Gerrymandering has existed for a long time. It is an act of disenfranchisement where politicians choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives. A few states created independent commissions to have neutrally drawn maps, but many draw them to maximize one party’s success, biasing elections against what people actually voted for.
Trump escalated gerrymandering by pushing Republicans in states they control to gerrymander shortly before an election, rather than after a census brings new data. This is Trump trying to win the midterm elections by way of changing lines on maps rather than by convincing people to vote for his party. Democrats retaliated by also gerrymandering before the mid-terms. For the midterms, Republicans are predicted to net 7 to 10 extra seats due to changing the maps, rather than convincing voters to vote for them.
Proportional representation may be a better way to elect representatives.
The Trump Phone scam that a lot of people fell for is not surprising or new. Trump’s business career is replete similar scams, betrayals, and cheap crap sold as quality.
The US desperately needs to learn how to use and mass produce drones or it will be behind on an ongoing military revolution that is killing a majority of soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Young men don’t believe they have a future, they don’t trust institutions, and they don’t trust each other, so they feel that they need to get rich quick with a variety of ways to gamble. Most of them lose money, which could make their trust in society even worse.
“Previous efforts by Trump to get China to purchase more US goods have fallen short, raising questions about whether the latest pledges will be fulfilled. China failed to meet its commitments under an agreement Trump brokered in 2020 to buy an extra $200 billion in US agricultural, energy and manufactured products over a two-year period. The Covid-19 pandemic complicated that effort but critics said the targets were unrealistic.
China has recently turned to cheaper Brazilian soybeans after meeting the initial purchasing volume from the US agreed to in last year’s trade truce between Washington and Beijing.
While the fresh discloser will likely be welcomed by farmers, who were seeking more clarity from the latest summit, the amount may not be large enough to satisfy growers looking to turn around tough economic conditions.
Farmers have been struggling for years with relatively low crop prices and high costs. Pressures have been compounded by geopolitical tensions including Trump’s tariffs, and most recently by a surge in fertilizer costs linked to the conflict in Iran.”
The Trump administration tore down USAID before figuring out what it actually did.
Because USAID was shuttered so quickly and with little warning, lots of people traveled for desperate medical care or food, just to find the USAID location shutdown. Lots of people died.
The State Department has not released the data needed to see how many people died.
Marco Rubio used to say if you want to know how important USAID is, just travel to Africa and see the many lives of children saved at relative low cost by the American taxpayer. Such people are less likely to be radicalized or become anti-American. Yet, Rubio didn’t, or couldn’t, save USAID under the Trump administration.
DOGE bros were uninformed and just smacked the table and yelled at people. Some of them thought USAID mostly did abortions. USAID doesn’t do abortions. DOGE tore down USAID because Elon Musk demanded it.
When it comes to understanding government policy, Elon Musk is incompetent and his actions have killed hundreds of thousands of people.