Thursday, May 07, 2026

That Weird Mustache Dude!

Dude, you need a life outside of the internet.

The risk of a civil war is 15%.

As Tennessee Republicans approve their congressional redistricting map which eliminates the district that covers most of Memphis, a majority Black city of 712,000 residents, one notorious agitator roots them on.

Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, Republicans are on a spree to eliminate Democratic leaning districts to hold on to their wretched power.

These things are signaling a civil war.

This is going to be a deadly year for Republicans. Trust me, they're gassing up people to commit violent acts against one another.

The Nashville Metro Police detained the controversial free speech warrior after he sprayed bear repellent into the eyes of people after he got into another racial agitation.

Dalton Eatherly, sit weird mustache having goof ass down before your son loses his father to either the iron college or the morgue. 

There were videos where he used bear mace on a woman after she shoved him. He literally was agitating them by saying racial slurs. He insulted the woman because she is white and is dating a Black person.

His goal to generate attention to how he is being denied free speech.

He want to bag a coin by being a troll.... 

You couldn't make it as a contractor or a damn porn actor. So I guess you got to he got to be a racial agitator for clicks.

Apparently the fool was kicked off Kick after he latest rants. However, he keeps on finding another platform.

Dalton Levi Eatherly, known as Chud The Builder is the Romeo Rose of Clarksville, Tennessee.

You will spot him around metro Nashville harassing Black people for click bait. Still saying racial slurs. Promoting Islamophobia and antisemitism. Still promoting his failed projects. 

Not allowed to own firearms.

Required parental supervision when seeing his child. 

Embarrassing his family.

All for free speech.

Wanting a Black person to harm him so he can collect a coin. His devotion to Karenism is a money making strategy. Not the smartest, but I get it. He desperately trying to point out double standards. He wants to be free to say racial slurs and intimidate people.

While he is free to speak, his relentless harassing and threats of violence are not smart strategy.

Paying over $5.75⁹ for diesel in his huge truck is hurting him. He also is struggling to pay his bills. Cause nothing screams struggle than asking for GiveSendGo requests.

Dalton Eatherly, for all the racial slurs, the MAGAland, the gaslighting and signs of autistic behavior, you are perfectly entitled to speaking your opinions. I am not a doctor but you show signs of asperger's syndrome. 

You can freely walk around Tennessee with your firearm trying to be the tough guy.

You can film yourself instigating or sharing a video of Black people showing grievances.

You can make Sora videos to depict Blacks as whatever you want. 

At the end of the day, you're a nobody. Just a worthless penny in a bank of coins.

They can be assholes all the want. They are obsessed with Black people. 

President Donald J. Trump has not done a damn thing for Black America. In his 2017 to 2021 term and 2025 to present term, all I see is basically a divisive president obsessing over a disgraceful legacy. A president easily manipulated by the elements of white supremacy. Any Black person who embraces his views are entitled to it. But again, don't expect a plate when you decide to crash the cookout.

His policies ain't making my paycheck great. His policies are not certainly making the cost of living decline. His policies only make himself and the elite survive while everyone else is violently turning on one another.

They want us to question the Blackness of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Duchess Meghan of Sussex but accept the Blackness of Wesley Hunt, Byron Donalds, Tim Scott, Burgess Owens and John James.

Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, Nicki Minaj, Waka Flocka Flame, Mike Tyson, Nick Cannon, Ray J, Tristan Thompson, Lil Wayne and every Black media personality riding with Trump are still that word to white men who obsess with us.

They want Blacks to embrace conservatism so they can be hateful bigots to other vulnerable people. 

I mean rappers, athletes and media personalities who back Trump get praise, television appearances and platforms while the ones who oppose the president are in Laura Ingraham's words: "Shut up and dribble."

Our pain is vilified online. The memes of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Jonathan Crawford III, Breona Taylor, Sandra Bland, Daunte Wright, Sonya Massey, Kyren Lacy, Jordan Neely, Tyre Nichols, Atatiana Jefferson, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmad Abrury, Jayland Walker and Michael Brown are shared through hateful memes and endless banters about how they deserved it.

Yet, the same folks who thought it's funny mocking their deaths are going full crazy on memes mocking Trump, Charlie Kirk, Benjamin Netanyahu and Stephen Miller.

Do you believe these folks are obsessed with Black people?
Yes.
No.
Create your own Polls

Remember, their goals is provoke for clicks and revenue. I know its hard to say this but: 

We must not feed the trolls. 

Because this is what these ghouls want. They want to make Black people angry. 

Since Charlie Kirk, Rush Limbaugh, Colin Flaherty, Andrew Breitbart, Roger Ailes, Paul Harvey and Bob Grant are gone, they need fresh voices.

Sean "Softball" Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Michael Reagan, Bill Cunningham, Megyn Kelly, Michael Savage, Joe Pags, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and Neal Boortz are old farts. 

Boomers.

They need young rising faces like Kirk. They need Erika Kirk, Scott Presler, Laura Loomer, Nick Shirley, Tomi Lahren, Riley Gaines, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Eric Daughetry, Ben Shapiro and Katie Miller. They need to keep the revenue of rage baiting 
going.

They can incorporate white supremacy with the daily dose of endless distractions.

We need to start the Great Black American Cookout. A gathering of Black leaders and community activists who want to make it about food, culture and activism. And of course, everyone is invited so we want make sure that conservative agitators can pick up a plate.

Just make sure you don't make it about click bait and divisiveness. Y'all can disagree with the Black community but please keep your noses out the business if you ain't looking for plate.

We need to address voter rights, police reform, health and safety, gun violence, ending racial bias in housing and business loans, disspelling anti-immigration rhetoric, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, ending the perception of Black violence and bringing unity to the Black community. 

Okay, again many Black Americans are not offering sympathy for Kirk.

His rhetoric was divisive towards Black people. He said things about Black women which made it nearly impossible for some sympathy. 

Like I said, his children will take the most blow. Having their father gone is heartbreaking. But to see Erika Kirk confirm the movement continues show no foot off the gas when it comes to political violence.

Erika makes it very hard for people to even show remorse towards her. She is a widow and now has to raise her children by herself. She might find love in the future, but the shock of losing Charlie in such a way has traumatized her.

