MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2025
He's left with one (shaky) claim: Will Jeffrey Epstein be a type of finishing touch? Will Epstein be the magical topic which lets the Democrats return to power in the House after next year's midterm elections?
Everything is possible! But just when that possibility seemed to be warming Blue America's hearts, along came revolutionary Red America with its redistricting play.
The state of Texas will redistrict, adding five seats to the Republican Party's total! It may not work out that way, of course, but how did we ever get into this mess?
As a tiny hint of a possible answer, let's start with some of what Governer Pritzker (D-Ill.) said on yesterday's Meet the Press.
Full disclosure! Illinois' House districts were clownishly gerrymandered after the 2020 census. The gerrymander produced one of the most ridiculous congressional maps ever devised by one of our fifty great states.
To her credit, Kristen Welker was aware of that fact, and she was willing to bring it up. In yesterday's first exchange on that matter, Welker played tape of Texas Governor Abbott, then let Pritzker respond:
GOVERNOR ABBOTT (videotape): [Democratic governors] have already gerrymandered their states in ways in which they don't have hardly any Republican members of Congress. Look at the map of Illinois. It's drawn in such way they can't even squeeze out another Republican. It's a joke.
WELKER: What's your response to Governor Abbott?
GOVERNOR PRITZKER: Well, Governor Abbott is the joke. He's the one who is attempting mid-decade here, at a time when frankly all of us are concerned about the future of democracy, he's literally helping whittle it away and licking the boots of his leader, Donald Trump.
Here in Illinois, we followed the law. We provided a map and passed a map that follows the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution and the laws of the state of Illinois. He's attempting to thwart federal law and take away five seats that are in the hands of Black, Brown, minority Congress people and the people that they represent.
He's taking those votes away. He's violating the Constitution. And all of us need to stand up and speak out and make sure that it's understood across the country that what they're trying to do in Texas is illegal.
That was the second time that Pritzker said that the Texas effort would violate the Voting Rights Act.
More on that below. Welker continued as shown:
WELKER: ...But I do want to look at the map of Illinois. Let's take a look at this. Despite President Trump winning 44% of the statewide vote in 2024, Republicans hold only three of Illinois' 17 districts. These districts seem to be designed to maximize Democratic advantage. What do you say to those who argue that it's hypocritical for you to criticize Texas for partisanship, when your state also drew maps to boost your party's standing?
PRITZKER: Well, remember that what Texas is trying to do is, again, violate the Voting Rights Act. We didn't. We held public hearings, legislative hearings. People attended them. They spoke out. There was a map that was put out. There were actually changes made to the map. And a map was passed, and it was done at the end of the census, the decennial census. So that's how it's done in this country.
You talked about how rare it is to do what he’s doing. Yes, it is. What’s even rarer is to do it at the behest of the president of the United States, who's clearly attempting to and says that he deserves to have five more seats. He's wrong, and he's attempting to change the game because, again, he passed this big ugly bill that's hyper-unpopular in Texas, among people in Texas and across the country. And he knows he's going to lose the Congress in 2026. That's why he's going to his allies and hoping that they can save him. And we've all got to stand up against this.
This is—it’s cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.
Donald Trump cheats at golf. He also cheats on his wives!
In our view, that's pitiful stuff. At least he didn't mention Stormy Daniels, allegedly on one occasion back in 2006!
Also, though, he cited the Voting Rights Act, now cited for the third time. Without adjusting to his claim, Welker kept pounding away on her original theme:
WELKER (continuing directly): Well, look. Sticking on your state's map, every major group that grades the fairness of congressional maps gives your state an “F.” Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog, even says your map, and I'm going to quote, "represents a nearly perfect model for everything that can go wrong with redistricting."
And I guess the question is, you talk about preserving democracy. How do you preserve democracy if you're using the same tactics that you've criticized Texas Republicans for?
PRITZKER: But as I say, what they're talking about is a distraction. The reality is that the violation of people's voting rights is what Texas is attempting to do. That's what's wrong with their efforts right now....
Welker needed to hear it again—and yes, that was the Voting Rights Act to which Pritzker alluded again.
Texas is going to violate the VRA. The state of Illinois didn't. He had now made that claim four times. At that point, Welker moved on.
