It’s been a big month for politics in Texas, after the Supreme Court approved redistricted congressional maps. The Senate race emerged as a marquee race with distinct choices in the primary. #redistricting #texas https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/1213/texas-senate-crockett-paxton-cornyn https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/1213/texas-senate-crockett-paxton-cornyn
#Redistricting
It’s been a big month for politics in Texas, after the Supreme Court approved redistricted congressional maps and top candidates solidified running plans. The Senate race emerged as a marquee race with distinct choices in both the Democratic and GOP primaries. #redistricting #texas
Posted into Now What? @now-what-csmonitor
Lazy Caturday Reads: Some Positive News for Democracy Fans?
Good Afternoon!!
Cat and Butterfly, Ohara Koson
Trump is still “president,” and he continues to do terrible things; but there are beginning to be a few positive signs that his grip on the GOP is waning as his approval ratings continue to drop. One of those signs is the refusal of Republicans in the state senate to follow his demand for redistricting. As some people here know, I grew up in Indiana. I can’t help feeling a bit of Hoosier pride about this.
Thomas Beaumont and Isabella Volmert: Trump was unable to insult his way to victory in Indiana redistricting battle.
If Indiana Republican senators had any doubt about what to do with President Donald Trump’s redistricting proposal, he helped them make up their minds the night before this week’s vote.
In a social media screed, Trump accused the state’s top senator of being “a bad guy, or a very stupid one.”
“That kind of language doesn’t help,” said Sen. Travis Holdman, a banker and lawyer from near Fort Wayne who voted against the plan.
He was among 21 Republican senators who dealt Trump one of the most significant political defeats of his second term by rejecting redistricting in Indiana. The decision undermined the president’s national campaign to redraw congressional maps to boost his party’s chances in the upcoming midterm elections.
In interviews after Thursday’s vote, several Republican senators said they were leaning against the plan from the start because their constituents didn’t like it. But in a Midwest nice rebuttal to America’s increasingly coarse political discourse, some said they simply didn’t like the president’s tone, like when he called senators “suckers.”
Trump didn’t seem to get the message. Asked about the vote, the president once again took aim at Indiana’s top senator, Rodric Bray.
“He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is,” Trump said. “I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.”
Sen. Sue Glick, an attorney from La Grange who also opposed redistricting, brushed off Trump’s threat to unseat lawmakers who defied him.
“I would think he would have better things to do,” she said. “It would be money better spent electing the individuals he wants to represent his agenda in Congress.”
My mother used to say that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Trump never learned that simple lesson.
Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic (gift link): The Indiana Vote Is an Inflection Point.
In rejecting yesterday a redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump, Indiana’s Republican-controlled senate did not merely deny Republicans two new U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm elections. They also engaged in a mass revolt against the president. The stakes of their defiance reach far beyond the midterms. This vote was possibly the most significant blow yet against the authoritarian ambitions that have defined Trump’s second term.
Tabby Cat. Benson b. Moore
The significance of Indiana’s noncompliance lies not in the specifics of what was refused—attempts to gerrymander electoral maps are hardly unprecedented, even though a mid-decade battle violates norms—but in the act of refusal itself. Trump’s authoritarian project relies on the cultlike hold he has over his party. Republicans have come to understand that the cost of defying Trump is the death of their political career. Trump has proved time and again that he will go to any lengths to destroy his intra-party critics, even if doing so harms the party.
That method was on vivid display in Indiana. Trump expected the state to go along with his plans to redraw its map to help his party in the midterms. When the state’s Republicans held back their support, Trump and his allies went on the attack.
Indiana Republican legislators faced bomb threats and intimidation in their homes (such as “swatting,” phone calls, and the like)—a climate of fear, my colleague Russell Berman reports, unlike anything the state has seen.
Heritage Action delivered a Mafia-like threat, as high-minded scholars apparently do these days: “President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state. Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”
This kind of pressure typically bends targets to Trump’s will. What politician is willing to sacrifice their career or their family’s safety for a single act of defiance?