It's no secret that Republicans think very unfavorably of immigrants, Blacks, Muslims, transgender Americans and progressives.

It is no secret that Republicans love to push freedom while in reality act like the big government nannies.

MAGA rapper Waka Flocka Flame warns Chud to cut out the noise.

It's free speech.

Sharing images of Black women with children by calling them future thugs. Or White women with children who were born from a father of color. They certainly love calling white women traitors for loving outside their race.

They showed us who they are when they harassed HBCUs in the wake of that white nationalist's death.

They showed us who they are when the Supreme Court rolled back long established rulings, laws and achievements to protect the fragile feelings of white privileged Americans.

What do they want to offer us next?

A bunch of memes depicting Black people posing with firearms, eating chicken, watermelons, peanuts or turkey legs. A mene of Black people drinking a 40oz malt liquor or a grape drink.

Or they want to make memes of bearded men expressing their freedoms to wear a dress, heels or makeup.

They certainly love to attack transgender women for looking way better than the women they try to well.... in Trump’s word "pull up to and grab 'em by the...."

Or a meme where a picture of a turban wearing individual posing with a gun or a depiction of an Arab with the decapitated head of a white person.

Republicans, libertarians and conservatives have always been like this. It was never a closed door or a private chat.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

People, please do not resort to the levels of those who profit off the anger. The anger of right wing Americans in the wake of white nationalist Charlie Kirk's death has sparked a censorship and harassment campaign.

The right wing ain't got the smoke for the shooter, his family and the Utah state government allowing open carry on school campuses. They ain't got the smoke for the people who advocate violence against people perceived as threats to society.

They want to go after the vulnerable. Typical of these folks.

All the while, the rich are getting richer. Israel is still committing a genocide and war crimes from every angle. Russia is pushing further in Ukraine with Lithuania and Poland next on the country's agenda. China is becoming the superpower as they are moving on from exporting goods to the United States for other nations.

China is working on solving problems the United States failed at doing. 

Food prices are increasing. 

We are in endless wars.

General merchandise prices are increasing.

The cost of living is increasing.

Inflation has rising this month.

Unemployment is increasing.

Gasoline prices are increasing.

Wages are stagnant.

Jobs are not satisfying.

Where does the outrage go to?

Random people who don't agree with these folks politics.

Y'all voted for chaos and you got it. Black Americans who didn't vote for President Donald J. Trump are keeping our heads down and not trying to get involved in the noise.

Republicans bank on culture wars as well as divide and conquer. They are worthless even in power. With majorities in Congress, the White House and state governments, they still ruin everything for an imaginary sky deity. They want to push anti-Black policies under guise of Black empowerment through conservatism.

We are not trying to hand the Democrats a free pass either. They need to clean house on Zionists, racists, homophobes and Islamophobes. The Democrats are unpopular too.

Yes, political violence existed before Trump. I mean there were politicial assassinations of presidents, lawmakers and controversial figures. The United States is the most violent country in the world. 

You expect nothing less of this country.

FREEDOM!

People are emboldened to carry out violent acts against individuals who spurned them.

This behavior by supporters of  Trump is a catalyst to a potential civil war. 

Endless chaos.

A decline of power in the United States. 

Erika Kirk, Scott Presler, Laura Loomer, Riley Gaines, Lizzy Savetsky, Blaire White, Derrick Evans, Joey Saladino, Hermes, Eric Daughetry, Paul Szypula, Roseanne Barr, Steve Bannon, James Woods, Cam Higby, Kanye West, Tucker Carlson, Catturd, CJ Pearson, Steven Crowder, Tomi Lahren, Jack Posobiec, Snoop Dogg, Ray J, Waka Flocka Flame, DaBaby, James O'Keefe, Jacob Wahl, Ryan Metta, Rick Ross, Ben Garrison, Todd Starnes, Jeffrey Mead, Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Nick Shirley, Roger Stone, Terrence K. Williams, Ian Miles Cheong, Lindy Li, Andy Ngo, Alexis Wilkins, Olivia Krolcyzk, Brandon Tatum, Nick Cannon, Candace Owens, Nick Sorter, Patrick Bet-David, Phil McGraw, 50 Cent, Nicki Minaj, Harris Faulkner, Tara Bull, Theodis Daniel, DJ Daniel, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain, Simon Abeta, SNEAKO, Rob Schneider, Gunther Eagleman, Nelly, Chaya Raichik, Meghan McCain, Tim Pool, Megyn Kelly, Amir Odom, Dom Lucre, Jesse Watters, Bill O'Reilly, Mark Levin, Steve Bannon, Myron Gaines, Rochelle "Silk" Hardaway-Richardson, Jake Lang, Johnny Somali, Larry Elder, Romeo Rose, Eylon Levy, Ben Shapiro, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Chris Cuomo, Nick Sorter, Alex Jones, Owen Shroyer, Bill Cunningham, Andrew Tate, Tristan Tate, Kevin Hodge, Keith Hodge, Sage Steele, Bill Maher, Forgiato Blow, Rick Santorum, Vanilla Ice, Amber Rose, Greg Gutfeld, James Woods, David Limbaugh, Ian Carroll, Gordon Robertson, Malachi Maxey, April Chapman, Ali Alexander, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Dalton Eatherly, Brent Bozell, Matt Walsh, Benny Johnson, Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza, Laura Ingraham, Matt Drudge, Mike Lindell, Vince Langman, Brian Kilmeade, Glenn Beck, Xaviaer DuRousseau, Sean Davis, Ian Jaegar, Christopher Rufo, Joey Mannarino, Sean "Softball" Hannity and every far right agitator in the junk food media scared of being taken out by a gunman. They are scared that the bullet won't miss. They want you to risk your freedom or your life to protect their right to gas you up to commit unspeakable crimes against one another.

Let me be clear: I do not condone violence towards to politicians, media personalities, animals and property. I am not condemning things any longer. I am getting tired of putting empathy on antipathy.

Keep the Black community out of it. 

1 in 5 Americans believe violence is the only way to solve political problems. Trust me, it is a coming. There is a reckoning with the status quo thanks to Trump.

Wednesday, May 06, 2026

Capitalism At Its Worst: McDonald's Phases Out Self Service Drink Machines!