Will Texas be violating the Voting Rights Act if it persists with its plan, as it will surely do? Concerning that question, we'll briefly offer this:
At issue is an interpretation of the VRA in which Louisiana is typically cited as a convenient test case. The question goes like this:
Louisiana's electorate is one-third black—and it has six Houe districts. Under terms of the Voting Rights Act, does that mean that the state must create two congressional districts which are majority black, or would one such district be enough?
We know! No one ever expresses it quite that baldly. In a way, that's the heart of the problem.
Alas! The way this question is currently discussed within the courts involves the muddiest, fuzziest word salads of language we've ever seen on such a high level. (Except, of course, for the major works of Kierkegaard and Kant.)
Along the way, it has become widely accepted in Blue circles—if a state is one third black, then one third of its congressional districts should be majority black. Let us say two things about that:
If the new Texas map reduces the number of "majority-minority" House districts, and if that map is then challenged in the courts, it will likely make it to the Supreme Court—and uh-oh:
Whatever you or anyone else might think about that "one third" framework, we find it hard to believe that the current Supreme Court will uphold that interpretation of the relevant passages in the Voting Rights Act.
On the other hand, maybe they will! That involves a type of reasoning which has been going badly for Blue America, though we still don't quite seem to have come to terms with that fact.
For ourselves, we think the "one third" theory is a very shaky expression of Americanism. It's also an expression which falls in line with many of the Blue American policies and ruminations which have increasingly come to be trashed as unwisely "woke."
Are "whites" and "blacks" two separate peoples, each entitled to its mandated number of House seats? On the merits, that seems like a shaky idea to us. On the politics, it's the kind of thinking for which Blue America has increasingly been getting punished in the court of public opinion.
Governor Pritzker made a joke of the Illinois map. Today, he hides behind his self-described racial greatness. We Blues keep getting beat on topics like this, and we often seem unable to see the reasons for our losses.
How did those of us in Blue America ever lose to someone like President Trump? Is it possible that our own lack of wisdom and insight may keep dragging us down?
There's much more to be said about that "one third" rule of thumb. The language with which it has been expressed has been extremely fuzzy. Down there in the lower courts, but also in our own Blue preserves, no one seems to want to say what is being said!
(With this puzzle, we think of the late Kevin Drum. We sure do wish he was here.)
Kirkegaard and Kant were muddy and fuzzy. Einstein was clear and cogent, especially when he explained the relativity of simultaneity.
BalasPadamCreating a majority black voting district generally helps Republicans. A black voting district generally means an overwhelmingly Dem district. That leaves fewer Dem voters for the rest of the state.
BalasPadamDavid, the map-drawing practice you describe is called "packing." By overrepresenting one voting bloc in a district, you can dilute that bloc's influence in other districts.
PadamBut you forgot to mention "cracking." That's the practice of scattering the members of a voting bloc across so many different districts that they have little influence in the outcome of elections in any district.
Both are ways to ensure that the party in power stays in power without having to bother with the will of those pesky voters. The latter is the primary tool on display in Texas' new mid-census map.
A New York judge on Monday rejected a request by the federal government to unseal grand jury records in the federal case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell after the Trump administration signed off on her prison transfer.
BalasPadam"The court's review confirmed that unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence," U.S. Judge Paul Engelmayer of New York's Southern District wrote in his 31-page ruling denying a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to unseal the grand jury material.
Ten bucks says this is a judge Trump won't call un-American, nor make-up an insulting name for, that a person with the mental acuity of a six-year old will laugh at.
PadamFuck you David, you sick supporter of child rape and fascism.
Padam“Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that,” Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, wrote. “There is no ‘there’ there.”
PadamAnd, the judge wrote, the only reasonable argument for unsealing the material “is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal.”
You are such a dishonest little shit, Dickhead in Cal.
In his decision, Engelmayer took aim not just at the department’s rationale for unsealing, but also at the process by which it went about requesting it.
The judge criticized the department for failing to include in the process any of the prosecutors who handled Maxwell’s 2021 trial. The members of the trial team would have been most familiar with the material. Instead, only the Justice Department’s second-highest-ranking official, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who subsequently interviewed Maxwell, signed the motion seeking to release the records.
This corrupt administration couldn't very well include the lead prosecutor since Prince Orange Chickenshit fired her for no fucking apparent reason.
