<[Event "4th Harry Lyman Open"] [Site "Framingham Mass"]
[Date "2001.01.27"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Kudrin, Sergey"]
[Black "Ivanov, Alexander"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C90"]
[WhiteElo "2575"]
[BlackElo "2669"]

<Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer went head-to-head last week for the first time in nearly six months. Turns out they were only shadow-boxing — and the real bout is still to come.

The president pulled the plug on a possible deal to confirm some administration nominees, while the Senate’s top Democrat — under pressure from his party to take a tougher stand — boasted afterward that Trump came away with nothing.

Now, the two men are headed toward a fall rematch with much higher stakes: whether to keep the federal government open past a Sept. 30 funding deadline.

Despite decades of history between them, their relationship is now almost nonexistent. They haven’t had a formal one-on-one meeting since Trump’s second inauguration. And they did not speak directly as part of the nominations negotiations, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private details.

The unraveling of a typical pre-summer recess nominations deal has many on Capitol Hill concerned about what is to come. While other congressional leaders are sure to figure into the negotiations, it’s Schumer — who will determine whether Senate Democrats filibuster spending legislation — and Trump — who has to sign any shutdown-averting bill — who will be the key players.

“It would be better if those two negotiated,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said of Trump and Schumer.

Cramer said Senate Majority Leader John Thune served last week as the “arbitrator” ferrying between the “bare-knuckled” New Yorkers during the recent nominations fight. And Speaker Mike Johnson will have his hands full trying to keep his thin majority united behind a spending strategy that will keep the pressure on Democrats.

Democrats believe the onus is on Thune and Johnson to wrangle Trump — the dominant leader of their party — and convince him to come to the table. They are using their hardball tactics over nominations as a warning shot for the fall funding fight.

“Sooner or later, Donald Trump — Mr. ‘Art of the Deal,’ or so he claims — is going to have to learn that he has to work with Democrats if he wants to get deals, good deals, that help the American people,” Schumer said late Saturday night as the Senate prepared to leave town for the summer. “Going at it alone will be a failed strategy.”

Trump’s decision to temporarily abandon his confirmations push rather than give in to what he called “political extortion” from Schumer allowed the embattled Democratic leader to do a pre-recess victory lap after taking heat from the party base for months.

Schumer came under fierce criticism in March for helping to advance a shutdown-avoiding spending bill written solely by Republicans. He warned at the time that a shutdown would only empower Trump and that the dynamic would be different come September as, he predicted, Trump became more unpopular. Nine other members of his caucus joined him.

Trump initially urged Republicans to stay in Washington until all of the roughly 150 pending nominees were confirmed — a demand that could have essentially erased the Senate’s planned four-week recess.

But Schumer and Democrats demanded that Trump unfreeze congressionally approved spending in return for consenting to the swift approval of some nominees. Trump would not pay the price.

In a post where he blasted “Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” Trump instructed senators to go home. Republicans flirted with adjourning the Senate to let Trump make recess appointments, but that would have required recalling the House — and reviving the Trump-centered drama over the Jeffrey Epstein files. Instead, they are vowing to pursue a rules change later this year to quickly push Trump’s nominees through the Senate....>

<....Schumer relished the Truth Social post, putting a poster-sized version on display next to him as he spoke to reporters Saturday night and comparing it to a “fit of rage.”

He kept the heat on Monday, joining with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to demand a so-called four corners meeting with Thune and Johnson to discuss a government funding strategy lest a government shutdown hit Oct. 1. (Republicans, who accuse Schumer of “breaking” the funding process, haven’t responded.)

Though Schumer and Thune have had informal talks about September, they haven’t delved beyond the broad strokes. The South Dakota Republican, asked about Trump and Schumer, predicted the two will have an “evolving relationship.”

“At some point, obviously, there are certain things they are just going to have to figure out, because on some of these things where we need 60 [votes], there are going to have to be conversations,” Thune said in a brief interview.

Schumer and Thune joined 85 other senators to advance the chamber’s first bipartisan funding package late last week, in a show of unity that senators hope will pave the way for another package of spending bills in September. But Congress is still expected to need a short-term funding patch by Oct. 1, and there are early signs of splinters among Republicans about what that step should look like.

But the nomination fight also underscores that Trump is the ultimate wild card heading into the showdown.

At various points heading into and over the weekend, Republicans and Democrats appeared to believe they were close to an agreement and just needed Trump’s blessing, only for it to unravel.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that Schumer’s “satisfaction” in the wake of the nominations showdown is justified but added it was impossible to predict if Trump would come to the table in September.

“One of the most striking and salient facts about Donald Trump is his unpredictability,” he said.

Schumer and Senate Democrats have been trying to game out multiple scenarios in closed-door caucus meetings. They have also been discussing what demands to make in exchange for their votes to fund the government. Those could range from an ironclad commitment from Republicans that they won’t agree to claw back more funding or seek policy concessions, such as unfreezing foreign aid or National Institutes of Health funds, or pursuing a deal on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Democrats have their own internal fault lines to manage. Already Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman is vowing to vote to keep the government open, while others like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are striking a more combative tone.

Republicans’ unwillingness to commit to rejecting future spending clawbacks, she said, shows “the budget negotiations weren’t worth the paper they were written on.”

But Schumer, for now, is savoring the moment. After he wrapped up his news conference Saturday night, the smiling Democratic leader insisted his party was “more effective and more unified than the Republicans” as he kibitzed with reporters.

“What do you think — the art of the deal?” he asked, his arm around a poster-board display of Trump’s “Cryin’ Chuck” post.>

<A group of Americans are building a “whites only” community in rural Arkansas they call the Return to the Land. They believe that white people and Western culture are facing extinction due to an influx of immigrants and minorities, and according to the group’s founder, access to the community is open only to people of white European ancestry who share common views on topics such as segregation, abortion, and gender identity.

Video footage shared by the group on its social media accounts show a bucolic setting with animals and children running around their 160-acre site, while members of the community build timber-frame homes, churches, and other facilities. A “few dozen” people are already living there full time, says Eric Orwoll, the group’s president.

Though the organization claims that Return to the Land is nothing more than a peaceful settlement of like-minded people, the online histories of the group’s leaders tell a different story. Members have espoused virulently racist and antisemitic views and repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. One of the leaders says he is currently under criminal investigation in Ecuador. Orwoll himself has spoken about the coming of a second Hitler and praised KKK leader David Duke. He is also closely aligned to an international network of far-right influencers, extremists, and white supremacists, including Thomas Sewell, a neo-Nazi living in Australia who was the founder of a group that influenced the Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter.

Despite this, the Return to the Land community has been lauded by far-right influencers and has already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.

Return to the Land, which was first reported on by The Forward and Sky News, is actively scouting for other locations to create a network of similar communities across the country, with a development in Missouri apparently in the works. Inspired in part by the Silicon Valley-based concept of the “network state” and by a white separatist community in South Africa known as Orania, the group promotes itself on its website as a community designed to “promote strong families with common ancestry, and raise the next generation in an environment that reflects our traditional values.”

“They use a lot of innocuous language,” Morgan Moon, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, tells WIRED. “Instead of saying they want to make a white ethnic community, they say they want to make a strong community of common ancestry. But at the same time, when we see their promotional videos and propaganda, what we see is that when they're depicting the failing modern society, they use imagery consisting of minority groups or the LGBT+ community. When they're showing the idealized parallel society that they're attempting to create with Return to the Land, they tend to only use white Aryan imagery.”

