Red state GOP threatened with legal war as election maps described as ‘surgical racism’
Calling the North Carolina Republican Party’s new congressional district map “surgical racism with surgical precision,” Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach was in Raleigh Thursday, announcing a lawsuit challenging the redistricting effort—pledging that the state’s voters will “challenge gerrymandering in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box.”
“This is a direct attack on the state’s Black Belt district and marginalized communities,” said Barber at a news conference announcing the legal challenge, a day after the state House of Representatives approved the new map in a party-line vote.
The new map, which was passed by the state Senate earlier this week and cannot be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein under state law, will likely give the GOP an additional seat in the US House after the 2026 midterm elections.
President Donald Trump has called for mid-decade redistricting efforts by the GOP in states including Missouri and Texas, as well as North Carolina, with state Republicans heeding his demands.
North Carolina’s new map will likely give Republicans 11 of the state’s 14 districts by moving some Black voters out of the 1st District and into the 3rd District. Had the new map been in place in 2024, Trump would likely have won 55% of the vote in the new 1st District in 2024, up from the 51% he won.
Barber denounced the redistricting efforts across the country as “political robbery” by a party that wants “to rob people of their rights through this racially based gerrymandering... so that they can give power or keep power in the US Congress to engage in political violence,” including by cutting healthcare and blocking the passage of living wages.
“We’ve seen this pattern before—the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny,” said Barber. “But the truth is simple: When you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future. That’s why we will fight back... to make clear that in North Carolina, and across America, the people’s will cannot be gerrymandered out of existence.”
Barber said Republicans in the state Legislature are “gambling” to win another seat, instead of trying to win over voters.
“They’re saying, ‘Let’s move this county over here, let’s move this county over here,’ he said at the press conference. ”Black voters in Congressional District 1 make up approximately 40% of the population, and there’s a growing Latino population that makes up 7%... Black communities, Latino communities, and rural, working-class, poor white voters, if the districts are fair, have the power to build a fusion electorate that can overcome the greedy oligarchs’ will to control elections in our state.“
Along with filing a legal action against state lawmakers to challenge the legality of the map, Barber said Repairers of the Breach will hold a ”Mass Moral Fusion Meeting“ and public hearing on November 2.
”If they won’t hold public hearings, we will,“ said Barber. ”This is our Edmund Pettus Bridge moment... Black, white, and brown together—because our democracy is not for sale.“
Trump’s revenge crusade on Adam Schiff crashes into brick wall: report
President Donald Trump sought to target Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) after the lawmaker served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 probe and worked on both impeachment cases. That effort has reportedly hit a brick wall, however.
Last week, MSNBC revealed that the Maryland prosecutor who went after former National Security Advisor John Bolton was stuck on the Schiff case, so she pivoted to focus more on Bolton. Now it appears the Schiff case has stalled entirely.
Writing Thursday, Ryan J. Reilly, Kristen Welker, Michael Kosnar and Carol E. Lee wrote for NBC News that the investigation “came to a standstill," according to a federal law enforcement official.
U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes reportedly met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this week to ask how to move forward without the goods on Schiff.
"The decision out of that meeting was for Hayes to pursue more evidence, and the case remains ongoing," reported NBC, citing one of the sources.
Schiff has retained former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as his counsel.
In a statement to NBC News, Bharara said: “It seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”
“The transparently vindictive effort to pursue the Senator has no merit, and if there is any justice left in the Justice Department, this should be the end of the matter,” he added.
Trump claims not to know fraudster who boosted his crypto venture after pardoning him
President Donald Trump said he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire who boosted a crypto company owned by the Trump family, because "a lot of people" said he was innocent.
During a Thursday Oval Office event, a reporter asked whether Zhao's pardon had anything to do with his family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture.
"I do pardon a lot of people," Trump replied. "A lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything."
"That what he did, well, you don't know much about crypto," he told the reporter. "You know nothing about nothing, you know, fake news. But let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him. But I've been told by — a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime."
Trump claimed that Zhao had been "persecuted by the Biden administration," even though he pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements.
"So I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people," Trump concluded.
MAGA darling may be walking into ‘Super Bowl of murder content’ trap: report
There's a storm brewing over an upcoming debate between MAGA heavyweights, according to a new report.
On Friday, MAGA personalities Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson will face off in a debate about Charlie Kirk's assassination, The Bulwark reported. Owens plans to present a case that there is a broader conspiracy at play, while Wilson plans to argue that Tyler Robinson, Kirk's accused killer, acted out of his own volition.
“This debate will be the Super Bowl of Charlie murder content,” Michael Knowles, a MAGA media personality on The Daily Wire network, told The Bulwark. “Millions of people will watch it, lots of money will be made, lots of opinions will be put forward.”
There's just one catch. The debate isn't about exposing the truth about Kirk's killing. Instead, it seems to be a ploy for Wilson to boost his name recognition within the MAGA-sphere.
"Wilson is effectively paying Owens to collaborate with him and boost his profile in the MAGA movement, like an unknown rapper paying a star for a guest verse on his track," Will Sommer, a reporter for The Bulwark, noted in the article.
"Wilson’s wild spending in pursuit of debate clout has raised the prospect that he’s a stalking horse for TPUSA’s own efforts to undermine Owens. The thought has certainly occurred to Owens herself," Sommer added. "At one point, she said she would only debate Wilson if a TPUSA higher-up like Erika Kirk acknowledged that he represented them. That condition actually doesn’t appear to have been met, but the debate is still on."
