In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s failed push to get Indiana Republicans to pass an extreme mid-decade gerrymander deleting all Democratic congressional seats in the state, GOP officials there who supported the effort are admitting defeat and facing recriminations from within their own party. Trump threw everything he could at getting Indiana to pass the new map, sending Vice President JD Vance to the state multiple times, and Gov. Mike Braun and the congressional GOP delegation endorsed the plan. But after a bitterly divisive session that involved GOP holdouts being targeted with violent threats, Braun has acknowledged it’s not going to happen anytime soon.“I don’t intend to call another special session to push early redistricting. I think that ship has sailed,” said Braun, according to State Affairs. Meanwhile, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, bad blood is still simmering within the state GOP from how officials turned on each other over the proposal. Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg, a 25-year lawmaker who voted against redistricting, said in no uncertain terms that Braun should make nice with Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, who came under heavy MAGA fire as the voice of the majority of the GOP caucus who opposed the plan. “If he were asking me, ‘What should I do next?’ I’d say, ‘You need to apologize to Senator Bray, our pro tem.’ Because he actually said that he wanted to work against him,” she said. Meanwhile, another redistricting opponent, Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, said of the current atmosphere, “I don’t think anybody wants to have a lasting impact. There will be some hard feelings. But I thought that we kept it under control. There didn’t seem to be the acrimony on the floor that you might have anticipated. Most of that was coming from outside.”Some external GOP groups, like Turning Point USA, campaigned hard for redistricting and have threatened to commit time and money to primary challenges against those who voted it down. Trump himself has echoed these threats.
Tag: Trump
‘Moment of truth’ imminent as military brass pushed to turn of Trump: DC insider
Donald Trump’s attack on members of Congress who served in the military for advising those currently serving not to follow illegal orders could have a ripple effect that blows up on him, an expert warned Tuesday. During an appearance on MS NOW, longtime Washington D. C. observer John Heilemann suggested the president may face a reckoning now that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is going after Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a popular former Navy pilot and astronaut. Speaking with the hosts on “Morning Joe,” Heileman made the case that it is only a matter of time before retired and active duty military personnel turn on the president, whose popularity is already slipping. Admitting that he was stunned that Hegseth is focusing on Kelly, he added that it could be the straw that broke the camel’s back within the military ranks.“The question for me is, when do we get to the point where active duty senior military officials start to speak up, because they have kept quiet?” he told the panel. “When Trump gave speeches at Fort Bragg and West Point, a lot of them were upset about it because they were so partisan and political.”“They have kept quiet in the face of the discussions of sending in the military to a place like Chicago and Los Angeles and other places, but I think there’s a moment that’s coming, and I think a lot of people in the military recognize this, where not just retired, but where current active duty senior military who are clearly, quietly troubled by everything that’s going on with this, are going to face a moment of truth where they’re either going to have to speak up, or they’re going to have to end up obeying orders that are at least questionably legal and possibly blatantly illegal.”“That’s going to be a big moment in this country. We haven’t seen anything like that from active duty military speaking out publicly, really, in our lifetimes,” he reminded the panel. YouTube youtu. be.
Dismantling the Endangered Species Act will hurt a lot more than just wildlife
Dismantling the Endangered Species Act will hurt a lot more than just wildlife
Donald Trump Expresses Caution About Lifting FCC Limits On Ownership Of TV Stations
Donald Trump weighed in on what has been a key priority for broadcasters during his administration: Lifting a cap on the number of TV stations any one entity can own. Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday, “If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to “enlarge,” I would not be happy. ABC & [.].
‘Crime of serious proportion!’ Trump unloads on Dem military vets in midnight ‘outburst’
Donald Trump at around midnight had an “outburst” in which he said Democratic military veterans have committed “a crime of serious proportion.”Trump took to Truth Social to respond to a video in which several Dem lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds reminded troops about their constitutional duty to deny “illegal” orders. Trump and MAGA analysts have suggested that the video was encouraging troops to ignore lawful orders, which was explicitly not what was stated in the video.”THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK,” Trump wrote on Saturday night at 11: 17 PM. “IT WASN’T, AND NEVER WILL BE! IT WAS SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, AND SEDITION IS A MAJOR CRIME.”The president then added, “THERE CAN BE NO OTHER INTERPRETATION OF WHAT THEY SAID!”In a follow-up post, Trump added an additional claim, but didn’t provide supporting evidence.”MANY GREAT LEGAL SCHOLARS AGREE THAT THE DEMOCRAT TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS, AS PRESIDENT, HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME OF SERIOUS PROPORTION!” Trump wrote. An MSNBC host hours later called Trump’s comments an “outburst.”Read it here.
Trump ‘terminating’ deportation protections for ‘Somalis in Minnesota’
Trump ‘terminating’ deportation protections for ‘Somalis in Minnesota’
Trump accuses six Democratic lawmakers of “seditious behavior”
President Trump posted on social media that Democratic lawmakers who urged members of the military to disobey illegal orders should be arrested and face trial for “seditious behavior.”.
