It looks like Senate Republicans aren’t just talking tough on corruption – they’re laying the groundwork for real accountability, and Democrats like Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James may finally have reason to worry.
Sen. John Cornyn has introduced the Law Enforcement Tools to Interdict Troubling Investments in Abodes—or the LETITIA Act, pointedly named after the New York AG herself. But this isn’t just a symbolic jab.
The bill represents a serious move to expand criminal liability and, more importantly, stiffen penalties for public officials who abuse their positions for personal gain—specifically through shady dealings like mortgage or tax fraud.
There’s no mistaking the intent behind this legislation.
Letitia James is famous for her partisan pursuit of President Trump, yet she herself now entangled in a federal investigation over mortgage fraud.
But the real intrigue emerges with the bill’s potential impact on Adam Schiff—the very same Schiff who for years cloaked himself in the language of integrity while leading partisan witch hunts against Trump and his allies.
The tables may be turning.
Details in the public record are damning. Housing authority Bill Pulte has accused Schiff of falsifying bank documents and misrepresenting primary residences across multiple states to secure more favorable mortgage terms. These aren’t garden-variety clerical mistakes—they’re deliberate moves that, under Cornyn’s proposal, would be subject to mandatory prison terms. If signed into law, the LETITIA Act would slap public officials convicted of bank fraud, loan or mortgage fraud, or tax fraud with minimum sentences—one year for bank or loan fraud, six months for tax fraud—ratcheting up to five years for repeated patterns of abuse. No more tepid reprimands or backroom wrist-slaps for insiders who get caught.
So, is this the moment where the Senate GOP draws a legal bullseye on Adam Schiff? Cornyn makes no effort to hide his intention to empower President Trump and authorities to finally “hold crooked politicians like New York’s Letitia James accountable for defrauding their constituents, violating their oath of office, and breaking the law.” The context leaves little doubt: this bill is meant not just as a warning to all but as a calibrated legislative knife aimed specifically at the likes of James and Schiff—high-ranking Democrats who have made a career out of prosecuting their rivals and hoisting the banner of unassailable virtue.
Adam Schiff, having cultivated an image as the tireless force against corruption and chaos, now finds that the same legal tripwires he spent years setting for others could be lying directly in his path. The Justice Department hasn’t pressed charges yet, but the bill puts a powerful tool in their hands—one designed to close the loopholes that have too long separated members of the political elite from real-world accountability.
When law’s hammer falls, it must strike without favoritism. The message from Senate Republicans is unmistakable: if Schiff is guilty of the mortgage fraud allegations leveled against him, he should face the same jail time and personal ruin the system eagerly imposes on anyone outside the Beltway. The LETITIA Act, if passed and enforced, tears down the shield of privilege, daring to answer the question: Will Adam Schiff finally be held legally accountable?
The answer may come sooner rather than later. For now, the Senate GOP has set the stage. The only thing left is for the Justice Department to decide whether it will step up and bring the same intensity to prosecuting Schiff as he did to others.
The days of untouchable insiders skating by on technicalities could finally be over.
US Services Surveys Plunge… And Soar In July As Prices Paid Spike
Following the significant weakness exhibited by the Manufacturing surveys (and worsening ‘hard’ data), Services data
S&P Global US Services PMI ROSE from 52.9 to 55.7 in July – the highest since Dec 2024
ISM Services PMI FELL from 50.8 to 50.1 (below expectations) and near the lowest since June 2024
Just ridiculous…
Under the hood the two surveys agreed on weakness in the labor market and soaring inflation.
The employment index dropped to 46.4, contracting for the fourth time in five months and marking one of the lowest readings since the pandemic.
The group’s measure of prices paid for materials and services, meanwhile, climbed to 69.9 — the highest since October 2022.
“A strong rise in service sector business activity helped offset a slowdown in the manufacturing sector in July, signaling encouragingly robust economic growth at the start of the third quarter,” according to Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence
“While GDP has risen at an average 1.25% pace over the first half of 2025, July’s PMI is indicative of growth doubling to about 2.5%.“
“July’s expansion was driven by surging demand in the tech sector alongside rising financial services activity, the latter linked to improving financial conditions fueled in turn by recent stock market gains.
