MAHA Progress Report – The Atlantic
- Today's newsletter looks at the escalating redistricting battles in California and Texas,and what we can learn from embracing a little indifference.
- California and Texas are locked in a fierce battle over redrawing congressional maps, setting the stage for a potentially important shift in the balance of power in the...
- Sometime in the early aughts, the comedian Amy Poehler made a vulgar joke while sitting in the Saturday Night Live writers' room waiting for a midweek read-through to...
August 21,2025
Good Evening. Today’s newsletter looks at the escalating redistricting battles in California and Texas,and what we can learn from embracing a little indifference.
Redistricting Wars
California and Texas are locked in a fierce battle over redrawing congressional maps, setting the stage for a potentially important shift in the balance of power in the House of Representatives. California Democrats passed the first of three bills on a redistricting plan backed by Governor Gavin Newsom that would shift as many as five Republican-held U.S. House seats toward Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms. The move comes a day after Texas state House republicans passed a new congressional map that could add five U.S. house seats for the GOP.
Evening Read
What We Gain When We Stop Caring
By Anna Holmes
Sometime in the early aughts, the comedian Amy Poehler made a vulgar joke while sitting in the Saturday Night Live writers’ room waiting for a midweek read-through to begin. As detailed in Tina Fey’s 2011 memoir, Bossypants Jimmy Fallon, who was also in the show’s cast at the time, jokingly recoiled and told Poehler to stop it.
“It’s not cute!” Fallon exclaimed. “I don’t like it.”
“Amy dropped what she was doing,went black in the eyes for a second,and wheeled around on him,” Fey writes. “‘I don’t fucking care if you like it.'”
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Rafaela Jumich contributed to this newsletter.
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