Gee, what’s happened to the “silly season” of U.S. politics?

That’s what many of us in the daily journalism trade used to call the periods, usually in late summer or near holidays, when news media put an unusually intense focus on lighthearted or frivolous stories because of a shortage of more serious news.

We currently have no such shortage. Even late-breaking investigations and speculation surrounding the suicide of President Donald Trump’s late friend Jeffrey Epstein have had to compete with a ferocious partisan war within some of the states over redistricting.

Consider Texas, where Republicans in the state Legislature are attempting, at Trump’s urging, to redraw congressional districts in order to flip five more districts to Republican majorities. Democratic legislators have fled th

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