What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

I can see why many women would think they could win a fight with Donald Trump.  Men are often very reluctant to fight back against women even when fully warranted, as they're deathly afraid of being seen as doing something inappropriate with women.

I think it is far more likely that the reason is that Democrat women hate his guts/policies and want to kick his ass.  And that kicking the ass of on 80-year old chauvinist pig who talks tough, but is physically a giant wimp, should be pretty easy. 

[mongers]

Also likely he'd be trying to 'grab their pussy', so a woman might think they'll be fighting to stop being raped?

[crazy canuck]

I can see why many women would think they could win a fight with Donald Trump.  Men are often very reluctant to fight back against women even when fully warranted, as they're deathly afraid of being seen as doing something inappropriate with women.

You don't get out much do you?

[The Minsky Moment]

It's a joke, guys.

[garbon]

It's a joke, guys.

There's this thing that jokes are expected to have...

[Syt]

https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-virginia-congress-democrats-republicans-12a31037f3c9a94d3cb9fbcaaf84d94f

Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats' redrawn US House maps, giving Republicans a win

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year's midterm elections.

The court ruled 4-3 that the state's Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment on April 21, but the court's ruling renders the vote's result meaningless.

Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters "in an unprecedented manner."

"This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void," he wrote.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia's redrawn map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. Later Friday, Virginia Democrats said in a filing that they intended to file an emergency appeal of the state high court's decision with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Friday's ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged Republicans' congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year's midterm elections.

"Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia," Trump said about the decision on his social media account.

Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the ruling was another sign of GOP momentum heading into the midterms.

"We're on offense, and we're going to win," he said in a statement.

Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court's opinion but lamented that it overturned the will of the voters: "They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab."

Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized the court majority for what she said was a decision that "cast aside the will of the voters," but she said the people will have the final say.

"In November, they will, and they'll power Democrats to the House majority," she said in a statement.

Democrats are taking a legal longshot in asking the nation's highest court to reverse the Virginia ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court tries to avoid second-guessing state courts' interpretations of their own constitutions. In 2023, it turned down a request by North Carolina Republicans to overrule a state Supreme Court decision that blocked the GOP's congressional map.

Still, even an unsuccessful appeal would let Democrats try to blame their failure on the conservative majority that dominates the nation's highest court, which has already infuriated the party and civil rights groups by neutering the Voting Rights Act.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump sparked an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year by encouraging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party's narrow majority in the midterm elections.

California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats' advantage, and Utah's top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year's elections.

Virginia is currently represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans, all elected from districts imposed by a court following a bipartisan redistricting commission's failure to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state's 11 congressional seats.

The state Supreme Court's majority was critical of the state's redrawing of the congressional maps to benefit one political party. Those justices noted that 47% of the state's voters supported GOP congressional candidates in 2024, but the new map could result in Democrats making up 91% of the state's House delegation.

Under the Democratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The state Supreme Court's seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn't have a set ideological profile.

The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.

Because the state's redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature's initial approval of the amendment occurred last October, during early voting for the general election, before it concluded. The legislature's second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.

Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature's initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the "election" should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature's first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But in its ruling, the Supreme Court said, "this view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia's history."

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued an "election" should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which voters can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that's the case, he told justices, then the legislature's initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.

The Supreme Court agreed with that argument, writing: "The General Assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election."

By the time lawmakers initially endorsed the amendment, voters already had cast more than 1.3 million ballots in the general election, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast, the court said.

The Supreme Court's ruling affirms a decision by a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia. The court had placed a hold on that ruling and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

In the dissent to Friday's ruling, Chief Justice Cleo Powell said the election for the purpose of considering the amendment does not include the early voting period.

"The majority's definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning," she wrote, "only a definitive end: Election Day."

[Oexmelin]

I am sure the midterms will fix everything.

[Valmy]

I am sure the midterms will fix everything.

I don't think anybody is saying that. The courts and the President have made it pretty clear that the legislature is pretty pointless anyway. The most we can do is annoy Trump if we win.

[Oexmelin]

I am not so sure. Lots of people seemed to continue to pin their hopes on the midterms, with the plan of action being to vote vote vote. And lots of people who were smugly prophesying about the midterms (Buttigieg, for instance) and now seemingly only waking up to the corrupt Supreme Court shenanigans. I often (exasperatedly) watch Heather Richardson's stream: comments on her videos alternate between « give me hope » and « vote vote vote ».

[Sophie Scholl]

I am not so sure. Lots of people seemed to continue to pin their hopes on the midterms, with the plan of action being to vote vote vote. And lots of people who were smugly prophesying about the midterms (Buttigieg, for instance) and now seemingly only waking up to the corrupt Supreme Court shenanigans. I often (exasperatedly) watch Heather Richardson's stream: comments on her videos alternate between « give me hope » and « vote vote vote ».

