The Texas chainsaw gerrymander

Alex Samuels of Daily Kos wrote on Monday that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is organizing a meeting to be held (was held?) in Wednesday to discuss how to respond to Republican led redistricting efforts. One of the attendees will be (was?) Eric Holder. He was Attorney General under Obama and leader of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group working to turn the redistricting process over to independent commissions. Here’s the quote of the day:

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, was more direct. “I honestly don’t see any debate in the party over this,” he told Axios. “If [Republicans] are going to continue with the Texas chainsaw gerrymander, we have no choice but to fight fire with fire and use whatever legislative resources we have ... to fight back.” He added, “Ultimately, we will fight fire with water. But nobody is on the side of unilateral disarmament ... we are not going to allow them to gerrymander us into oblivion.”

This is a minor incident but is has been fodder for cartoonists. On Tuesday Oliver Willis of Kos wrote that a man apparently drunk yelled at the federal officers in DC, repeatedly calling them “fascists,” then threw his sub sandwich at one of the officers. They chased and arrested him.

To be sure, it is a bad idea to throw food at law enforcement—but it also isn’t the sort of offense that requires such a response from federal agents. The arrest echoed the actions of the Trump-enabled agents, who on Sunday night responded en masse to a fender bender in Washington.

Rep. Jamie Raskin from neighboring Maryland had a few things to say:

“If he really cared about public safety in D.C., he would release the billion dollars he has held up—and the Republicans have held up—in funding for the local budget. That's all local money that they've put a hold on,” Raskin said. The capital has plenty of police and did not need the federal incursion. In fact, Washington has 4.7 police officers for every 1,000 residents—more than any other major American city, according to FBI data.

Today Annieli of the Kos community reported that Sean Dunn, the hoagie hurler, appeared in DC Superior Court on Monday. The judge released him. Prosecutors obtained a new arrest warrant from a federal court and on Wednesday 20 officers came to his home to arrest him. In court the judge said the felony charge is excessive and released Dunn pending trial. He did lose his Department of Justice job because of the incident. Some say hurling food is political violence. Others say it is a non-violent form of protest, a moral objection to politicians and controversial figures. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Toluse Olorunnipa of The Atlantic:

Trump would need buy-in from Washington’s police officers themselves to enforce the more aggressive form of policing he has requested. (Trump said yesterday that law enforcement should “knock the hell out of” suspected criminals, lock up more juveniles, and otherwise “do whatever the hell they want.”) He received a nod from MPD’s union, which has clashed with the city council over laws that aimed to reduce police misconduct and hold officers accountable for using excessive force. The union said yesterday that it welcomed the federalization and looked forward to working with the White House to tackle local crime. At the same time, the union asserted that any federal takeover should be temporary, and fissures have already emerged over staffing levels. The department said its force of about 3,200 officers, which has shrunk by about 600 over the past five years, is overstretched and needs more employees. Trump, who wants the department to make more arrests, disagrees, saying yesterday that the officers need only to have the right policies in place. “I was told today, ‘Sir, they want more police.’ I heard a number—3,500 police,” Trump said. “They said, ‘We have 3,500. We need more.’ You don’t need more. That’s so many. That’s like an army.”

A couple comments: This shows one of the problems of federalizing the police – he nasty guy has a much less regard for human rights. Mayor Muriel Bowser may tell her police chief and the officers they need to respect rights. But this sidelines her and her opinion. I’ve now included two quotes about the size of the DC police force, one says there are plenty and another saying there aren’t enough. I can’t tell which is true. David Blight of The New Republic:

