Recissions, Reading, Redistricting, and the Jeffrey Epstein Files

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The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein continues to haunt the Trump administration, and the President can’t seem to get past it. What we have here appears to be the rare controversy in which there are no innocuous explanations for what has unfolded.

The MAGA drum over the weekend was saying let’s put this story to rest, and although Fox News complied (mentioning Epstein zero times on Monday; Biden more than forty) many in the digital media world didn’t want to pass on the kinds of traffic the scandal has brought them.

This morning, the President continued to rant on social media, suggesting that his “former” supporters had been taken in by Democratic conspiracy.

Via Heather Cox Richardson:

• Journalist Garrett M. Graff, a former editor of Politico, commented: “Okay, I am not generally a conspiracist, but c’mon DOJ, you are making it really hard to believe that you’re releasing the real full evidence on Epstein….”

At this point, I’m starting to think Trump might have been better off with some kind of admission about his name appearing and maybe even a wink over mostly blacked out evidence about sexual activities. Ye olde “I thought she was 18” excuse could be invoked.

Conspiracy stories get used by extremists as a recruitment tool to foster institutional distrust, and the MAGA movement went all-in on the Deep State coverup theme. Now, Trump is acting like he’s the one covering up something and the dissonance is just too much.

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Although I don’t see the uproar abating anytime soon, there’s a government out there just waiting to be destroyed, and Trump’s minions are working hard to do just that.

By the end of the week, the administration needs Congressional affirmation on cancelling already authorized funding. A House-passed bill blessing $9 billion in recissions needs to be approved by the Senate by Friday night or it will expire. The Vice President has been called in for tie-breaking votes on procedural matters relating to the bill, and some Senators are wavering on the whole package.

Getting the claw back through the Senate required freeing up monies for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) credited with saving 26 million lives since 2003, which means that the House will have to agree.

There has also been public reaction to the defunding of public broadcasting, but as of this morning it remains in the bill.

If this bill fails, the thinking is that the president must spend the funds as appropriated.

Hold that thought.*

The bigger challenge with this recissions effort is the precedent it sets for future Congresses, namely that a passed budget is just a piece of paper which can be altered by the partisan desires of the executive branch. In other words, the constitutional duty of the legislative branch to craft a budget will have been usurped.

Do you wanna hear something hilarious? Sure you do:

“When you’ve got a $36 trillion debt, we have to do something to get spending under control,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who not long ago shepherded a multi-trillion dollar big beautiful budget through his chamber.

*In June, White House budget director Russell Vought told CNN that this package is just “the first of many rescissions bills” and that if Congress won’t pass them, the administration will hold back funds under what’s called “impoundment,” although Congress explicitly outlawed that process in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

In other words, this vote is just performative nonsense.

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In the wake of the Supreme Court shadow docket ruling that the Education Department can go ahead and lay off 1300 hundred employees, a wet dream for the worst elements of American politics is coming to fruition.

Over the past century protestant evangelicals have fought any inkling of federal involvement in education, claiming that education should include Christian teachings.

Testifying before congress in 1926, J. Gresham Machen, considered to be the leading fundamentalist theologian in the US, warned that a Department of Education would negate “the individual liberty of the states.” More importantly, he claimed, it was an ideological threat that would result in “the worst kind of slavery that could possibly be devised—slavery in the sphere of the mind.”

Court decisions, including those on desegregation in schools and classroom prayers, led conservative church leaders to increasingly conclude American public schools were unsuited—and even antagonistic—to the task of imposing their principles.

Department of Education employees to be laid off have been on paid leave since March, so we won’t get to see the sad spectacle of people walking out with boxes of personal possessions as happened with the State Department recently.

Democrats in Congress and two dozen state governments are fighting the Trump administration’s freeze of $6.8 billion in already appropriated funds for after-school programs and more at public schools.

A day ahead of the July 1 date when these funds are typically sent out as educators plan for the coming school year, the department informed states that it would be withholding funding for programs, including before- and after-school programs, migrant education, English-language learning and adult education and literacy, among other initiatives. California alone has lost access to $939 million, as the administration has turned its anti-woke lasers on education.

The Education Department will continue to function for now, mostly because Republicans are unable to summon the 60 votes in the Senate needed to eliminate it.

The Big Beautiful Budget Bill cuts will hit some offices particularly hard, including the Office for Civil Rights — which will lose about half its staff and seven of its 11 regional offices — and the Federal Student Aid office, charged with overseeing the student loan program. The Institute of Education Sciences, which runs the achievement tests dubbed the Nation’s Report Card, will also be impacted.

A defanged Office of Civil Rights has already seen its priorities shifted; now it's working to limit the rights of transgender students and rid schools of diversity efforts.

A majority of American voters oppose shuttering the Department. A March Economist/YouGov poll found 2 in 3 Americans saying it should be expanded or kept the same. Another poll by Quinnipiac University found 60% of voters opposed Trump’s plan to eliminate the agency. Two thirds of Republicans did favor the idea, however.

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Finally, polling on issues important to the administration and Republicans in Congress has been chock full of bad news lately, and there are concerns about the party suffering substantial losses in the mid term elections. In other words, if Republicans don’t have enough votes, it’s time to cheat to get them.

The President is now openly encouraging the State of Texas to consider redistricting in such a manner as to create five more GOP seats in congress.