Oh, Hod. My old Sunday School Teacher, who I adore, suggested I give Richardson a watch/listen. I tried. A few times. I find her dreadful. I assume she means well, but I just cannot stomach her views this late in the game.

[Syt]

https://apnews.com/article/trump-religious-liberty-commission-conservative-christians-f61eba23ca5cda88a6df1ac525ef12c5

Rejecting church and state separation is on the wish list for Trump's religious liberty commission

One member calls for a Presidential Medal of Freedom for a baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Another calls for court interventions by the Department of Justice on behalf of Amish parents fighting New York vaccine requirements and Catholic nuns challenging that state's requirement that they accommodate hospice patients' gender identities.

And the chair of the Religious Liberty Commission is calling for a federal hotline with this automated recording: "There is no separation of church and state."

These are just some of the recommendations that members of the advisory panel formed by President Donald Trump last year want to see included in the commission's final report.

That report is still in the works, but commissioners had an opportunity to describe their wish lists during their most recent meeting in April. There was little dissent as the commissioners, most drawn from Trump's base of conservative Christian supporters, covered the items they want in the report.

Their ideas reflect the prevailing perspectives on the definition of religious liberty among many conservative Catholic and evangelical activists: increasing avenues for religious expression in public schools; expanding opportunities for faith-based organizations to receive public money; and allowing for religious-based exemptions in areas ranging from labor law to classroom lessons to healthcare mandates.

Such views have also been reflected in Supreme Court decisions issued in recent years by its conservative majority.

Critics of the commission say it embodies a one-sided perspective of Trump's supporters and is threatening a well-established constitutional separation of church and state, despite the chair's claims.

A lawsuit by a progressive interreligious coalition argues that the commission fails to comply with federal law requiring advisory panels to feature diverse members and viewpoints.

The lawsuit echoes criticism that most commissioners are conservative Christian clerics and commentators; one is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. The coalition says members have asserted that America is specifically a Judeo-Christian or Christian nation and notes that most commission meetings took place at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, an institution with Christian leadership.

The Republican administration is asking a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit. The government is citing legal technicalities and contending the law does not define how a commission should be fairly balanced or whose viewpoints should be represented.

Another entity created by Trump — the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias — issued a report saying Christians faced discrimination under the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden in areas such as education, tax law and prosecution of anti-abortion protesters. Progressive groups said that report failed to document systemic discrimination, focused on causes favored by conservative Christians and amounted to advocacy rather than an investigation.

In a further interlocking of Trump-related initiatives, several members of the Religious Liberty Commission are scheduled to take part in a May 17 prayer event marking the country's upcoming 250th birthday. Several also participated in a recent Bible-reading marathon staged largely at the Museum of the Bible.

Harmony and tension within the commission

The commission has mostly featured agreement among members, with one dramatic exception. One commissioner, Carrie Prejean Boller, was ousted in February after a contentious hearing on antisemitism.

Commission Chair Dan Patrick said Prejean Boller sought to "hijack" the hearing, in which she had sharp exchanges with witnesses about the definition of antisemitism and defended commentator Candace Owens, denying her record of antisemitic statements. Prejean Boller, a Catholic, contended she was wrongly ousted for expressing her beliefs.

In other hearings, witnesses described how they defied workplace regulations that they said conflicted with their conservative religious values on gender, abortion, COVID-19 vaccines and more. Some said they were prevented, at least temporarily, from displaying a religious symbol at work or trying to sing a Christian song at a school talent show.

At the hearing devoted to antisemitism, Jewish witnesses spoke of being harassed and threatened at campus pro-Palestinian protests against Israel. The commission has also heard from some Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and other witnesses.

Even so, critics said the commission mostly focused on conservative Christian and right-leaning political grievances.

The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president of the progressive Interfaith Alliance, one of the groups suing over the commission's composition, said the panel's omissions are as significant as what it focuses on.

He said the commission has failed adequately to address such issues as anti-Muslim efforts in Texas and elsewhere, and also the rise of antisemitism on the right, not just the left.

Separation of church and state debate

Raushenbush said he is especially worried about the commission chair's challenging the very notion of church-state separation.

Patrick, a Republican who is the Texas lieutenant governor, repeatedly denounced a concept that is embedded in Supreme Court precedent.

"We need to say there is no separation of church and state," Patrick said at the April meeting. "That's a lie." He suggested printing "a million bumper stickers" to that effect.

No one at the commission meeting disagreed.

Trump made similar comments at a prayer event at the White House in 2025. "They say separation between church and state," Trump said. "I said, all right, let's forget about that for one time."

While the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution, 20th-century decisions by the Supreme Court cited Thomas Jefferson's description of the First Amendment as creating "a wall of separation between church and state." The court applied the First Amendment's prohibition of any church "establishment" to the states in addition to the federal government, citing the 14th Amendment's ban on states denying citizens' rights.

Courts have since wrestled with how to balance freedom of religion and freedom from government-sponsored religion.

Concerns touch on schools, vaccines, workplaces and more

Patrick has advocated for prayer and Ten Commandments postings in public schools.

