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On Wednesday, one day after a federal court struck down Texas’ new Republican gerrymander, Judge Jerry Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee, published his belated dissent from the 2–1 decision. It is one of the most unhinged opinions ever published by an American jurist. Smith’s 104-page screed , released a day after the majority opinion, is a rancid gumbo of feverish conspiracy theories and character assassination: He invokes the liberal Jewish philanthropist George Soros no fewer than 17 times, deriding the plaintiff’s expert witness as a “Soros operative” who draws millions from “his Soros piggybank.” He accuses Soros and his son Alex of having “their hands all

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