Republicans in the Indiana state legislature canceled a special session called at the behest of President Donald Trump to consider drawing new maps to eliminate two Democratic Party-held House seats on Friday.
The canceled session in Indiana marks a major loss for Trump and Republicans as they push GOP-run states to engage in mid-decade redistricting in a bid to insulate their thin majority in the House from Trump’s growing unpopularity ahead of the 2026 elections.
“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” Indiana state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said in a statement. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December.”
Republicans thought they could flip the only two Democratic seats in the state’s nine-member House delegation into the GOP column through redistricting. The White House ran an all-out pressure campaign on state leaders, with Vice President JD Vance visiting the state twice. And it looks like Trump world is mad.
“BREAKING: Sen Rodric Bray announces retirement,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager, posted on X following the announcement.
The GOP’s reversal in Indiana follows a brutal week for the party’s redistricting campaign. California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative allowing the Democratic-dominated legislature to set aside the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and draw partisan maps eliminating up to five GOP-held seats. That would offset the potential gain of five seats Texas Republicans created when they launched this redistricting war in August.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s gubernatorial victory and her party’s romp in state legislative elections in Virginia came after the party announced it too would redraw maps to favor Democrats in response to Trump’s redistricting push.
And in Utah, a judge required the state to adopt a new House map that creates a safe Democratic seat centered in Salt Lake City following litigation in state court.
At the same time, state Republican leaders rejected Trump’s redistricting overtures in Kansas and New Hampshire... (our emphasis)
As Democratic- controlled States are punching back, the Malignant Fascist is finding out his diktats to State parties to rig the 2026 mid-terms by mid- Census gerrymandering aren't being honored. If he weren't demented, he might realize he opened up a can of worms when he ordered Texas to gerrymander those five districts. As it is, he's finding out that Democrats have learned to fight fire with fire when it comes to saving our democracy.
A top Border Patrol commander touted dozens of arrests in North Carolina’s largest city on Sunday as Charlotte residents reported encounters with federal immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.
The Trump administration has made the Democratic city of about 950,000 people its latest target for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and downtrending crime rates.
Gregory Bovino, who led hundreds of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in a similar effort in Chicago, took to social media to document a few of the more than 80 arrests he said agents had made. He posted pictures of people the Trump administration commonly dubs “criminal illegal aliens,” meaning people living in the U.S. without legal permission who allegedly have criminal records. That included one of a man with an alleged history of drunk driving convictions.
“We arrested him, taking him off the streets of Charlotte so he can’t continue to ignore our laws and drive intoxicated on the same roads you and your loved ones are on,” Bovino wrote on X. [Ed. --we always thought those were local law enforcement concerns, you howling asshole.]
The effort was dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web” as a play on the title of a famous children’s book that isn’t about North Carolina.
The flurry of activity prompted fear and questions, including where detainees would be held, how long the operation would last and what agents’ tactics — criticized elsewhere as aggressive and racist — would look like in North Carolina. On Saturday, at least one U.S. citizen said he was thrown to the ground and briefly detained.At Camino, a nonprofit group that offers services to Latino communities, some said they were too afraid to leave their homes to attend school, medical appointments or work. A dental clinic the group runs had nine cancellations on Friday, spokesperson Paola Garcia said.
“Latinos love this country. They came here to escape socialism and communism, and they’re hard workers and people of faith,” Garcia said. “They love their family, and it’s just so sad to see that this community now has this target on their back.”... (our emphasis)
Turning the lil fascist Bovino and his ICE thugs loose in another great American city to brutalize and terrorize anyone who fails the ICE racist color chart:
Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel wished his followers on X a happy Diwali. It did not go over well.
Far-right Christian nationalist and white nationalist accounts flooded his post with bigoted memes and rhetoric. “Go back home and worship your sand demons,” a far-right pastor wrote. “Get the f**k out of my country,” read another reply. Said another, “This is America. We don’t do this.” These responses, some of which were seen millions of times, were on the tamer end of the spectrum.
Similar hostility followed Diwali greetings on X from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, as well as posts about the holiday from the White House, the State Department, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Some Indian American conservatives seem shocked that segments of the political right are now taking aim at them. When Democrats won big on election night, Ramaswamy advised Republicans to “cut out the identity politics,” saying “we don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion. We care about the content of your character.” After one X user said that the existence of Indians disgusted them, Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing commentator who has peddled racism against Black Americans for decades, mused: “In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation?”
This type of degrading rhetoric is not new, but it’s increasingly prominent from the political right. With the rise of once-fringe figures, and with President Donald Trump aggressively cracking down on nearly every type of immigration, some members of the MAGA coalition are openly suggesting that only white Christians belong in America.
“The call is coming from inside the house,” said Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an editorial manager and analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who has examined anti-Indian hate speech and the far right online.
Indian immigrants and Indian Americans — or anyone perceived as Indian — are the latest target of a growing anti-migrant movement in the US and around the world. Over the past year, researchers at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate have documented a surge of anti-Indian sentiment on X that is showing no signs of abating. Raqib Naik, the center’s founder and executive director, said that his team recorded nearly 2,700 posts promoting racism and xenophobia against Indians and Indian Americans in October alone. At least some of that might be explained by Elon Musk’s transformation of the platform: Since he took over, racist content that would previously have been policed by content moderators is now amplified and encouraged. (X did not respond to a request for comment.)... (our emphasis)
We're shocked, shocked! that Christian and white nationalists are racists! Who could ever have imagined a movement based on nativism, White Culture and White Supremacy would harbor ill feelings toward other racial and ethnic groups when there's heretofore been no evidence of such behavior such as that presented above!
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