Gavin Newsom’s Redistricting Plan Is Pissing Off California GOP

California’s Supreme Court has struck down the state GOP’s attempt to delay Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan, clearing the runway for the measure to reach the November referendum vote. 

The GOP lawmakers who filed the challenge argued that Newsom had moved forward too quickly, and violated the state’s independent redistricting commission. 

On Wednesday, the justices disagreed.

Newsom’s plan, which is contingent upon Texas passing its initial redistricting effort, has some California Republicans incensed.

“We have a governor, we have political insiders, we have legislators who are breaking California’s Constitution by drawing congressional maps behind closed doors, with no transparency,” California state Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Wednesday. 

“The new maps that Democrats in your state want to pass … they include a trigger, that they would only go into effect if Texas’s redistricted maps go into effect.… Do you hold Texas Republicans at all responsible for what you’re facing in your state?” Keilar asked. 

“Well, that actually—Governor Newsom said that this would only happen if Texas redrew their maps, however that’s not what the bill language they presented said,” Vallardares said. “It says if any state redraws their maps, that this would go into an effect.” 

“OK. But that’s the effect of this. There is a trigger. This isn’t happening in a vacuum. There’s a contingency. And in this case, it is Texas. So let’s just be clear. If it says other states, well, it’s Texas,” Keilar said. “So do you have any criticism from members of your own party in Texas?” 

Vallardares avoided the question, instead insisting that what Newsom was doing was wholly illegal.

“If you can’t criticize Republicans in Texas for their approach, which is so different from the one that you’re advocating for in California, how should voters see California Republicans … opposed to a move like this only when it doesn’t favor them?” the CNN reporter asked.

“Listen, I was elected, and the 120 legislators that were elected this past November in California, to uphold the California Constitution. This isn’t a Republican issue. This isn’t a Democrat issue. This is an issue of political elitists in California silencing and taking the power away from California voters,” Valladares said, once again avoiding Keilar’s question. 

California’s redistricting referendum is set for November 4.  

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Alina Habba has been illegally serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey and blocked her from prosecuting two criminal defendants who’d challenged her appointment.

“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” wrote U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann in a 77-page court filing. Brann wrote that Habba has been acting unlawfully as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey since July 1.

Last month, New Jersey federal judges decided to fire Habba, refusing to vote to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, but the Trump administration found a loophole to keep its thoughtless foot soldier in place without Senate confirmation. After it fired the first assistant U.S. attorney who was approved to replace her, and then appointed Habba to that position, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer found herself as acting U.S. attorney once again.

Brann’s decision was a response to a motion from defendants Julien Giraud Jr., Julien Giraud III, and Ceasar Humberto Pina.

The Girauds were indicted on three counts, including drug and firearm charges, in November, and Pina was indicted in a separate case in July on six counts, including charges for wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering. The Girauds and Pina had submitted motions arguing that Habba’s appointment was illegal.

The judge granted the Girauds’ motion to disqualify Habba from participating in their prosecution, and Pina won his plea, in part. Brann wrote that because Habba had signed Pina’s indictment on July 7, the indictment was “presumptively defective”—though the indictment would not be dismissed.

“The Court will stay this decision and its effects pending the resolution of any appellate Proceedings,” Brann concluded, meaning that Habba would stay in her position while the government appealed the decision. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal the ruling in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Washington is just the beginning of the Trump administration’s broader plan to occupy American cities.

Vice President JD Vance casually revealed Thursday that the White House “hopes” that cities across the country will follow the capital’s lead—that is to say, hand over the reins of their local law enforcement and welcome the National Guard into their city limits.

“Do you see the administration putting soldiers in the city of Atlanta?” asked a reporter from WABE radio in Atlanta.

“Well look, what we’ve done is we have focused on Washington, D.C., because it’s a federal city under our jurisdiction,” Vance said. “But we certainly hope that whether it’s Atlanta or anywhere else, people are going to look around and say, ‘We don’t have to live like this.’”

The vice president then framed the nation’s capital as a city overrun by violent crime, projecting an image of America in which authorities would effectively be allowed to snatch “bad guys” off the streets without protest. In actuality, many of the undocumented targets of the Trump administration have not been criminals, and have been forced into deportation proceedings without systemic consideration of their constitutional rights.

On Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the administration had made nearly 400 arrests in Washington since the beginning of the operation. At least 160 of those arrests were undocumented immigrants, reported ABC News.

“We hope the people see what we’re doing in Washington, D.C., and follow our example all across the country,” Vance added.

The Ohio-born politico then boasted about Washington’s supposedly new low crime rate, disregarding the fact that violent crime in the nation’s capital has been on a downward trend since 2024. Confusingly, FBI Director Kash Patel used the accurate data to pat the Trump administration on the back during a press conference last week, claiming that the “plummeting” homicide numbers were thanks to the president’s policies.

Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to Washington and federalized the capital’s police department last week to combat what he described as a crime-riddled hellscape. To justify the government infringement, the president pointed to rising crime rates, immigrant populations, and homelessness—though the figures he used were from 2023, before violent crime plummeted across the country.

Donald Trump’s authoritarian takeover is looking more and more like a senseless stunt made for television.

While speaking to conservative radio host Todd Starnes Thursday, Trump claimed that he planned to do a ride-along with law enforcement in Washington, D.C., as they carried out his crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital.

“I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. So we’re going to do a job,” Trump said. “The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job.”

The White House said Thursday that Trump was expected to travel by motorcade to the district’s neighborhoods, where he would meet with police officers and National Guard troops play-acting at the Herculean task of bringing crime down in a city where it’s already dropping.

Last week, Trump invoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, and deployed scores of federal forces and National Guardsmen to the city, giving them license to do “whatever the hell they want.” Six Republican-led states are sending even more troops—even though their states’ crime rates aren’t much better.

So far, it seems the results of Trump’s crackdown have been almost laughable—unless you count Fox News Bret Baier being pulled over by police as a success.

And the Trump administration’s attempts to sell its fascist takeover have been similarly lame. Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller were practically booed out of Washington’s Union Station Wednesday while visiting with National Guardsmen who were stationed there. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on shiny new Trump-ified vehicles that they showcased in a weird recruitment video. And the White House posted a dramatic video documenting the arrest of a man who threw a sandwich at a federal officer. This is what our tax dollars are going toward now—making good TV.

While Trump’s takeover may be massive, there is speculation from law enforcement and residents alike that it won’t make anyone safer. But in Trump’s world, it only matters how something looks, not how it actually is. This ride-along, if it does happen, would surely be no exception.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump declared “total victory” over New York Attorney General Letitia James Thursday after a state appeals court tossed his bank fraud disgorgement.

In several lengthy Truth Social posts, the president incorrectly claimed that the court had voted “5 to 0” in his favor (it did not) and that “every single dollar was thrown out” (which is also untrue).

Trump also inanely suggested that the civil trial was yet another example of election interference, and that the attorney general’s case was the brainchild of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before,” the president wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post. “This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT.”

The president also posted a video of a still image of himself in court, set to DJ Khaled’s song “All I Do Is Win.”

What actually happened in the New York appeals court was, nonetheless, a major coup for Trump. Three judges on a five-judge panel voted to throw out Trump’s $500 million disgorgement Thursday, claiming the resulting penalty for the Trump Organization’s bank fraud case was an “excessive fine.”

At least two judges on the court agreed with the original ruling that found Trump and his codefendants liable for fraud, noting that the injunctive relief ordered by the presiding judge was “well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture.” However, the final page of the order stated that “three out of the five members of this panel clearly believe that the judgment should be vacated,” on the basis that the “attorney general has not yet proven her case.”

In her own statement, James underscored that the court had still affirmed that “Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud,” and that her office would appeal the ruling.

“The court upheld the injunctive relief we won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization officers’ ability to do business in New York,” she said. “It should not be lost to history: Yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”

The Israeli Defense Force’s own database has confirmed what has been obvious for almost two years now: The overwhelming majority of Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza are civilians, not Hamas fighters, as Israel has claimed.

On Thursday, +972 Magazine reported that recently declassified documents reveal five in six people killed in the genocide in Gaza were noncombatant civilians—around 83 percent. Israel has stated that it killed or “probably killed” 8,900 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters.

The total reported death toll in Gaza is around 62,000, although the true number is thought to be much higher.

While the IDF did not object to +972’s report when it came out, it told The Guardian that “figures presented in the article are incorrect.”

These numbers, though, appear to accurately reflect the indiscriminate killing campaign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched on Gaza after the attacks of October 7, 2023. Israel had occupied Gaza and subjected Palestinians to violence for many decades before the war began.

Even the IDF’s own soldiers admit to exaggerating the number of Hamas deaths in the war.

“People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death,” one source on the ground told The Guardian. “If I had listened to the brigade, I would have come to the conclusion that we had killed 200% of Hamas operatives in the area.”

Israel has always claimed it was killing militants in order to justify the bombings, aid-drop assassinations, targeted killings of more than 250 journalists, and a brutal famine.

It’s worth noting that nearly 20,000 of the Palestinians killed in Gaza have been children.

Itzhak Brik, a retired Israeli general, said serving Israeli soldiers were aware that politicians exaggerated the Hamas toll.

Brik advised Prime Minister Netanyahu at the start of the war, and is now among his most strident critics. “There is absolutely no connection between the numbers that are announced and what is actually happening,” Brik told The Guardian. “It is just one big bluff.”

Escalating its mission to eliminate so-called “woke” content from the Smithsonian, Trump’s team has just publicly identified artwork it hopes to censor.

On Thursday, the White House’s official rapid response X account shared a post casting aspersions on a Rigoberto A. Gonzalez painting titled Refugees Crossing the Border Wall Into South Texas.