Yet the spines of Indiana Republicans stiffened where so many others snapped. One reason for this may be that the state contains an unusually strong concentration of Trump-skeptical former governors. Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence remain influential in the state, despite having given up national ambitions by failing to submit fully to Trump. Daniels praised the vote as an act of “principled courageous leadership.”
Indiana’s Republicans also demonstrated strength in numbers. Trump employs the psychology of a schoolyard bully who isolates and targets victims one by one. By engineering a 31–19 vote, Indiana’s Republicans worked together to ensure that no single legislator could be blamed for defying Trump.
Use the gift link to read more.
At The Daily Beast, David Rothkopf enumerates the many ways that Trump’s grip on power is waning: President Trump Is Now Triggering His Very Own MAGApocalypse.
It is hard to know whether Donald Trump or the MAGA movement he created is falling apart faster.
The 79-year-old president is deteriorating rapidly before our eyes—cankles puffier, bruises and bandages on his hand more ever present. He’s nodding off at event after event, slurring his words, his behavior increasingly erratic. And he has become painfully sensitive to the fact that his decay is so apparent, going as far as suggesting that media outlets reporting about his health are guilty of treason.
Of course, every effort he makes to prove he’s not one step away from melting into a bubbling orange puddle seems to make it clearer that he’s losing it.
Gertrude Abercrombie, 17 Feb 1909 – 3 Apr 1977
As bad as all that is, however, MAGA may be collapsing even more quickly than its creator. Prominent Republicans are defecting—like Marjorie Taylor Greene—and more are rumored to be threatening to do likewise. More former loyalists are willing to stand up to him—whether Indiana legislators rejecting Trumpian demands that they gerrymander the state or GOP senators leading inquiries into the possibility that war crimes were committed as part of Trump’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” phase.
Others are speaking out against Trump’s opposition to extending vital health subsidies to Americans—including hardliners like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—or to express their discomfort with new executive orders seeking to block states from enacting AI regulation.
Trump is losing in the courts. His illegal picks to be U.S. attorneys are being kicked out; his efforts to, well, trump up charges against opponents like James Comey and Letitia James have been shot down by grand juries that simply will not go along with cases so obviously fabricated and motivated by retribution rather than any respect for the law.And he is losing at the ballot box. Recent election results suggest that the onetime star to whom so many MAGA upstarts have hitched their wagons to in the past decade is now electoral poison. Across the country, elections last month produced resounding defeats for the GOP, while in the few elections in which Republicans squeaked out victories, their margins shrank considerably compared to 2024 support for Trump.
Just this week in Miami, Eileen Higgins beat a Trump-favored candidate to become the first Democrat to be voted the city’s mayor in three decades.The economy is floundering. Deficits are exploding. Tariffs are unpopular. Trump’s inhumane and draconian immigration crackdowns are alienating substantial numbers of his erstwhile supporters, while his foreign policy plans have alienated our allies and empowered our enemies. His overt corruption and catering to billionaires at the expense of average Americans is driving real backlash.
Donald Trump has fallen and, given projections of a rough year ahead, it seems increasingly likely that he can’t get up.
There’s more at the link.
In a guest essay at The New York Times (gift link), E.J. Dionne writes: Trump Is Losing the Reasonable Majority.
Believing in democracy does not require faith that majorities are always right. It does mean having confidence that most of your fellow citizens will, over time, approach public questions with a basic reasonableness. Abraham Lincoln, tradition has it, said it more pithily: “You cannot fool all the people all the time.”
A corollary to Lincoln, that you can’t fool all the people who voted for you all the time, explains the sharp decline in President Trump’s approval ratings.
Cat in Bamboo, Hiroshima, by Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani
A significant share of the voters who backed Mr. Trump have decided that he has largely ignored the primary issue that pushed them his way, the cost of living. A billionaire regularly mocking concern about affordability only makes matters worse. They see him as distracted by personal obsessions and guilty of overreach, even when they sympathize with his objectives. Many of his former supporters see him breaking promises he made, notably on not messing with their access to health care.
Some abuses are too blatant to be ignored. A recent The Economist/You Gov poll found that 56 percent of Americans said Mr. Trump was using his office for personal gain; only 32 percent didn’t. A similar 56 percent saw Mr. Trump as directing the Justice Department to go after people he saw as his political enemies; just 24 percent didn’t.
