A House Republican said Monday that he plans to introduce legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting efforts nationwide

This is the right answer. It is destined to fail in the US house but I applaud the effort. If SCOTUS hadn't failed so badly when they tried this in NC it would already be illegal.

More: Instead of cutting waste, the initiative disrupted functioning systems and demoralized workers. Democrats are now calling for audits across 27 agencies and hinting at possible criminal investigations.

In the end, taxpayers are left covering $21.7 billion in losses.

$21.7 Billion Total Waste A Senate report estimates DOGE caused $21.7 billion in taxpayer waste between January and mid-July 2025.

$14.8 Billion for 200K Employees Paid Not to Work Deferred Resignation Program paid 200,000 federal workers to stay home for up to eight months.

$6.1 Billion on Administrative Leave for 100K+ Employees Over 100,000 employees were placed on paid administrative leave for weeks or months.

Summing Up: 300,000+ Workers and $21.7B Burned These two categories account for nearly $21 billion of the total waste.

The full $21.7B also includes losses from spoiled supplies, failed projects, and costly relocations.

Even more FTA: Judges are not the only players in the legal system who have shown a measure of distrust in the Justice Department. In an almost unheard-of move, federal grand juries in Los Angeles have been refusing to indict many defendants whom prosecutors have sought to charge in connection with immigration protests, according to recent news reports.

That situation underscored how the courts can work successfully only if people outside of government " jurors and witnesses, for instance " believe that the Justice Department is acting honestly, said Daniel C. Richman, a law professor at Columbia who recently wrote in The New York Times about the "credibility crisis" the department is facing.

"When the government loses credibility, you see it clearly in the reactions of other players in the legal system," Mr. Richman said. "That's the road we're on for now " unless something changes soon."

More: The dissolution of these traditional bonds of trust " known in legal circles as the presumption of regularity " goes well beyond judges' use of blunt words " "egregious," "brazen," "lawless" " to describe the various parts of Mr. Trump's power-grabbing policy agenda.

Ultimately, legal experts say, the actions that caused such doubts among judges about the department and those who represent it could have a more systemic effect and erode the healthy functioning of the courts.

"I think people don't fully appreciate how much the ability of the legal system to work on a daily basis rests on the government's credibility," said Stephen I. Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor. "Without that credibility, it's going to be harder for the government to do anything in court " even ordinary things. All of a sudden, you're going to have courts second-guessing things that they wouldn't have before."

While it is impossible to know for sure how deeply this distrust has set in among judges across the country, a number of judges in recent weeks have openly questioned the fundamental honesty and credibility of Justice Department lawyers in ways that would have been unthinkable only months ago.

In June, for instance, an order was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington showing Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui ripping into prosecutors after they tried to convince him that he needed to be "highly deferential" to their request to keep sealed a search warrant in an ordinary criminal case.

"Blind deference to the government?" Judge Faruqui wrote. "That is no longer a thing. Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks."

After all, as the judge pointed out, Justice Department lawyers under Mr. Trump have done much to destroy the confidence normally afforded them in court.

They have fired prosecutors who worked on Mr. Trump's two criminal cases, he said. They have attacked the charges brought against the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as a witch hunt. And they have violated judicial orders in cases stemming from Mr. Trump's deportation policies and from his efforts to freeze federal grants.

"These norms being broken must have consequences," Judge Faruqui concluded. "High deference is out; trust but verify is in."

More: There is the case of Greece, where the government faked deficit numbers for years, contributing to a debilitating debt crisis that required multiple rounds of bailouts. The country then criminally prosecuted the head of the statistical agency when he insisted on reporting the true figures, further eroding the country's international standing.

There is the case of China, where earlier this century the local authorities manipulated data to hit growth targets mandated by Beijing, forcing analysts and policymakers to turn to alternative measures to gauge the state of the country's economy.

Perhaps most famously, there is the case of Argentina, which in the 2000s and 2010s systematically understated inflation figures to such a degree that the international community eventually stopped relying on the government's data. That loss of faith drove up the country's borrowing costs, worsening a debt crisis that ultimately led to it defaulting on its international obligations.

It is too soon to know whether the United States is on a similar path. But economists and other experts said that Mr. Trump's decision on Friday to fire Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a troubling step in that direction.

Janet L. Yellen, the former Treasury secretary and chair of the Federal Reserve, said the firing was not what is expected from the most advanced economy in the world.