Go fuck yourself, Dickhead. Come back when Donald J Chickenshit releases the Epstein files as he promised to do during his campaign. You are always so conscious of King Chickenshit keeping his promises, why do always forget to include that one, you fucking fascist freak?
The judge gave a rather clear, no-nonsense explanation for his decision.
PadamNow what was your point in bringing this up?
"The court's review confirmed that unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence,"
PadamGot that, AC/MA?
Judge Paul Engelmayer is saying if you haven't already admitted the Republican Party is a global pedophile ring, no amount of proof can force you to do so.
Somerby makes a fuss over partisan-favoring results without looking at the manner in which those results are obtained. When TX breaks laws by redistricting in the middle of a 10-year census period to achieve a partisan advantage, he is doing something illegal. When Trump say he will redo the census in the middle of such a census to exclude non-citizens, he too is breaking the law in order to gain a partisan advantage for Republicans. When Prizker engages in normal redistricting at the normal time and obtains a result that favors Democrats without gerrymandering for partisan-purposes, without breaking any laws, he is not doing something dirty simply because the results favor Democrats. Some states are blue because there are more blue voters there, not because there are equal numbers of people in both parties that can produce an unbalanced result through careful adjust of district boundaries, as occurs in partisan redistricting, and as TX and other red states are considering doing this year, to affect next year's midterm elections.
BalasPadamSomerby doesn't seem to understand the difference between what is legal and what is not. He also does not understand that the purpose of redistricting in not to achieve partisan fairness for either party. It is to give all people living in their district a fair chance at having their vote matter during elections. That means respecting other considerations besides partisan voting patterns, such as ethnicity, race, gender, historical communities and geography. Non-partisan voting commission tend to do that. The partisan efforts occurring in TX are not doing that because their main and only consideration is having Republicans win in 2026.
Somerby makes a big fuss because IL is a blue state, ignoring Pritzker's correct statements that he and his state have done nothing illegal or wrong to attain the voting patterns that exist in IL, just as CA has done nothing unfair or wrong when it reflects the blue voting preferences of the people in their state, especially when those voting results emerge from a non-partisan redistricting process enacted by state voters to ensure a fair result, not necessarily a partisan one.
Somerby is engaging in a misleading argument today, as he did a few days ago with regard to CA. His arguments just happen to support the Republican malfeasance that has driven Democrats out of TX to prevent an illegal process from rigging the 2026 midterms. Somerby pretends to be concerned about fairness but he sees nothing wrong with the illegal actions of Republicans, in fact sees them as justified given Pritzker's blue voting in past elections. It is as if Somerby thinks a blue majority is itself wrong and should not be tolerated, and thus Republicans must be allowed to use any means necessary to make voting more balanced as an a priori standard, disregarding the actual voting preferences of people who are blue voters, especially if they are minorities or contribute to more seats in states with more immigration. Somerby sounds very much like a Republican today, a TX Republican.
'TX breaks laws by redistricting in the middle of a 10-year census period to achieve a partisan advantage'
PadamYou seem to have forgotten to tell us specifically which laws Tx is breaking. I'm sure you'll want to rectify that oversight.
See below. It is the Enumeration Clause of our Constitution. Most states have also passed specific state laws about how redistricting is to be performed. In CA for example, the voters passed an initiative establishing a state redistricting commission, specifying explicitly that it be non-partisan. That is the governing law that states HOW exactly redistricting is to be carried out in CA. A day or so ago, Somerby directly contradicted that LAW by suggesting that CA is carrying out redistricting to make the state blue, a partisan result. He seems to think that because CA is largely blue, its blue politicians must have made it so, ignoring the process stated in CA law.
PadamThe Enumeration Clause says that states get X number of reps which are determined by the decennial census. E.g., Texas gets 38 based on the 2020 census. Texas does not violate this Clause by changing the district configurations of those 38 reps mid-cycle. It will have 38 reps whether or not the districts are re-configured.
PadamThe Enumeration Clause states a specific time period for performing the districting, explicitly within 3 years of the first meeting of congress following the census. That time period is over for the 2020 census.