Corporations keep effing with us.

When will these motherfuckers ever learn?

The United States is literally in decline. More Americans are going to be eating at home than visiting a fucking fast food restaurant. So expect more closures in a chaotic Trump second term.

President Donald J. Trump, 79 enjoys a Big Mac, large fries, a Diet Coke and apple pie.

It practically runs his entire diet. I mean he does eat other things but he hates the White House dinners. He has to take cholesterol pills, heart pills and biotin. He is pretty obsese.

Me thinks McDonald's is being forced to by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Secretaries to phase out soda refills. Brooke Rollins and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are involved. Well I am speculating both theories. They are trying to meddle in American consumer affairs. 

Also they are having an affair.

McDonald’s is quietly ending the era of self-serve soda fountains nationwide.

The shift, years in the making, is part of a broader effort by McDonald’s to modernize its restaurants, reduce labor and maintenance demands, and adapt to changing consumer habits that increasingly favor takeout, delivery and drive-thru service over dining in.

McDonald’s confirmed the change in a statement, saying: "As confirmed in 2023, McDonald’s will be transitioning away from self-serve beverage stations in dining rooms across the U.S. by 2032. The change is being rolled out over 10 years, and is intended to create a consistent experience for both customers and crew across all ordering points, whether that’s McDelivery, the app, kiosk, drive-thru or in-restaurant."

How does it feel to have a Kennedy inside you?

The company plans to complete the transition away from self-serve beverage stations in U.S. dining rooms by 2032, with the changes expected to roll out gradually over the next several years as restaurants are remodeled or updated.

In many locations, drinks are already being prepared behind the counter rather than poured by customers, marking a clear departure from a long-standing self-service model that has been a staple of fast-food dining rooms for decades.

For customers, the change marks the end of a familiar convenience, as self-serve stations have traditionally allowed easy refills and drink customization.

The move also gives McDonald’s greater control over beverage portions, cleanliness and inventory, while cutting maintainance costs for the self-serve machines.

The shift reflects a broader trend across the fast-food industry, where companies are prioritizing speed, efficiency and digital ordering over traditional dine-in experiences.

Remember this publicity stunt. No DoorDash or Uber Eats worker has easy access to the White House. The Republican operative on the left side hustles. The Secret Service cleared her for the delivery.

At the same time, McDonald’s has rolled out an expanded menu featuring new "dirty sodas" and refreshers as consumer demand shifts beyond traditional soft drinks and coffee.

In a statement to FOX Business, McDonald’s signaled the shift, saying: "Our fans’ love for McDonald’s beverages runs deep… Next month, we’re building on that passion with a new era of beverages, featuring a variety of Refreshers and crafted sodas rolling out nationwide."

The company added that it will share more details soon.

Well for the time being, you can visit the competitors or your local gas station. 

McDonald's despite the quarterly earnings and increase in profits has continously raised prices on most of its meals. They are trying to wrangle people with their stupid contests, nostalgic toys, classic McDonaldLand figures and new items.

Ted Turner Passed Away!

Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, Cartoon Network and Turner Classics Movies has died from Lowy Body Dementia.

The founder of Turner Broadcasting which created CNN, TBS, TCM, Cartoon Network, TNT, CourtTV and the World Championship Wrestling has died.

Midway Wrap Up at the end of the month.

A known environmentalist, philanthropist and activist. An actor and media personality.

From the humble roots of Cincinnati to the mega outlets of New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta bore a media pioneer.

Robert Edward Turner III., perhaps known as Ted Turner has passed away.

President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Congress, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, political and various media figures will react to his passing.

Captain Planet.

Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the American West and transformed the news business by launching CNN in 1980, has died at age 87.

The network reported Turner died Wednesday, citing a news release from Turner Enterprises.

Turner owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities. He married three women — most famously actress Jane Fonda — and earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.”

He once bragged: “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.”

He was slowed in later years by Lewy Body Dementia. Long since out of the television business, he concentrated on philanthropy and his more than 2 million acres of property, including the nation’s largest bison herd.

His garrulous personality sometimes overshadowed a driven, risk-taking business acumen. By the time he sold his Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc. in a 1996 media megadeal, Turner had turned his late father’s billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of hit movie studios.

Turner owned a ranch in Montana where he resides.

The creation of CNN

Turner’s signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980. At a time news is instantly available at anyone’s fingertips, it’s hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers decide when they choose to learn what’s going on in the world was once revolutionary.

In part, Turner’s own frustration with television news was the instigator. He often worked past 8 p.m., after the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly newscasts had already gone off the air, and was in bed by the time his local stations did their own newscasts at 11 p.m.

He took a chance by starting the operation sometimes derided as the “chicken noodle network” in the early days of cable television, living in an apartment above its Atlanta office.

“I was going to have to hit hard and move incredibly fast and that’s what we did — move so fast that the (broadcast) networks wouldn’t have the time to respond, because they should have done this, not me,” Turner recalled in a 2016 interview with the Academy of Achievement. “But they didn’t have the imagination.”

CNN’s breakthrough moment came during the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. Most television journalists had fled Baghdad, warned of an imminent American attack. CNN stayed, capturing arresting images of a war’s outbreak, with anti-aircraft tracers streaking across the sky and correspondents flinching from the concussion of bombs.

Turner was promised a continued role in CNN after his company’s sale to Time Warner for $7.3 billion in stock, but was gradually pushed out, much to his regret.

“I made a mistake,” he later said. “The mistake I made was losing control of the company.”

That same year — 1996 — saw the birth of Fox News Channel and arrival of a new dominant mogul in cable news, Rupert Murdoch. Political opinion became the stock in trade of networks like Fox News and MSNBC. Even though CNN built a worldwide news organizations particularly strong online, it struggles to this day with a diminished desire for straighter TV newscasts.

The Mouth of the South. 

Building TBS

Robert Edward Turner III was born Nov. 19, 1938, in Cincinnati. When he was 9, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he grew up. After being expelled from Brown University for sneaking a coed into his room, Turner came to Atlanta to work as an account executive for his domineering father’s billboard company, Turner Advertising.

After his father’s 1963 suicide, Turner took over the company. In 1970, he bought an independent UHF station with a weak signal that didn’t even cover Atlanta.

