Maybe it’s just me, but one of the few times I perked up in what I considered a forgettable debate last night was when Bernie Sanders started in with a detailed discussion of Senate procedure. The nation couldn’t care less about how the Senate conducts its business, but we’re simultaneously held hostage by it, because […]
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Posted inTAP
If Everyone Defined Their Business the Way Uber Does (A Playlet)
In a desperate display of legal legerdemain, Uber general counsel Tony West responded yesterday to the California legislature’s passage of a bill compelling companies to stop misclassifying their employees as independent contractors—as Uber does its drivers—with the novel legal theory that the drivers and the rides they provide aren’t part of Uber’s central business mission, […]
Posted inTAP
On This Anniversary of 9/11, the Case for Patriotism
I noticed a large American flag outside the home of a neighbor, marking this fateful anniversary. My first reaction, I am ashamed to admit, was to wonder if there might be a Trump voter in my nice liberal neighborhood. But then I thought, hey it’s my flag, too. As we head into 2020, it’s time […]
Posted inTAP
Hey, Jerry Nadler: Impeach Wilbur Ross!
According to a front-page story in today’s New York Times, last Friday Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened to fire officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees the National Weather Service (NWS), if they didn’t affirm President Trump’s fantastical claim that Alabama had been threatened by Hurricane Dorian. When Trump had initially […]
Posted inTAP
Would Trump Cancel the Election?
The story went by so fast that you may have missed it in the welter of other Trump outrages and mishaps. Republican parties in four states—Nevada, Arizona, South Carolina, and Kansas—are on track to cancel the 2020 primaries. Why would they do such a thing? Because Trump is facing some primary opposition. The crazier he […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin: Understanding Some Key Demographic Differences
Dan Balz’s lengthy article in The Washington Post is a useful summary of the 2020 electoral map. He identifies four states as being key to the upcoming contest: Florida and, quite properly, the Rust-Belt trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Let me focus here on that trio of states and run down some of the […]
Posted inTAP
Fighters Fight Ultimate Fighting
Here’s the true test of this age of corporate power: You can throw a dart at a board (one that includes all sectors of the economy, so a pretty big board) and inevitably hit a concentrated, exploitative industry. Today I toss a bull’s-eye toward … mixed martial arts! Not that you’d know this but there’s […]
Posted inTAP
What Joe Biden and His Supporters Have in Common: Neither Is Paying Much Attention
In my Tuesday On Tap, I noted that of all the leading Democratic presidential candidates, only former Vice President Biden has not come out in favor of the most consequential legislation now pending in any of the 50 state legislatures: California’s Assembly Bill 5, which would require Uber, Lyft, and other companies to reclassify their […]
Posted inWorking in America
Joe Biden, MIA
As Prospect staff writer Alex Sammon has noted, the most important piece of legislation currently pending in any of the nation’s 50 state legislatures has seen something of a generational divide among Democrats. The bill, AB5, would conform California’s labor law to a ruling of the state’s Supreme Court that required employers to reclassify workers […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Understanding Trump’s White Working Class Support
Tom Edsall’s most recent Times column claims, “We Aren’t Seeing White Support for Trump for What It Is.” The column is based heavily on a paper by political scientists Herbert Kitschelt and Philipp Rehm entitled, “Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of White Partisan Support since the New Deal Era.” Edsall’s […]