Republicans’ 11th-Hour Gerrymandering Plot Flops in Another Red State

After Democrats snagged a likely House seat in Salt Lake City County, Utah, in February, the GOP was furious. Republicans control all four House districts in Utah, and despite about 40 percent of residents voting Democrat in 2024, they considered losing even one unacceptable.

The new maps led to GOP lawmakers launching a petition to try to put the anti-gerrymandering law that had created the Democratic district back on the ballot, where it could be overturned.

We can now safely say the petition has flopped.

But it was close! The Republican group behind the petition spent $4.35 million on “professional signature gathering,” per Deseret News, and recruited powerful allies such as Turning Point Action, Donald Trump Jr., and the president himself.

The petition required valid signatures from 8 percent of voters across the state—141,000 at minimum. The GOP cleared this mark easily, attaining roughly 170,000.

But the petition also needed at least 8 percent of signatures in 26 out of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts, to show that voters across the state wanted the issue brought to the ballot. It was here that Republicans failed. After a nonprofit backing the new maps, Better Boundaries, convinced about 7,000 voters to remove their names from the petition, it fell just short of the 26-district threshold.

The redistricting wars were kicked off by President Trump’s call last June for state leaders to gerrymander their maps to benefit Republicans. It’s crucial that Democrats battle back through their own gerrymandering if they are to regain the House and Senate in the midterms. Since 2025, Republicans have redistricted in an attempt to add seats in Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri. Dems have countered through redistricting in California and now, officially, in Utah.

Trump may add an extra layer of complication to the midterms by suppressing the vote before them and attempting to overturn the results if his party loses. We can only hope the public’s general lack of support for the Trump administration will be strong enough that Democrats can pull through.

The White House is not only celebrating but taking credit for the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in the 2028 Olympic Games.

The IOC announced Thursday that eligibility for female category Olympic events will be “limited to biological females,” determined by genetic testing. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt immediately took to X to celebrate the news. 

“You cannot change your sex,” she wrote. “President Trump’s Executive Order protecting women’s sports made this happen!”

In February 2025, Trump passed the executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which banned trans women from competing in women’s sports at all levels, and vowed to rescind  funds from any programs that refused to do so in the name of “safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” The order also pressured professional sports associations to adopt similar bans. 

Though it’s an issue that affects very few Americans, trans women’s participation in sports has become a fixation for Republicans who claim to support women’s rights, all the while passing abortion bans and limiting access to health care.

In reality, trans people make up about 1 percent to 2 percent of the U.S. population, and just 0.0002 percent of college athletes. Just 0.001 percent of Olympic athletes identify as trans. The political preoccupation with trans athletes is nothing but a scapegoat to distract from the many real inequities women and LGBTQ people face on a daily basis. 

Amid volatile debate, the IOC’s stance was highly anticipated. IOC President and former Olympic swimmer Kristy Coventry said the decision is “based on science and has been led by medical experts.” Trans women with reduced testosterone levels were previously allowed to compete. 

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry said in a statement. “It would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

In the 20 years that trans women have been allowed to compete at the Olympics, there has been only one trans woman Olympian (New Zealand weightlifter Laura Hubbard in 2021), and she did not win a medal.

On Wednesday, the U.S., Israel, and Argentina were the only countries to reject the formal recognition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade—which saw millions of Africans kidnapped, trafficked, brutalized, and dehumanized for centuries—as the “gravest crime against humanity.” The United Nations resolution also called for reparations, and was adopted with 123 votes in favor and 52 abstentions, in addition to the three “no” votes.

“The trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans [was] the gravest crime against humanity by reason of the definitive break in world history, scale, duration, systemic nature, brutality and enduring consequences that continue to structure the lives of all people through racialized regimes of labour, property and capital,” the Ghana-backed resolution read.

The “no” votes are unsurprising. The U.S. used slave labor to develop into a world power, treating Black people as chattel and denying them de facto and de jure basic rights in the process. Israel is currently one of the most genocidal nations on earth. And Argentina—a country that has attempted to erase Black people from its history for centuries—is currently ruled by the far-right regime of President Javier Milei.

Dozens of European countries also abstained, perhaps even more cowardly than an outright “no” given the leading roles that countries like the U.K., Portugal, France, Austria, and Denmark all played in the slave trade, building their wealth off the backs of enslaved African labor. If reparations were to be approved, they’d be the ones paying up.

“Every part of this feels like an Onion meme,” geopolitical content creator Eric Hovagim wrote on X. “Israel + US are pro slavery, EU too chicken to say they also love slavery, AND the resolution isn’t even legally binding. Pathetic.”

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama also criticized the United States for its present role in perpetuating the lasting harms of the slave trade.

“Here in the United States, Black history courses are being removed from school curriculum. Schools have been mandated to stop teaching students about the truth of slavery, segregation, and racism in American history courses. Books about those topics are being banned in public schools and libraries,” Mahama said. “These policies are becoming a template for other governments, as well as some private institutions. At the very least, they are slowly normalizing the erasure.”

