The Trump administration plans to scale back criticism of El Salvador, Israel and Russia over human rights, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing drafts of the State Department's annual human rights report. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/08/07/world/politics/us-human-rights-el-salvador-israel-russia/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #politics #humanrights #elsalvador #israel #russia #us #donaldtrump #republicans #benjaminnetanyahu #lgbtq

South Korea's top trade envoy has said that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix won't be subject to 100% U.S. tariffs on chips, with the country benefiting from favorable rates on chips under its deal with Washington. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/08/07/tech/south-korea-samsung-sk-hynix-tariffs/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #tech #southkorea #samsung #skhynix #us #donaldtrump #trade #tariffs #republicans #semiconductors

Indian officials have struggled to engage in diplomatic talks with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration because key foreign policy roles in Washington remain unfilled. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/08/06/world/politics/trump-staffing-india-us/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #politics #us #donaldtrump #trade #tariffs #republicans #india

Sweeping tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump are leaving their mark on the U.S. economy in trade and beyond, with businesses saying new import taxes are driving up costs and making planning more difficult. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/08/06/economy/us-trade-gap-tariffs-service-sector/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #economy #us #donaldtrump #trade #tariffs #republicans #economicindicators

International students are struggling to secure visas as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump aggressively moves to curtail immigration, threatening college budgets across the United States. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/08/06/world/politics/trump-visa-students-stranded/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #politics #universities #students #education #us #donaldtrump #republicans

“Trump knows he can’t win the upcoming mid-term elections, so he is trying to rig them. And the way he is trying to do it is to dismantle the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as we know it. He is trying, for example to try and dismantle Hispanic and African-American opportunity districts."

~ Rep. Greg Casar quoted by John Nicholls

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts
/6

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/texas-gerrymandering-fight-trump/

Billy Begala explains how the Republican gerrymandering proposal wants to "carve up Texas like a Christmas ham," disenfranchising Black and Hispanic voters and privileging rural white ones.

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism
/7

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/republicans-are-planning-to-carve

“Trump knows he can’t win the upcoming mid-term elections, so he is trying to rig them. And the way he is trying to do it is to dismantle the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as we know it. He is trying, for example to try and dismantle Hispanic and African-American opportunity districts."

~ Rep. Greg Casar quoted by John Nicholls

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts
/6

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/texas-gerrymandering-fight-trump/

"Having washed its hands of voter suppression like a modern-day Pontius Pilate, the Supreme Court relinquished control of congressional districting to a patchwork of inconsistent, flawed, and (sometimes) corrupt state legislatures. Chaos ensued."

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts
/5

"Partisan gerrymandering is legal because the US Supreme Court declared in 2019 that it is too difficult for federal judges to ensure that congressional districts are fairly drawn. (A demonstrably false claim.)"

~ Robert B. Hubbell

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts
/4

https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-battle-for-2026-is-joined

Mike Brock skewers the moral laziness (and insincerity and mendacity) of the "both sides are equally flawed" stance:

"When every criticism must be accompanied by corresponding praise, criticism becomes impossible. There’s always something that can be cited as the other side of the ledger—some policy outcome, some symbolic victory, some disruption of norms that can be spun as beneficial."

#Democrats#Republicans #fascism #democracy#BothSides #morality
/1

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-social-function-of-false-equivalence

"The attempt to steal an election gets balanced against mean tweets about the media.

This isn’t moral reasoning; it’s moral paralysis disguised as fairness."

#Democrats#Republicans #fascism #democracy#BothSides #morality
/3

"More insidiously, it creates a framework where atrocities and policy preferences become commensurable—as if they exist on the same moral scale and can be weighed against each other. Systematic attacks on democratic institutions get balanced against tax cuts. Corruption gets balanced against deregulation."

#Democrats#Republicans #fascism #democracy#BothSides #morality
/2

Mike Brock skewers the moral laziness (and insincerity and mendacity) of the "both sides are equally flawed" stance:

"When every criticism must be accompanied by corresponding praise, criticism becomes impossible. There’s always something that can be cited as the other side of the ledger—some policy outcome, some symbolic victory, some disruption of norms that can be spun as beneficial."

#Democrats#Republicans #fascism #democracy#BothSides #morality
/1

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-social-function-of-false-equivalence

The inflated power of rural White voters confers upon them an unusual ability to force state and national governments to cater to their preferences and grievances. Herein lies the danger: precisely because they wield inflated power, rural Whites’ increasingly tenuous commitments to democratic norms and traditions are magnified across the U.S. political system in many of the same ways their preferences have been for two centuries” (p. 63).

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism
/3

As Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman show in their important 2024 study White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, no demographic group is so catered to politically and has so much unmerited and outsized clout as white rural voters. They write:

“No group was ever dealt a better electoral hand than rural White Americans."

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism
/2

Mark Mansour notes that the overt, unabashed gerrymandering proposed by Texas Republicans is designed, by their own admission, to "enhance the political efficacy” of GOP votes.

What this is really about is enhancing the political efficacy of WHITE RURAL voters. As Mansour says, it's "a chilling disenfranchisement of millions of voters—especially Black, Latino, and Asian Americans."

#Texas#Republicans #gerrymandering #racism
/1

https://mmansour.substack.com/p/the-texas-swindle

As a growing number of the wealthiest U.S. colleges capitulate in their battles with Washington, the strain from lost and frozen federal funding is pressuring the remaining holdouts to cut a deal. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/08/05/world/politics/universities-cut-deals-trump/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #politics #universities #education #cornell #harvard #colombia #us #donaldtrump #republicans

Diplomats and climate advocates warn that efforts by the European Union and small island states to cap virgin plastic production are under threat from petrochemical-producing countries and Washington. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/08/05/sustainability/oil-trump-treaty-plastics-pollution/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #environment #sustainability #oil #plastic #pollution #us #donaldtrump #republicans #environment #oceans