Politics & Stuff

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Republicans Gerrymandering to Always be in Office. Democrats Retaliate.

Texas Republicans have proposed a redistricting plan, backed by President Donald Trump, that would create five more Republican-leaning seats in the US House of Representatives – a practice known as gerrymandering.

The proposal comes long before congressional lines are scheduled to be redrawn, following the next US Census.

As a result, several Democratic states such as California, New York, and Illinois have said they are also pushing forward with their own efforts to redraw their districts to create more Democratic seats.

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Never thought I'd agree with her...😀

[CucurellatheCat 24]

😆🤣😂

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Palestinian icon football star Sulieman Obeid killed by isareli sniper while queuing for scraps of food at GHF site

AP Press

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10 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Palestinian icon football star Sulieman Obeid killed by isareli sniper while queuing for scraps of food at GHF site

AP Press

 

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10 hours ago, Vesper said:

 

They deliberately target footballers. Also all the doctors, surgeons and nurses because they know that takes longer to rebuild with those people murdered.

Also remember the first hospital they bombed ? - blamed it on Hamas -and they said ''we would never attack a hospital''. They were obviously testing the water. 

They have now destroyed 35 hospitals and medical centres including the only Cancer hospital

Accepting this is a dangerous precedent for future conflicts. Any countries hospitals are legitimate targets, Sweden, UK, anywhere. ''Well isarel did it so why cant we''

 

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Take Your Ass to Cracker Barrel

they eviscerate Trumpers and racist, misogynistic, christofash white trash American culture

I had to lol when one of them used 'WUMing'

never heard an older yank use that before, or if I have, I forgot

[CucurellatheCat 24]

18 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Take Your Ass to Cracker Barrel

they eviscerate Trumpers and racist, misogynistic, christofash white trash American culture

I had to lol when one of them used 'WUMing'

never heard an older yank use that before, or if I have, I forgot

People who dont agree with your narrative aren't racist lol, more black people voted for trump than ever, are they racist too?! 

At 40 I have major fatigue of people of any race or creed calling others racist because they cannot win legitimate arguments and instead spew wild propaganda

I'm not very political but I think you should calm down this panther like mentality, Sweden has been destroyed by immigration and thats a fact!

How many bombings a day in Sweden? how much gang crime? That's not the indigenous swedes is it lol

This thread seems like a bit of a hate thread

runs away

[CucurellatheCat 24]

here, LOL

 

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4 hours ago, CucurellatheCat said:

Sweden has been destroyed

lol, no we have not

Do we have problems with certain types of immigration and the amounts? Of course, and I predicted those problems long ago (and predicted the foolish refusal to deal with it by most all of the other parties here would lead to the rise of a RW party, the Sweden Democrats, into our Riksdag (parliament). But we are hardly 'destroyed'. That is RW hyperbolic framing.

4 hours ago, CucurellatheCat said:

more black people voted for trump than ever, are they racist too?

Of course we (I am mixed race part black) can be racist. I do not think that racism by itself led to more black voting for Trump (especially young black men). I think that many factors played a role, some malign (misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, a twisted take on fundamental christinaity, etc) and some (a good deal) disatisfaction with the economic situation. The thing is, the economy had turned a major point and inflation was coming down, AND a lot of the other bad parts (exploding rents, predatory profit taking with Covid (and the Covid wreckage was very much driven by Trump's and MAGA's poor handling of it) used as an excuse by corporate forces) were actualised by non Democratic party pushed practises.

4 hours ago, CucurellatheCat said:

This thread seems like a bit of a hate thread

I hate HATE. Hate is a fundamental foundation of what animates Trump, MAGA, Project 25, etc. (Along with fear, misogyny, homophobia, utter disdain for science and rational thought, a disdain for the rule of law, a disadain for education itself, white grievance culture, scapegoating of the 'other', the Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen, authoritarian christian nationalism, the attempted erasure all that these forces I speak of deem to be 'the enemy' of their ultra-narrow definition of what is proper and acceptable, etc etc.)

Trump himself repeatedly said 'I will be your retribution'. All those malign forces listed combine with an annihilation of objective truth and a fascistic disdain for pluralism and the rule of law, to set the US (and thus a lot of the world) on a course for ruination, chaos, a distruction of civil society, a destruction of the global economic sytems (which was FAR from perfect but what is replacing it is FAR worse and will likely eventually lead to armed conflicts erupting at a pace far exceeding where it would be without the destruction).

So no, this is not a 'hate thread'. Much of this forum is a pushback against hate and all the ill effects that it engenders.

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Trump's US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Shares Bizarre Video About Banning Women from Voting, “Submission” to Men

Pete Hegseth reposts video that says women shouldn’t be allowed to vote

Progressive evangelical group says ideas shared by pastors and amplified by defense secretary are ‘very disturbing’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/pete-hegseth-video-pastors-women-voting

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, recently shared a video in which several pastors say women should no longer be allowed to vote, prompting one progressive evangelical organization to express concern.

Hegseth reposted a CNN segment on X on Thursday that focuses on pastor Doug Wilson, a Christian nationalist who co-founded the Idaho-based Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), In the segment, he raises the idea of women not voting.

“I would like to see this nation being a Christian nation, and I would like this world to be a Christian world,” Wilson said.

Another pastor interview by CNN for its segment, Toby Sumpter, said: “In my ideal society, we would vote as households. I would ordinarily be the one to cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household.”

A congregant interviewed for the segment remarked that she considers her husband as the head their household, and added: “I do submit to him.”

Hegseth reposted the nearly seven-minute report with the caption: “All of Christ for All of Life.”