Iran’s retaliatory strikes have rendered many of America’s 13 military bases in the Gulf region “all but uninhabitable,” forcing U.S. military service members to work remotely from hotels and office spaces, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Within the first two weeks of the war, Iran’s attacks on U.S. military bases caused an estimated $800 million in damage, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a BBC analysis.

When the war began, there were close to 40,000 troops in the region. Now some of them have been removed as far as Europe, while many struggle to prosecute a work-from-home war.

“Yes, we have the ability to set up expedient operation centers, but you’re absolutely going to lose capability,” Master Sgt. Wes J. Bryant, a retired Special Operations targeting specialist in the U.S. Air Force, told the Times. “You can’t just put all that equipment on the top of a hotel, for example. Some of it is unwieldy.”

The mass displacement of thousands of troops raises questions about what preparation, if any, the U.S. made for retaliatory strikes from Iran. By Donald Trump’s own admission, he was caught completely by surprise that Iran struck back against other Gulf nations.

U.S. military bases in Kuwait have suffered the most extensive damage. In Port Shuaiba, a makeshift military operations center was struck, killing six U.S. service members. Iranian drones and missiles have also targeted Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring.

In Bahrain, a one-way attack drone damaged communications equipment at the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama. In Saudi Arabia, missiles and drones struck five refueling planes at the Prince Sultan Air Base. In Qatar, Iran targeted Al Udeid Air Base.

Iranian officials have accused the U.S. troops holed up in hotel rooms of using civilians as human shields.

“We are forced to identify and target the Americans,” the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a message to people in the region, according to Tasnim News Agency. “Therefore, it is better not to shelter them in hotels and to stay away from their locations.”

Bill Maher will be the twenty-seventh recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor despite the White House’s earlier claims that no such thing would happen.

Last week, The Atlantic reported that the openly racist, misogynist, and astonishingly unfunny comedian would receive the honor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts before it shuts down in July, following Trump’s orders.

The White House wasn’t having it. After the report was published, Trump’s team called the Kennedy Center and “made clear that Maher would not receive the prize,” and the Kennedy Center confirmed that the decision had been reversed, sources told The Atlantic.

“This is fake news. Bill Maher will NOT be getting this award,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt then said in a statement.

“Literally FAKE NEWS,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X.

Well, despite that back and forth, Maher—who once gleefully used the n-word on live television—will in fact receive the award on June 28, the Kennedy Center announced Thursday. The ceremony will premiere exclusively on Netflix at a later date.

“Thank you to the Mark Twain people: I just had the award explained to me, and apparently it’s like an Emmy, except I win,” the 70-year-old comedian said in a statement. “I’d just like to say that it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain,” he attempted to joke.

Trump and Maher have had an on-again-off-again relationship for years. Maher was openly critical of the president during his first term but then had dinner with him at the White House in 2025. He described the president as “gracious and measured” and a “possible friend,” which sent him plummeting from what little grace he had left in the comedy world.

By February however, Trump turned on Maher, calling him a “highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT” and a “total waste of time.” It’s perhaps one of the only agreeable takes the president has ever had.

Donald Trump admitted that he is referring to the Iran war as a “military operation” to circumvent the Constitution.

In remarks at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner Wednesday night, the president joked: “I won’t use the word ‘war,’ because they say if you use the word ‘war,’ that’s maybe not a good thing to do. They don’t like the word ‘war’ because you are supposed to get approval. So I will use the word ‘military operation.’”

Article 1 of the Constitution, which created Congress in the first place, gives the legislative branch the sole power to declare war. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 further clarifies this, requiring the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing American forces into a conflict.

But there’s an easy loophole here, first exploited by Harry Truman in 1950 to send U.S. troops to Korea—just call your plan a “police action,” or a “military operation.” Whatever the hell you want, really, except an act of war. Then you don’t need those sniveling nerds to approve anything!

The War Powers Resolution failed to fix this loophole, and Congress still hasn’t officially declared war since World War II. Our country has sent hundreds of thousands of troops to kill and maim in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran. But for all the death, memorials, and flag-waving, none of those wars technically took place.

Trump flat-out admitting he’s doing this—in front of GOP representatives, no less!—should be a slap in the face to any lawmaker who claims to believe in the Constitution. But besides Senator Rand Paul and Representatives Warren Davidson and Thomas Massie, every single congressional Republican has rolled over and allowed Trump to continue bombing at will. May their children never see such “military operations” in the flesh.

It appears that the war on Iran—the one President Trump keeps saying is already over—is so costly that the Pentagon is weighing taking weapons and resources from Ukraine to use in the Middle East.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that the U.S. may divert air defense interceptor missiles specifically from Ukraine while their stockpile depletes—something European leaders have expressed concern over.

“They are really burning through munitions, so there are questions now about how much they will keep providing through the deal,” an anonymous diplomat told the Post.