The upshot: A great many Americans who helped put Mr. Trump in office have absorbed what’s happened since. They may not be glued to every chaotic twist of this presidency, but they do pay attention and have concluded, reasonably, that this is not what they voted for.
How many? Let’s take Mr. Trump’s 49.8 percent of the 2024 popular vote as a base line and compare it with his approval ratings. A New York Times analysis of public polling this month found his net approval rating had dropped to 42 percent. A A.P./NORC poll and a Gallup poll pegged it at 36 percent. This suggests that 15 to 25 percent of his voters have changed their minds
I think of these shifts as the triumph of reasonableness — and not because I agree with where these fellow citizens have landed (although I do). I’m buoyed by the capacity of citizens to absorb new facts and take in information even when it challenges decisions they previously made. It turns out that swing voters are what their label implies. The evidence of their own lives and from their own eyes matters.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
So, there really are some positive signs.
Republicans also continue to hurt themselves by refusing to help millions of Americans who are about to lose access to health care because of the drastically increased costs Republicans instituted with their Big Ugly Bill.
Ali Swenson at the AP: Higher cost, worse coverage: Affordable Care Act enrollees say expiring subsidies will hit them hard.
For one Wisconsin couple, the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies next year means choosing a lower-quality insurance plan with a higher deductible. For a Michigan family, it means going without insurance altogether.
For a single mom in Nevada, the spiking costs mean fewer Christmas gifts this year. She is stretching her budget already while she waits to see if Congress will act.
Less than three weeks remain until the expiration of COVID-era enhanced tax credits that have helped millions of Americans pay their monthly fees for Affordable Care Act coverage for the past four years.
The Senate on Thursday rejected two proposals to address the problem and an emerging health care package from House Republicans does not include an extension, all but guaranteeing that many Americans will see much higher insurance costs in 2026.
Young Cat Sleeping, by Mabel Wellington Jack
Here are a few of their stories.
Chad Bruns comes from a family of savers. That came in handy when the 58-year-old military veteran had to leave his firefighting career early because of arm and back injuries he incurred on the job.
He and his wife, Kelley, 60, both retirees, cut their own firewood to reduce their electricity costs in their home in Sawyer County, Wisconsin. They rarely eat out and hardly ever buy groceries unless they are on sale.
But to the extent that they have always been frugal, they will be forced to be even more so now, Bruns said. That is because their coverage under the health law enacted under former President Barack Obama is getting more expensive -– and for worse coverage.
This year, the Brunses were paying $2 per month for a top-tier gold-level plan with less than a $4,000 deductible. Their income was low enough to help them qualify for a lot of financial assistance.
But in 2026, that same plan is rising to an unattainable $1,600 per month, forcing them to downgrade to a bronze plan with a $15,000 deductible.
Kelley Bruns said she is concerned that if something happens to their health in the next year, they could go bankrupt. While their monthly fees are low at about $25, their new out-of-pocket maximum at $21,000 amounts to nearly half their joint income.
“We have to pray that we don’t have to have surgery or don’t have to have some medical procedure done that we’re not aware of,” she said. “It would be very devastating.”
Read more health care stories a the link.
Speaker Mike Johnson will allow a vote on an Obamacare extension next week, but it is expected to fail. From Politico:
House GOP leadership will permit a floor vote to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies — an olive branch to moderate members who have been clamoring for a chance to go on record in support of an extension.
Republican leaders unveiled text of their health care package Friday evening, which they plan to put on the floor next week.
“The process” for considering that package “will allow” a vote on an amendment to prevent the subsidies from lapsing Dec. 31, according to a House Republican leadership aide granted anonymity to share the unannounced plans.
It’s a concession from leaders who have been reluctant to endorse an extension of the subsidies, which divides congressional Republicans. It’s a win for centrists and vulnerable incumbents, who see political peril in not acting on the tax credits and have been promising to push discharge petitions that would circumvent leadership and force votes on their own legislative proposals.
Speaker Mike Johnson and senior Republicans met Friday morning on the topic to chart a path forward.