In Richard J. Evans’s trilogy on the Third Reich, he shows indelibly how the Nazis achieved power because of eight key factors: One, the depth of economic depression and the ways it radicalized the electorate; two, widespread hatred for parliamentary democracy that had taken root for at least a decade all over Europe; three, the destruction of dissent and academic freedom in universities; four, the Nazis’ ritualistic “dynamism,” charisma, and propaganda machinery; five, the creation of a cloak of legality around so many of their tactics, stage by stage of the descent into fear, terror, and autocracy; six, the public manipulating and recrafting of history and forging Nazi mythology to fit their present purposes; seven, they knew whom and what they viscerally hated—communists and Jews—and made them the objects of insatiable grievance; eight, and finally, vicious street violence, with brownshirts in cities and student thugs on college campuses, mass arrests, detainment camps, and the Gestapo in nearly every town. All of these methods, mixed with the hideous dream of an Aryan racial utopia and a nationalism rooted in deep resentment of the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I, provided the Nazis the tools of tyranny. In 2025, our own autocratic governing party has already employed many, though not all, of these techniques. Thanks to a free press and many courts sustaining the rule of law, Trumpism has not yet mastered every authoritarian method. But it has launched a startlingly rapid and effective beginning to an inchoate American brand of fascism.

In the comments is a cartoon by Jack Ohman that shows a guy in a DC sweatshirt running after a National Guard tank saying, “Guys! I want to report a cabal of coup plotters, adjudicated sex offenders, convicted felons, and emoluments clause grifters holding America hostage!!!” A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Smit shows a couple facing a bunch of armed soldiers blocking the road. He says, “Gosh! Whatever’s in those Epstein files must be really, really bad!” Trilemma posted a cartoon of a woman on a park bench with the Capitol in the distant background. She is holding a loaf of bread and feeding the birds. Two officers are watching her and one says, “Command, we’ve got a Code Crumb, requesting immediate backup. I’ve got eyes on her... suspect is armed with... rye.” Paul Fell posted a cartoon and explaining that because of tariffs “nearly half of all U.S. parents had to go into debt for school supplies.” The cartoon shows a boy telling his teacher, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to complete the writing assignment. Yesterday was by brother’s turn to use the pencil.” A cartoon posted by paulpro and drawn by Dr. Seuss shows a sign explaining what the merchant is selling:

Get your Ostrich Bonnet here. Relieves Hitler Headache. Forget the Terrible News you’ve read. Your mind’s at ease in an ostrich head.

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box saying the nasty guy and Republicans are not able to cancel the 2026 or 2028 election. But...

Look, I don’t put anything past Trump or this Republican Party. No one got rich betting against Trump doing unprecedented and dangerous things. But Trump doesn’t need to resort to such extreme measures to undermine our democracy and lock in political power for decades. There is a more nefarious and subtle plan to end our democracy in form and function — and it’s already underway.

I looked at Pfeiffer’s post. Step one is the gerrymandering we see starting to happen. Alas subscription requirements prevented me from seeing any more. Dworkin posted a tweet by Stephen Miller, the nasty guy’s chief of staff and author of the most racist policies:

Crime stats in big blue cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher. Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it. Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. Pres Trump will save it.

Dworkin posted that for Ronald Brownstein’s rebuttal:

Coupled with the attack on BLS, this is rapidly advancing deeper into the territory of insisting that all data that doesn't conform to Trump preferences is inherently invalid & that only the leader can tell you the truth. A hallmark of authoritarians across world & thru history.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times:

None of these were real emergencies. There was, and is, no external crisis facing the United States. But for reasons of both personality and political ambition, Trump needs a crisis to govern — or rather, to rule. And if the actual conditions of reality will not give him a state of exception, he’ll create one himself.

In the comments is a cartoon by Jesse Duquette:

Wanted by the FBI Assault with a deli weapon [a drawing of a sandwich] Ham on White description Salty and prone to loafing around, suspect was last seen slapping an ICE agent in the face while shouting, “All cops are baguettes, F---o.” Neighbors describe him as “quiet” and are glad the streets are safe for pedophiles and fascists.”

Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Jeff Stahler showing two women looking at an abstract painting with lots of swirling lines. One says, “A Jackson Pollock? No... The new redistricting map.”