While this has yet to occur, the fact that shifting weapons is even an option does not inspire any kind of confidence in the successful end of the war in Iran. Thousands of Iranian and Lebanese civilians have been either killed or displaced, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, and rumors of a boots on the ground initiative grow stronger by the day. Meanwhile, the war and the man who started it are becoming less and less popular. From Ukraine’s perspective, Russia has not eased up in any way on its attacks, and won’t anytime soon. The air defense interceptors will be sorely missed.

President Donald Trump raged against the filibuster and his fellow Republicans Thursday morning.

In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump urged Republican lawmakers to eliminate the dastardly filibuster once and for all. Republicans have previously fought to maintain the filibuster, which grants significant power to the Senate’s minority, but Trump has repeatedly demanded they get rid of it as part of a deal to end the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Trump shared an op-ed written by Senator Ron Johnson for the Daily Wire in which the Wisconsin Republican argued that he’d seen enough of the dysfunctional Senate to know that they needed a “paradigm shift.”

“In light of the profound dysfunction described above, I’m not sure how things could get much worse by ending the filibuster,” Johnson wrote. It was a half-hearted argument, but clearly, Trump was inspired.

“When is ‘enough, enough’ for our Republican Senators,” Trump wrote in a separate post. “There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something which the Lunatic Democrats will do on day one, if they ever get the chance.

“TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again. Also, add the complete, all five items, SAVE AMERICA ACT items,” Trump added.

“TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!” he wrote in another post.

In yet another post, Trump wrote: “Chuck Schumer, a desperate, crippled politician, who has lost control of the Radical Left Democrats, will make a deal now because he thinks that if he doesn’t, Republicans will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, something which they should do whether he makes a deal or not!!!”

The Justice Department has reached an agreement to pay President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn about $1.2 million, after he sued the Department of Justice for what he claimed was an unlawful prosecution.

The brief two-page settlement filed Wednesday does not include how much the settlement is worth, or any details of the agreement, but AP and ABC sources report the sum is roughly $1.2 million.  

In 2023, Flynn sued the DOJ for $50 million despite being charged in 2017 with providing false information to the FBI during its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The former army general claimed he was “unlawfully and politically” targeted during the investigation because of his association with Trump. 

Flynn’s own actions say otherwise. In 2017, he admitted to lying to the FBI, and twice pleaded guilty to the charges against him. He withdrew the plea in 2020, however, citing the government’s “vindictiveness” and “bad faith.” 

Along with lying to the FBI, Flynn is known for pleading the Fifth in court when asked if the violence on January 6, 2021, was justified, and if he believes in a peaceful transfer of power. 

Less than a year after Flynn withdrew his guilty plea, Trump quietly granted him clemency. It was one of many astonishingly corrupt pardons that have come to define the president’s time in office, and one that showed that if you commit a felony on his behalf, you’ll likely be protected from all consequences.

As if protection from prosecution wasn’t enough, Flynn will now be compensated with taxpayer dollars for his unwavering loyalty to Trump. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement lied about having the authority to arrest hundreds of lawful asylum-seekers and individuals seeking citizenship at immigration courts.

In a court filing late Tuesday evening, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Oestericher of the Southern District of New York revealed that a memo the government had relied on to support the arrest of hundreds of immigrants appearing at immigration courts “does not and has never authorized” civil immigration enforcement actions at those courts.

The revelation was part of a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and various other civil rights groups, challenging the government’s practice of dismissing asylum and citizenship cases and snatching law-abiding immigrants en masse at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, as well as other immigration courts across the country.

The prosecutor wrote that the government would withdraw several briefs that had relied on the memo, as well as certain statements made in oral arguments in federal court in September. Oestreicher wrote that a previous order from U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel would likely need to be “reconsidered and re-briefed.” In September, Castel ruled that ICE could make arrests in courthouses and also made it harder for judges to dismiss cases.

Oestericher claimed that the mistake came from ICE, not the Department of Justice, which has made more than a few immigration law gaffes in the past several months.

“The undersigned were specifically informed by ICE that the 2025 ICE Guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests. In addition, we discussed with and obtained the approval of assigned ICE counsel before filing every brief in this case and making any oral representations to the Court and Plaintiffs,” Oestericher wrote.

Former New York City comptroller and current congressional candidate Brad Lander, who was brutally detained by ICE in June during his campaign for New York City mayor, while attempting to escort an immigrant out of a courthouse in lower Manhattan, slammed ICE for misleading the courts.

“According to documents filed this morning by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, ICE has been lying for a year—not only to the public, but to the courts and to prosecutors—about being authorized to make arrests at 26 Federal Plaza and other immigration courts,” Lander wrote on X Wednesday.

“This is genuinely a bombshell. All courthouse arrests should cease immediately. There should be a Congressional investigation & civil rights actions for every illegal abduction of immigrants trying to follow the rules and appear in court.”