Via The New York Times:

• “Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added, “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”

• The redistricting of House seats is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, after new census data shifts populations and changes the number of seats granted to each state. Reapportionment in the middle of the decade is rare and almost always contentious, since it is driven by political considerations, not demographic shifts. In this case, Mr. Trump is openly trying to use new maps to stave off midterm Democratic gains that would potentially cost his party control of the narrowly divided House.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has called for the 30-day special session of the legislature later this month to include the redrawing of the state’s political maps, along with potential legislation to address the deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country, among other issues.

Democrats in the state legislature, although they don’t have votes to stop redistricting, are planning to use procedural methods to stall such legislation, possibly including a boycott that would deny a quorum.

There are risks for GOP-led redistricting. Texas’ current map already maximizes the party’s impact and adding more Republican districts could potentially weaken safe incumbents. And adding five more seats may be more difficult than Trump seems to think it is. The Texas Politics Project June poll found that a majority of Texans disapprove of him, with 44% saying they strongly disapprove, and just 27% saying they strongly approve.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the idea of calling a special election aimed at allowing redistricting to eliminate Republican House seats. To do that, voters would have to bypass or eliminate the very popular independent commission currently in charge of drawing districts.

Via Newsweek:

• Notably, California has an independent redistricting commission that could be a roadblock to redrawing the state's maps. When reached by Newsweek, a state GOP spokesperson pointed to an X post from commentator Rob Pyers that noted the potential legal challenge.

• "California's congressional maps are drawn by an independent redistricting commission that was enshrined in the state's constitution by voters in a 2010 proposition that passed by over 20%, so any changes to this will require first going to voters to abolish the commission," Pyers wrote.

• Newsom told The Tennessee Holler last week that Republicans are playing by a "totally different set of rules," and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, calling for a special session for redistricting made him question "that entire program," referring to the independent commission.

These are certainly interesting times. By the way, the President floated the idea this morning of firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, but backed down after a stock market tumble. Here’s the thing, though: Wall Street may own the Fed (they do), but a Trump flunky running the show won’t diminish their influence.

Why do ageing rates vary by country? Massive study says politics play a part by Julian Nowogrodzki at Nature.com

• Social inequality and weak democratic institutions are linked to faster ageing, as are other environmental features such as high levels of air pollution, finds a study spanning four continents. Education was one of the top factors that protected against faster ageing.

• The study also showed that ageing is accelerated by less-surprising factors such as high blood pressure and heart disease. But the link to social and political influences could help to explain why rates of aging vary from country to country, the authors say…

• …Political polarization and uncertainty mean that “we are living in a world of despair”, and that ages people, says lead author Agustín Ibañez, who directs the Latin American Brain Health Institute in Santiago. “We don’t think about the health impacts that this is going to have in the long run.”

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The End of the Driveway: How Volkswagen's Robot-Bus Signals the Twilight of Car Ownership by Rob Enderle at Torque News

• For decades, owning a car was a rite of passage and a symbol of independence. Soon, it may be seen as a financially irrational and inconvenient relic. The math is compelling, if not yet fully realized. While some early studies suggest current robotaxi services can be more expensive than traditional ride-hailing, the long-term economic model is built on one crucial factor: removing the driver. Labor costs represent the single largest expense in any taxi or ride-share trip. Once the vehicle is a fixed, depreciating asset that can operate 24/7 (stopping only to charge), the per-mile cost plummets.

• Analysts predict that the cost of using an autonomous taxi service will eventually be significantly lower than the total cost of owning a personal vehicle. Think about the expenses that disappear: car payments, insurance, fuel (or electricity), parking, and thousands of dollars in annual maintenance and repairs. Instead of a multi-thousand-dollar-per-year liability sitting idle in a driveway for 95% of its life, a user will pay a simple, low fee for the exact transportation they need, when they need it. This shift from a capital-intensive ownership model to a pay-per-use service model could save the average urban or suburban household thousands of dollars annually, freeing up disposable income and fundamentally altering household budgets.

• This impending economic shift is colliding with a powerful social trend: younger generations are already falling out of love with driving. For many Millennials and especially Gen Z, the car is no longer the ultimate symbol of freedom. Freedom is the smartphone in their pocket, which can summon food, entertainment, and, yes, a ride from anywhere to anywhere. Data consistently shows a significant decline in the percentage of teenagers and young adults getting driver's licenses.

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Superman is a Box Office Hit. But is it 'Woke'? By Meredith Blake at The Contrarian

• It’s possible to draw parallels between Superman and contemporary geopolitical conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza. But the allegories are loose enough to invite numerous interpretations. (Some critics, for instance, think it’s not actually that pro-immigration.) Superman is only “woke” if you think that emotional maturity is a weakness, or that opposing indiscriminate suffering is a partisan position. (The last time I checked, Republicans were the ones getting mad about dead squirrels.)

• Right-wing pundits speculated that the movie’s supposedly progressive messages would hurt its box office performance. But Superman’s first-weekend success suggests that, if anything, the conservative uproar brought more attention to the film. And, perhaps, that a hero who chooses compassion over cruel spectacle is appealing to a broad swath of the public.

• “We’ve had a lot of ‘Super’ in Superman over the years, and I’m happy to have made a movie that focuses on the ‘man’ part of the equation—a kind person always looking out for those in need,” Gunn wrote on Threads over the weekend:. “That that resonates so powerfully with so many people across the world is in itself a hopeful testament to the kindness and quality of human beings.”