On Dec. 17, 1976, he began transmitting the station to cable systems around the country via satellite. It became the TBS SuperStation. “It was the start of something bigger than we ever imagined,” Turner said in 1996.

TBS’ motley collection of old movies and “The Andy Griffith Show” reruns was augmented by Turner’s acquisition of baseball’s Atlanta Braves. Perennial doormats, the Braves slowly attracted fans across the nation through their superstation exposure and in the 1980s began declaring themselves “America’s Team.”

Turner, who early on donned a uniform and managed one game, helped open baseball’s free-agent price wars by signing pitcher Andy Messersmith.

In the 1980s, Turner went deeply into debt to buy MGM, a move again greeted with skepticism.

But the acquisition gave his company a huge library of vintage movies that eventually were parlayed into the TNT and Turner Classic Movies networks. His devotion to older movies earned Turner a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He was also criticized for adding color to classic movies like “Casablanca,” which he said he did to make them appealing to a younger audience.

TBS also acquired the Hanna-Barbera animation library, which led to the launch of the Cartoon Network.

“He sees the obvious before most people do,” Bob Wright, former president and CEO of NBC, told the New Yorker in 2001. “We all look at the same picture, but Ted sees what you don’t see. And after he sees it, it becomes obvious to everybody.”

He revealed his ambitions as a younger man: “I used to tell people I wanted to become the world’s greatest sailor, businessman and lover all at the same time.”

Asked to share the secret to his success, he said: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”
Turner married actress/activist Jane Fonda in the 1990s before divorcing her. They remained close friends.

Acquiring sports teams and land

For much of his life a partying roustabout who wooed beautiful women with a roguish charm, the lean, mustachioed sportsman married three times. He was married to Fonda from 1991 to 2001. She quit acting while married to Turner, but tired of his philandering and divorced him, although they remained friends.

“He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had 2 million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay,” Fonda said of her relationship with Turner.

Turner had an unexpected friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, bonding over hunting and arguments about politics over rum and cigars. A once bitter rival who compared Fox’s Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, they later reconciled over a mutual concern over the environment.

Turner built a sports empire, at one point owning professional baseball, basketball and hockey teams in Atlanta. He was best remembered at the helm of the Atlanta Braves, turning the doormats into postseason regulars by the 1990s. Their stadium, built for the 1996 Olympics, was named Ted Turner Field. The Braves replaced it in 2016 with a newer stadium north of Atlanta.

Perhaps Turner’s greatest love was for the land. He acquired millions of acres in ranches complete with roaming buffalo and was Nebraska’s largest private landholder. He spoke often of reviving the West’s bison herds, and in 2002 started a restaurant chain serving bison burgers, Ted’s Montana Grill. Researchers at Texas A&M University credited his donation of a few bulls in 2005 with helping increase the genetic diversity of the last herd of southern Plains bison.

He had a net worth of $2.5 billion in 2023, but had dropped off Forbes magazine’s ranking of the 400 richest Americans in 2021.

During a stock market bust, Turner’s net worth went from nearly $10 billion to about $2 billion in two-and-a-half years.

“To put this in perspective, I lost nearly $8 billion in 30 months,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Call Me Ted,” in 2008. “That means that, on average, my net worth dropped by about $67 million “per week,” or nearly $10 million “per day, every day, for two and a half years.”

He had enough time, and money, to devote to such lofty goals as promoting world peace and protecting the environment.

“See, my life is more an adventure than a quest to make money. Adventure is going out and doing something for the pure hell of it,” Turner once said. “You just want to see if you can do it, period. There’s no thought of gain other than your own satisfaction.”

Hoodiana!

Indiana still ranked low among places to live. Republicans keep driving the Hoosier state to the ground.

The Republicans in the state of Indiana pushed out their incumbents for MAGA backed opponents. This is very bad.

President Donald J. Trump was upset over the Indiana state legislature's refusal to redraw maps that eliminated the two Democratic leaning districts in Indianapolis and Hammond, a major city close to Chicago.

A majority of Republican Indiana state senators whose opponents were endorsed by Trump lost on Tuesday, a display of the president’s enduring influence over his party after lawmakers rejected his redistricting plan five months ago.

Of the seven challengers endorsed by Trump, at least five won. One incumbent prevailed and the seventh race was too close to call.

“Big night for MAGA in Indiana,” U.S. Sen. Jim Banks wrote on social media, adding that he was “proud to have helped elect more conservative Republicans to the Indiana State Senate.”

The president’s allies spent at least $8.3 million on races that rarely get much attention from Washington. It’s been a costly and unprecedented intraparty battle that has exacerbated tensions among Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

State Sen. Travis Holdman, one of the incumbents to lose his primary, said he was at peace with his defeat. He voted against redistricting and faced more than $1.3 million in attack advertising funded by organizations tied to Banks and Gov. Mike Braun.

“I did what my constituents asked me to do and it cost me my job,” he says. “But that’s OK.”

Holdman warned that a more aggressive style of campaigning was arriving in his state.

“Welcome to D.C. politics in Indiana because this means that’s what’s coming,” he said.

The race that was too close to call was the most expensive of the seven primaries.

The superpacs led by Banks and Braun combined to spend more than $2.2 million on advertising attacking Sen. Spencer Deery, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Deery spent roughly $815,000 on advertising, according to AdImpact, having only spent a combined $142,000 on the 2022 primary and general election when he was first elected.

Bruan who served in the U.S. senate for two terms easily won to become the governor. 

Banks who served as a U.S. House members for six terms easily won to replace Bruan.

The governor had made remarks about interracial marriage and wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to end the Loving v. Virginia ruling. The Court is expected to take up cases that could repeal the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

Both are white nationalist who are totally clueless. Indiana's population is rapidly declining and it's unfortunate that the Hoosier state can never succeed. It is part of the Rust Belt alone with its neighboring states Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky.

Gov. Mike Braun is an incompetent politician.

Indiana Rejected Trump On Redistricting

Trump began leaning on Republican-led states last year to redraw their congressional maps to make it easier for his party to hold its thin majority in the U.S. House. Although redistricting is normally done once a decade, after a new census, Trump wanted to abandon tradition to gain a political edge.