However, falling exports of services, which includes spending in the US by tourists, acted as a drag on growth alongside subdued demand from consumers more broadly.”
Spot the odd one out…
“The recent strengthening of demand has led to rising backlogs of work in the service sector, encouraging firms to take on staff again,“Williamson added:
“There was some caution seen in terms of hiring and expansion, however, linked to sharply rising costs, often attributed to tariffs, as well as reduced optimism about future prospects.
Alongside a drop in optimism in the manufacturing sector, the reduced confidence in the service sector contributed to one of the gloomiest outlooks seen over the past three years, hinting at some downside risks to growth in the coming months.”
So once again, take your pick… choose your own adventure?
White House Order To Punish Banks That Discriminate Against Conservatives, Crypto Companies
The White House is about to unveil a new executive order that would punish big banks who discriminate against conservatives and crypto companies.
A draft of the order seen by the WSJdirects bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions may have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws, or consumer financial protection laws – with violators facing monetary penalties, consent decrees or other disciplinary measures, according to the draft.
People familiar with the EO told the Journal that it could be signed as soon as this week, though the order could become delayed or the administration’s plans may change.
The draft order doesn’t name any specific banks but appears to refer to an instance where Bank of America was accused of shutting down the accounts of a Christian organization operating in Uganda based on the organization’s religious beliefs. The bank has said it shut down the accounts because it doesn’t serve small businesses operating outside the U.S.
The draft order also criticizes the role that some banks played in an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. -WSJ
As Cointelegraph notes, conservatives have also claimed that banks have denied them services based on political beliefs.
The banking industry calls the practice “derisking,” and financial institutions have broad discretion to close accounts, whether the account holder poses a legal, financial or reputational risk to the firm.
The Federal Reserve said in June that it would stop examining for reputational risk following similar moves made by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC.
Crypto, meanwhile, was long in the crosshairs of the Biden administration – in what industry executives have alleged was an effort to cut crypto off from the financial system by using regulators to pressure banks into backing away from clients involved in digital assets.
As the outlet reports further, the reported draft order directs bank regulators to scrap any of their policies that may have contributed to banks dropping some customers, such as crypto firms.
It also directs the US government’s Small Business Administration to review banking practices that guarantee the loans made by the agency to small businesses.
The order asks regulators to refer some of the potential violations to the attorney general for the Department of Justice to follow up.
The Journal reported in June that the White House was planning for Trump to sign a similar order aiming at stopping banks from cutting off services to industries such as crypto.
“Operation Choke Point 2.0” claims
Crypto executives have claimed that former President Joe Biden began to cut off their industry from banking in late 2022 after the collapse of FTX, with the crypto exchange being revealed as a massive fraud.
Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal testified at a Congressional hearing in February that the Biden-era Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) “bludgeoned the banks” with examinations and questions around crypto and stablecoins until they “relented under the pressure.”
A Coinbase-supported Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FDIC showed the agency asked certain financial institutions to pause crypto banking activities, which Grewal said showed the industry’s claim “wasn’t just some crypto conspiracy theory.”
Crypto venture capitalist Nic Carter coined the term “Operation Choke Point 2.0” in February 2023 to describe the perceived debanking phenomenon, taking inspiration from the Justice Department’s “Operation Choke Point” against banks and payday lenders in the 2010s.
Trump Administration To Fast-Track Lunar Nuclear Reactor
With an eye on beating Russia and China to the punch, the Trump administration is about to announce plans to fast-track the building of a nuclear fission reactor on the moon. NASA administrator Sean Duffy, who is also Transportation Secretary, is expected to announce the expedited program this week, according to documents obtained by Politico.
“To properly advance this critical technology to be able to support a future lunar economy, high power energy generation on Mars, and to strengthen our national security in space, it is imperative the agency move quickly,” wrote Duffy in a directive issued Thursday.