Orwoll has spent years building up an audience of like-minded followers on social media, primarily on YouTube, where he speaks about Western culture and philosophy.

In 2023, a group of Orwoll’s followers decided to buy the 160-acre plot in rural Arkansas. They chose the location because Orwoll lives nearby, the property was relatively cheap, and the building regulations were lenient. The county is over 90 percent white, which was also a deciding factor, says Orwoll, who also claims to be a classically trained musician who previously played with Shen Yun, a Chinese performing arts group run by the Falun Gong, a religious movement.

Return to the Land is set up as a private members association, and those seeking to join have to go through a number of steps in order to verify their identity and heritage.

“You fill out a questionnaire that'll give us an initial idea of where you're coming from, your values, who you are, your background and then there is a phone interview, and we make admissions decisions on a case by case basis,” Orwoll tells WIRED.

The application form for Return to the Land asks potential members to outline their ancestry and also respond to a range of questions about their social and cultural viewpoints, including whether they support foreign immigration, “transgenderism,” Covid-19 vaccines, and segregation. It also asks: “How often do you think about the Roman empire?” with answers ranging from “every day, at least once” to “a few times a week, probably” and “never.” This initial process only gets you approved to access private group chats on Telegram. For those who decide they want to move to Arkansas and become part of the community, “vetting for that level of involvement is much more thorough,” says Orwoll, though he declined to say what that process involved beyond conducting a “background check.”

Peter Csere, the group’s secretary, tells WIRED that the association has 300 members across the country. Orwoll says they have had interest not only from Americans but also from people on other continents....>

<....Despite being the face of the development, Orwoll does not live in the Return to the Land community. “I've not developed my homestead sufficiently to allow my four children to live safely there full time, so I have a house 15 minutes away, but I'm working towards moving into the community,” he says. In recent weeks, as Orwoll’s past has been closely scrutinized, researchers found videos in which Orwoll performed in online porn videos with his then wife Caitlyn, who is now a resident on the Return to the Land compound. Orwoll has condemned porn addiction, claiming that it “emasculated” young men.

“In my early twenties I did plenty of things that I am now totally against,” says Orwoll, who confirmed on X that he appeared in the videos. “I considered myself a nihilist, did psychedelics, and didn't respect traditional sexual morality. The lack of guidance I had and the way it threw off my early adult life informed the importance I later placed on traditional values.”

To date, the community has raised approximately $330,000 from land sales, according to a financial analysis conducted by the ADL's Center on Extremism. It is also running five separate crowdfunding campaigns on GiveSendGo, a Christian-focused crowdfunding platform. These campaigns have raised over $185,000 in donations. The latest campaign, which has a target of $100,000, was launched last month and is designed to fund rallies across the country to promote the Return to the Land model. The campaign has already raised over $88,000; one of the top donations was for $5,000, to which the donor appended the white supremacist “14 words” slogan. Orwoll says that all of this funding has allowed him to quit his job and work full time traveling around the US speaking about the project.

One of the fundraising campaigns was specifically launched to help fund a legal defense that Orwoll believes may eventually be necessary. “I would prefer not to be sued, but I recognize that it probably will happen, and the upside of it happening is that, should we win, case law would be decided in our favor,” Orwoll says.

While the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prevents housing discrimination based on race or religion, Orwoll believes that the structure of his group as a private member association will allow him to circumvent the law. The group has raised over $63,000 from supporters for what it calls “legal framework research.”

“The attorneys that we've consulted with believe that what we're doing is legal,” Orwoll says. “I think it is a debatable edge case, probably, but we believe it is legal.” When asked to provide the names of the legal experts who they are working with, Orwoll declined to divulge their identities.

Arkansas attorney general Tim Griffin tells WIRED his office has found nothing illegal about the community. “Racism has no place in a free society, but from a legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any state or federal laws have been broken,” Griffin says in a statement emailed to WIRED.

A spokesperson for Shannon Smith, assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, declined to comment on whether her office is investigating the situation. WIRED has learned, however, that her office has referred the matter to the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. “They are better equipped to handle allegations such as these,” Smith wrote in an email shared with WIRED. The DOJ declined to comment on the situation.

Multiple civil rights organizations have condemned Return to the Land’s project and called on local and federal lawmakers and officials to shut down the project.

“We believe this development not only revives discredited and reprehensible forms of segregation,” Lindsay Baach Friedmann, a regional director at the ADL, wrote in a statement posted on X. “We urge the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission, local elected officials, and law enforcement to act swiftly to ensure that Northeast Arkansas remains a welcoming and inclusive community, not a refuge for intolerance and exclusion.”

The Arkansas Fair Housing Commission and Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to WIRED’s repeated requests for comment.

The idea of Return to the Land was partly inspired by venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State, which promotes the idea of digital-first communities of people with shared values with the aim of gaining a degree of sovereignty. “That book was one inspiration,” Orwoll says. “I wouldn't say we're trying to emulate everything that Srinivasan writes about in the book, the more techno, crypto, and augmented-reality aspects that he discussed doesn't exactly align with our values, but the core concepts of how to organize the network state, I think, were very useful, actually.” Orwoll posted about the book in the group’s Telegram channel earlier this year, urging others to read it....>

<....“Imagine a network of a dozen high tech, high human capital, small White cities spread through the US south, exchanging workers, students and ideas,” Orwoll wrote on X in February.

The Return to the Land community has also been hailed as a huge success by far-right influencers and extremists on social media. “If you don't have the right to build a community on a private piece of land and live around the sorts of people you want to live around, then you don't have any rights at all,” right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh wrote on X about Return to the Land. “This is as basic and fundamental as rights can possibly get. Freedom of association.“

Many of the very people who have been most vocal in supporting Orwoll and his project are the same extremists who he has forged close relationships with in recent years.

Orwoll has long associated with white supremacists and promoted neo-Nazi ideals. Last year, Orwoll was a “VIP” guest at the America First Political Action Conference, an annual white nationalist gathering run by Nick Fuentes. “I have always considered you a brilliant and dedicated advocate for our cause,” Fuentes wrote on X recently in response to a post from Orwoll. When asked if Fuentes would be allowed to live within the compound, given his Mexican heritage, Orwoll tells WIRED “it would depend on a vote.”

Earlier this year, Orwoll invited Sewell, the well-known Australian neo-Nazi, to be a speaker at a conference dedicated to discussing intentional communities. Jared Taylor, who runs the white supremacist American Renaissance website, antisemitic influencer Lucas Gage, and Thomas Rousseau, the leader of white nationalist group Patriot Front, were also speaking at that conference. Rousseau has been interviewed by Orwoll on his social media channels on multiple occasions.

Moon says that she has also observed active clubs—many of which are run by Rousseau—taking part in events on the Return to the Land plot in Arkansas. Active clubs are a network of white supremacist groups who participate in physical training, preparing members for a war they believe they are fighting against a system designed to bring down the white race.

In a post on X last year, Orwoll wrote that “what really matters isn't which biological race you belong to or what your ethnic background is. What matters is what proportion of admixture you have from the ancient and spiritually superior root races.” In a follow-up post, he said that anyone who disagrees with the statement needs some “ahnenerbe” teaching.