But Republicans leaders ultimately expect the extension vote to fail, resulting in skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans when the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
You read that right: Johnson has come up with a Republican “health care plan.” AP: Speaker Johnson unveils health care plan as divided Republicans scramble for alternative.
The Senate failed to get anywhere on the health care issue this week. Now it’s the House’s turn to show what it can do.
Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican alternative late Friday, a last-minute sprint as his party refuses to extend the enhanced tax subsidies for those who buy policies through the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, which are expiring at the end of the year. Those subsidies help lower the cost of coverage.
Two Cats, Eleanore G. Cohen
Johnson, R-La., huddled behind closed doors in the morning — as he did days earlier this week — working to assemble the package for consideration as the House focuses the final days of its 2025 work on health care.
“House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care,” Johnson said in a statement announcing the package. He said it would be voted on next week.
Later Friday, though, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said: “House Republicans have introduced toxic legislation that is completely unserious, hurts hardworking America taxpayers and is not designed to secure bipartisan support. If the bill reaches the House floor, I will strongly oppose it.”
So what’s the GOP plan?
The House Republicans offered a 100-plus-page package that focuses on long-sought GOP proposals to enhance access to employer-sponsored health insurance plans and clamp down on so-called pharmacy benefit managers.
Republicans propose expanding access to what’s referred to as association health plans, which would allow more small businesses and self-employed individuals to band together and purchase health coverage.
Proponents say such plans increase the leverage businesses have to negotiate a lower rate. But critics say the plans provide skimpier coverage than what is required under the Affordable Care Act.
The Republicans’ proposal would also require more data from pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, as a way to help control drug costs. Critics say PBMs have padded their bottom line and made it more difficult for independent pharmacists to survive.
Additionally, the GOP plan includes mention of cost-sharing reductions for some lower-income people who rely on Obamacare, but those do not take effect until January 2027.
The emerging package from the House Republicans does not include an extension of an enhanced tax credit for millions of Americans who get insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Put in place during the COVID-19 crisis, that enhanced subsidy expires Dec. 31, leaving most families in the program facing more than double their current out-of-pocket premiums, and in some cases, much more.
I think Republicans will find that this issue will destroy them in the midterm elections.
More news stories to check out:
The Washington Post: VA plans to abruptly eliminate tens of thousands of health care jobs.
The New York Times: Hundreds Quarantined in South Carolina as Measles Spreads.
The Hill: US set to lose measles elimination status: The ‘house is on fire.’
The New York Times: Immigration Agents Are Using Air Passenger Data for Deportation Effort.
City Beat: Cincinnati ICE Leader Accused of Strangling Woman Held on $400k Bond.
The Washington Post: Trump takes first step in possible bid to control D.C.’s public golf courses.
Politico: Trump seems to wave the white flag on his US attorneys gambit.
That’s all I have for today. I tried to stick with somewhat positive stories. (FYI, the images in this post comes from the Smithsonian collection of cat art.)
#affordableCareAct #catArt #caturday #donaldTrump #healthCare #indianaSenateRepublicans #obamacare #redistricting
Statement from our CEO, Kit Malone (@thekitmalone) on the defeat of #Indiana's mid-cycle #redistricting plan:
M. Wuerker!
#SCOTUS #Redistricting #Democracy #Corruption #Bribery #Trump #JohnRoberts
Wisconsin’s midterm redistricting showdown hinges on arare legal process from 2011, now sparking a new battle over congressional maps. Despite previous court rejections, recent lawsuits alleging the map’s unconstitutionality have led the GOP-controlled legislature to invoke this little-known law—created under Scott Walker—to bypass usual hurdles. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has appointed special panels to hear the cases, an unprecedented move amid shifting court dynamics. This fight could reshape districts, potentially favoring Democrats, yet its outcome remains uncertain. Will this legal gamble alter Wisconsin’s political landscape? Click to find out more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/redistricting-fight-shifts-wisconsin-judicial-panels-may-pick-new-maps-rcna248281 #Redistricting #Wisconsin #Midterms #Gerrymandering #VotingRights #SupremeCourt #elections2024
Red states warned by propaganda arm of the MAGA neo Nazis, The Heritage Foundation.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/roads-not-paved-gop-think-205357093.html
#Indiana #Redistricting #PublicService #Infrastructure #Trump #TrumpAndEpstein #Politics
More fracturing of Trump's party?