Texas was the first to follow through, and the White House pressured Indiana to go along too. Vice President JD Vance met with state politicians in Washington and Indianapolis, and Trump weighed in by conference call.

However, Indiana senators rebuffed the effort, one of the president’s first significant political defeats of his second term.

The redistricting fight divided Republicans in Indiana, a state Trump won three times by no less than 16 points. Braun, Banks and organizations such as Turning Point Action have worked alongside Trump to unseat the incumbents.

Jim Bopp, a prominent Indiana attorney who leads a political action committee aligned with Braun, predicted that Trump’s support would carry the day for the challengers.

“Republican voters overwhelmingly support Trump and when they find out Trump has endorsed a particular Senate candidate, they swing their support behind them,” he said.

Voters Had Mixed Views On Trump’s Involvement

In Columbus, Ronda Millig voted for Trump-backed Michelle Davis over redistricting opponent Sen. Greg Walker. Davis won.

“I really believed some of the things I had heard about him,” said Millig, a retiree. “It didn’t seem like he was someone I wanted in office.”

But Milling did not say that Trump’s endorsement was the deciding factor.

“That doesn’t always mean anything,” she said.

Madison Long, who is 28 and a lawyer, who also voted for Walker, criticizing Davis for her ties to Trump.

“She doesn’t have any promises of her own or any agenda of her own. Her goal is to just follow Trump,” Long said. “I find that extremely concerning given the nature of the nationwide politics.”

Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) is a white nationalist.

Indiana Opposition Came From Constituents, Former Governor

Former Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had stepped away from politics after leaving the governorship in 2015, reemerged to help raise money for targeted incumbents.

The state senators who broke with Trump said they were listening to their constituents who were overwhelmingly against his redistricting proposal. Some said they didn’t like Trump’s aggressive tone in pushing the plan.

“We hate to be told what to do,” said Mike Murphy, a former Republican state representative. “We’re very independent thinking people. So when Donald Trump and his goons come in and try to tell us that we need to redistrict to help his political future, that’s the worst thing you can do.”

Bopp, who supported the Trump-backed challengers, said the primary was a chance for Indiana Republicans to express how important it is to redraw the congressional lines there.

“It’s not a matter of Trump’s power,” Bopp said. “It’s about Republican primary voters who support his agenda and don’t want a Democratic House that will be hugely destructive to the Trump presidency and the country.”

If Republicans were popular, how come much of their policies lead to an increase of our groceries, fuel prices and rent?

How come more Americans are working harder to pay for bills and still not enjoying the benefits of it?

If 2/3 of your paycheck goes to expenses instead of luxury, how come its impossible for millions to live the American Dream?

Do you believe both Republicans and Democrats are not focused on the issues of fixing infrastructure, lowering costs and making things affordable?

Capitalism is definitely in decline. People are tired of watching the politicians and elite enjoy their luxury. 

A civil war is coming.

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

OH Boy!

Can Amy Acton flip ruby red Ohio?

The Ohio primaries have come to pass.

Republicans pick Vivek Ramaswamy and the Democrats pick Dr. Amy Acton to be the nominees for governor.

Sherrod Brown, the former Ohio Democratic senator is the nominee to run against Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) which will be considered one of the most expensive races in history.

Ohio the soon to be eighth largest populated state will be a crucial test for Republicans.

The Republicans have forced a redistricting that phases out two congressional districts in their latest attempt to hold on to power.

President Donald J. Trump carried Ohio in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He carried the state for the first time in double digits. Vice President JD Vance is a resident of Cincinnati.

While I have the gubernatorial race as Lean Republican, Ramaswamy's challenge is to win over white voters who see him as a foreigner. Born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrants, he became a tech billionaire at age 29. 

Ramaswamy became an investment partner at a hedge fund, before founding Roivant Sciences in 2014. He also co-founded an investment firm, Strive Asset Management, in 2022.

Ramaswamy largely remained apolitical until 2020, when he supported Donald Trump for the 2020 presidential election. In 2021, Ramaswamy wrote his first book, Woke Inc, and appeared on cable networks arguing against left-wing "woke" policies. He also became an active donor to the Republican Party. Ramaswamy briefly considered running in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Ohio.

Ramaswamy describes himself as a conservative and an American nationalist. He has criticized environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) and affirmative action; however, Roivant Social Ventures, one of his companies, was working in support of DEI and ESG. He has promoted numerous conspiracy theories and false statements.

In April 2026, Forbes estimated Ramaswamy's net worth to be $2.5 billion; his wealth comes from biotech and financial businesses.

Acton must win over voters who felt that her role in the coronavirus pandemic saved lives not caused a burden. In Ohio, we lost over 64,000 residents. Acton, who was the chief health advisor to outgoing governor Mike DeWine became a national figure with her honest, campy and pretty competent explaining of the deadly pandemic.

Ramaswamy, a MAGA influncer and tech billionaire becomes the Republican nominee. He will face questions about his race, religion and his massive wealth.

She led Ohio's COVID-19 pandemic response and accompanied Governor DeWine during his daily afternoon press conferences throughout the spring of 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic response, Amy Acton supported temporarily closing bars and restaurants, limiting large gatherings, and closing K-12 schools statewide to combat COVID-19.[4] Prior to and immediately after serving as director of the Ohio Department of Health, she worked at the Columbus Foundation.

In the senate race, Brown is already known. In his three terms, Ohio has lagged in a lot of things. Mainly Ohio continues to be on the decline. He and then senator now Vice President JD Vance allowed Ohio to invest in Intel's superplant. The project is in limbo.

Brown and Vance failed to get adequate funding to the people of East Palestine.

Husted is controversial. He has ties to the First Energy scandal which Ohio Republican rushed to cover up. He also accepted donations from Les Wexner, the executive of L Brands, which is Victoria's Secret. Wexner has ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

I am going to be quite honest.

We are fucked regardless of who wins.

Israel is the biggest problem in Ohio. 

Frank LaRose, the Secretary of State continues to accept the Israeli bonds. 

Republicans allowed their congressional redistricting to happen. Now Republicans despite their unpopular policies could net two seats.

Gas prices are currently averaging in Ohio at $4.89⁹ a gallon.