Ahnenerbe was a pseudoscientific organization created by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS in Adolf Hiter’s Nazi Germany. The group consisted of scientists and academics charged with proving that Germans descended from an Aryan race that was responsible for most of the world’s greatest achievements in everything from agriculture to art and literature.

Orwoll has also recently reminisced about a period in history when, as he portrayed it, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke was almost elected as governor of Louisiana, and “White Pride rallies … filled stadiums.”

When asked recently about his comments regarding the arrival of a second Hitler, Orwoll said that the Nazi Party leader was “a very controversial historical figure.”

“I'm not saying you're going to have to wait for a new person to start a new Holocaust,” Orwoll told Sky News. “I am saying you are going to wait for a charismatic leader who is going to advocate for your interests, because that's how a lot of people see Hitler."

A deeply antisemitic, anonymous X account with the screen name Raven Resolve has repeatedly referred to themselves as part of the Return to the Land group. As well as promoting the movement on numerous occasions, the account has also claimed that Return to the Land is “forming a nationwide army of future warriors.” In the past, the account has said that the American government is the enemy. “The people who rule this country hate it and its people,” the account wrote in 2023. “It's a similar screen name to one of our member's screen names on our internal chats,” Orwoll wrote in an email to WIRED, without officially confirming that Raven Resolve was part of Return to the Land. “If it is him: Views expressed by our members don't necessarily represent the views of RTTL,” Orwoll added. “We have a program for authorizing someone as a representative, and if that X account is one of our members, he's not been authorized to represent us.”....>

<....Csere, the group’s secretary, who has repeatedly referred in social media posts to Nazis as “based,” tells WIRED that he was merely “trolling leftists.” When asked what his real view of Nazis is, Csere said: “The Nazis made a lot of politically conservative reforms that were popular among the German people, however, their method of dealing with foreign influence in German politics and society ended up backfiring.”

Csere is also facing allegations of financial fraud related to his departure from a vegan ecovillage he was part of in Ecuador. The group has accused Csere of owing the project $29,000 and stealing $30,000 in cryptocurrency. Csere denies the allegations, telling WIRED that “various owners of that former community owed me large amounts of money and did not pay it back.” He also says he has been prevented from selling land he owned in the development.

It isn’t just allegations of financial impropriety, either: Csere is under criminal investigation in Ecuador for stabbing a local miner. “My attorney says that he has never seen a case of clear-cut self defense where the prosecutor tried so hard to press charges, for so long,” Csere says, adding that the investigation is still active.

Ultimately, Orwoll and Return to the Land have also been emboldened by an administration they believe offer the best chance at making this project work.

“Right now we have the most favorable judiciary,” Orwoll said in a recent video posted on X. “We have the most favorable cultural climate and administration that we're going to get. I can't imagine someone a lot better than Trump being elected next time. I mean, I can imagine it, it's just not a realistic scenario. So we have a limited amount of time where we need to fight battles.”

Trump’s second term has been marked by hardline immigration policies, including a massive uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, the construction of draconian detention centers, and the embrace of the idea of “remigration,” a far-right European plan to expel minorities and immigrants from Western nations.

“The first thing that the Trump administration really did when it got in power was go after diversity programs and start attacking civil rights,” Chuck Tanner, a researcher for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, tells WIRED. “Groups like [Orwoll’s] are attuned to that and want to use that to insulate themselves from prosecution or investigation for setting up deeply racist secessionist kinds of communities.”>

<Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) is planning to introduce legislation that would give new legal protections for angry motorists to run down rioters — a proposal he is now referring to as the “Thump Thump Bill.”

Fine, who has oriented his political career around his support of President Donald Trump, backed a similar piece of legislation while he was a member of the Florida state legislature.

Speaking to Breitbart News Network on Wednesday, as highlighted by The New York Sun, Fine said blocking roadways should no longer be considered a “reasonable” form of protest.

The report noted that Fine has made a name for himself as a tough‑on‑crime pugilist who is not afraid to make enemies even within his own party.

He has described a fellow GOP lawmaker, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), as an “embarrassment.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently called Fine “disgraceful.”

In the Wednesday interview, Fine said, “When a pregnant woman can’t get to the hospital to have a baby, when an ambulance can’t get through traffic to get to the hospital, that’s a form of terrorism,” Fine said. “It disrupts our lives. And it’s not a reasonable form of protest.”

When asked about the safety of the protesters themselves, Fine says it does not even cross his mind.

“I don’t care about that because they’ve chosen to do that,” Fine told the outlet.

He added: “They’re not confused about what they’re doing. If you stand in the middle of a highway, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get run over.”

He introduced his bill — officially named the Reinstating Orderly Access for Drivers Act — earlier this month. The legislation would create an “affirmative defense” in any “criminal or civil action for damages for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage carried out using a motor vehicle” if the person who suffered damages or injuries was “acting in furtherance of a riot.”

Fine’s proposal draws inspiration from a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that allows motorists to hit protesters if the demonstrations get unruly and cars are surrounded.>

Fine is a contemptible whore.

<A federal judge ordered the nation's health department to stop giving deportation officials access to the personal information — including home addresses — of all 79 million Medicaid enrollees.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first handed over the personal data on millions of Medicaid enrollees in a handful of states in June. After an Associated Press report identified the new policy, 20 states filed a lawsuit to stop its implementation.

In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services entered into a new agreement that gave the Department of Homeland Security daily access to view the personal data — including Social Security numbers and home address — of all the nation's 79 million Medicaid enrollees. Neither agreement was announced publicly.

The extraordinary disclosure of such personal health data to deportation officials in the Trump administration’s far-reaching immigration crackdown immediately prompted the lawsuit over privacy concerns.

The Medicaid data sharing is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to provide DHS with more data on migrants. In May, for example, a federal judge refused to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help agents locate and detain people living without legal status in the U.S.

The order, issued by federal Judge Vince Chhabria in California, temporarily halts the health department from sharing personal data of enrollees in those 20 states, which include California, Arizona, Washington and New York.

“Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents,” Chhabria wrote in his decision, issued on Tuesday.

Chhabria, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said that the order will remain in effect until the health department outlines “reasoned decisionmaking” for its new policy of sharing data with deportation officials.

A spokesperson for the federal health department declined to directly answer whether the agency would stop sharing its data with DHS. HHS has maintained that its agreement with DHS is legal.

Immigrants who are not living in the U.S. legally, as well as some lawfully present immigrants, are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid program that provides nearly free coverage for health services. But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone, including non-U.S. citizens. Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.

Immigration advocates have said the disclosure of personal data could cause alarm among people seeking emergency medical help for themselves or their children. Other efforts to crack down on illegal immigration have made schools, churches, courthouses and other everyday places feel perilous to immigrants and even U.S. citizens who fear getting caught up in a raid.

“Protecting people’s private health information is vitally important,” Washington state's Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. “And everyone should be able to seek medical care without fear of what the federal government may do with that information.”>

<Last month, the Department of Justice’s response to the Jeffrey Epstein saga culminated in an incredibly bizarre move: The Federal Bureau of Prisons transferred a convicted sex offender to a minimum security prison. The special treatment given by the Trump administration to Ghislaine Maxwell is a travesty of justice. It also suggests only one conclusion: A rotten deal between Trump’s DOJ and Epstein’s accomplice to keep quiet in exchange for preferential treatment.