PadamIf you consider the intentions of the writers of the Constitution, it is to avoid partisan wrangling like that occurring in TX and to enact a fair process. Recall that there were not two parties when the Constitution was written, nor were parties regarded as a good thing in our democratic system. Procedures would be intended to avoid privileging anyone unduly by creating fairness, not giving Republicans a way to manipulate the system for their political benefit or to block others. What the Republicans are attempting in TX is inconsistent with the spirit of our Constitution.
Pointing out that the Constitution could have been ammended had anyone wanted this districting to be performed differently, but it has not been with respect to the census and the deadline for changing representation based on population.
“The Enumeration Clause states a specific time period for performing the districting, explicitly within three years . . . .”
PadamWrong!
"Pritzker's correct statements that he and his state have done nothing illegal or wrong to attain the voting patterns that exist in IL"
BalasPadamIn 2020 and 2024, between 40-44% of Illinois voters voted for Trump. But its current congressional delegation is 18% Republican.
It may not be illegal, but it is certainly wrong and is no different from what Texas is doing.
Trump won 44% of the statewide vote in 2024, but Republicans hold only three of Illinois' 17 districts, then there
IL is not conducting redistricting in between censuses in order to win elections. It did its original redistricting in response to the latest census and in accord with the laws of its state. TX is breaking those laws.
PadamSomerby proposes that IL should get more than 18% Republicans elected to office. Districting is not done to produce parity across political parties, as Somerby proposes it should be. It has other goals, including representation of all communities within the state. As I have pointed out elsewhere, half of residents of a state do not vote at all. Many more are not eligible to vote because they are not citizens. The function of elected representatives is to represent the concerns and needs of ALL of the people in their district, not just the majority that voted for them. That means that partisan considerations are not the best of only criterion to be used during districting. This is where Somerby goes astray. By suggesting that if 40-44% of voters supported Trump, 40-44% of districts should be Republican, he makes partisanship the only concern in districting. It is not and should not be, especially when black people and Hispanics do not register to vote in proportion to their residence in the state, nor with the same frequency as white voters. That is why concern about the Voting Rights Law must be part of this discussion. It implies that Trump would not be getting 40-44% of the presidential vote if there were fairness in voter registration and access to polls, something that is an important consideration in districting.
Somerby is wrong on this topic. He is reflecting the Republican arguments in support of those breaking the law by engaging in purely partisan redistricting, mid-decade, violating the Constitution about who should be counter and how that districting should be achieved. I doubt Somerby is ignorant, so I assume he is arguing the Republican POV in support of Trump's desire to rig the midterms.
"those breaking the law by engaging in purely partisan redistricting, mid-decade, violating the Constitution about who should be counter and how that districting should be achieved"
PadamI'm sorry, but I can't seem to find the provision of the Constitution prohibiting mid-decade, partisan redisticting. Could you help me out?
It's right next to the part where it says the people are entitled to border security.
PadamFirst Amendment, maybe?
"Article I, Section 2, Clause 3:
PadamRepresentatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three."
It explicitly says every 10 years.
Yes, it says Texas gets 38 reps based on the 2020 census. But Texas is not seeking any more reps. It is simply changing the district configurations of those 38 reps. Where does the Constitution say that's not permitted?
PadamOh, and by the way, this Clause has been amended by the 14th Amendment to do away with the three-fifths atrocity.
Padam"Districting is not done to produce parity across political parties, as Somerby proposes it should be."
PadamDistricting may not be done to produce exact parity but a difference of the magnitiude of 40-44% vs. 18% allows one to infer something rotten in how the districting has been done.
Yes, but the 10 year census was not changed. Districting happens within 3 years of each census, not to change the configuration of state reps at will for partisan purposes.
Padam"In June 2019, the Supreme Court swept aside the idea that federal courts could rein in state lawmakers' power to draw legislative maps designed primarily to entrench their own party's power.
PadamThe ruling, a 5-4 split along ideological lines with conservative justices in the majority, made it clear that partisan gerrymandering was here to stay, absent states taking matters into their own hands or the unlikely scenario of Congress' stepping in to impose some sort of national ban."
Yes, this is why it is so odd to hear Somerby arguing that CA did something wrong when it made its own state laws ensuring fairness instead of partisan via use of a non-partisan districting commision. Somerby sides with the conservative view, not the liberal one when he suggests that CA is not actually a blue state but was made such by partisan action, when the opposite is true. The same for IL.