Will this race be a determination of how the country moves forward?

Kid Cudi Cuts M.I.A. Loose!

Kid Cudi and M.I.A. feud. Cudi boots her off his tour after she went MAGA.

How can people got to concerts with tickets prices matching the prices of groceries?

Gas prices have surpassed $5.29⁹ a gallon in the United States. People are not going to tolerate this stuff much longer. It will be a reckoning come this election.

Kid Cudi, a rapper who addresses mental health, the vulnerable and the establishment kicked British rapper M.I.A. from his tour after she made an impromptu rant about President Donald J. Trump.

She endorsed the president in 2024.

This means Cudi and M.I.A. are openly feuding.

The rapper, whose legal name is Scott Mescudi, wrote on his Instagram story that M.I.A., the British rapper and singer, would no longer appear on his "Rebel Ragers" tour following his Dallas show.

Mescudi wrote that he had notified her team before the tour that he did not want "anything offensive" at his shows and was assured she understood.

"After the last couple shows, I've been flooding with messages from fans that were upset by her rants," Mescudi wrote. "This, to me, is very disappointing and I won't have someone on my tour making offensive remarks that upsets my fanbase."

Mescudi's representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

M.I.A.'s legal name is Mathangi Arulpragasam, and she also often goes by Maya. She gained popularity in the early 2000s with singles such as "Paper Planes" and "Galang."

It's unclear exactly what happened with Arulpragasam on the tour, but many fans posted online that she was booed onstage during Mescudi's Dallas show Saturday. Some clips of her comments were posted online, but the full context of her remarks is unclear.

She is alleged to have talked to the crowd about her Republican political views, according to a caption on one video, before she told the audience she would not perform her song "Illygal" though some in the crowd "might be."

"All right, I'm illegal," Arulpragasam said in a video from the show shared online. "Half of my team are not here because they didn't get the visa, OK? I want you to know that. All right, so don't listen to what the bots say on the internet."

Arulpragasam also said, "We should be above politics," according to the video.

Representatives for Arulpragasam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

She did respond to the criticism on X, writing in one post that she wrote "Illygal" in 2010 and started the intro by saying her team had not received visas. She wrote that she had no apology for the judgmental, the wicked and the ignorant.

"I wrote borders and 'Illygal' and 'Paper Planes' before you thought immigrant rights were cool," she wrote in all-capital letters. "I've had thses battles by myself without the help of millions of fans backing me. I don't need this virtue signal era to all of a sudden erase an entire life I've led."

Arulpragasam pointed out that she cannot vote in the U.S. in response to a user on X who said she endorsed Trump. She also posted the question of whether the user would hate all Trump voters.

"We must unite to make this country, that everyone wants to live in a better place," she wrote.

Monday, May 04, 2026

Civil War: The Met Gala Is A Tone Deaf Event In Bad Economy!

The end is near for these elitist events. Americans are getting tired of the rich and powerful partying while they work their asses off.

Every year, the Manhattan Metropolitan Museum Of Art has this elitist event where celebrities, politicians and influncers come to donate annually to fund the museum.

It is like a costume ball for the elite.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife will not attend the event.

The Gala is held annually on the first Monday of May, which marks the opening of the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibit hosted on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Many of the attendees are depicted on the covers and pages of Vogue. Each year's event celebrates the specific theme of that year's Costume Institute exhibition, which sets the tone for the formal attire of the night.

Guests are expected to curate their fashions to match the theme of the annual exhibit, generally in haute couture. Fashion executive Anna Wintour, who was the editor-in-chief of Vogue, has chaired or co-chaired the Met Gala since 1995, except for the 1996 Met Gala, which was chaired by Wintour's successor at British Vogue, Liz Tilberis, who attended with her friend Diana, Princess of Wales. 

Over time, the Met Gala has evolved beyond the New York fashion epicenter to become increasingly global and diverse in its perspective and scope.

The entry price for one ticket to attend the Met Gala rose to US$100,000 in 2026, up from $75,000 in 2025, which in turn had reflected an increase from $50,000 in 2023, to attend the annual gala in New York City. 

In 2023, software company Launchmetrics found that the Met Gala generated nearly double the "media impact value" (the monetary value of publicity generated) for brands than the Super Bowl, at $995 million. In 2024, the Met Gala's figure rose to $1.4 billion.

Notwithstanding the historical dominance of American and Western European fashion designers represented, the Met Gala continues to evolve into a more international platform, with progressively increasing representation of celebrities and designers from outside the Western Hemisphere.

Elected amid growing public anxiety over income inequality, Mamdani announced he will skip the A-list gathering. "My focus is also on affordability and making the most expensive city in the United States affordable, and that's what I'm looking to spend a lot of my time focused on," he told news site Hell Gate last month.

Then there is the matter of the evening's sponsors. While fashion brands or tech behemoths like Instagram typically underwrite the affair, this year Amazon co-founder and executive chair, Jeff Bezos, and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, are the event's main benefactors. They are also honorary chairs. (Co-chairs Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Vogue's Anna Wintour remain the official hosts, while Saint Laurent is sponsoring the exhibition catalog.)

After the Met announced the Bezoses' participation, many social media users - who are the Met Gala's most enthusiastic promoters, tuning into Vogue's livestream and analyzing looks for days afterwards - called for a boycott. This has materialized as actual protests from groups including Everyone Hates Elon (as in Musk), which over the past few weeks has papered New York City with posters also urging a boycott. "The Bezos Met Gala: Brought to you by worker exploitation," reads one, in reference to the allegations of labor violations that have long swirled around Amazon's e-commerce business.

The recurring criticism has not stopped the gala from raising enormous funds: last year, it brought in a record $31 million. (By contrast, the New York Philharmonic's Opening Gala raised $3.3 million in 2025.)

Max Hollein, the museum's director and chief executive officer, said he saw the Met Gala as part of "the history of American philanthropy," where people across the political spectrum support culture and other causes. "Right now, maybe there's an added layer of scrutiny, an added layer of attention to that," he said. "But we will always be grateful for that support from various different sources."