The treatment is, ultimately, not surprising, given how the Trump administration has handled Maxwell in recent months. From her private meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer, to her abrupt transfer to a cushy minimum-security prison, everything about the Trump administration’s conduct appears designed to shield Trump from fallout in the Epstein sex scandal, which involved more than 1,000 victims.

This favoritism would have been difficult to imagine even a few years ago. On Dec. 29, 2021, a federal jury found Maxwell guilty of five felony counts, including conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and sex trafficking of a minor. On June 28, 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years in jail and a fine of $750,000.

Maxwell claimed (and continues to claim) that she was scapegoated for actions carried out by Epstein. But Judge Alison Nathan, in sentencing Maxwell, stated that “Ms. Maxwell is not being punished in place of Epstein or as a proxy for Epstein.” The judge found that Maxwell “over the course of many years participated in a horrific scheme to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls, some as young as 14, for sexual abuse by and with Jeffrey Epstein.” Judge Nathan also said that Maxwell herself had engaged in sexual abuse and that “the damage done to these young girls was incalculable.”

According to CNN, “federal prosecutors amassed millions of records during the sex trafficking investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.” The MAGA world has long called for the public release of these records.

On Feb. 21, in response to a question of whether the Justice Department would release the list of Epstein’s clients, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It’s sitting on my desk to review.” But on July 6, a two-page DOJ/FBI memo stated that a comprehensive review found there was no incriminating “client list,” no evidence of prominent individuals being blackmailed, and no basis to investigate uncharged third parties. Then, on July 23, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had informed Trump in the spring that he was mentioned in the Epstein files. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s been nothing but obstruction from the Trump administration since they found this information.

On July 24 and 25, Blanche personally interviewed Maxwell. It is strange for a deputy attorney general, particularly one who previously served as a criminal defense attorney to the president, to travel to a correctional facility for direct interviews with convicted criminals. Blanche had no involvement in the Maxwell criminal case, but nevertheless interviewed Maxwell alone. No one involved in the case was present.

Days after the Blanche meeting, and without any explanation, Maxwell was surprisingly moved from her Florida prison to a minimum-security federal prison “camp” in Texas that is also known as “Club Fed.” This is a prison camp that does not house sex offenders, nor those with the 20-year sentence Maxwell has....>

<....The unexplained move to this prison “camp” is extremely suspicious and has raised the appearance of a deal being made by Blanche and Maxwell’s attorney, a friend of Blanche. Sex offenders are basically barred from minimum‑security camps. Bureau of Prisons policy requires inmates convicted of sex offenses to be housed in low-security facilities at minimum, unless a waiver is approved. Such waivers for sex offenders are extraordinarily unusual.

On top of all this, public reports, video, and other evidence document that Trump was a longtime friend of Epstein. Trump reportedly took at least eight trips on Epstein’s private jet between 1993 and 1997. In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was “a terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” Epstein has said that “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”

Trump was also a friend of Maxwell. Following her arrest and jailing, Trump said “I just wish her well, frankly.” Trump recently refused to rule out a pardon for Maxwell, and made sure to say that he has the power to grant a pardon.

Maxwell reportedly told Blanche that Trump had never done anything in her presence that would have caused concern. Assuming that this is all Maxwell said, it is a very limited statement. It does not extend to a myriad of things Maxwell might have known about what Trump did but that were not done in her presence. This statement certainly does not rule out the possibility that Maxwell may have some leverage over Trump. The DOJ is certainly acting as though she does.

Ultimately, Trump and the Justice Department have entirely ignored the victims of Maxwell and Epstein, showing no interest in or concern about the women who as minors were subject to horrific and traumatic sexual abuse crimes. It is hard to escape the conclusion that President Trump just wants the Epstein controversy to go away. Even if it takes a pardon of Maxwell or other actions, he appears ready and willing.>

<Texas’ top election official has received a U.S. Justice Department request for access to the state’s list of registered voters, another in a series of letters going out to states demanding information about voter rolls and election procedures.

Along with the voter roll, the department’s Aug. 7 letter to Texas asks for information on how the state is complying with federal requirements for voter list maintenance. It specifically requests information on canceled voter records, records of noncitizens removed from the rolls, voter history, and a list of state and local election officials responsible for voter list maintenance since November 2022. The department gave the state 14 days to respond.

Christina Adkins, director of the election division at the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, told Votebeat that the state was notified in July that such a request was coming.

Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department has been pushing states to turn over voter registration information on the grounds that it’s needed to support enforcement of election law. It has sent similar requests to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Maine, and others.

The information requests are expected ultimately to go to all 50 states. Some experts and state officials have raised concerns over the legality of the effort and whether it could compromise voter privacy protections. Maine state officials declined to turn over the data.

Adkins told a group of Texas election officials during a training session in Round Rock on Tuesday that her agency has been in contact with the Justice Department. She said Texas has informed the department that it can’t yet provide the voter roll, because it’s shifting to an upgraded version of its voter registration management system, known as Texas Election Administration Management, or TEAM.

Most Texas counties use TEAM to manage their voter rolls and have been testing and training on the upgraded system.

“At some point, the state will have to provide that information to the DOJ. But I’m not doing it yet,” Adkins told election officials. “I don’t believe that we have what they’re asking for with respect to this list, because we are in this transition period,” with some registrations still waiting to be processed and work on list maintenance still pending.

Adkins told election officials Tuesday that the state would handle the request from the Justice Department the same way it would a public-records request, as several other states have.

But Justin Levitt — a professor at Loyola Law School and former DOJ official — said the federal government faces a stricter standard in accessing state records than members of the public.

While federal law allows the public to request certain election records, he said, that does not extend to personally identifiable information, which courts have afforded added protection. Sensitive data, such as information about domestic violence survivors or public officials, is also protected under state law, and courts have repeatedly affirmed these limits.

Levitt said several states misinterpret DOJ requests as standard public-records inquiries, but in reality, “what the DOJ can get, in this circumstance, is less” because of restrictions under the Privacy Act of 1974.

That law, he explained, requires the federal government to justify why it is collecting personal data, and explain how it will be stored, and who will have access — with additional safeguards if the data could be matched to other systems in ways that affect federal benefits. If a state believes the data will be used that way, it cannot legally provide it to federal authorities. The Privacy Act also prohibits states from distributing certain data to the federal government unless strict notice and procedural requirements are met, with criminal penalties for violations.

Levitt warned that states that have already handed over their voter rolls “may be abetting a violation of federal law.” and said he believes that with the Justice Department’s information requests framed as they are now, “the federal government is absolutely violating the law.”

The DOJ has said its effort is aimed at enforcing voting rights laws and improving public faith in elections. The agency would not answer questions about the applicability of the privacy act.

Texas Secretary of State officials declined to comment on whether the agency is considering Privacy Act protections as it works to fulfill the request.>

Just ship 'em that PII, boys! Then they know <everything>!

<The president is doing what he can to demonstrate his sincere belief that he’s the God-Emperor of the United States. But to hear some tell it, it’s still an open question as to whether Donald Trump is “extreme.”