PadamThe blatant wrongness of calling for mid-decade redistricting solely to preserve partisan advantage should be obvious to Somerby, and yet he supports it today (and previously) by arguing that the blue states are unfair, so the red states should be allowed to do unfair stuff too. Being a blue state doesn't automatically mean that anything partisan happened in the districting process, other than there existing a large number of blue voters among the people of that state, likely no matter how you slice things up (without deliberately drawing boundaries to favor Republicans).
For a while, Republicans were moving to places like TX while Democrats were moving to CA and CO. That shift would result in a shift in partisan voting patterns without any attempt to gerrymander, simply because a lot of Dems live in CA and CO and not many live in TX, much less Idaho, Utah, WY.
"Districting happens within 3 years of each census,"
PadamOne of us is misinterpreting that phrase rather badly, friend.
"The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years,"
By my reading the "three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress" happened once and only once--in the period between March 1789 and March 1792. It refers to when the first "Enumeration"--that is, the first census count--is to occur. The Enumeration is the counting of persons, not the drawing of districts.
The Republican Party hating the government being in the hands of the people, isn't news.
PadamThe first enumeration and each subsequent one. These are 10 year intervals, which was the point of discussion.
PadamWould all the constitutional experts deign to tell us why the number of representatives is 435?
Padam10:49 - Congress passed a law setting the number at 435.
Padam10:28 - “Enumeration” refers to number, not the configuration of the districts.
Padam8:26 - “Yes, this is why it’s so odd to hear Somerby argue that CA did something wrong [when it redistricted].”
PadamI don’t know why persistent misstatements like this bug me, but this is just flat-out false. Somerby explicitly states: “Indeed, there may well have been zero attempts at gerrymandering in the creation of the current [CA] districts.” TDH, 8/6/25
“ Congress passed a law setting the number at 435.”
PadamWhat else does the law say?
What is fair flew out the window in 1965 when R's started on their road to oligarchy and fascism. The time is not to quibble about methods, but to punch these lousy pieces of shit in their Nazi faces. Gloves off mother fuckers. We don't want you snooping around our records DOGE, we don't want to transfer all our money to our wealth masters, we don't want to abandon Ukraine, we don't want any of it. Freaks - fuck off. Nobody likes you and we are taking American weird back. You white Christian shitheads (and DiC) suck balls.
BalasPadamThe Republican Party fucked-up not taking the people's guns away, before trying to go the fascist route.
PadamI guess what I'm saying, is that it's about to get fun.
If the people wanted to live in a society that was fair, we'd have a 100% Estate Tax rate.
BalasPadamIs D.C. low crime or high crime? Liberal sources say it's low (or relatively low) crime. Conservative sources say crime is high. Both sides seem to have data supporting their POV. What's really going on? Are some statistics inaccurate in some way?
BalasPadamBoth sides do not have data supporting their POV. Conservatives do not have evidence supporting their claims.
PadamThis is what a conservative source says
PadamCNN decided to fact-check Trump by trying to make the point that DC crime is improving year-to-year. They used figures from DC’s local police. Their case might have been even stronger if DC’s police commander hadn’t been suspended for changing crime statistics.
Even if that's true, it doesn't prove that the liberal POV is wrong. I remain completely uncertain.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/08/11/the-lib-media-reaction-to-trumps-dc-takeover-shows-why-that-man-is-president-again-n2661708
@7:33 Conservatives claim to have evidence
PadamThe White House is putting out these numbers:
In 2024, Washington, D.C. saw a homicide rate of 27.3 per 100,000 residents.
That was the fourth-highest homicide rate in the country — nearly six times higher than New York City and also higher than Atlanta, Chicago, and Compton.
If Washington, D.C. was a state, it would have the highest homicide rate of any state in the nation.
In 2012, the homicide rate in Washington, D.C. was just 13.9 per 100,000 residents.
Washington, D.C.’s murder rate is roughly three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-run Havana, Cuba.
The number of juveniles arrested in Washington, D.C. has gone up each year since 2020 — many of whom have had prior arrests for violent crimes.