The piece depicts a family of four in Baroque style: two parents with a young boy and a baby, at a ladder leaning against the southern border wall. A finalist for the National Portrait Gallery’s 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, the piece appeared in that Smithsonian Museum from 2022 to 2023, according to the competition’s website.

The White House social team, seemingly irked by this humanizing portrayal of people demonized by the Trump administration, accused the work of “commemorating the act of illegally crossing the ‘exclusionary’ border.”

“This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is ‘OUT OF CONTROL,’” the post says—quoting from a recent Truth Social post in which the president lamented that the Smithsonian overemphasizes negative aspects of America, such as “how bad Slavery was.”

In a Thursday press release, the White House listed Gonzalez’s painting with other supposedly damning proof that the institution is in the grip of wokeness, including an American History Museum collection on LGBTQ+ history.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who was previously criticized for acting like a Russian asset, is planning to gut the agency responsible for monitoring influence from foreign governments.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a fact sheet saying it would begin “refocusing functions” within the supposedly “redundant” Foreign Malign Influence Center, alleging that it had been used by the Biden administration to “justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.”

ODNI cited FMIC coordinating with Twitter, Facebook, and Google on the companies’ responses to the 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was removed from several platforms over government concerns that it was part of a Russian disinformation operation. Since it was first reported on, the laptop has been proven to be authentic, but many of Republicans’ allegations that it tied the Bidens to corrupt foreign business dealings have not been.

ODNI claimed that FMIC had developed a “hyper-focus” on election-related issues after a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to see Donald Trump enter the White House. In the last month, Gabbard has launched a campaign to discredit this report, claiming that the Obama administration had sown a false narrative about Putin supporting Trump, even though Putin has openly admitted that he’d preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton.

ODNI’s efforts to “refocus” FMIC are particularly ironic considering that Gabbard has a history of foisting foreign misinformation on the American public herself. Gabbard previously defended Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, claiming that the U.S. had provoked Russian aggression, and that Ukraine housed U.S.-funded biolabs that were developing secret bioweapons—a piece of foreign state propaganda that earned her the reputation of being a Russian asset.

More recently, she parroted the conclusions of Russian spies during a White House press briefing, claiming that Clinton had experienced “psycho-emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,” a rumor that was based on debunked Russian intelligence.

ODNI’s fact sheet claimed that “refocusing FMIC’s mission” would save taxpayers at least $7 million per year. The massive restructuring would also refocus the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. Gabbard has announced plans to cut her department’s staff by 50 percent and reduce its annual budget by $700 million.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is boasting about—well, not doing much of anything in regard to gun seizures in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve now made a total of 630 arrests and seized 86 illegal guns in DC. 53 arrests were made yesterday, plus 24 ICE arrests and 10 guns taken off the streets. Our incredible US Marshals even helped recover a missing child,” Bondi wrote Thursday morning on X. “Our mission to make DC safe again isn’t slowing down.”

Bondi’s right about one thing: The mission isn’t “slowing down.” It’s not moving anywhere at all. Law enforcement is taking guns off the street at around the same rate it was last year, even with the increased show of force from the federal government.

“DC police records show they recovered 2,895 firearms in 2024—works out to an average of about 8 per day & ~100 over two weeks,” wrote Courthouse News’s Benjamin S. Weiss. “Federal gun seizures on track to be more or less the same in roughly that same period, per AG.”

This kind of blatant posturing has become commonplace in the past few weeks. The federal government wants so badly for us to believe that its influx of police has made the nation’s capital much safer, when in fact, it’s been a lot more show than substance.

President Donald Trump’s stance on Russia-Ukraine is as volatile and tricky to pin down as his stance on most other issues—which is to say, very.

The president took to Truth Social Thursday to chastise former President Joe Biden for, by his reckoning, holding Ukraine back in its war against Russia’s invasion.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” Trump wrote, likening Ukraine to a sports team that has “fantastic defense” but is “not allowed to play offense.”

“Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” the president continued. “How did that work out?”

The sentiment is a bit rich coming from someone who’s repeatedly threatened to withdraw support for the beleaguered U.S. ally.

The post also fails to mention Biden’s November 2024 decision to allow Ukraine to use American-made long-range ATACMS missiles to strike deeper into Russia—as well as Trump’s own response to the move: The then–president elect called it “very stupid” and “a big mistake.”

“I wouldn’t have had him do that,” Trump said during a December press conference. His eldest son, Donald Jr., accused Biden of ushering in World War III.

Last month, Trump reportedly asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike Russia’s two largest cities if provided long-range weaponry by the United States. He even considered providing such munitions, according to The Washington Post. But on July 15, he told reporters he was not willing to do so.

As the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it last month, military aid to Ukraine under Trump “has been on and off, then partially on, then on again, and then increased further.” And his rhetoric has been even more erratic than his actions.

Trump concluded the post with his favorite speculative, counterfactual boast: that the war would never have happened if he were president. “Interesting times ahead!!!” he added, before signing off.