There is no question, however, when it comes to a figure like Zohran Mamdani. A veritable consensus exists in which it’s uncontroversial – indeed, it’s simple common knowledge – that the New York City Democrat would be, if elected, the most left-leaning mayor in America.

The double standard is perhaps most evident in questions reporters ask, and don’t ask, according to historian Larry Glickman. No one hesitates to ask if Mamdani is a “communist.” (They ask so often he sounds guilty in his denials.) But there is immense hesitance to ask if Trump is a totalitarian, even as he prosecutes a totalitarian agenda.

Just today, he implied that a dictatorship is fine as long it’s “fighting crime.” “Already they're saying, 'He's a dictator!" The place is going to hell and we got to stop it,” he said. “So instead of saying 'he's a dictator,' they should say 'we're going to join him in making Washington safe.' They say 'he's a dictator!' and then they end up getting mugged.”

Is this not, yanno, an extreme thing to say?

No one’s asking.

This double standard is why liberal Democrats are at a disadvantage every time they propose making things more equitable and more just. They can’t call for tax hikes on the rich without facing the “simple common knowledge” that puts reformers like Mamdani in the position of proving they’re innocent of the allegations made by their enemies.

Indeed, for decades, Republicans (as well as the Democrats who fear them) argued that raising taxes on the rich is an act of class war and cutting them is an act of liberation. And during those years, the argument became so commonplace as to become indisputably true.

It wasn’t true, but let’s focus on how maintaining the facade required Republicans (as well as the Democrats who fear them) to cut taxes for the rich but leave more or less untouched programs associated with the New Deal and Great Society: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, weather service, medical research, science, and so on.

As long as inflation was in check, as long as employment was steady, normal people did not notice the one-sided class war against them.

I can’t help thinking something’s changed when I see footage like this. It’s from a town hall held by Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa of California. Unlike his House colleague, Nebraska’s Mike Flood, LaMalfa acts like he’s in trouble, but his humility doesn’t matter, as the crowd booed and jeered with disapproval over his support for an unpopular president and his unpopular agenda. I mean, just listen to that roar.

Here’s CNN:

“At both town halls, LaMalfa was pressed over how Trump’s agenda, which includes historic cuts to federal support for the social safety net, would affect rural hospitals, particularly those in his district.

“Other attendees asked questions about transparency around the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files. At the morning event, LaMalfa called it a ‘bad look’ to have Epstein-related information continue to be ‘suppressed.’ Still other attendees warned the president’s tariffs would harm farmers in California and attacked the congressman’s credibility.

“‘If you’re not here to either announce your resignation, why aren’t you here to apologize to the farmers of the north state because of your support for the Trump tariffs?’” one audience member said” in Chico.

The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis Monday of the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB). The law will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. “The top 10 percent of earners in the country will see an average boost of $13,600 per year over the next decade as a direct result of provisions in the law, while the bottom 10 percent will see an average annual decrease of $1,200,” according to a report by The Hill.

Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said “Trump is enriching his billionaire friends at the expense of American families.” The BBB “is the largest transfer of wealth from working Americans to the ultra-rich in history.”

That’s a polite, technocratic way of saying it.

When put in context, another word comes to mind....>

<....That context is this: Trump and the Republicans are taking the safety net out from beneath Americans, like Medicaid, food stamps and Obamacare. They are removing critical services that make a middle class life possible, like banking regulation, food inspection and vaccine research. And despite their talk of liberating us from the tyranny of taxation, there’s a tax they love, a national sales tax called “tariffs” – the most immiserating force any of us has faced in five decades.

Indeed, a Federal Reserve official said today that Trump’s tariffs are “a stagflationary shock” that could echo a time when wages kept falling but prices kept rising, while the cost of borrowing soared, making the 1970s first time the American middle class shrank since World War II.

When put altogether, it doesn’t sound like something benign, like “a transfer of wealth.” It sounds like theft. It sounds like a crime.

I’m reminded of what comedian Trae Crowder said.

“The worst part is that the amount of wealth the rich are going to gain from [the BBB] is negligible to them, relatively speaking. This bill effectively takes a few thousand dollars out of the pocket of a regular American per year and puts a few million dollars into the pocket of an American billionaire per year. Well, if a billionaire was walking down the street and a few million dollars fell out of his ass, he wouldn’t debase himself by bending over to pick it up. But if you take three grand away from an Iowa school teacher, her whole life is ruined.”

Crowder went on:

“This bill is the equivalent of taking a life preserver from someone who’s barely treading water and chucking into the incinerator of a super yacht owned by a guy who invented a drone strike app, or whatever. And that guy don’t need it. He just doesn’t want you to have it.

“It pleases him to take it away from you.

“The way you flail makes him giggle.”

It’s early yet. Perhaps normal people will never fully figure out that billionaires have been waging class war against them. And many may be content with suffering as long as perceived enemies suffer more.

But at this rate, the president will need to cheat to prevent the voting public from trying to hold him responsible for the ongoing debilitation of their lives and fortunes. (That’s what he and the Republicans are trying to do with the redrawing of congressional maps in Texas and other red states.) Or he will have to turn everything into a “national emergency” to justify the continuing prosecution of his totalitarian agenda. Escaping accountability will require silencing the people.

Today, the “emergency” is crime. Tomorrow, it could be voting.

A class war could turn into a real one.>

<There is a 'squatter' about the site, seemingly dedicated to setting a 'disorderly' place in Ordnung, all while bringing a healthy dollop of pharisaical attitude to table as he incessantly chastises others over the most trifling of matters.

While not quite so pernicious as <fredthejackal>, he feels compelled to have the last word on everything: <Biographer's Bistro>, whence he harasses those who actually contribute and has apparently driven a valued member away due to his obsession of playing <pedant>, is merely one such page.

<A new wave of book bans has hit Florida school districts, with hundreds of titles being pulled from library and classroom shelves as the school year kicks off.

The Republican-dominated state, which has already had the highest rate of book bans nationwide this year, is continuing to censor reading materials in schools, bowing to external pressures in an effort to avoid conflict and government retaliation.

“This is an ideological campaign to erase LGBTQ+ lives and any honest discussion of sex, stripping libraries of resources and stories,” William Johnson, the director of PEN America’s Florida office, told the Guardian.

“If censorship keeps spreading, silence won’t save us. Floridians must speak out now.”

Book bans have been rising at a rapid rate across the US since 2021, but this latest wave comes after increased pressure from the state board of education in Florida.

The board issued a harsh warning to the Hillsborough county school district in May, saying that if they didn’t remove “pornographic” titles from their library, formal legal action could ensue. More than 600 books were pulled as a result, and the process was expected to cost the district $350,000.

The books taken off the school shelves included The Diary of Anne Frank and What Girls Are Made of by Elana K Arnold. None of them were under formal review by the district, and they hadn’t been flagged by local parents as potentially inappropriate. Parents with children in the school system even had the opportunity to opt their children out of a particular reading, without removing them from the class for everyone.

PEN called the board of education’s mass removal in Hillsborough county a “state-driven censorship”, and concluded “it is a calculated effort to consolidate power through fear, to bypass legal precedent, and to silence diverse voices in Florida’s public schools,” in their press release.

Fearing similar retribution, nine surrounding school districts have taken proactive measures, pulling books which they are worried could cause similar controversy. This includes Columbia, Escambia, Orange and Osceola, who have followed suit and quietly complied, probably to avoid similar state retaliation.