In that memorandum, Duffy points to a joint Russian-Chinese plan to build a lunar nuclear reactor of their own. In May, the countries signed a memorandum of cooperation by which they will collaborate on a reactor to power the planned International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), which they hope to have operational by 2036. Led by the Chinese, but part of a collaboration with many other countries including Venezuela, Belarus, South Africa, Pakistan, Egypt and Kazakhstan, the facility is intended to conduct scientific research within a 62-mile radius of the lunar south pole. Other outposts are to follow over the following decades.
If China and Russia beat the United States in establishing their station, they “could potentially declare a keep-out zone,” Duffy warned. The rival US lunar program is called Artemis. Its first major milestone is supposed to return American astronauts to the moon in 2027, but there’s little chance of hitting that target, as critical components are still in development. China is working to put an astronaut on the moon by 2030.
Micro-nuclear reactors are considered essential to a sustained presence on the moon because lunar days and lunar nights last for two weeks each, rendering solar panels and batteries insufficient. Per Duffy’s directive, NASA has 60 days to name a leader of the nuclear-reactor project and gather industry perspectives. The overarching goal: launching a nuclear reactor with at least 100 kilowatts of generation capacity by late 2029.
Earlier NASA design work had a lesser, 40-kilowatt reactor tipping the scales at more than five metric tons. The contracted designers for that effort — at about an initial $5 million apiece — were Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX, a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy. In May, Rolls-Royce said it was soliciting space-industry partners to develop a micro-nuclear reactor suitable for Artemis.
BREAKING: China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft touches down, the first to return to Earth from the moon’s far side.
Last year, the Chinese notched a scientific victory, retrieving the first soil and rock samples from the far side of the moon and returning them to Earth. The Chang’e-6 craft used a drill and scoop to mine more than four pounds of material from the moon’s deepest crater. Their study of the material raised the possibility that the far side may be significantly drier than the near side, but the single sample isn’t conclusive.
A second new Duffy directive orders an accelerated project to replace the fading International Space Station (ISS), awarding contracts to at least two companies within six months of NASA issuing a request for proposals. The ISS is scheduled for decommissioning at the end of 2030, after which it will be sent into a controlled de-orbit that should see most of it burned up, with the remaining hunks of glowing-hot metal landing in a hopefully-empty part of the Pacific Ocean. If it’s not immediately replaced, China would have the only operational space station. Companies who’ve pursued space station business include Axiom Space, Vast and Blue Origin, Politico reports.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Aug. 4 that it has ended a decree initiated more than 44 years ago, which imposed across the federal government hiring practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) theories.
In a court filing on Aug. 1, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division stated that it will eliminate a 1981 decree issued under the Luevano v. Ezell case, which was brought by minority job applicants who alleged discrimination in 1979.
The DOJ said on Aug. 4 that the decree had “limited the hiring practices of the federal government based on flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and that it also “imposed draconian test review and implementation procedures” on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
“For over four decades, this decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement. “Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race.”
The 1981 consent decree had the federal government agreeing to eliminate what was known as the Professional and Administrative Career Examination, or PACE, assessment tool and create two special hiring mandates, the Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural programs.
The government had agreed that PACE violated a portion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to an OPM memorandum issued in 2007.
“These programs were to be used where traditional competitive examining procedures produced adverse impact to try to help improve diversity in the occupations covered by the decree,” the memo said.
The decision from the DOJ comes days after the department put out new guidelines for entities or individuals receiving federal funding, saying they cannot be involved in DEI programs.
In a statement on July 31, the DOJ said recipients may not engage in “unlawful discrimination” by violating federal antidiscrimination laws and regulations that “apply to programs or initiatives that involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled” as DEI programs.
“Entities that receive federal funds, like all other entities subject to federal antidiscrimination laws, must ensure that their programs and activities comply with federal law and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or other protected characteristics—no matter the program’s labels, objectives, or intentions,” the DOJ statement reads.
Recipients of federal funds range from schools, colleges, and universities to nonprofit organizations and private firms that are government contractors. The DOJ released the memo publicly on July 29.
Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has issued multiple executive orders targeting DEI or similar frameworks, saying that such policies are discriminatory, diminish merit-based systems, or create wasteful government spending.
Under the orders, the Trump administration has eliminated DEI-related programs within the government and dismissed a number of workers who were involved in those initiatives. The administration has faced some legal challenges.
Some private companies rolled back such initiatives in recent months, in some cases even before Trump took office.
So the hoax is finally officially acknowledged. “Russiagate” – the mainstream narrative, that is – is now described by American intelligence chiefs as a fabrication that was concocted to overturn the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Tulsi Gabbard, the current Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and CIA director John Ratcliffe have both accused former President Barack Obama of engaging in a “treasonous conspiracy” to subvert the constitutional process. It’s not just Obama who is implicated in this high crime. Other former senior officials in his 2013-17 administration, including former DNI James Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, and head of the FBI James Comey, are also implicated. If justice is permitted, the political repercussions are truly earth-shattering.
The potential impact is not confined solely to the violation of U.S. laws and the democratic process – bad enough that is. The Russiagate scandal that began in 2016 has had a lasting, damaging effect on U.S. and European relations with Russia.
The frightfully dangerous NATO proxy war incited in Ukraine, which threatens to escalate into a full-scale world war, was fueled in large part by the hostility generated from the false claims of Russian interference in the U.S. elections.
The allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a subversion campaign against the 2016 U.S. election and colluded with Donald Trump to get him elected were always specious. The scandal was based on shoddy intel claims to purportedly explain how Trump defeated his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton. Subsequently, the scandal was hyped into a seemingly credible narrative by U.S. intelligence chiefs at the direction of then-President Barack Obama as a way to delegitimize Trump’s incoming first-term presidency.
Years before the recent intelligence disclosures, many independent journalists, including Aaron Maté, and former intelligence analysts like Ray MacGovern and William Binney, had cogently disproven the official Russiagate claims. Not only were these claims false, they were knowingly false. That is, lies and deliberate distortions. Russia did not hack emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee to discredit Clinton. Clinton’s corruption was exposed by a DNC internal leak to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks whistleblower site. That was partly why Assange was persecuted with years-long incarceration.
A large enough number of voters simply despised Clinton and her warmongering psychopathy, as well as her sell-out of working-class Americans for Wall Street largesse.
Furthermore, Moscow consistently denied any involvement in trying to influence the 2016 U.S. election or attempts to favor Trump. Putin has said more than once that Russia has no preference about who becomes U.S. president, implying that they’re all the same and controlled by deeper state forces. Laughably, too, while Washington accused Moscow of election interference, the actual record shows that the United States has habitually interfered in scores of foreign elections over many decades, including those of Russia. No other nation comes close to the U.S. – the self-declared “leader of the free world” – in sabotaging foreign elections.
In any case, it is instructive to compare the Russiagate farce with the Watergate scandal.
Watergate involved spying by the White House of President Richard Nixon against a Democrat rival in the 1972 election. The political crisis that ensued led to Nixon’s resignation in disgrace in 1974. The U.S. nation was shocked by the dirty tricks. Several senior White House officials were later convicted and served time in jail for crimes related to the affair. Nixon was later pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, and avoided prosecution. Nevertheless, Watergate indelibly disgraced U.S. politics and, at the time, was described as “the worst political scandal of the 20th century.”
Subsequent cases of corruption and malfeasance are often dubbed with the suffix “gate” in a nod to Watergate as a momentous political downfall. Hence, “Russiagate.”
There are hugely important differences, however.
While Watergate was a scandal based on factual crimes and wrongdoing, Russiagate was always a contrived propaganda deception.
The real scandal behind Russiagate was not Trump’s alleged misdeeds or those of Russia, but the criminal conspiracy by Obama and his administration to sabotage the 2016 election and subsequently to overthrow the Trump presidency and the democratic will of the American people. Tulsi Gabbard, the nation’s most senior intelligence chief, has said that this amounts to “treason,” and she has called for the prosecution of Obama and other former senior aides.
