As time winds down for Congress to pass a short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, Republicans have another plan in the works—not only to place the blame for a shutdown squarely on Democrats but to blame them for a failure to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Early Friday morning, House Speaker […]
Blog: TAPPED
Posted inHousing and Transportation
Boston’s Amazon HQ2 Fantasies Take Off
Who needs one million square feet of office space in Boston’s Seaport District? Amazon might. The Boston Globe reported Thursday that real-estate industry executives “with knowledge of the talks” dished that Amazon is in the market for one, maybe two office buildings in the bustling and picturesque waterfront neighborhood. (The Boston Business Journal first reported […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Emperor Trump
The Fool Who Plays The King Todd Gitlin As the UN General Assembly readied to vote on a resolution condemning the United States for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (it passed, 128 to 9), Trump’s Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is reported by the Times to have written to the members of the General […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Clinician Activists Grapple with 25th Amendment and Trump’s Mental Health
Mulling over President Trump’s mental health has become a national preoccupation, with commentators from Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski to politicians like Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy all eager to weigh in on the issue. But one group of activists hope that their words will hold a little more weight and speed up Trump’s departure […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Republicans’ Leninist Respect for Democracy
The Republican Party is the B-team of politics. The B stands for Bolshevik. They strike even before the iron is hot, partly because they fear it won’t stay hot for long, partly because they know how unpopular their moves are, and partly because they believe in the exercise of raw power. The Republican commandos are […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Alabama: One More Assault on Voting Rights
Just in case we needed one more thumb on the scale of today’s Alabama Senate election, how about this: The Alabama Supreme Court last night inserted itself to block a lower court ruling requiring election officials to preserve ballots, in case of challenges to voter suppression or even a just plain recount. In Alabama, about […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Trump’s Neo-Fascist Slime Pit
When Trump launched his n+1st vileness on Twitter yesterday, retweeting phony and incendiary videos (talk about “fake news”!) posted by a lunatic-fringe white Christian Muslim-hating British website, Britain First , the reaction from anti-racists was quickly and rightly outraged. Britain First traffics in demographic panic that can be summarized easily: The white Christians are vanishing! […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Tax Cuts Won’t Go to Job Creation—Just Listen to the CEOs
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Republican tax scheme is going to pass. And already, corporate executives are undermining the GOP’s claim that their gigantic corporate tax cuts will be funneled directly into job-creating investments in the United States. Some of the country’s largest and most profitable companies are saying that they’ll be sending tax […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
VA Officials Continue to Discuss Proposed Health-Care Changes Out of Public View
In a now familiar pattern, leading veterans organizations are up in arms again over the latest revelations about White House plans for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)—plans that were concocted behind closed doors. Last week, the Associated Press reported that Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin and other Trump officials have been quietly discussing ways […]
Posted inEducation in America
The GOP Tax Plan Places Huge Burden on Graduate Students
Late last week, House Republicans passed the “Tax Cuts and Job Act,” a bill they claim will cut taxes and raise wages for the majority of Americans. One group that would see a huge tax increase are graduate students. Many of them survive on modest stipends, but they could see their taxes quadruple under the […]