“Censorship advocates are playing a long game, and making Hillsborough County public schools bend the knee is a huge win for them,” said Rachel Doyle, who goes by “Reads with Rachel” on social media.

Doyle has two children in the Hillsborough school district system and is frustrated that they are being used as political pawns. She feels that her voice has been erased by far-right groups like Moms for Liberty and that parental rights groups do not have her kids’ best interests in mind.

“I do not want or need a special interest group or a ‘concerned citizen’ opting out for me,” Doyle said. “Once Florida becomes a place where this is the norm entirely, other states will follow.”

In Escambia County, one of the nine school districts that have taken books off their library shelves after the Hillsborough removal campaign, 400 titles have been removed without review. These include I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a satirical anti-war novel centered around a prisoner of war in Dresden after the Allied bombings in the second world war.

What is happening in Florida is part of a broader, nationwide censorship drive fueled by conservative backlash against teachings about race, gender and diversity.

Unsurprisingly, red states on average have seen higher instances of banned reading materials, with Florida accounting for 4,561 cases of prohibited titles this year, spanning 33 school districts.

These bans often target authors of color, female writers and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Books that educate about any of these experiences, or that document historical periods, are the recipients of frequent censorship attacks.

Rob Sanders, the author of several acclaimed children’s books like Ruby Rose and Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights, and a former Hillsborough county educator, has seen many challenges to his books in Florida and beyond.

“If we eliminate every book that tells a story that is different than the life experiences of an individual or a family, there will be no books left in the library,” Sanders said.

“As an author, the best thing I can do for children is to keep writing books that tell the truth and that celebrate the wonderful diversity in our world.”>

<Fight! Fight! Fight!

It’s not just Donald Trump’s mantra anymore. As the Republican president pushes states to redraw their congressional districts to the GOP’s advantage, Democrats have shown they are willing to go beyond words of outrage and use whatever power they do have to win.

Democrats in the Texas Legislature started it off by delaying, for now, Republican efforts to expand the GOP majority in the state's delegation and help preserve party control of the U.S. House through new districts in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

Then multiple Democratic governors promised new districts in their own states to neutralize potential Republican gains in Washington. Their counter has been buoyed by national fundraising, media blitzes and public demonstrations, including rallies scheduled around the country Saturday.

“For everyone that’s been asking, ‘Where are the Democrats?’ -- well, here they are," said U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, one of several Democrats who could be ousted under her state's new maps. "For everyone who’s been asking, ‘Where is the fight?’ – well, here it is.”

There is no guarantee Democrats can prevent the Republican-powered redistricting, just as Democrats on Capitol Hill have not been able to stop Trump’s moves. But it’s a notable turn for a party that, by its own leaders’ admissions, has honored conventional rules and bypassed bare-knuckled tactics.

California is moving forward with a partisan redistricting effort to counter Texas' move So far, progressive and establishment Democrats are aligned, uniting what has often been a fragmented opposition since Republicans led by Trump took control of the federal government with their election sweep in November. Leaders on the left say the approach gives them a more effective way to confront him. They can challenge his redistricting ploy with tangible moves as they also push back against the Republicans' tax and spending law and press the case that he is shredding American democracy.

“We’ve been imploring Democrats where they have power on the state and local level to flex that power,” said Maurice Mitchell, who leads the Working Families Party at the left flank of mainstream U.S. politics. “There’s been this overwrought talk about fighters and largely performative actions to suggest that they’re in the fight.”

This time, he said, Democrats are “taking real risks in protecting all of our rights” against “an authoritarian president who only understands the fight.”

Pairing fiery talk with action

Texas made sense for Republicans as the place to start a redistricting scuffle. They dominate the Statehouse, and Gov. Greg Abbott is a Trump loyalist.

But when the president's allies announced a new political map intended to send five more Republicans to the U.S. House, state Democratic representatives fled Texas, denying the GOP the numbers to conduct business in the Legislature and approve the reworked districts.

Those legislators surfaced in Illinois, New York, California and elsewhere, joined by governors, senators, state party chairs, other states' legislators and activists. All promised action. The response was Trumpian.

Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York welcomed Texas Democrats and pledged retaliatory redistricting. Pritzker mocked Abbott as a lackey who says “yes, sir” to Trump orders. Hochul dismissed Texas Republicans as “lawbreaking cowboys.” Newsom’s press office directed all-caps social media posts at Trump, mimicking his signature sign off: “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”

U.S. Rep. Al Green, another Texas Democrat who could lose his seat, called Trump “egomaniacal.” Yet many Democrats also claimed moral high ground, comparing their cause to the Civil Rights Movement.

State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., invoked another Texas Democrat, President Lyndon Johnson, who was “willing to stand up and fight” for civil rights laws in the 1960s. Then, with Texas bravado, Romero reached further into history: “We’re asking for help, maybe just as they did back in the days of the Alamo.”

‘Whatever it takes'

A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that about 15% of Democrats’ own voters described the party using words like “weak” or “apathetic.” An additional 10% called it “ineffective” or “disorganized.”

Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who is raising money to support Texas Democrats, has encouraged Democratic-run statehouses to redraw districts now rather than wait for GOP states to act. On Friday, California Democrats released a plan that would give the party an additional five U.S. House seats. It would require voter approval in a November election....>

<....“Maximize Democratic Party advantage,” O’Rourke said at a recent rally. “You may say to yourself, ‘Well, those aren’t the rules.’ There are no refs in this game. F--- the rules. ... Whatever it takes.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin acknowledged the shift.

“This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to a knife fight,” he said.

Andrew O’Neill, an executive at the progressive group Indivisible, contrasted that response with the record-long speeches by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and the Democratic leader of the U.S. House, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, in eviscerating Trump and his package of tax breaks and spending cuts. The left “had its hair on fire” cheering those moments, O’Neill recalled, but were “left even more frustrated in the aftermath.”

Trump still secured tax cuts for the wealthy, accelerated deportations and cut safety net programs, just as some of his controversial nominees were confirmed over vocal Democratic opposition.

“Now,” O’Neill said, “there is some marriage of the rhetoric we’ve been seeing since Trump’s inauguration with some actual action.”

O’Neill looked back wistfully to the decision by Senate Democrats not to eliminate the filibuster “when our side had the trifecta,” so a simple majority could pass major legislation. Democratic President Joe Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, he said, was too timid in prosecuting Trump and top associates over the Capitol riot.

In 2016, Democratic President Barack Obama opted against hardball as the Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, refused to consider Obama's nomination of Garland to the Supreme Court.

“These unspoken rules of propriety, especially on the Democratic side, have created the conditions” that enabled Trump, Mitchell said.

Fighting on all fronts

Even on redistricting, Democrats would have to ignore their previous good-government efforts and bypass independent commissions that draw boundaries in several states, including California.

Party leaders and activists rationalize that the broader fights tie together piecemeal skirmishes that may not, by themselves, sway voters.

Arguing that Trump diminishes democracy stirs people who already support Democrats, O’Neill said. By contrast, he said, the GOP “power grab,” can be connected to unpopular policies that affect voters' lives.

Green noted that Trump’s big package bill cleared the Senate “by one vote” and the House by a few, demonstrating why redistricting matters.