There were 29,348 crimes reported in Washington, D.C. last year, including 3,469 violent offenses, 1,026 assaults with a dangerous weapon, 2,113 robberies, and 5,139 motor vehicle thefts.
So far in 2025, there have already been nearly 1,600 violent crimes and nearly 16,000 total crimes reported in Washington, D.C.
There have been nearly 100 homicides, including the fatal shootings of innocent civilians like three-year-old Honesty Cheadle and 21-year-old Capitol Hill intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym.
I remain confused and uncertain about the level of crime in D.C.
Vehicle theft in Washington, D.C. is more than three times the national average — ranking it among the most dangerous cities in the world.
Carjackings increased 547% between 2018 and 2023.
In 2024, there were triple the number of carjackings compared to 2018.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2025/08/11/how-bad-is-dc-crime-here-are-the-stats-n2661675
The D.C. Police Union said, "The Union agrees that crime is spiraling out of control, and immediate action is necessary to restore public safety..." But, maybe they're exaggerating to butter up Trump. I remain unconvinced.
PadamHere is a way to decide:
Padam"Overall, violent and property crime rates in the US have generally decreased from 2023 to 2024, with some fluctuations in specific categories like shoplifting. Homicide rates, while still above pre-pandemic levels, have also shown a decrease in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. "
If crime rates are down nationally, it seems likely they are down also in DC, even if there were some tendency to reclassify serious crimes as lesser crimes in DC itself. Further, if that were happening on a wide basis in DC, you would expect to see an increase in those lesser crimes, not a pattern of decrease across all types of crime, from violent crimes to property crimes, which is what has occurred in the DC stats.
The accused Supt claims this is retaliation for his filing an EEOC complaint and says he is not guilty. This is one guy in the wider DC area, so it seems unlikely his actions alone (even if true) could produce the larger pattern of crime rate reduction.
Because you are an actuary and thus familiar with use of data, I am surprised you are unable to think your way through this situation. Trump, of course, has no idea what the stats are and says whatever he wants, regardless of truth. He wants to activate the troops in DC, so he justifies it by saying crime is out of control. It is an obvious lie.
The highest crime city in the US is Memphis. Why is Trump not sending his troops where they are most needed, in this red city in TN?
PadamI went to Memphis and also Gatlinburg this year and was not murdered or even threatened, at any time. Just sayin'.
PadamMost of the criminalizing by D.C residents happens at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
PadamFuck you fascist David.
PadamBecause you are an actuary and thus familiar with use of data, I am surprised your fascism and bigotry makes you unable to think your way through this situation, and so many others.
It seems odd that DC police are so eager to turn over their policing jobs to FBI and the military. The union leadership is quoted, but do the rank and file officers really feel that crime is "spiraling out of control" in their precincts?
PadamSome neighborhoods in DC have worse crime than others. I would find Trump's claims more credible if he were targeting the additional officers to the areas that need them most, instead of spreading them around as a visible show of force that intimidates everyday people who are neither criminals nor teribbly inconvenienced by crime.
I do wonder what Big Ballz was doing in a bad area where teen thugs might hassle him. Buying drugs maybe?
@8:04 - the federal government has a different Constitutional relationship to DC than to any other city in the country.
PadamTrump's only declaring martial law in D.C. because he wants to come down hard on the black people there.
PadamIt's not like he's asking social media sites to remove bullshit lies about vaccines, which can harm people during a global pandemic that killed millions worldwide.
It's not the same thing, because Biden was trying to protect people, not play-up to bigots who are afraid of the big cities with diverse populations.
PadamWe do not have a national police force specifically to fight crime in DC. That kind of special relationship does not exist. When Trump tries to move the military and FBI into DC, he is repurposing staff who have other jobs to do, very different than street policing of neighborhoods in any US city. That makes this whole move very suspicious.
PadamAnd who is fighting federal crime and performing military duties while these guys are being sent to harrass black people in their homes in DC? No one, I'll bet. Which increases the vulnerability of everyone else in the nation while Trump focuses on bullying DC and puffing himself up like a third-world punk-dictator wannabe.
Explaining actions in terms of racism is a fool's errand. One could claim that Dem's are racists, because they don't want to protect the large number black crime victims in DC. I don't actually believe this. But, I do believe that the greatest beneficiaries of this move will be black.