The Met Gala is the primary fundraiser for the Met's Costume Institute, which houses over 33,000 objects spanning seven centuries. (It is oft-repeated that the Costume Institute is the only museum department that raises its own funds, although that is not accurate; every department receives money from the museum's overall operational budget, and supplements that with fundraising.)

The gala's funds support acquisitions of garments and accessories, but also the institute's reference library, which holds over 800 periodicals and 1,500 designer files pertaining to the history of fashion and clothing, dating back to the sixteenth century. The funds also support a conservation lab and storage space, as well as the Costume Institute's gallery spaces, including the 4,300-square-foot Anna Wintour Costume Center and the brand-new nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries. Salaries for its 29-person staff also come from gala funds. The new galleries, located just off the museum's Great Hall, will allow the Costume Institute's exhibitions to remain open for much longer, increasing the reach and scope of the department's shows.

"It is one of the greatest collections of fashion, of costumes," Hollein said. Preservation and storage are "more challenging, more expensive" than for drawings or paintings, he said. "I think it's really important for people to understand, when we talk about the Met Gala, the money really goes into preserving this collection."

It is the presence of bold-faced names and the sheer amounts of money surrounding the event that seem to court the most controversy. Over the past two decades, Wintour has helped transform the party from an archetypal charity benefit into a celebrity-fueled phenomenon - an effort that has led to bigger and bigger ambitions for the museum, alongside ever-increasing ticket prices for gala attendees. Individual tickets are priced at $100,000 for 2026, while a table sells for $350,000, and guests must be invited by the museum to buy tickets.

The perception that the event is tone-deaf means that critics are eager to pounce and cry hypocrisy when, say, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wears a dress that reads "Tax the Rich" (as she did in 2021). Last year, Kennedy heir (and former Met Gala attendee) Jack Schlossberg, who is now mounting a congressional campaign in Manhattan, called for a boycott of the event in an Instagram post, citing "so much happening around the world and at home." (The post has since been deleted.)

For most, it is not the museum that warrants criticism, but the involvement of the Bezoses. On the morning of the gala, a group of organizations including the Service Employees International Union, the Strategic Organizing Center and the Amazon Labor Union will stage a Ball Without Billionaires, a fashion show in downtown New York in which workers from businesses including Amazon, Whole Foods and The Washington Post (all linked to Bezos) as well as Starbucks and Uber will serve as models, wearing clothes by ethically-minded designers.

"If there is that money to sponsor this gala, there should also be money to pay the workers fairly," said Cindy Castro, a New York-based designer who immigrated to the US from Ecuador, and whose pieces will appear at Monday's event.

"I want to raise awareness about our safety issues that we're having in the Amazon warehouses," said April Watson, an employee at an Amazon Warehouse in northeast Georgia who will model in Monday's show. She said that she and her fellow workers are pressured to pick and pack at faster and faster rates, receiving warnings that can lead to termination when their pace falls in the bottom 5%. "When I try to work fast with very heavy items, it's easy for me to do too much, and it has led me to be injured."

These morons can fly in space, own superyachts, buy private islands and then layoff the people who got them there.

She continued, "I want to do what I can to help there be systemic change that would make the warehouse safer for employees like myself."

In a statement to CNN, an Amazon spokesperson said of their warehouse worker expectations, "Safety is our top priority and at the core of everything we do. Amazon does not have fixed quotas at our facilities. Instead, we assess performance based on safe and achievable expectations and take into account time and tenure, peer performance, and adherence to safe work practices."

This is not Bezos's first time as the Met Gala's honorary chair. In 2012, Amazon sponsored the gala and the tech titan held the honorific, posing with the likes of Wintour, Miuccia Prada and Carey Mulligan.

While Watson was not working at Amazon then (she joined the company in 2021), she said, "My perception of him was different."

Back then, Bezos was worth an estimated $18.4 billion, according to Forbes, which made him the 26th richest person in the world. Now, he's worth an estimated $224 billion, and ranks fourth.

These days, Watson said, "Jeff Bezos seems almost like royalty. He is so wealthy, and I know that he is the one that started Amazon - he's very creative, and he's a good organizer. He built it. And now I feel like he's celebrating his success and just not interested in us who are at this bottom tier."

The Bezoses' recent high-profile outings - including a splashy wedding in Venice and a series of appearances at Paris Couture Week in January - have also made the gap between their lifestyle and that of most others more apparent. That has made them a more visible target, too.

And yet, without their support, this year's Met Gala - and its promotion of fashion as an art form, and of the notion that celebrities can craft a narrative through clothing that entertains us or even helps us better understand our world - may have been more modest in scale.

"What is important is that you need to evaluate the integrity of the institution, the profoundness of our program, and the proper use that is being applied for these funds," said Hollein.

What the Bezoses are providing funds for, he said, are the museum and Costume Institute's ethos and initiatives, not a donor's personal agenda. "This is not a show on Amazon. This is not a show on Lauren Sánchez's dresses. One needs to be really clear that what our donors are supporting is the program of the Met, and the ideas of our curators, and the integrity of the institution," he said. "And they don't want to have it any other way. That's exactly the donors that we want, and those are the donors that museums like ours need to have."

Wintour told CNN in late 2025 that Sánchez Bezos would be "a wonderful asset to the museum and the event," calling her a "great lover of costume and obviously of fashion."

Indeed, it is because of the Costume Institute and Met Gala that so many see fashion as they do today. Hollstein pointed to last year's show on Black dandyism, for example, or this year's, which will highlight "not only the dialogue between different arts about the dressed body, but different body types."

A museum, after all, is not a donors' playground, but a place for the world to access art.

"I always wanted to see the Met museum. I love art," Watson said. "Museums in general allow ordinary people - anyone - to come in and see, face to face, these priceless pieces of art."

Trump Courting Fetterman!

Fetterman wears a suit for Trump and Netanyahu.

If Republicans were popular, why would they need to push for Pennsylvania independent senator John Fetterman to join them?

Pennsylvania U.S. House Democrats refuse to endorse his reelection bid, many progressives are courting candidates to run a primary challenge against him. Fetterman seems to be more like a one and done like Kyrsten Sinema.

Fetterman has mental health issues such as depression. He also survived a mild stroke. He even has marital problems with Gisele Fetterman.