Later in the video, Wilson says he does not believe women should hold leadership positions in the military or be able to fill high-profile combat roles.

A statement from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell on Saturday said Hegseth “is a proud member of a church affiliated with” the CREC.

“The secretary very much appreciates many of Mr Wilson’s writings and teachings.”

Hegseth and his family were in attendance at the Wilson church’s inaugural service in Washington in July, according to CNN.

Doug Pagitt, a pastor and the executive director of the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good, told the Associated Press that the ideas in the video are views that “small fringes of Christians keep” and said it was “very disturbing” that Hegseth would amplify them.

Hegseth’s repost on Thursday came as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to promote Christian nationalism.

The push follows Donald Trump’s renewed alliance with the Christian right in his second presidential term, whose moves have included an executive order creating a federal taskforce to investigate what he calls “anti-Christian bias” in government agencies.

The president also created a White House faith office in February, saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combating antisemitic, anti-Christian and additional forms of anti-religious bias”.

In May, Hegseth invited his personal pastor, Brooks Potteiger, to the Pentagon to lead the first of several Christian prayer services that the defense secretary has held inside the government building during working hours. Defense department employees and service members said they received invitations to the event in their government emails.

The US constitution’s first amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. But the US courts’ administrative office says the precise definition of “establishment” in that context historically has been unclear, especially with the constitution also protecting all citizens’ right to practice their religion generally as they please.

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New executive order puts all grants under political control

All new funding on hold until Trump administration can cancel any previously funded grants.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/new-executive-order-puts-all-grants-under-political-control/

On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order asserting political control over grant funding, including all federally supported research. The order requires that any announcement of funding opportunities be reviewed by the head of the agency or someone they designate, which means a political appointee will have the ultimate say over what areas of science the US funds. Individual grants will also require clearance from a political appointee and "must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities."

The order also instructs agencies to formalize the ability to cancel previously awarded grants at any time if they're considered to "no longer advance agency priorities." Until a system is in place to enforce the new rules, agencies are forbidden from starting new funding programs.

In short, the new rules would mean that all federal science research would need to be approved by a political appointee who may have no expertise in the relevant areas, and the research can be canceled at any time if the political winds change. It would mark the end of a system that has enabled US scientific leadership for roughly 70 years.

We’re in control

The text of the executive order recycles prior accusations the administration has used to justify attacks on the US scientific endeavor: Too much money goes to pay for the facilities and administrative staff that universities provide researchers; grants have gone to efforts to diversify the scientific community; some studies can't be replicated; and there have been instances of scientific fraud. Its "solution" to these problems (some of which are real), however, is greater control of the grant-making process by non-expert staff appointed by the president.

In general, the executive order inserts a layer of political control over both the announcement of new funding opportunities and the approval of individual grants. It orders the head of every agency that issues grants—meaning someone appointed by the president—to either make funding decisions themselves, or to designate another senior appointee to do it on their behalf. That individual will then exert control over whether any funding announcements or grants can move forward. Decisions will also require "continuation of existing coordination with OMB [Office of Management and Budget]." The head of OMB, Russell Vought, has been heavily involved in trying to cut science funding, including a recent attempt to block all grants made by the National Institutes of Health.

What sorts of political litmus tests will these appointees apply to science funding? As mentioned above, they'll need to be consistent with the president's agenda and can't promote "anti-American values." The order also doesn't want any funding for grants that suggest that sex isn't binary, even though it is clearly not. Presumably, researchers who work on the hermaphroditic worm C. elegans are out of luck. Research institutions with lower facility costs—which will typically mean rural ones—will be favored for funding, which appears to be OMB trying to accomplish a previous goal that was blocked by the courts.

Another expectation? That grants will go to people who adhere to the administration's vision of "gold standard science," something the administration itself has abandoned when it was inconvenient.

An optimistic view would be that the panels of experts that evaluate grants will end up being left with the final say over funding. However, the order specifically calls on appointees not to defer to peer review. "Senior appointees and their designees shall not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others in reviewing funding opportunity announcements or discretionary awards, but shall instead use their independent judgment," it reads. "Nothing in this order shall be construed to discourage or prevent the use of peer review methods to evaluate proposals for discretionary awards or otherwise inform agency decision making, provided that peer review recommendations remain advisory and are not ministerially ratified, routinely deferred to, or otherwise treated as de facto binding by senior appointees or their designees."

Prior funding at risk

All funding agencies are forbidden from starting any new grant funding programs until the system for exerting political control over the research is in place. The order also requires agencies to take political control of past funding.

The actual process of distributing funds to labs is called grant "drawdown," and the order requires the funding agency to explicitly approve any drawdown. That approval will now require any researcher to essentially rejustify the existence of their grant any time they want money, with agencies requiring "grantees to provide written explanations or support, with specificity, for requests for each drawdown." The explosion of paperwork that this will require is somewhat ironic, given that the order is claiming to be (in part) about making research spending more efficient.

Should the agency not feel that any grant is justified, they'll simply be allowed to unilaterally terminate it. "Each agency head shall, to the maximum extent permitted by law and consistent with relevant Executive Orders or other Presidential directives," it reads, "take steps to revise the terms and conditions of existing discretionary grants to permit immediate termination for convenience, or clarify that such termination is permitted, including if the award no longer advances agency priorities or the national interest."

It has been clear for a while that the administration is committed to adding ideological litmus tests to science and slashing research funding. However, Congress has shown indications that it doesn't intend to go along with the cuts. This appears to be the administration's response to Congress: An attempt to place a major roadblock to any new funding and establish the structure that will formally exert the ideological control that it wants.