Month: November 2025

I’ve written about the terrible Hastert rule before, and a notable exception that put Speaker Mike Johnson in power..

It’s still a normal part of politics. Not all politics. Only Republican politics. Here’s the latest on extending Obamacare subsidies:

And Speaker Mike Johnson, who has called them “a boondoggle,” has shown little enthusiasm for bringing up such a measure in the House, where Republicans typically refuse to consider any legislation that does not have the backing of the majority of their members.

The Democrats shut down the government over this (at least nominally), there are enough GOP supporters to pass it, but it won’t come to a vote because of this ridiculous rule (which isn’t a rule). Great way to run a country.

Federal Court Blocks Texas’ Republican-Friendly Congressional Map

Try to follow the background: Trump asks Texas to skip ahead five years and do re-districting now, to pick up five additional seats for the GOP. Blatantly corrupt. He does the same for some other states. Democrats freak out. California passes a referendum to do their own redistricting to match Texas.

As of today, the Texas redistricting is illegal. Because the Trump people screwed up and used race as their rationale, and Texas followed that guidance. Not much is still disallowed in redistricting, but race is. Meanwhile, California has passed it’s bill, so the net impact would be +5 seats to Democrats. Oops. As usual, Trump and MAGA are an bewildering mixture of rank corruption and pathetic incompetence.

“Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”

Democracy didn’t win. The Democrats did. Democracy took yet another kick in the nethers.

I mean, c’mon. This insanity is normal:

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement that “the Big Beautiful Map was entirely legal,” using Mr. Trump’s nickname for the Texas redistricting. Mr. Paxton said he expected the Supreme Court “to uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”

He’s right. Aside from the racial component, Texas can do what it wants. It can blatantly rig the districts so one party gets an advantage. This is the core problem. That seems so obviously unconstitutional, yet there is no bar to it and Paxton has no shame in saying Texas should be allowed to rig it’s elections however it wants to.

All is as I said last year. Same thing. Just disgusting.