Hey everyone. Welcome back. I hope you had a meaningful Memorial Day, and that you took a moment to thank a veteran for what they gave.
Our main story today comes out of Alabama, where just hours ago a federal court blocked the GOP’s attempt to redraw its congressional map for the November midterms. It is a defeat for the broader Republican push to gerrymander their way into keeping the House. And the panel that issued the ruling has dealt with Alabama on this issue twice before.
We will also get into the Justice Department’s admission this weekend that it has been scrubbing January 6th “propaganda” from its own website, the new inspector general audit into Kristi Noem’s billion dollar warehouse buying spree, the White House ordering every federal employee to install a Trump app on their phone, and reporting that JD Vance is weighing whether to quit the 2028 race before it starts.
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1. Federal Court Blocks Alabama's Attempt to Hand Republicans an Extra House Seat
A three judge federal panel rules this morning that Alabama will have to use the court ordered districts under which voters chose their representatives in 2024.
These same judges ruled in 2023 that Alabama’s map was intentionally discriminatory against Black voters. Alabama redrew it. The panel struck that one down too. Now Alabama came back to try again.
The map Alabama wanted to use would have given Republicans a real shot at flipping the seat held by Democratic Congressman Shomari Figures. That seat only exists because the courts forced Alabama to draw it, and the state has spent two years trying to remove it.
Before last year, only two states had done voluntary mid decade redistricting in fifty years. In the last twelve months, nine states have. This is not how American democracy is supposed to work.
I served ten years in the House, representing Illinois, a state gerrymandered into a shape that does not look like its voters. I know this game from the inside, and I know both parties play it. I am not going to pretend Democrats have clean hands.
But what is happening right now is something different. This is ordered from the White House. It is coordinated across multiple state capitols. It is being executed in the middle of an election year, after candidates have filed and ballots have been printed. The goal is to lock in a House majority before voters can weigh in on the most unpopular agenda in modern history.
You can’t just redraw the lines until you win. That is not democracy. Today, in Alabama, the judges said no. The real question is whether they keep saying no, and whether the Supreme Court backs them up. Because if not, November will be decided in courtrooms and statehouses long before any of us show up to vote.
2. DOJ Admits It Is Deleting January 6 Cases From Its Own Website
On Friday, a journalist noticed that the DOJ was deleting news releases about the prosecutions of January 6th rioters. All of a sudden they were just gone.
The DOJ did not deny it. They confirmed it. Their words: “We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping the DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”
Among the releases they deleted were the seditious conspiracy cases against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Last month, this same Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to vacate those convictions. The court did so Thursday. On Friday, the DOJ moved to dismiss the cases entirely.
And this all comes on the heels of Trump’s slush fund we talked about last week to pay people who feel they were unjustly prosecuted. Acting AG Todd Blanche has refused to rule out that violent rioters could collect from it.
I was there on January 6th. I saw it. And so did the entire country, in real time. You can scrub a website. You cannot scrub what we saw.
3. DHS Watchdog Opens Audit of Kristi Noem's $1 Billion Warehouse Buying Spree
The DHS Office of Inspector General has opened a formal audit into a one billion dollar warehouse buying spree that former Secretary Kristi Noem oversaw during her fourteen months running the department.
Noem approved the purchase of roughly eleven vacant warehouses to be converted into ICE detention facilities. The total program, written into the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, was budgeted for over 38 billion dollars.
The warehouses have no working plumbing. They are not zoned for detention. A real estate analytics firm says DHS paid thirteen percent above market value, an overpayment of one hundred and seven million dollars. Not a single detainee has ever been held in any of them.
Several of the contractors hired to do the conversion work had no prior federal immigration experience. None.
And the same inspector general now opening the audit previously accused Noem’s DHS of obstructing oversight in eleven documented instances during her tenure.
A billion dollars on empty warehouses bought from people connected to the president. If a Democrat had done this, every Republican in Washington would be on television demanding indictments.
4. White House Orders Every Federal Employee to Install a Trump App
The White House App, which the president launched publicly back in March, must now be installed on every government issued phone. Rollout begins at the FAA next week.
What is in the app? Praise of the president. Prewritten messages of adoration. Click to text the president and a draft pops up reading, “Greatest President Ever!” already typed and ready to send.
Headlines inside the app include lines like, “Stuck in line at La Guardia? Blame a Democrat.” Pushed onto official government devices.
Imagine if Obama or Biden had done this. Republicans would have lost their minds. They’d be holding hearings right now. But because it’s Trump, it’s Tuesday.
Not only is this ridiculous, but there are security concerns as well. Cybersecurity experts have pointed out that the app shares user IP addresses and time zone data with third party services, which could provide backdoor access behind the government firewall.
So in addition to being propaganda, it may also be a national security vulnerability. Other than that, it’s a great app Mr. President!
A career civil servant who used to work in the Office of the Chief Information Officer said “It’s just making sure all federal employees are forced to see the same propaganda they push out to the public.”
The Hatch Act of 1939 forbids federal employees from political activity in the workplace. The point of the law is to keep public servants neutral. And now the White House is forcing those same employees to carry campaign propaganda in their pocket.
Federal employees are not the president’s fan club. They take an oath to the Constitution, not to a man. They work for the American people, through administrations of both parties, and they do it whether they voted for the boss or not. Forcing them to pretend otherwise is not patriotism. It is propaganda. And every American, regardless of party, should be uncomfortable with this.
5. JD Vance Might Quit 2028 Before it Even Starts
The Daily Mail is reporting that JD Vance is privately weighing whether to skip the 2028 race entirely. The story comes days after Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation, which left Vance as the only non-interventionist voice in Trump’s cabinet.
Vance argued against the Iran war back in February. He privately urged the president to go for a limited strike, not a full operation. He warned of regional chaos. He was overruled. And Trump went public last week saying Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic” and “philosophically a little bit different” on the war.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio’s stock at the White House is rising. According to The Mail, Rubio is now helping plan a potential invasion of Cuba.
A source close to Vance told reporters: “Anyone who wants to be a viable nominee for president has a very small window. And if you don’t go when that window is open, most likely it never opens up again.”
Here is what I will say. JD Vance sold his soul to be vice president. He spent years calling Donald Trump everything from a fraud to America’s Hitler, then became his loyal number two. He made his bed. Now he is figuring out, in real time, that the bed is full of broken glass. You don’t get to opt out of the consequences of the choice you made.
Okay, that’s it for May 26th. Thanks for being with us.
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Tomorrow we will be tracking the Senate as it returns from recess. The anti weaponization fund vote is still sitting there, waiting for Republicans to return. See you then.
