This past summer, when asked about the dearth of jobs in regions like upstate New York, he opined that “Americans are going to have to start moving” to places where the jobs are. That, of course, would decimate his political base, but, as Washington Post reporter Heather Long noted in Wednesday’s paper, a number of […]
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Posted inTAP
It sure looks as if an impeachment proceeding is inevitable…
…and that the issue of impeachment will dominate the 2018 elections, especially in the House. There is already enough on the public record, beginning with Trump’s obstruction of justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey, to justify impeachment, and you can be sure that Robert Mueller’s report will provide a lot more details. […]
Posted inTAP
On the first day of 2018, The New York Times reported on a technological breakthrough
Google Street View’s images of America’s neighborhoods, a Stanford University study concludes, can now be interpreted by artificial intelligence to predict a neighborhood’s—or a street’s or a block’s—politics. “Image recognition technology, much of it developed by major technology companies, has improved greatly in recent years,” the Times reported, noting that the primary data on which […]
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 inTAP
The latest CNN poll has Democrats up 18 points in the voter choice for members of the House
There is an increasing chance that in a Democratic wave election, gerrymandering could backfire on the Republicans, and lead to a massive Democratic sweep, with a pickup of 75 seats or even more. (It takes only 24 for Dems to take back the House.) Here’s how that works. Let’s say you are the Republican architects […]
Posted inTAP
One distinctive feature of Republicanism in the Age of Trump
… is the destruction of government agencies by appointment. Time and again, the president has appointed and the Senate confirmed directors committed to the destruction of the agency they’re directing and the inversion of its values. Think Scott Pruitt at the EPA, or Betsy DeVos at Education, or Ben Carson at HUD—the list, as you […]
Posted inTAP
I keep having arguments with friends and colleagues…
… about the importance of electing a Democrat in 2020. Some say, let’s just find a Democrat who can be elected. Others say that it matters what kind of Democrat. I’m emphatically with the second group. The road to Trumpism was paved by Democrats who really didn’t care about working-class Americans, who thought social issues […]
Posted inTAP
With the Republican tax bill poised to pass …
…and propel economic inequality to still greater heights, the newspapers are full of stories charting how increasingly, to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “the rich are different from you and me.” While the growing distance between the billionaires and the rest of us is challenging art directors to come up with charts that still will fit […]
Posted inTAP
At what point do working people who supported Trump start noticing..
… the chasm between his rhetoric and reality—which is a government of, by, and for billionaires? This is trickier than it seems. The tax bill, as we’ve all read, is a phony. It delivers most of the benefits to the rich, and screws middle-class homeowners in high-tax states. But it does deliver modest help to […]
Posted inTAP
A Christmas Tree Bill for Lobbyists
Maybe Trump’s crowing about the tax bill is premature. He staged a truly disgusting display at the White House, promising the legislation as “a Christmas present for the American people,” but a Christmas tree bill for lobbyists is more like it. However the true Christmas present is that the bill seems to be in trouble […]