"This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic," Ms. Yellen said.

You'd think they'd want to get him as far away from their brand as possible.

Womp womp

More: "I can't believe what I just saw," said Peter Mallouk, president and chief investment officer of Creative Planning. Trump's social media post seemed like a parody or satire at first, Mallouk said.

"This is not healthy," he added. "We can't have a set of numbers come out and fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various roles because you don't like the numbers."

This guy will end up killing someone before he's done.

More: "Today's report adds weight to signs of a slow but persistent cooling trend. While the labor market is not in crisis, hiring momentum continues to soften, and pressures are beginning to build," said Ger Doyle, North America regional president at Manpower Group.

This is true.

Mysterious orange blob? We all knew Trump killed him but I didn't think he'd do it personally.

More: President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva of Brazil is outraged.

President Trump is trying to push around his nation of 200 million, dangling 50 percent tariffs as a threat, Mr. Lula said in an interview. And yet, he added, the U.S. president is ignoring his government's offers to talk.

"Be sure that we are treating this with the utmost seriousness. But seriousness does not require subservience," the Brazilian president said. "I treat everyone with great respect. But I want to be treated with respect."

Mr. Lula granted his first interview to The New York Times in 13 years on Tuesday, in part because he wanted to speak to the American people about his frustration with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump has said that, starting on Friday, he plans to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods, in large part because Brazilian authorities have charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with trying to hold on to power after losing the 2022 election.

Mr. Trump has called the case a "witch hunt" and wants it dropped. Mr. Lula said that was not up for negotiation. "Maybe he doesn't know that here in Brazil, the judiciary is independent," he said.

In the interview, Mr. Lula said that the American president is infringing on Brazil's sovereignty.

"At no point will Brazil negotiate as if it were a small country up against a big country," he said. "We know the economic power of the United States, we recognize the military power of the United States, we recognize the technological size of the United States."

"But that doesn't make us afraid," he added. "It makes us concerned."

There is perhaps no world leader defying President Trump as strongly as Mr. Lula.

Recognizing the Palestinian state should have been done decades ago because it's the right thing to do. Threatening to allow a people their right to exist only as a punishment to Israel is barbaric.

More: The officers' testimony was cited in at least five cases filed by the US Department of Justice amid the unrest. The justice department has charged at least 26 people with "assaulting" and "impeding" federal officers and other crimes during the protests over immigration raids. Prosecutors, however, have since been forced to dismiss at least eight of those felonies, many of them which relied on officers' inaccurate reports, court records show.

The justice department has also dismissed at least three felony assault cases it brought against Angelenos accused of interfering with arrests during recent immigration raids, the documents show.

The rapid felony dismissals are a major embarrassment for the Trump-appointed US attorney for southern California, Bill Essayli, and appeared to be the result of an unusual series of missteps by the justice department, former federal prosecutors said.

The Guardian's review of records found:

Out of nine "assault" and "impeding" felony cases the justice department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges.

In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video.

One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester.

One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government's most high-profile cases.

"When I see felonies dismissed, that tells me either the federal officers have filed affidavits that are not truthful and that has been uncovered, or US attorneys reviewing the cases realize the evidence does not support the charges," said Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former California state prosecutor who is now director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, a criminal justice reform group.

She said officers often call for charges that prosecutors don't end up filing, but it was uncommon for the justice department to file, then dismiss cases, especially numerous felonies in rapid succession.

"It seems this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear and discourage people from exercising their first amendment rights," DeBerry said.

"US and EU Reach Trade Deal to Avoid Tariffs"

"EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has managed to negotiate a 15% US tariff."

A 15% tariff doesn't seem like avoiding tariffs at all.

His name must be on every page of the Epstein files.

#5,

Out of the pockets of what used to be called the middle class back when we actually had a middle class.

More of the GOP's famed "small government."

More: In the footage, posted on X by progressive media outlet MeidasTouch, an attorney asked Epstein if he had a "personal relationship" with Trump.

"What do you mean by personal relationship,' sir?" Epstein replied.

"Have you socialized with him?" the attorney asked.

"Yes, sir," Epstein answered.

"Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?" the attorney asked.

Epstein took a long pause, which included a slight shake of his head, and finally responded: "Though l'd like to answer that question, at least today, l'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir."