Just Keeping Us Honest Here
Republicans lost, by a slim margin, the Virginia redistricting fight last night. The matter now moves to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Here is the truth, not the spin. It is a statement of fact. The White House political shop convinced the President to push Republican states to engage in mid-decade redistricting. Republicans, pushed by the White House political shop, led the fight and started the fight. They did so because New York Democrats, in 2022, pushed through a new legislatively backed redistricting plan after New York’s Court of Appeals had rejected a prior plan.
Republicans decided to get their revenge and start the present fight in Texas. You should note that some Republicans, now in damage control, insist that the 2022 New York legislative changes started the present fight. Each side, of course, always says the other side started it. The honest reality, however, is that the GOP did open this national can of worms with the Texas redistricting in 2025.
Unless the Virginia Supreme Court halts what happened last night, Democrats probably won the fight in Virginia. After all this, Democrats nationally now have a slightly greater edge in seats than they had when the fight started.
There is still time for some Republican states to act. Florida might act, but given the swings we are seeing at local levels, Republicans in Florida could redistrict and turn several safe Republican seats into swing seats if the swing is too big. It is an increasingly dangerous game in a highly volatile election season where Democrats are way more fired up than Republicans.
To add insult to injury, after starting the fight, the Republican National Committee spent $0.00 in Virginia to fight against the Democrats’ effort. In fairness, however, had the RNC gotten involved explicitly, it probably would have fired up the Democrats even more. One reporter last night claimed sources were saying Virginia Republicans tried to get a meeting a few months ago with the President to put this on his radar, but they were blocked from meeting with him.
Now, the very team that came up with the genius idea to start this fight will be in charge of the GOP’s national midterm strategy. Good luck.
By the way, the GOP might want to wait until after the 2030 census to really go to town in the opposite direction as payback. The census will favor GOP states strongly in 2030.
SPLC Scam
For years, chief among the news outlets in America, CNN has relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to amplify claims about right-wing violence, the rise in right-wing hate groups, white supremacy, etc.
For three years as a paid contributor and as a guest thereafter, I have often had to go on to talk about SPLC claims. I am not surprised CNN now cannot be honest in its reporting about a new federal indictment against the SPLC. CNN claims the SPLC is being “indicted Tuesday for allegedly using funds to secretly pay leaders of violent extremist groups to act as confidential informants without telling donors.” In fact, this is the progressive spin overnight — that the SPLC is being indicted for not telling its donors it was paying informants inside hate groups.
CNN reports, “The indictment offers little to back up [the Acting Attorney General’s] claim that the payments were used to fund crimes by the violent extremist groups, but it describes some of the informants who the SPLC was allegedly paying.”
If you read the indictment, you’ll find CNN is not exactly being honest about the group it has regularly platformed to sow narratives of right-wing hate.
What the indictment actually alleges is that the SPLC not only paid the organizers of the Charlottesville, VA white supremacist rally, but also funded the transport of activists to the event.
This is how CNN covers it.
Another informant highlighted in the charging documents allegedly helped coordinate transportation to the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and was a member of leadership group chats for the event.
Here is what the indictment actually alleges.
