Regional Industry & News

Rs may gerrymander, but it won’t save them - Thursday GNR.Good Day, Gnuville!I am sitting in for Featheredsprite today.Let’s get started with some words of wisdom from Robert Arnold: 🤡 Republicans in Disarray 👿 Listen, these are pretty unnerving times and nobody here is saying it’s going to be easy to push back against these desperate, corrupt Republicans and their gold-plated leader.But they are desperate and the blatant election rigging is a sign of their weakness and fear, not of strength.They know they are running out of time and they are going for broke.It’s awful and ugly – and we all knew it would come down to this race to the end – hopefully the end of the Republican party and their benighted leadership.To that end, we need to muster every ounce of strength we can, and encourage everyone we know to do the same.We have a huge election to win.And the situation is not all dark.Read on: Gerrymandering can’t fix the GOP’s voter problem, Russell Payne, Salon, May 12, 2026.In the past two weeks, Republicans have racked up major legal wins that stand to benefit the party in its quest to insulate itself from a midterm cycle that’s expected to wipe out their House majority.The problem for Republicans is that, even in favorably drawn districts, they still need to convince people to vote for them — and that task is getting harder by the day.✂️ The combination of the Callais decision and the Virginia Supreme Court ruling have, in the course of a few weeks, dramatically darkened the midterm picture for Democrats, who are aiming to retake the House and Senate in November.✂️ Even considering the new maps, however, Skelley said that in his estimation, Democrats are still favored to retake control of the House in November.What Republicans have managed to do with their redistricting push was to raise their baseline of seats they can be expected to control, which will likely chip away at any incoming Democratic majority, but isn’t likely to prevent it, at least if current trends continue.“I do think Republicans, in the wake of all this, are in a better position to potentially hold on, but because the national environment is just pretty bad for the GOP,” Skelley said.“But in midterm years, in conditions like this, we would tend to see a sort of swing toward Democrats that’s large enough to overcome this.” GOP warned new midterm lifeline is actually a ticking time bomb, Travis Gettys, Raw Story, May 13, 2026.“The redistricting war Trump had begun, which had been looking like Napoleon’s doomed invasion of Russia, suddenly swung back in Republicans’ favor,” Brown wrote.“The U.S.Supreme Court opened the door to a rush of racial redistricting across the South, and Virginia’s Supreme Court reversed Democrats’ gains in Virginia.The resulting Republican gerrymandering is acting as a superglue binding the GOP’s splintering hopes for surviving the midterms, but that gerrymandering leaves the party as fragile as ever in the long-term and destined to fall apart once Democrats can fully respond in kind.”✂️ “But in putting off any reckoning of how Trump’s policies have hurt their constituents, lawmakers are putting a larger target on their backs for further down the road,” Brown argued.“If they manage to retain the House in the face of the growing backlash, then they likely won’t have enough new seats to move past the infighting and backbiting that’s currently denying them legislative momentum.”✂️ “In following Trump’s lead, the Republican Party has chosen short-term gratification over long-term growth and stability,” Brown wrote.“By seeking to silence all but their most fervent supporters, they have essentially told the rest of their voters that their priorities don’t matter.It’s hard to see that message drawing huge turnout this fall or convincing voters to hold their nose and support their incumbent.The fault lines that gerrymandering have temporarily fused together are still there, and still vulnerable to cracking apart.” Meanwhile, they are turning on each other: DHS Watchdog Launches Audit Into Noem’s Warehouse Purchases, Jackie Llanos, Notus, May 13, 2026.Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s $38 billion program would have housed more than 92,000 immigrants in retrofitted warehouses, a proposal that sparked multiple lawsuits and bipartisan backlash from lawmakers.Markwayne Mullin paused the project when he took over as secretary, but the DHS inspector general is now launching an inquiry into the warehouses the agency had already purchased.The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.✂️ “As far as the physical plant renovations of a warehouse to get it operational, it’s complicated, and then the operational implications of how you manage such a facility, particularly a large-scale facility, is going to be concerning,” said George Zoley, executive chairman of the Geo Group.DHS had already retreated in some states after Republicans, including New Hampshire Gov.Kelly Ayotte and Sen.Roger Wicker of Mississippi, criticized the plans.Lawmakers who otherwise support cracking down on illegal immigration pushed back after local leaders raised concerns about safety and strain on rural communities’ infrastructure.The audit is the latest probe into DHS actions under Noem.The Office of the Inspector General is also investigating the handling of contracts last year, including former senior adviser Corey Lewandowski’s role in the process.Investigators searched the office of Kara Voorhies, a contractor who worked closely with Lewandowski, The Wall Street Journal reported in March.And speaking of this regime’s concentration camps, here’s a little good news.The terrible one in the Florida Everglades is going to close.Who would have expected that TFG would renege on the 60 billion he had promised the state to fund it?Oh, that’s right – just everyone in Gnuville, that’s who!: ‘Failed experiment in human suffering’: Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail to close, Richard Luscombe, the Guardian, May 13, 2026.An alliance of environmental groups and immigration advocates has welcomed what looks to be the imminent closure of Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigration jail in the remote Florida Everglades celebrated by Donald Trump for its harsh conditions.State officials told vendors at the facility on Tuesday to prepare for a breakdown of the tented camp beginning next month, the New York Times reported, citing its ongoing cost.It was revealed in March that Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, spent $1.2m a day opening and operating the camp that quickly attracted headlines for the brutal treatment of detainees, and had essentially given up on a promised $608m rebate from the Trump administration.Neil Gorsuch’s right-wing book tour blows up in his face, Sophia Tesfaye, Salon, May 12, 2026.It all stems from Gorsuch’s third book and his first for children, which was co-written with a former law clerk and released in early May ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday.In interview after interview, he has described the United States as a “creedal nation” rooted not on race, ancestry or religion but on the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence: equality, natural rights and self-government.“Our nation is not founded on a religion,” Gorsuch told Reason.“It’s not based on a common culture, even, or heritage.It’s based on those ideas.” The response from his intended audience was instructive.Steve Cortes, a former adviser to Donald Trump and JD Vance, proclaimed on X that it is “amazing how wrong” Gorsuch is and that America is “clearly a Christian nation founded on the principles of Western Civilization, with the culture and mores of Europe.” Fox News’ Will Cain challenged the justice to a debate on the topic.Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation — an institution that has spent decades positioning itself as the intellectual backbone of American conservatism and birthed Project 2025 — wrote that Gorsuch’s view was “completely divorced from our founding