s cheating, pure and simple. Because of that, I’m not wholly on board with the idea of blue states gerrymandering to bring more blue seats. On the other hand, the red-hats are openly cheating and the country is suffering.
Do we really just stand around, squawking about honor and playing by the rules when we KNOW our opposition is openly cheating? In this case, losing with honor means losing the country. Like, entirely and forever. In view of the GOP nightmare we’ve already been treated to, I see blue-state gerrymandering as the lessor of two evils.
IF California can pull it off, we can bring as many as six more blue seats to Congress, offsetting the five Texas is trying to add. But it’s a big ‘if.’ Democrat Jared Huffman called the ploy a “race to the bottom” and I agree, but bringing a Marquess of Queensberry rule book to a gunfight seems like a losing tactic. I’ll tell you this: MAGAmerica sucks in every way…
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I’m very sorry to learn of Loni Anderson’s passing just a few days shy of her 80th birthday after a prolonged illness. I was a great fan of the original ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ and her character, Jennifer Marlowe, along with Gary Sandy’s Andy Travis, was one of the two “adults” in the room…
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Speaking of evil, Donny’s problem with Epstein seems to be leaving the news, just as the GOP hoped when they abandoned their jobs early to go on vacation rather than risk forcing 47 to release the files he promised to release. Yet another promise made, promise broken.
I understand why Donny wants the whole thing to go away. Based on the information currently available, I suspect he wasn’t JUST having sex with minors, he was part of the trafficking ring, supplying girls to Epstein via Mar-a-Lardo.
I have never seen such a unified, concerted effort to protect a child-raper as I’m seeing from the GOP and MAGA, though. This isn’t “shame,” it’s disgrace. I don’t have first-hand experience, of course, but my understanding is that in prison, fellow inmates are absolute in their “handling” of child-rapers. Murderers have better morals that MAGA!
I mean, it’s one thing to disagree about the best way to balance the budget but protect the pedophile? I will never understand…