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said Democrats must make unseemly, short-term power plays so they can later pass legislation that “bans gerrymandering nationwide ... bans super PACs (political action committees) and gets rid of that kind of big money and special interest that helped get us to this place.” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, added that a Democratic majority would wield subpoena power over Trump's administration.

In the meantime, said U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, voters are grasping a stark reality.

“They say, ‘Well, I don’t know. Politics doesn’t affect me,'” she said of constituents she meets. “I say, ‘Honey, it does’ If you don’t do politics, politics will do you.'”>

<As I wake up and watch the media in a frenzy, their headlines spinning in circles, one phrase echoes again and again: nothing happened. They can’t make sense of it. No ceasefire. No announcement. No phone calls made. No promises secured. Just the image of Donald Trump rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin on American soil.

But that’s the illusion. That’s the game. While they chatter about body language and handshakes, the real story is buried beneath the surface — exactly where Putin wanted it. And now, even before the dust settles in Alaska, I hear from my sources that Trump is summoning Zelensky to the White House on Monday. The media will sell it as progress, as hope. But I’m telling you, it’s a trap.

We’ve been watching this play out all week, and what I told you from the start is exactly what’s unfolding before our eyes. This summit was never about Ukraine. It was about distraction.

For Trump, it was a three-fold smokescreen: a distraction from the Epstein crisis closing in on him; a distraction from the rogue chaos of Dan Bongino; a distraction from his latest authoritarian experiment — normalizing troops in the streets of Washington, D.C., under the banner of “election reform.” Every play a step toward conditioning Americans to accept the unacceptable.

For Putin, it was simpler. He needed time. Time to stop the constant drumbeat of new sanctions, time to halt threats of U.S. military escalation, time to claw back the “normalization” he has been denied since the first day he launched this bloody war. And Trump gave it to him, wrapped in a limousine ride and sealed with applause on an American runway.

That is why you see the celebrations in Moscow tonight. That is why Russian state television is crowing about victory. Because for Putin, victory wasn’t a ceasefire. Victory wasn’t territory. Victory was legitimacy — and Trump handed it to him. And here’s Russia’s own take: in the words of ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, the Alaska summit was nothing less than a triumph for Putin, proof that Russia is no longer isolated and can bend the narrative of the war to its advantage.

But here’s where it gets darker. I want to share something I’m still confirming, still double-checking with my sources — but it’s too important to ignore. From what I’m hearing, and from what I saw with my own eyes, that wasn’t the real Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The man who stepped onto American soil, smiled for the cameras, shook Trump’s hand, and rode in the limousine may have been a body double — a carefully prepared stand-in. My contacts are adamant this possibility is real, and it would explain the tight choreography, the strange control of optics, and the way everything was staged down to the smallest detail. If true, the entire world was watching theater, not diplomacy.

And I didn’t just keep this analysis here in the United States. I went live on Ukrainian television to break it down directly to the people who are living this war every day. I told them exactly what I’m telling you now: that the man we saw in Alaska may not have even been Putin, that the whole spectacle was designed to distract, to buy time, to re-normalize Russia on the world stage. I spoke truth to power not just here in America, but to Ukrainians on the frontlines — because they deserve to hear the truth unfiltered, not buried under Western headlines or drowned out by Kremlin propaganda. Their sovereignty, their dignity, their very survival is what’s at stake. And they needed to know what really happened behind those closed doors in Alaska....>

<....And here’s something else that should chill every one of you to the bone. Trump didn’t just walk away from Alaska empty-handed — he walked away with lessons. He let it slip himself, quoting Vladimir Putin directly, saying the elections were rigged because of mail-in voting. Think about that, folks. That wasn’t an accident. That was advice. That was mentorship. Trump was a student in that room, learning from one of the most ruthless dictators alive about how to stay in power forever. These conversations weren’t about Ukraine, they weren’t about ceasefires, they weren’t about peace. They were about power grabs, about breaking the system from within, about silencing opposition and rewriting the rules. And now we know — Putin was even giving him the playbook.

This entire meeting was staged like a show. Behind the cameras, what happened in Alaska was grave. Putin — or the man playing his role — was treated like a king. A war criminal who ordered the slaughter of tens of thousands of Ukrainians, who tore over 20,000 children from their families, was honored with a red carpet and a military flyover. Meanwhile, Zelensky has been shouted at, insulted, and left to plead for scraps. The man defending his nation was dismissed, while the man who burned it to the ground was embraced.

And let me add this — I’ve even compiled for you how Fox News, Trump’s own propaganda arm, reported on the Alaska summit. Even they were confused. Even they couldn’t spin this into a win. Their anchors called it “another nothing-burger,” and their own analysts admitted that Putin had steamrolled Trump, walking away with the optics while giving nothing in return. Think about that. When Fox — the network that usually bends over backwards to paint Trump as a genius negotiator — throws up its hands and says, what just happened here? You know the performance was too obvious, too hollow, too humiliating to disguise.

And if you still think Putin was sincere about peace, just look at what happened the moment he left American soil. As his jet took off, Russia launched 85 Shahed drones and an Iskander-M ballistic missile into Ukraine, pounding the frontline regions of Sumy, Donetsk, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Ukrainian defenders fought back with everything they had, downing or suppressing 61 drones — but 24 more found their targets, striking twelve locations across the country. That was Putin’s real closing statement. Not the hollow words of peace whispered in Alaska, but the roar of drones and missiles raining down on Ukraine. It was his way of reminding the world, and Trump most of all, that diplomacy is his theater — but war is his truth.

The media tells you nothing happened. They’re wrong. A lot happened. But it wasn’t what they expected. Because this was never about Ukraine’s sovereignty. This was about back-door dealings, about carving the world up like real estate, about trade, mining, and financial channels reopening between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia. It was about rewriting history — erasing the bodies, the bombed-out schools, the stolen children — and replacing it with a handshake and a photo-op.

This was the opening act. What comes next will be announcement after announcement, sanctions lifted, deals unveiled, Russia reintroduced as a partner on the global stage. Ukraine will be sidelined, its dignity bartered away behind closed doors. That is why I’ve warned you all along: do not mistake a handshake for peace.

And now, with Zelensky summoned to Washington, the danger is clear. They will try to corner him into a deal he cannot accept — a land swap, a false “peace” carved out of Ukraine’s sovereignty. And when he refuses, they will paint him as the obstacle, the problem, the reason peace failed.

That’s the plan. That’s what Alaska was really about.

I’m risking everything to bring you this truth. My sources are risking everything too. Every day, Trump, Putin, and their enablers are tightening their grip, cracking down on leakers, truth-tellers, and independent voices like ours. They want silence. They want obedience. They want you in the dark while they divide nations like real estate and rewrite history as if the dead, the stolen, and the broken never mattered.

That’s why this fight cannot be mine alone — it must be ours. If you believe in accountability, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in standing against dictators and their useful idiots, then I’m asking you: stand with me.>

<Texas last redrew its congressional map (along with the rest of the country) in 2022 after the 2020 decennial census. The redistricting approach the Republican-controlled state legislature took that year was a small-“c” conservative one. Was the map they passed an exemplar of partisan fairness? Nope, it wasn’t. But it also didn’t squeeze out as many Republican seats as possible. Instead, the Texas GOP played it safe and focused on protecting incumbent House members. That’s an understandable enough strategy: suburban counties in Texas had been drifting left for the past few cycles, and discussions of “Blexas” were omnipresent (at least among Democrats).