"Hoosiers Don't Cheat!!!
Trump Does"
https://apnews.com/article/indiana-lawmakers-redistricting-final-vote-80e3e546fc7acec4a7bd7cd110787375?
#Trump #Indiana #Redistricting #Election #MidTerms
#indiana is strong, and I knew that justice would prevail. #news #Politics #redistricting
RE: https://mastodon.social/@RonSupportsYou/115706781166482446
Patrick Rodenbush: "This is a genuine profile in courage. Indiana Senate Republicans have faced swatting and threats of extortion from the White House. Let’s hope others are inspired by their stand against the worst kind of politics."
#redistricting #politics #independence #GoodNews
Trump Slams Democrat Cuellar for Not Switching Parties After Pardon
“I am a conservative Democrat, but I will work with the president,” Cuellar said after Trump's angry social media post.https://murica.website/2025/12/trump-slams-democrat-cuellar-for-not-switching-parties-after-pardon/
SCOTUS Lets Texas Use GOP-Friendly Congressional Map as Legal Battle Continues
Texas can use its new, GOP-friendly congressional map while a legal challenge plays out, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, temporarily pausing a lower court ruling that had blocked the map from going into effect. With the Dec. 8 candidate filing deadline fast approaching, the high court’s decision likely means Texas’ new map will be used for the 2026 midterm elections.
This post has been syndicated from Truthout, where it was published under this address.
DeSantis Signals Florida Will Gerrymander Its Maps in the Spring
At the behest of Trump, several GOP-led states have redrawn maps to give the party an advantage in next year's midterms.https://murica.website/2025/12/desantis-signals-florida-will-gerrymander-its-maps-in-the-spring/
#Indiana #Republicans defy #Trump & reject his #House #redistricting push in the state
Indiana’s Republican-led Senate decisively rejected a redrawn congressional map Thursday that would have favored their party, defying months of pressure from Trump & delivering a stark setback to…[rig] next year’s #midterms.
The vote was overwhelmingly against the proposed redistricting, with more Republicans opposing than supporting the measure.
#law #VoterSupression #VotingRights
https://apnews.com/article/indiana-lawmakers-redistricting-final-vote-80e3e546fc7acec4a7bd7cd110787375
Our neighbors to the East have declared that fair elections are a bipartisan, American interest. Together, we can pursue common-sense policy that puts consent of the governed above political gamesmanship.
#Indiana #Illinois #Midwest #IndianaPolitics #Redistricting #Politics
#USPol #Indiana #Redistricting
Quite happy to see *some* GOP finally found a solid vertebrae.
The really interesting thing here is Trump's threats to end all federal money to Indiana. If only we had a functioning media to sink teeth into that coming failure.
Hoosier Senate members have decisively rejected Indiana’s contentious mid-decade redistricting plan, marking a significant setback for Republican efforts to redraw congressional boundaries in favor of GOP advantage. After hours of debate, the Senate voted 31-19 against House Bill 1032 — a proposal that targeted Democratic-leaning areas. Notably, 21 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the measure, illustrating intra-party disagreements and resistance to Trump-era pressure. Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray initially resisted calling lawmakers back early for the vote, citing a lack of support, but ultimately bowed to criticism, acknowledging that the caucus has differing opinions on how to secure a GOP majority in the U.S. House. Will this halt GOP attempts or galvanize future efforts? More here: https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2025/12/11/indiana-senate-rejects-trump-redistricting #Redistricting #Indiana #GOP #Politics #MidtermElections #Gerrymandering #Election2026
Garrett Downs reports an unexpected blow to President Trump's redistricting agenda as Indiana's GOP Senate rejects a bill to add two House seats via gerrymandering, failing 19-31 amid threats and pressure. This rare setback highlights resistance in redistricting battles nationwide. Learn more from Downs. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/indiana-trump-republicans-redistricting-congress.html #Indiana #Redistricting #Gerrymandering #Politics
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.07
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst