Day: June 13, 2024

The Federalist President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) sued a small Texas county for drawing its district map in a way that eradicated a sole Democrat-held county seat, arguing the map violates the Voting Rights Act (VRA). But the DOJ’s decision to sue the county could backfire and potentially flip Democrat-held congressional seats after the county called its bluff and went to court over so-called “coalition districts.”  Galveston County’s Precinct 3 is held by Democrat Stephen Holmes and has long been a Democrat stronghold. Until recently, the county lines had been drawn in such a way that they created a “coalition district,” according to Paul Ready, general counsel for Galveston County. A “coalition district” is a district in which no minority group could be a majority, but multiple minority groups are then combined to form a majority-minority district to increase the chances of electing a candidate preferred by the minority groups — often a Democrat, Ready explained to The Federalist. Galveston County’s brief to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, obtained by The Federalist, alleges that coalition districts “present political, not racial, alliances.” READ THE FULL STORY 

Washington Times Senate Republicans rejected another Democratic election-year messaging bill on reproductive issues Thursday, this one focused on protecting access to in vitro fertilization. The text vote failed 48-47, a similar margin to last week’s unsuccessful Senate vote to begin debate on a bill to codify the right to contraception. Both measures required 60 votes to survive. Republicans say there are no serious efforts underway to strip away the right to contraception or in vitro fertilization (IVF) and Democrats are just trying to create a wedge issue for political purposes.  READ THE FULL STORY 

Breitbart Elon Musk’s X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has announced plans to hide all users’ “likes” in an effort to “better protect your privacy,” a move that has sparked concerns about potential blackmail, abuse, and the inability to validate post engagement — making it easier than ever for bots to distort and disrupt the platform. The Register reports that the decision to make “likes” private, which was initially available only to Premium users last year, will now be applied to all X/Twitter users. The platform’s engineering team shared the news on their account, stating that the change would be implemented sometime this week. Once the switch is flipped, the Likes tab on user profiles will disappear, though users will still be able to see a list of posts they have personally “liked.” This change means that X/Twitter users will no longer be able to see who has liked a specific post or what posts a particular person has liked. However, users will still have access to metrics from their own posts and a full list of people who have liked their content. READ THE FULL STORY