The safe approach worked well enough. In 2024, Donald Trump won every Republican-held House district in Texas by double digits. But it left Republicans wanting more. Most of the state shifted right in 2024, and Republicans made huge gains among Hispanic voters. The old worry that the Texas suburbs would keep getting bluer and bluer — eventually taking Republican House seats with them — receded. That’s probably why in June — combined with Trump’s general willingness to push any norm or boundary for political gain — the White House asked Texas Republicans to start a relatively rare mid-decade redistricting process¹ and draw a new map that turns some currently Democratic seats red. (This won’t be the last you hear from us on redistricting — there may or may not be a Nate Take coming — but for today, we’re just going to focus on the numbers in Texas and not the fairness or lack thereof of all of this.)

Under Texas’ current congressional map, shown below using data from Dave’s Redistricting App, Republicans won 25 House seats in 2024 and Democrats won 13.² What exactly will the new map do? Here’s how Trump is thinking about it: “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats.” And that’s the headline you’ve probably seen everywhere: the new Texas map will create five new House seats for Texas Republicans, shifting the map from 25-13 to 30-8.

Texas Democrats would probably describe the map differently than I just did. They’d say that Republicans are trying to steal five seats. But no matter how you frame it, this new map has set off a gerrymandering war from California to Indiana that Republicans are probably favored to win in the long run. But it’s worth drilling down on that initial claim. The “steal” semantics mostly come down to how you feel about partisan gerrymandering. But the “five seats” part is easier to evaluate. Will the proposed Texas map actually result in Republicans winning five House seats in 2026 (and beyond?) that they wouldn’t have won without another round of redistricting?

Before that question becomes relevant, the new map needs to pass the Texas State Legislature. That would ordinarily be a simple proposition, but Texas House Democrats left the state weeks ago to prevent the state legislature from voting on the map during a special legislative session. They’re now returning home after that initial special session ended on Friday. But because Texas Governor Greg Abbott can just keep calling special sessions (the second session started two hours after the first one ended), the map will probably pass eventually. Theoretically, the new map needs to be in place by Texas’s December 8th candidate filing deadline, but Abbott has said Republicans could keep working on redistricting beyond that point if Democrats remain out of state.³ For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume that the new map will end up being implemented before the 2026 midterms.

But even in that scenario, the headlines can conceal uncertainty in how Texas Democrats’ fortunes will change under Plan C2331.⁴ Here’s what the proposed map looks like. We’re interested in five districts: the 9th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, and 35th. All five are currently held by Democrats but have been redrawn to favor Republicans — substantially in some cases. Under this new map, Trump would have won each of these districts by more than 10 points in the 2024 election. So they should be easy Republican pickups in 2026, right?

Well, not necessarily. Initially, even Texas Republicans were hesitant to redraw the state’s map. They worried that their voters would be spread too thin and the gerrymander would backfire. Luckily for the GOP, that hasn’t happened. None of the U.S. House seats currently held by Texas Republicans are really going to be in a more tenuous position after the redraw. But it’s hard to draw a perfect map. However, a few of the newly redrawn districts are far from a guaranteed win....>

<....Not all districts are created equal

It’s helpful to think about the five Texas districts that are supposed to flip from blue to red thanks to the new map as two separate groups.⁵ First, the 9th, 32nd, and 35th Congressional Districts. Kamala Harris won all three districts in 2024 under the old congressional map. Back then, they were located in the heart of major Texas cities: Houston, Dallas, and Austin, respectively. Under the new map, parts of each district would be moved into more suburban areas that voted for Trump in 2024. The result? Trump would have won the new 9th, 32nd, and 35th Districts by an average of 14 points in 2024 and he would have won all three districts in 2020.

In these three districts, GOP plans change the composition of these districts pretty dramatically. Not only have they shifted right, but they’ve gone from mostly urban to largely suburban. For example, Democrat Julie Johnson won the old TX-32 by more than 20 points in 2024. With the new map, Trump would have won that district by nearly 18 points. Nor will incumbency be much help to Democrats. Our research suggests the importance of incumbency is declining anyway, but mostly that’s because incumbents will probably abandon ship. Al Green’s best bet is to cut his losses in TX-9 and run for the vacant TX-18 seat. And the new map will force Greg Casar (formerly of TX-35) to compete with Lloyd Doggett over TX-20, the remaining Democratic House seat in San Antonio.

But the other two districts (the 28th and 34th) are less of a straightforward win for Republicans. TX-28 and TX-34 are located in South Texas on the border with Mexico and are both majority Hispanic. About 87 percent of the citizen voting age population (CVAP) in the new TX-28 is Hispanic. And the new TX-34 is 72 percent Hispanic. Both of these districts also already voted for Trump in 2024 even under the old map. The new map makes them redder: R+7.3 → R+10.4 for TX-28 and R+4.5 → R+10.1 for TX-34. But even under those lines, Joe Biden would have carried these districts in 2020 by 9.6 and 2.9 points, respectively.

How did the new Texas districts vote in past elections? Presidential election results and demographic makeup of Texas's 9th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, and 35th Congressional Districts based on the state's proposed redistricting

These differences matter when thinking about how the 28th and 34th will fare in the midterms and beyond in 2028. On one hand, Republicans might have been able to flip these seats without gerrymandering. Maybe not in 2026 given what will probably be a less-than-ideal national environment. But it could have happened in 2028 if Hispanic voters kept trending right. On the other hand, even with the new map, flipping TX-28 and TX-34 in 2026 might be easier said than done.

Both districts have incumbents who will likely be sticking around and have track records of winning in districts that Trump has carried. Henry Cuellar’s average wins above replacement (WAR) from Split Ticket since 2016 is D+10.6.⁶ That means he’s performed about 10 points better than the fundamentals suggest he “should.”⁷ Vicente Gonzalez’s average WAR since he started representing TX-34 is lower, although slightly positive at D+0.9. Are their districts even redder now? Yes. But geographically, they haven’t moved very much. Cuellar and Gonzalez will be competing in mostly familiar territory. And a favorable midterm environment for Democrats would further boost their chances of keeping their seats.

Both districts are also full of traditionally Democratic Hispanic voters. TX-28 and TX-34 being reliably Republican going forward depends on the GOP maintaining the gains among Hispanic voters they saw in 2024. Whether that will happen in the long run is harder to say, but Trump isn’t exactly popular among Hispanic voters at the moment. His approval among Hispanics (net -28 in a recent Equis Research poll) is substantially lower than his overall approval rating. And in that same Equis poll, only 67 percent of Hispanics who voted for Trump in 2024 said they plan to vote for a Republican in 2026; 8 percent said they’ll vote for a Democrat and 20 percent are undecided.

Is that enough evidence to say the multi-year trend of Hispanic voters moving toward Republicans is over? Not even close (especially given that pollsters have had trouble pinning down the Hispanic vote, along with much of the rest of the electorate). But a reversion toward Democrats in 2026 is certainly possible. Historically, Hispanic voters are actually “swingier” than white voters, at least in Texas. From 2016 to 2024, Republicans won between 66 percent and 69 percent of white voters statewide based on the exit polls. In that same period, they won anywhere from 34 percent to 55 percent of Hispanic voters.....>