"I don't have any malice towards anyone that doesn't believe in any type of faith," Patrick told fellow commissioners. "That's fine. That's what America is about. But these organizations that are pushed by some ideology and pushed by someone's bank account who wants to remove God from our country? We need to push back."

On other issues, various commissioners called for requiring schools and workplaces to post notices of the rights of religious expression and exemptions.

Some called for restoring full pay and pension benefits for military service members who were discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines.

Bishop Robert Barron of the Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, called for enabling religious groups such as Catholic Charities to receive federal money without compromising on traditional church teachings about the family.

He also said Catholic immigrants in detention should have humane treatment and access to sacraments and that immigration agents should not disrupt worship services in enforcement actions. The administration last year eliminated a policy against immigration enforcement in sanctuaries, which other religious leaders said should not occur at any time.

Kelly Shackelford, president and chief executive officer of the legal organization First Liberty Institute, called for new requirements that governments pay all legal bills if they lose a religious liberty case. He said many individuals lack the money to challenge the government in court.

"That would be a huge shifting of power in favor of citizens," he said.

[crazy canuck]

It it might be the first and only honest thing the Trumpists are doing. Every election, the people running for president talk about their religious faith. The only people who have a shot at getting elected as president are Christians.

Every president talks about God blessing America.  And they are talking about their God. Their Christian God.

Sure Sam will say that a lot of presidents don't specify which God and so it's possible that they mean a God worshipped by other monotheists.  That doesn't help much does it. Rules out other non-one of the religions and of course it rules out God or Gods not existing at all.

Republican lawmakers have been insisting on teaching creation in schools. Any believe the Bible is literally true.

It's a bit refreshing to see Americans not faking that there is no real separation for them.

[The Minsky Moment]

I am not so sure. Lots of people seemed to continue to pin their hopes on the midterms, with the plan of action being to vote vote vote. And lots of people who were smugly prophesying about the midterms (Buttigieg, for instance) and now seemingly only waking up to the corrupt Supreme Court shenanigans. I often (exasperatedly) watch Heather Richardson's stream: comments on her videos alternate between « give me hope » and « vote vote vote ».

The midterms matter.  And one of the problems we are having in America is a sense of powerlessness and the attitude of resignation. So yes it's important to mobilize voters and convince them it's worth it to vote and convince others to do so.  This is not the time for cool ironic detachment.

Of course the Supreme Court is corrupt, we've known that for years now.  Yes the deck is totally stacked against the Democrats and yes worse is come.  That just means push back harder.  Orbanate these motherfuckers.

[DGuller]

I am not so sure. Lots of people seemed to continue to pin their hopes on the midterms, with the plan of action being to vote vote vote. And lots of people who were smugly prophesying about the midterms (Buttigieg, for instance) and now seemingly only waking up to the corrupt Supreme Court shenanigans. I often (exasperatedly) watch Heather Richardson's stream: comments on her videos alternate between « give me hope » and « vote vote vote ».

The midterms matter.  And one of the problems we are having in America is a sense of powerlessness and the attitude of resignation. So yes it's important to mobilize voters and convince them it's worth it to vote and convince others to do so.  This is not the time for cool ironic detachment.

Of course the Supreme Court is corrupt, we've known that for years now.  Yes the deck is totally stacked against the Democrats and yes worse is come.  That just means push back harder.  Orbanate these motherfuckers.

I totally agree with the sentiment.  Let the right sow cynicism, that's their most potent weapon to gain power.  Cynicism is an acid that corrodes democracy.  We don't need to help them with that.  If Orban could be voted out, then these jokers in the US can be voted out, but voting is an important part of voting someone out.

[Valmy]

I am not so sure. Lots of people seemed to continue to pin their hopes on the midterms, with the plan of action being to vote vote vote. And lots of people who were smugly prophesying about the midterms (Buttigieg, for instance) and now seemingly only waking up to the corrupt Supreme Court shenanigans. I often (exasperatedly) watch Heather Richardson's stream: comments on her videos alternate between « give me hope » and « vote vote vote ».

The midterms matter.  And one of the problems we are having in America is a sense of powerlessness and the attitude of resignation. So yes it's important to mobilize voters and convince them it's worth it to vote and convince others to do so.  This is not the time for cool ironic detachment.

Of course the Supreme Court is corrupt, we've known that for years now.  Yes the deck is totally stacked against the Democrats and yes worse is come.  That just means push back harder.  Orbanate these motherfuckers.

I totally agree with the sentiment.  Let the right sow cynicism, that's their most potent weapon to gain power.  Cynicism is an acid that corrodes democracy.  We don't need to help them with that.  If Orban could be voted out, then these jokers in the US can be voted out, but voting is an important part of voting someone out.

Yeah. Everybody needs to show up and vote and keep fighting. I was just responding to the reality that the midterms will not, in fact, fix everything. At least in Hungary one big election win can change everything. Here it take many elections over a sustained period of time at many levels of government.