Elected as a Democrat but switched to be an independent, Fetterman has been the most controversial figure in the Democratic Caucus. He along with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan have pissed off progressives.

They are the members of the tone deaf caucus.

Jonathan Martin of The Politico have reported that President Donald J. Trump and Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania have been pressuring Fetterman to flip if the Democrats do win back the Senate. 

They are concerned about Maine, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio being lost.

Fetterman for the moment said he will not join the Republican Party. 

“I’m [a Democrat] and I’m staying one,” added the senior senator from the Keystone State.

He is angered by the Democrats opposing Israel and not working on compromises with the president. Fetterman went as far to say the party is suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Fetterman has appeared on Fox, Newsmax, NewsNation and talk radio, all cock suckers to the president. 

Abdul El-Sayed, Julia Stratton, Graham Platner and Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia vowed to not be Fetterman. Other than Ossoff, the three others said they vehemently oppose Schumer as the Democratic leader.

The political chameleon.

Fetterman shares a friendship with Republican controversial figures like McCormick and Katie Britt of Alabama. 

During an interview with Fox News last Wednesday, Fetterman dismissed the idea of crossing the aisle.

“My voting record actually reflects that I am a Democrat. You know, what’s changed me with many of my other colleagues is that I don’t agree and I use like extreme rhetoric and say, but I support what I think most Americans should agree with these things. You know, the Democratic Party, you know, we became an open border party, without a doubt. And now that’s wrong, and I support to make our border more security, and deport all of the criminals right now,” he said. “So I can’t be a Republican because in many other areas, I disagree on that. So whether if I’m politically homeless or whatever, but I’m staying in my party.”

Despite the feuds with several Democrats, Fetterman said he will be cordial at best.

“Well, I mean, cordial,” replied Fetterman once he gathered himself. “But I’m not necessarily the popular guy, which is strange to me because it’s like, I am a Democrat and, you know, I’m the guy that flipped the seat.”

Pennsylvania y'all voted for this.

We are reminded that Fetterman had won running as a progressive. Despite the very fact that Black people warned Pennsylvania voters that he was problematic.

Fetterman had a mild stroke and did not have health insurance at the time. Guess who paid for it? The Israeli lobby. So now he became one of the loudest voices supporting the apartheid ethnostate of Israel. Many progressives also took issue with him defending President Donald J. Trump and the Republican concerns about gridlock.

There are rumors that Fetterman and Gisele are heading to divorce. I don't want to make speculations but I bet his ass was arguing with her. He has a known temper.

After all he chased a Black jogger with a shotgun when he was then town mayor of Braddock. 

A sign of a stroke.

Notes: F.A.S.T.

Face, arms, speech and time. These are the signs of a stroke. 

Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body. Sudden confusion, trouble speaking, or difficulty understanding speech. Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes. Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance, or lack of coordination.

Civil War: GOP Runs Redistricting Play!

The U.S. is in major decline.

The United States is founded on white supremacy, colonialism, criminality, ignorance and deprivation. White men running the United States are destroying it. Their greed, insecurities and failure to adapt to change will doom us all.

Conservatives are the reasons why slavery existed, genocides happened and war crimes are committed.

Republicans rally in the south to redistrict out all the Black and Latino districts after the U.S. Supreme Court rule the decision moot. The decision all but voids the Voting Acts Right of 1965. That landmark legislation is gone. 

Republicans want to preserve their weak majority.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former supporter of the president said all of this will backfire.

For once, she is right.

If their ideas were popular, why would they want to do something that will affect them come election time?

The Republicans have a job approval of 23%. Democrats have a job approval of 25%.

President Donald J. Trump has a job approval of 31%. Vice President JD Vance has a job approval of 34%. 

Congress has a job approval of 15%.

The Supreme Court has a job approval of 26%.

The John Roberts Court is ranked among the worst. It falls in the infamous Roger Taney Court.

Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas are pushing through their mid-session redistricting. With gas prices at an average of $4.59⁹, inflation at record levels, a war with Iran that is backfiring, anger with politicians taking vacations while the working class struggle, food prices surging, the basic necessities are depleting and world leaders are abandoning the U.S. dollar.

What are you to do?

Take away more freedoms and rig the system.

Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have summoned lawmakers into special sessions this week seeking new congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes that the Supreme Court will allow the state to switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It’s a move that Republicans legislative leaders said would “give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats.

In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

The Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least 2028.

Trump encouraged the latest round of redistricting in a post on social media on Sunday, saying his party could gain 20 seats in the House.

“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.”

Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state’s Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map.

“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.”

Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state’s Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and the redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement.

“They said we’re going to allow partisan politicians to gerrymander you, so that even when you show up, your voice won’t have as much impact because we’ll play with the lines,” he said Sunday from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once served as pastor. “That isn’t a new method. That’s an old method. That’s a Jim Crow method.”
White men leading the U.S. is now seen as problematic.

The Supreme Court ruling boosted an already intense national redistricting battle by providing Republican officials in some states potential new grounds to redraw voting districts.

Federal judges previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map with a second district with a substantial number of Black voters. The judges also ordered Alabama to use the new map until after the 2030 Census. Alabama is appealing that decision and is hoping the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, will let Alabama revert to a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers.

“As I continue saying, Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best,” Ivey said.

Tennessee’s move comes after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state’s 9th Congressional District. Republicans have always been checkmated by the Voting Rights Act in their desire to spread the district’s Democratic voters around neighboring conservative districts and make it winnable, but the law may no longer be an impediment.

“We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” Lee said Friday. The move was encouraged by Trump, who wrote on social media Thursday that Lee had promised to work hard to give Republicans one extra seat.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Democrats noted that in 2022 the state Supreme Court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election. They argued that the court is their best hope this time around too.

“We cannot keep doing things like this and calling ourselves a democracy,” Democratic State Sen. Ramesh Akbari said at a news conference outside the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Alabama Democrats also sharply criticized the decision to try to change the maps ahead of looming elections.

“This special session is a blatant power grab by Republican leadership in Montgomery to eliminate seats held by Black Democrats,” said former Sen. Doug Jones, a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor.

Louisiana has suspended its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts, though that is being challenged in court.

Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, then other states joined the battle. Lawmakers, commissions or courts have adopted new House districts in eight states.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails