Aug. 5: Democratic governors line up to punish Texas geraldmandering … Trump can’t do recess appointments for his shitty nominees because Epstein’s now fucking him … Our Mar-a-Lago reporting goes viral … Netanyahu is said to decide he’ll occupy all of what’s left of Gaza …
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Texas state House Republicans yesterday issued arrest warrants for the Democratic state representatives who have fled the state.
Democrats from the state House of Representatives fled the state in order to deny a quorum and block a vote to rubber-stamp new congressional maps requested by Pres. Donald Trump that go beyond Texas’s already-gerrymandered maps to achieve a full-on geraldmander. The reason for the new map is Trump’s fear that without geraldmandering, another year of his incompetence could cost Trump the support of Gerry, Gerald, Gerard, Jerry, Jer, Geraldine, and so many other voters that Republicans will lose majority control of the House of Representatives. Trump, by the way, is correct. Unless they jerry-rig the maps.
Some of the Texas Democratic fugitives may also have been happy to escape Texas’s toxic Christian macho anti-intellectual culture, lax flood-warning regimens, and/or civic obeisance to Big Oil, factory farming, and any random illionaires found wandering the range.
Hilariously, the state House warrants for fleeing Texas will be executed by Texas state troopers. Who aren’t allowed to troop outside the state.
So, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) yesterday told the Texas Rangers to investigate whether the fugitive Democrats may have violated Texas bribery laws, which typically aren’t applied to the state’s low, low-priced officials given that bribery has been enshrined as a pillar of the state’s campaign-finance “system.”
Why bribery? Abbott says if anyone helped the fugitive Democrats, even by contributing to the legal-defense funds they’ll need if Republicans fine them, that’s, uh, like, bribe-ish? On the upside, tasking the Texas Rangers with investigating such bullshit would imply that the fictional invasion of Texas is no longer a priority.
Equally impotently, Abbott says he’s going to replace the fugitive Democrats. Which will be tough because that’s not legal, meaning Abbott would risk arrest by the otherwise-unbusy Texas Rangers. Plus, the special session that Abbott has called to draw Trump a geraldier map expires in just two weeks.
Asked whether Abbott can legally remove elected representatives, even state House Speaker Dustin Burrows said “I try not to give legal answers without actually studying and knowing all of the facts and the law” for the first time in his life.
LIFE ON THE LAM Reporters have managed to track Texas’s wanted Democratic criminals to the far corners of the country: Specifically, California, Illinois, and New York. And the Texans are recruiting other Democrats to their cause.
Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA) have already said they’re open to redrawing their state maps to compensate for Trump’s power grab in Texas.
Even back home, the fugitives had unindicted co-conspirators aiding and abetting. State Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Ft. Worth) held a news conference calling on Democratic governors to answer Abbott’s geraldmander with gerrymandering or at least Jer-mandering of their own in Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.
Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) doesn’t have a lot to offer in the way of gerrymandering. Republicans already only control three out of his state’s 17 House seats. But Pritzker’s been working for weeks with Texas Democrats as part of his push for the party to fight back harder and/or at all against Republican fascist bullshit.
GERALDO-MANDERING The redrawn Republican map for Texas is premised largely on the assumption that Hispanic voters will keep shifting Republican.
Gerrymandering is like belly-buttons. You’ve got innies, concentrating the minority party’s voters into as few districts as possible, and you’ve got outies, spreading those voters out to dilute their power. The proposed Texas map is outies.
And, just like with belly-buttons, these outies are far more dangerous.
The GOP hopes to pick up five districts now held by Democrats. But in three of these hypothetically fucked districts, the GOP map increases Hispanic populations. Meaning, the GOP damn well better hope those voters keep swinging Republican.
But will they? Trump, after all, won’t be on the ballot. And as the Texas Tribune reports, even last year, Republicans on the Texas ballot had a much tougher time if their name didn’t rhyme with “rump.”
Here’s the Tribune’s look at eight GOP-proposed districts that will be majority-Hispanic, and how those districts voted last year. Trump got at least four percent more of the vote than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) did in all eight of them:
And that’s from before the entire country got to see Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) throwing bags over people’s heads for probable cause that they look Hispanic. Add in another year of this shit before voters go to the 2026 polls, and even Trump’s own Sharpie-scribbled geraldmander might end up biting him in his Texanian ass.
TFN-STYLE PEDANTRY If, like me, you Newsfuckers have wondered why Texas Democrats responded “Come and take it” — even though it wasn’t clear what “it” was — you might find the phrase’s origins amusing.
Apparently, it’s a Texas thing. Back when Texas was part of Mexico (Texas’s homeland), American colonists there asked the Mexican government for a cannon to help defend against the native Americans whose land they were stealing. Mexico said sure, as long as you promise to give it back on request, once you’ve killed the native Americans whose land you’re stealing.
Then came the Texas Revolution. And the American colonists obviously broke their word, as American colonists are wont to do, and kept the cannon, telling their Mexican benefactors, “Come and take it.” Their theft and lack of integrity are now points of pride for Texas. Which is why Democrats said it yesterday even though it’s still not clear what the “it” is now.
National Dems Also Praised for Brief Flashes of Fight
The American Prospect’s David Dayen cites both Texas and national Democrats as showing new signs of mettle.
And he lays out the cumulative, critical-mass impact that the collective Democratic fight is having.
Pres. Donald Trump is pissed off that the Senate went home early — because Democrats refused to speed up Trump’s terrible nominees. So Trump wants to fast-track his terrible nominees through what are known as recess appointments: Basically, Congress isn’t in session? I guess I’ll just appoint these nominees myself, then.
But Trump can only do that if all of Congress is officially in recess. For that to happen, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) would have to call the House back to Washington for an adjournment vote. Which he’d rather not. How come?
Because then Democrats — with a handful of GOP allies — would force and maybe even win a vote demanding the release of The Epstein Files™. In other words, Epstein is still fucking Trump, from beyond the grave. And maybe, just maybe, saving America.
Maxwell’s Silver Slammer
Pres. Donald Trump’s apparent flirtation with going easy on Ghislaine Maxwell the way she did not go easy on children doesn’t seem to be going as well as mercy for a serial child molester might.
Just days after meeting with Trump’s personal attorney, now practicing law at the Justice Department because he could use the practice, Maxwell was magically transferred to a cushy Texas prison for white and white-collar criminals, of which Maxwell is only one. Turns out, raping kids literally instead of just defunding them is not a white-collar crime. It’s a violent crime and therefore even prisoners say Maxwell should be in real prison.
So, her new roomies at Camp Bryan reportedly are offended at having to associate with inmates of such low character. It’s Club Fed, people, not Club Ped!
And even congressional Republicans reportedly — but also anonymously because the aisles of the Capitol flow freely with chicken shit — are warning Trump not to pardon Maxwell since she did something awful instead of merely assaulting law enforcement while storming the Capitol to overthrow Congress and steal the presidency.
And Trump has even more reason today to fear the mounting scrutiny of his own role in Jeffrey Epstein’s traveling roadshow of horrors.
My story over the weekend revealing how Trump made Mar-a-Lago into the perfect hunting grounds for Maxwell and Epstein blew up yesterday.
The Meidas Touch news folks posted my article over on their own Substack. And Meidas Touch meistermind Ben Meiselas did a big-ass video yesterday morning devoted almost entirely to my reporting, taking breaks from talking about the horrible facts I reported mostly to talk about how awesome the reporting was. Thanks, Ben!
Never, ever forget, that you folks who become paid subscribers to TFN or my reporting Substack are the ones who make this kind of thing happen. Facts take time to find, and I can only take that time to look for them because of your support. Those facts are now out in the world with hundreds of thousands of eyeballs on them because of you and new folks upgrading every day.
If you make it to the end of Meiselas’s video you’ll hear him say, “I thought he did a great job. I wanna work with him more.” He’s talking about you and me, Newsfuckers. So, stay tuned! And go watch his video if you wanna feel good about what you and I done did.
Netanyahu Decides: In for a Penny…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly has decided that Israel will occupy the entire Gaza Strip, including everything that’s left of it.
The Jerusalem Post is citing a source in Netanyahu’s office, so who the fuck knows if it’s true. But so far, Netanyahu doesn’t appear to have said “no” to any new military front, having carried out his assault on Gaza simultaneously with military engagements against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, and that’s just off the top of my head.
Meanwhile, Hamas is saying no peace talks until literally tons more of relief aid are allowed in to alleviate rampant starvation. As in, people are literally dying from lack of food.
Pictures released this weekend show one of Hamas’s remaining hostages, Evyatar David — captured at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023 — digging what was reported as his own grave. The Times of Israel notes that this is unconfirmed. Apparently, David only thinks he was digging his own grave. We should emphasize at this point that this is also very bad.
In addition, David’s family released images showing just how emaciated he’s become in Hamas’s captivity. And, yes, the images backwards from how we would order it, because that’s how they llor:
It’s tempting to put David’s wasting away on Netanyahu’s plate, along with Netanyahu’s food. “See? You’re starving your own people!”
But TFN rejects this reasoning. Taking people prisoner comes with certain moral obligations. First: Not doing it. Second: Letting them go.
If one fails to fulfill those first two obligations, then one really has to honor the remaining obligations. Which are, primarily, one must take care of one’s prisoners, the way Texas doesn’t by denying air conditioning to most of its inmates except Ghislaine Maxwell.1
If one does happen to be a terror group taking prisoners, one is obliged to feed said prisoners. If one cannot feed such prisoners — for whatever reason — one is obliged to let them the fuck out so they can hopefully catch a stiff breeze that’ll blow them homeward and foodward.
America First to Come Second to Israel Under New FEMA Rule
Under Pres. Donald Trump, American disaster victims will no longer receive federal disaster relief if Trump doesn’t like their foreign policies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) confirmed.
Specifically, if Trump doesn’t like the policies that states or cities have regarding Israel, Trump will deny their disaster victims potentially life-saving relief.
Trump has recently demonstrated just how devastating it might be to have FEMA sit on the sidelines during a disaster, as the agency did for several days during and after last month’s floods in Texas.
Now, new FEMA grant notices come with language restricting grants to only those local governments with no policies “limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies.”
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (except for those homeland parts that disapprove of Israel) and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin defended the policy.
“DHS will enforce all anti-discrimination laws and policies, including as it relates to the BDS [Boycott, Divest, Sanction and/or Bondage, Discipline, Sadism] movement, which is expressly grounded in antisemitism,” said McLaughlin, who’s expected to get her own MSNBC show in 2032.
It’s worth noting, so I’m gonna fuckin’ note it, that McLaughlin’s boss, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, attends a White House Bible study that teaches that the Jews killed Jesus, which is the express grounding for antisemitism.
Road Rules Star Gets on Board Lunar Nuclear Plant
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, also acting as NASA administrator but best known for starring in Road Rules: Boston, this week will announce expedited plans to build a nuclear reactor on the moon. (h/t)
Tempting as it may be to laugh at Pres. Donald Trump for this, the plans predate him. And although Duffy seems to be struggling just to keep planes in the air, let alone hoist nuclear plants above the air, Duffy may deserve some credit here.
After all, in another, not-far-away reality, you know Trump ordered oil wells to be dug on the moon, which has no oil. And/or slapped tariffs on the moon, which has a huge trade deficit with the U.S.
Wind power is not an option — not due to the moon’s lack of atmosphere, but due to Trump’s longstanding feud with windmills. Solar power, too, apparently, is a problem, due to the lunar night.
The 100-kilowatt reactor, however, won’t be ready for launch until the early 2030s, when it could still be canceled by President Zohran Mamdani.
TCB
NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD I discussed my Mar-a-Lago exclusive on yesterday’s Nicole Sandler Show. You can watch it here and catch me every Monday at 3:30pm eastern time with Nicole right here.
SUPPORTING TFN As I reported exclusively yesterday, it is August. And as I explained, this means a slowdown in readers and financial support. Which, sure enough, I watched not happen yesterday on all my Substack dashboards. (With one exception, thank you!)
And then, like the Grinch’s heart growing three sizes, last night a handful of Newsfuckers upgraded to paid. No idea why it happened so late yesterday, but it really helped me feel like the slump from me being out sick last week might start to break. Fuck August!
If you can afford to help buffer TFN against the dog days of August, this would be the perfect time to join the small but mighty host of Newsfuckers who’ve upgraded to a paid TFN subscription. E pluribus fuckem!
RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! In fact, and purely ironically: Come and take it…!
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
As a diligent Newsfucker pointed out in the comments, the state of Texas has no jurisdiction over federal prisons in Texas. So while Texas does unforgivably boil its own inmates, it’s wrong to imply, as I did, that Texas might be boiling federal prisoners. I apologize for the outrage-fueled but still inexcusable stretching of the truth lying.
I will always be a paid subscriber. I could not live without your sense of humor, and I catch even the subtle ones. Tomorrow, August 6 is my 77th birthday. I especially look forward to that day of TheFuckingNews. Glad you are feeling better. You deserve all the accolades you get every day.
Check this map for the districts Texas Republicans are trying to gerrymander - and all the Republican districts in Blue States including CA, NY, IL, MI...
Fight fire with fire: Gerrymander!
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/07/30/fight-fire-with-fire-gerrymander/