Arguably, the real Russiagate scandal is far more criminal and devastating in its political implications than Watergate. The latter involved illegal spying and dirty tricks. Whereas, Russiagate involved a president and his intelligence chiefs trying to subvert the entire democratic process. Not only that, but the U.S. mainstream media are also now exposed for perpetrating a propaganda heist on the American public. All of the major U.S. media outlets amplified the politicised intelligence orchestrated by the Obama administration, claiming that Russia interfered in the election and that Trump was a “Kremlin stooge.” The hoax became an obsession in the U.S. media for years and piled up severe damage in international relations, a nefarious legacy that we are living with today.
The New York Times and Washington Post, reputedly two of the finest exponents of American journalism, jointly won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for their reporting on Russiagate, the official version, that is, which lent credibility to the hoax. In light of what we know now, these newspapers should be hanging their heads in shame for running a Goebbels-like Big Lie campaign to not only deceive the U.S. public but to subvert the democratic process and poison international relations. Their reputations are shredded, as well as those of other major media outlets, including ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC.
Ironically, The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for its reporting on the Watergate scandal. The story was made into a best-selling book, All The President’s Men, and a hit Hollywood movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, playing the roles of intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Woodward and Bernstein and The Washington Post were acclaimed as the finest in U.S. journalism for exposing Watergate and bringing a crooked president to book.
How shameful and absurd that an even greater assault on American democracy and international relations in the form of Russiagate is ignored and buried by “America’s finest”. That the scandal is ignored and buried should be of no surprise because to properly reveal it would shatter the foundations of the U.S. political establishment and the sinister role of the deep state and its mainstream media propaganda system.
“Difficult Quarter”: HIMS Plunges On Weak GLP-1 Sales
Hims & Hers Health (HIMS), the telehealth platform known for selling compounded GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, tumbled in premarket trading in New York after missing Wall Street’s revenue estimates in its Monday after-hours earnings release, despite posting a profit beat.
Despite strong year-over-year growth in revenue (+73%) and beating EPS and EBITDA estimates, HIMS fell short of revenue and subscriber projections in the second quarter, raising concerns about sustaining momentum, especially with GLP-1s accounting for about 35% of revenue and regulatory scrutiny around GLP-1 compounds mounting.
HIMS Q2 Earnings Summary:
Revenue: $544.8M (+73% YoY) — missed estimate of $552.1M
GLP-1 revenue: ~$190M
EPS: $0.17 — beat estimate of $0.15 (vs. $0.06 YoY)
Gross Margin: 76% — beat estimate of 75.6% (but down from 81% YoY)
Subscribers: 2.44M (+31% YoY) — missed estimate of 2.49M
Operating Expenses: $389.5M — up 59% YoY
HIMS has come under fire for continuing to sell compounded GLP-1 drugs, priced much lower than Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss treatment, Wegovy (semaglutide). While compounding is permitted during drug shortages, the FDA declared in February that supply woes have been resolved, raising many questions about HIMS’ ongoing sales.
Just weeks ago, Novo shares crashed the most on record after the Danish pharma giant slashed its full-year sales and profit guidance, citing slumping Wegovy sales. It noted compounded GLP-1 knockoffs that continue to flood the market.
This is key: Novo stated it’s “pursuing multiple strategies, including litigation, to protect patients from knockoff ‘semaglutide’ drugs.” And this is alarming news for HIMS.
HIMS 3Q and full-year outlooks were mainly in line with Wall Street estimates:
3Q Outlook Summary (vs. Estimates):
3Q Outlook Summary (vs. Estimates): Revenue Guidance: $570M–$590M (Street: $584.2M) ✅ In line
Adj. EBITDA: $295M–$335M (Street: $322.1M) ✅ In line Weight-Loss Revenue: At least $725M
Commentary from Wall Street analysts includes weak sales trends for its weight-loss drugs (courtesy of Bloomberg):
Citi (sell, PT $30)
Hims had a “difficult quarter” with a decline in weight-loss drug sales hitting revenue
“The GLP-1 decline was well-telegraphed given the end of bulk compounding; however, we were a bit surprised to see no sequential core revenue growth, which was largely driven by switching sexual health members from on-demand to daily solutions”
Jefferies (hold, PT to $51 from $50)
Negatives include the 2Q revenue miss, 3Q Ebitda guidance below the Street, and declining GLP-1 revenue
While investors are focused on topline growth and GLP trends, the 2Q Ebitda beat is a positive that management deserve credit for
Needham (hold)
The company is heading into 2H in “a state of transition” as it works through a wind-down in the GLP-1 revenue stream and shifts focus toward sexual health
Hims is simultaneously investing to launch hormonal health in 2H and expand into Canada in 2026
Shares of HIMS are down about 13% in premarket trading as of 6:45 a.m. ET, falling from Monday’s close near record highs of $63 to around $55 per share.
Home-Sellers Outnumber Home-Buyers By The Most In Over A Decade
Lance Lambert, co-founder and editor of ResiClub, posted on X, highlighting an ongoing and record-breaking trend in the housing market: sellers now outnumber buyers by the widest margin since Redfin data began well over a decade ago. The growing number of sellers is especially evident in the U.S. Southwest and U.S. Southeast, particularly in Texas and Florida, where the balance of power has shifted in favor of buyers.
There are an estimated 1.92 million home sellers in the U.S. housing market and about 1.41 million homebuyers. In other words, there are 508,715 more home sellers than buyers, a massive mismatch not seen at any other point in Redfin data going back to 2013.
Lambert has come across an inflection point for the housing market: “The longer we’ve remained in this strained housing demand environment, the more the total number of U.S. active sellers is outmatching the total number of active homebuyers. Of course, there’s a WIDE variation across the country.”
The longer we’ve remained in this strained housing demand environment, the more the total number of U.S. active sellers is outmatching the total number of active homebuyers.
Of course, there’s a WIDE variation across the country.
Much of the supply is materializing in Sun Belt metro areas, such as Austin, Dallas, Tampa, and Nashville. Inversely, Northeast and Midwest metros like Chicago, Hartford, and Boston have seen tight supplies.
Pockets in the Sun Belt—metros like Austin, Dallas, Tampa, Nashville—have softened much more than, say, many Northeast and Midwest metros like Chicago, Hartford, and Bostonhttps://t.co/7VPaI87f5l
For more color on the rates market, Goldman analysts expect the interest rate-cutting cycle to begin next month:
Largely uneventful Fed meeting, Powell’s comments suggested that lowering rates soon could be reasonable but is not yet essential. Neither the statement nor the press conference provided any direct hints about the likelihood of a cut in September. In response to a question about the two-cut baseline in the June dots, Powell acknowledged but declined to endorse it. We continue to forecast three 25bp rate cuts this year in September, October, and December, followed by two more in 2026 to a terminal rate of 3–3.25%. Powell’s comments today suggest to us that a September cut is certainly still up for debate but not that labour market softening over the next two months is necessarily required, and we continue to see multiple paths to a cut.
‘Cowardice & Dereliction Of Duty’ – Texas Governor Orders Arrest Of Fleeing Democratic Lawmakers
Update (1630ET): Promises made, promises kept…
Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a controversial vote on new congressional maps.
“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement Monday.
“I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Republican nomination for US Senate, said he supported the speedy arrest of “jet-setting runaways” who left the state during the legislative session.
“This is cowardice and dereliction of duty, and they should face the full force of the law without apology,” Paxton said in a tweet.
…and cue the lawsuits.
* * *
Absconding to — where else — Chicago, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives fled the state on Sunday to break a quorum and prevent a vote on a redistricting plan that promises to boost the GOP’s share of seats in the US House of Representatives by five. In response, Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove them from office, replace them, and pursue felony charges against them, using extradition powers if need be.
Their choice of exile location is positively drenched in hypocrisy, as Illinois arguably has the worst gerrymandering in America — to Democrats’ benefit, of course. In 2024, Democrats won 53% of the popular vote in Illinois House races, but took 82% of the seats (14 out of 17).
— Dr. Rich McCormick for Congress (@RichforGA) August 3, 2025
A quorum is the minimum number of lawmakers present in order to conduct legislative business – a tactic they’ve used twice before in the 22 years since Republicans have controlled all of Texas state government (efforts which ultimately failed).
The Democrats plan to stay away for two weeks to run the clock on a special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in order to draw the new map.
By state law, the Texas House can only conduct business when two-thirds of its 150 members are present, meaning at least 51 of the state’s 62 Democrats will stay away. So far, 57 have fled the state, according to State Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D), with members fleeing to Chicago, Boston and New York. All plan to remain out of the state until Aug. 19, when the special session concludes.
“Our goal right now is to kill this session,” said Rosenthal.
Abbott said if the Democrats don’t return by 3pm on Monday, he will invoke a Texas attorney general opinion and “remove the missing Democrats from membership in the Texas House,” and then pick their successors under power granted in the state constitution. Upping the ante, Abbott said many of the fleeing Democrats may have committed felonies, as they’re soliciting donations to cover fines they face under Texas House rules — arguing that they risk bribery charges for accepting money “to assist in the violation of legislative duties.” To bring them to justice, he said “I will use my full extradition authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential out-of-state felons.”Texas AG Ken Paxton (R), meanwhile, has threatened to arrest lawmakers who break quorum, though he won’t have jurisdiction over them outside of the state.
The governor of gerrymandered Illinois is lecturing about gerrymandering and praising obstructionist TX Democrats who fled their state, and his state is now harboring:
Democrats dismissed the threats. “As the Texas Supreme Court has acknowledged, it is the right of legislators to deny quorum,” State Rep. Chris Turner told the Dallas Morning News. “And as Governor Abbott should know, we also have separation of powers in this country.”
“Today this corruption ends,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, chairman of the Democratic caucus in his chamber, at a Chicago presser at a county Democratic Party office attended by other Texas Democrats and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
“This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity. Governor Abbott…is using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal. Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal.”
Wu also accused Gov. Greg Abbott of making “hostages” out of the victims of last month’s terrible floods in Kerrville, since the voting on the redistricting initiative was placed ahead of handling bills that would deliver financial aid to affected communities. The map has been swiftly advancing during the special legislative session that Abbott convened in July to handle the redistricting and flood response, among many other issues.
Republican leaders say the new map is a necessary correction, noting that the state’s population growth has warranted mid-decade changes. But Democrats contend the proposal is a blatant partisan power grab, part of a broader Republican effort in several states to shore up congressional majorities before what is expected to be a volatile midterm season.
Texas Republicans currently control 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats; the new map would likely give them 30, all of which Mr. Trump carried by at least 10 percentage points in 2024. The GOP holds a narrow 219-212 majority in the U.S. House, with four vacancies, and party leaders see Texas as central to preserving their legislative agenda.
Before the map was unveiled, President Trump said he favored “a very simple redrawing” that would give Republicans more seats. “We pick up five seats [in Texas] but we have a couple other states where we’ll pick up seats also,” he said last month.
Texas state Representative Todd Hunter, a Republican and sponsor of the legislation, called the proposal “a good plan for Texas” and said, “The primary changes … are focused on five districts for partisan purposes.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin – of the party that continually floats packing the Supreme Court when they don’t get their way – said, “Republicans thought they could just rig the maps and change the rules without the American people taking notice. They were dead wrong.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday on ABC that Democrats might “have to do things that perhaps in the past I would not have supported” in response to the Texas plan.
“I think we need to respond in kind,” said Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, and chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
The new Texas map, unveiled last week under pressure from Trump and Abbott, was approved by a legislative committee on Saturday and was expected to reach the House floor on Tuesday.
In a separate development that could have profound implications for redistricting battles across America, the US Supreme Court last week said it will consider the constitutionality of redistricting that’s intentionally aimed at creating “majority-minority districts” with the goal securing power for blacks and Hispanics. In that Louisiana case filed by self-described “non-African American voters,” claiming a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the high court said it will examine whether that kind of redistricting violates the 14th or 15th Amendments to the US Constitution.
In April 2024, a federal panel of judges in the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled that purposefully creating a majority-black district was “an impermissible racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The 15th Amendment bars governments from denying or abridgingthe right to vote based on race or color.
These Are The World’s 50 Most Valuable Private Companies
The race to build the next generation of global giants is on.
While public markets get most of the spotlight, private companies are quietly building massive valuations and shaping the future of industries.
This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, ranks the world’s 50 most valuable private companies in 2025, highlighting emerging powerhouses from different countries and sectors.
Data & Discussion
The data for this visualization comes from CB Insights. It ranks private companies globally by their most recent reported valuations.
Rank
Company
Country
Valuation ($B)
1
🚀 SpaceX
United States
$350
2
📱 ByteDance
China
$300
3
🧠 OpenAI
United States
$300
4
💳 Stripe
United States
$70
5
👗 SHEIN
Singapore
$66
6
📊 Databricks
United States
$62
7
🤖 Anthropic
United States
$62
8
🌌 xAI
United States
$50
9
💱 Revolut
United Kingdom
$45
10
🎨 Canva
Australia
$32
11
🏈 Fanatics
United States
$31
12
🛡️ Safe Superintelligence
United States
$30
13
🏦 Chime
United States
$25
14
🎮 Epic Games
United States
$23
15
🧭 Miro
United States
$18
16
📸 Xiaohongshu
China
$17
17
🧾 Rippling
United States
$17
18
📚 Yuanfudao
China
$16
19
📷 DJI Innovations
China
$15
20
💬 Discord
United States
$15
21
🛍️ Gopuff
United States
$15
22
🥤 Yuanqi Senlin
China
$15
23
💸 Ripple
United States
$15
24
🛒 Klarna
Sweden
$15
25
🛰️ Anduril
United States
$14
26
🧪 Scale
United States
$14
27
🌊 OpenSea
United States
$13
28
⚙️ Celonis
Germany
$13
29
💼 Ramp
United States
$13
30
✍️ Grammarly
United States
$13
31
❤️ Devoted Health
United States
$13
32
🌍 Deel
United States
$13
33
🛒 Faire
United States
$13
34
🏢 Brex
United States
$12
35
🚬 JUUL Labs
United States
$12
36
🪙 Bitmain Technologies
China
$12
37
🌱 GoodLeap
United States
$12
38
🧺 Xingsheng Selected
China
$12
39
📋 Airtable
United States
$12
40
🚗 ZongMu Technology
China
$11
41
🌐 Global Switch
United Kingdom
$11
42
💳 Checkout.com
United Kingdom
$11
43
⚡ Bolt
United States
$11
44
🔮 Alchemy
United States
$10
45
🧬 Colossal
United States
$10
46
🚛 Huolala
China
$10
47
🧠 Thinking Machines Lab
United States
$10
48
👥 Gusto
United States
$10
49
🚘 Chehaoduo
China
$10
50
📞 Talkdesk
United States
$10
Note: Scale AI’s recent deal with Meta was not captured in the source dataset. Scale is now valued at roughly $29 billion, which would place it 14th in this ranking.
Artificial Intelligence is Taking Over
AI startups are increasingly populating the top 10, with OpenAI in third ($300 billion), Anthropic in seventh ($62 billion), and xAI in eighth ($50 billion). All three of these companies have produced some of the world’s smartest AI models in recent years.
Further down the ranking, we can identify Safe Superintelligence ($30 billion), which was created by former employees of OpenAI and Anthropic, and Scale AI, in which Meta recently acquired a 49% stake.
This deal wasn’t captured in the source dataset, but it means that Scale is now valued at $29 billion, which would bump it up to 14th place.
Finally, there are many companies that have AI applications, but not necessarily as their core product. This includes names like Databricks (a data analytics platform), Grammarly (uses generative AI to power its writing assistant), and Colossal (a de-extinction biotech company).
