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August 21, 2025
California Democrats prepare to pass their redistricting plan after Texas House approves new maps
(CNN) California Democrats are taking up their proposed constitutional amendment to temporarily redraw their congressional maps, hours after Republicans in the Texas House passed new maps of their own. After weeks of opposition and days of heated committee meetings and floor debates, lawmakers in both states are on track to pass their redistricting efforts Thursday. In California, the state Assembly and Senate will consider a trio of bills that will allow for a special election to pass a constitutional amendment to replace the state’s existing congressional maps through 2030.
Go to discussion'Unacceptable': Outrage in TX as over 100 polling sites cut amid Trump attacks on voting
(Raw Story) Officials in a large North Texas county decided this week to cut more than 100 Election Day polling sites and reduce the number of early voting locations, amid growing concern about GOP efforts to limit voting access ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The 3-2 vote on Tuesday by commissioners in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, came one day after President Donald Trump vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots.
Go to discussionHealth insurance carriers request raising ACA premiums by more than 20% on average in Texas
(Texas Tribune) Health insurance companies have requested an average premium increase of 24% for Affordable Care Act plans in Texas in 2026, a significant hike that could lead to destabilization in the marketplace and customers opting for less or no coverage. Last year, the average rate hike across insurance carriers was 3.8%. Data analysis from KFF found that next year’s rate hikes could be the largest increase since 2018, when average premiums went up by 35% in Texas.
Go to discussionThe Backlash To The Backlash Begins: "I'm a Red-State Mayor. Diversity Is Not Reverse Bigotry."
(NY Times) One of the things that makes America great is our collective resolve that every American should have an equal opportunity to succeed. We have never fully achieved this, but the Constitution gives us the tools to try, and we have used them. Of course, that progress is occasionally met with resistance. Oklahoma City, a purple city in a red state, where I serve as mayor, has witnessed Ku Klux Klan activities as well as successful sit-in movements. Sometimes this rhetoric is cloaked in patriotism, but it is really just repackaged bigotry, misogyny and racism. To cast equal opportunity as a threat rather than a goal is to move backward.
Go to discussionDOJ Tried To Get Names And Social Security Numbers Of Trans Kids
(Huff Post) The Justice Department has demanded that a Philadelphia hospital hand over a broad swath of information related to gender-affirming care for minors, including individual patient names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, according to a copy of a subpoena that became public in a court filing Monday. The DOJ issued a subpoena to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in June. It requested doctors’ emails, texts, social media and Zoom recordings dating to January 2020, long before any state legislature in the United States had passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
Go to discussionDeportations Will Hurt Native-Born Americans
(Huff Post) Famed economist Paul Krugman has warned how President Donald Trump’s administration is “about to ICE the economy” with its ramped-up crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Concerns about “the economic impact of mass deportations are definitely second-tier” to the fear created by the expansion of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Krugman acknowledged in the latest edition of his newsletter published on Wednesday.
Go to discussionTo defeat Trumpism, Democrats must speak the language of pain
(Salon) Across the country, many Americans are screaming in frustration: “The rent is too high.” From Boston to New York to Florida to Michigan to California, affordable housing is increasingly difficult to find. The U.S. is in a housing crisis; rents keep rising while incomes stagnate or fall. Since 2019, home prices have surged by 60%. Recent polls have shown the depth and breadth of economic anxiety and anger Americans are feeling about the economy.
Go to discussionSeven months in, Trump's revolving door reaching full swing
(Politico) Donald Trump was emphatic on the campaign trail in 2016: If he made it into office, he would “drain the swamp” with an expansive ethics package cracking down on lobbying. Most of those proposals quickly went by the wayside. On the campaign trail again almost a year ago, Trump decried Washington’s revolving door as a “big problem.” Now, barely a half-year into his second administration, a handful of senior White House aides are already heading for the exits — and right through the revolving door between the federal government and K Street, where they’re lining up cushy lobbying gigs.
Go to discussionWitkoff delivered Russian medal from Putin to family of American who was killed fighting for Russia in 2024
(CNN) US special envoy Steve Witkoff delivered a Russian medal to the grieving family of an American who was killed fighting for Russia in 2024, a senior administration official told CNN. Earlier this month, when Russian president Vladimir Putin gave the medal – the Order of Courage – to Witkoff, some observers saw it as something of a diplomatic dig, given that the American who was killed, Michael Gloss, 21, was the son of a senior CIA official. But that wasn’t how Witkoff saw it.
Go to discussionFBI warns of Russian hacks targeting US critical infrastructure
(Reuters) Hackers associated with some of Russia’s most prolific cyber espionage units have over the last year been leveraging a vulnerability in older Cisco software to target thousands of networking devices associated with critical infrastructure IT systems, the FBI and Cisco said on Wednesday. Hackers working within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 16 are extracting “device configuration information en masse, which can later be leveraged as needed based on then-current strategic goals and interests of the Russian government,” Cisco Talos researchers Sara McBroom and Brandon White wrote in a threat advisory published to the company’s blog.
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