Trump nominates new CFPB director, but White House says agency is still closing
Trump nominates new CFPB director, but White House says agency is still closing
6 former US military leaders warn Trump against using troops for ‘partisan’ goals
A new report published by former U. S. military officers this week decried president Donald Trump’s politicized use of the military and warned of the “eroding” effects his continued use of it will have, per a report from The Guardian. Since returning to power in January, Trump has become increasingly reliant on domestic military deployments in furtherance of his agenda. This has most notably included the use of National Guard forces to aid in immigration enforcement efforts, particularly in major cities, like Chicago and Los Angeles, that are run by Democratic elected officials. His administration has also seen numerous firings of high-ranking officers and lawyers who have been unwilling to support certain parts of the president’s agenda. All of these issues are at the heart of a new report, titled “The Perils of Politicizing the U. S. Military,” which warned that Trump’s use of the military for partisan purposes are damaging to the separation of the armed forces from political matters and the public’s trust in it to act apolitically. “The use of troops, bases, and ceremonies in partisan settings has blurred the line between military service and political messaging, eroding morale and public trust in the military’s apolitical character,” the report read. Released on Monday, the report was authored by retired Navy Admiral Steve Abbot, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, former Army Secretary Louis Caldera, retired Army General George Casey, former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and former Navy secretary Sean O’Keefe. The former officials continued: “When service members, senior leaders, or military symbols are perceived as aligned with political agendas, the public begins to see the institution as partisan rather than national and once eroded, that trust is difficult to rebuild. This loss of trust makes it harder to recruit across the political spectrum, harder to retain talent, and harder to reassure allies and deter adversaries abroad.”.
Trump admin finally acknowledges what economists have been telling us for months: analysis
Although President Donald Trump didn’t actually confess that his global trade war is driving up the cost of groceries for Americans, he did finally drop his dubiously named “reciprocal” tariffs on key imports on Friday. According to a White House fact sheet, Trump’s new executive order ends his tariffs on beef; cocoa and spices; coffee and tea; bananas, oranges, and tomatoes; other tropical fruits and fruit juices; and fertilizers. The New York Times had reported Thursday that “the Trump administration is preparing broad exemptions to certain tariffs in an effort to ease elevated food prices that have provoked anxiety for American consumers.”The reporting drew critiques of the administration’s economic policies, including from members of Congress such as Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who said that “Trump just admitted it: Americans are footing the bill for his disastrous tariffs.”Also responding to the Times reporting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media Friday: “After months of increasing grocery prices, Donald Trump is finally admitting he was wrong. Americans are literally paying the price for Trump’s mistakes.”More lawmakers and other critics piled on after Trump issued the order. CNN‘s Jim Sciutto said: “Trump administration now acknowledging what economists and business leaders have told us from the beginning: that tariffs are driving up prices.”MeidasTouch and its editor in chief, Ron Filipkowski, also called out the president on social media, with the outlet sarcastically noting, “But Trump said his tariffs don’t raise prices.”Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va), who serves on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, said in a Friday statement that “President Trump is finally admitting what we always knew: His tariffs are raising prices for the American people.”“After getting drubbed in recent elections because of voters’ fury that Trump has broken his promises to fix inflation, the White House is trying to cast this tariff retreat as a ‘pivot to affordability,’” Beyer said, referencing Democrats who won key races last week, from more moderate Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, the incoming governors of New Jersey and Virginia, to democratic socialist Mayors-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City and Katie Wilson of Seattle. In addition to those electoral victories for Democrats, last week featured a debate over Trump’s trade war at the US Supreme Court. According to Beyer: “The simple truth is that Republicans want credit for something they think the Supreme Court will force them to do anyway, after oral arguments before the court on Trump’s illegal abuses of trade authorities went badly for the administration. Trump is still keeping the vast majority of his tariffs in place, and his administration is also planning new tariffs in anticipation of a Supreme Court loss.”“The same logic-that Trump’s tariffs are driving up prices on coffee, fruit, and other comestibles-is equally true for the thousands of other goods on which his tariffs remain,” he continued.”“Only Congress can do that, by reclaiming its legal responsibility under the Constitution to regulate trade, and permanently ending Trump’s trade war chaos,” he stressed. “All but a handful of Republicans in Congress are still refusing to stand up to Trump, stop his tariffs, and lower costs for the American people, and unless they find a backbone, our economy will continue to suffer.”As the Associated Press noted Friday, “The president signed the executive order after announcing that the U. S. had reached framework agreements with Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Argentina designed to ease import levies on agricultural products produced in those countries.”Trump’s order also came just a day after Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report showing that US families are paying roughly $700 more each month for basic items since Trump returned to office in January-with households in some states, such as Alaska and California, facing an average of over $1,000 monthly. The president has floated sending Americans a $2,000 check, purportedly funded by revenue collected from his tariffs, but as Common Dreams reported Wednesday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research crunched the numbers and found that the proposed “dividend” doesn’t add up.