PadamMaybe Trump is afraid of the demonstrations that might materialize on the national mall in response to what is coming in future months. Or maybe he is planning to storm Congress again and dismantle the legislature (in case there is another impeachment effort after he cedes Ukraine to Putin, or is found to have colluded with Epstein, or decides to suspend the midterms). He may need those troops to keep anyone from interfering with his next attempted coup.
PadamAre those demonstrators black? Some, yes, but I suspect most will be white because there are so many more white people, even in DC. David's theory about black people benefitting from policing by untrained FBI agents and military (largely trained to guard embassies, not catch pickpockets) seems unlikely to me.
PadamIf Trump really wants to help policing in DC, why doesn't he increase police budgets and hire more officers, like he has done with ICE? He isn't putting his money where it is needed, but wasting it via moving FBI and military around the nation, which is costly and inconvenient to their families, and making gestures, not doing anything truly effective at dealing with crime.
I'll bet Trump imagines that all the criminals are trembling in fear and packing their bags to self-deport, especially the homeless (who don't have bags but may have shopping carts), so his guys won't have to do any actual policing, just direct traffic out of the city, at which point all the black people will wonder when the FBI and military will be leaving too, and what all those empty beds in the nearby concentration camps are for.
David in Cal,
PadamWho the fuck are you trying to fool?
Everything about you could be explained in terms of racism.
Even your crocodile tears for the poor black people dealing with crime and the suppression of their votes by the Republican Party.
@8:40 wrote, "I'll bet Trump imagines that all the criminals are trembling in fear and packing their bags to self-deport." Yes. Based on Trump's presser, you're exactly right. Trump and his minions emphasized how much more punishment there will be. They're evidently think this threat will bad guys to commit fewer crimes.
PadamIf that worked, we'd triple the funding of the IRS and SEC.
PadamTrump's a moron.
Just a matter of time David, they'll be coming for the Jews, you dumb.fucking fascist.
Padam9:58,
PadamEvery cloud has a silver lining.
Uh, @9:58 - They ARE coming for the Jews on a number of college campuses. Biden ignored the problem. Trump is very actively working fix college antisemitism problem.
PadamDavid, no one is really “coming for” Jews on college campuses. That is by and large propaganda on your part.
PadamWhere in the Constitution does it say people who don't support the ethnic cleansing of entire populations are entitled to an education?
PadamBiden's percent of the Jewish vote was what again, Davi in Cal?
PadamAccording to WPA Intelligence citing AP/Fox News/NORC exit poll, Trump garnered 32 percent of the Jewish vote nationally, an increase from the 30 percent he received in 2020 and the 24 percent he received in 2016. This is also the highest percent of the Jewish vote that has gone to Republicans since 1988 for George H.W. Bush, who received 35 percent of the Jewish vote.
PadamRe 10:48: You poor thing. You're sounding as oppressed as a Palestinian. With mouthpieces like the Zionist Dershowitz, and yourself - who once proclaimed that being anti Netanyahu equated with being antisemitic- no wonder they are confused. What does it tell you that for all your tribalistic Biden=bad, Trump=good that a whopping 2% went over to your savior, if that many, given error margins? That 1 out of 3 Jews voted for him is considered a win? Now that his approval rating is in the 30's and he failed miserably at ending the Mideast war on day one as promised, what do you think that number would be today?
PadamCrime is way down in D.C., but the feelings over facts Republican Party doesn't see it that way any more than they see two plus two equaling four.
BalasPadamCrime was down year after year in Texas during the Biden administration, as per statistics compiled by Texas law enforcement. This is of course remarkable, considering the massive influx of rapists and violent offenders the Rapist in Chief claims to have crossed the border during those years. Better for MAGA cultists like DiC to ignore those statistics than understand what they signified.
PadamAn ex-FBI agent who was part of the January 6th Capitol insurrection and is video documented urging the murder of the police is now a ranking member of the Justice Department. Anyone want to guess the color of his skin?
BalasPadamI guess it was the Democrats’ “moral squalor” that prevented Biden from demanding that New York and California redistrict during his term, thus ensuring a Democratic win in the House.
BalasPadamNo amount of Republican bullshit will counter the effects of the tariffs and stagflation on the midterms. By then Trump's approval rating will bein the low 30s.
Padam