Bolton, Trump, and American MEMRI. The Middle East Media Research Institute, better known as MEMRI, calls itself a hate-speech watchdog, translating Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, and Urdu sound bites into English and posting them for mass consumption. Mideast watchers know it as a hawkish, fear-mongering nonprofit that cherry-picks the most extreme voices from Arabic talk shows […]
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Posted inEducation in America
DeVos Fails Students, Again.
The higher education system is broken, but instead of fixing it, the Department of Education is intent on breaking it even more. The gainful employment rule was an Obama-era regulation that protected against the predatory loan practices of for-profit colleges by monitoring their students’ ability to earn back their debt after graduation. Last week, the […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
July 16, 2019
Facebook’s Faltering on Libra. I previewed the week’s hearings for Big Tech today on the website, and I wondered whether Silicon Valley would have any allies on Capitol Hill left. It turns out they have a few, but not nearly enough. David Marcus, a vice president of Facebook, testified at the Senate Banking Committee today […]
Posted inTAP
Large Crowd Rallies to Stop Private-Equity Hospital Closure in Philadelphia
Health professionals, patients, and lawmakers savaged private-equity baron Joel Freedman for the proposed closure of Hahnemann University Hospital at a noontime rally in Center City, Philadelphia, today. What looked to be over a thousand supporters and activists turned out, shutting down part of Broad Street and condemning Freedman as a “coward” and a “disgrace” who […]
Posted inTAP
Another Stop Sign for Self-Driving Cars
Elon Musk is unhappy: Somehow his grand vision of allowing every Tesla owner to sleep in the back of the car while they’re whisked around to work and play hasn’t come to fruition. According to an article at The Information, Musk has fired several top managers working on Tesla’s “Autopilot” feature, including the group’s leader, […]
Posted inTAP
Trump’s Clumsy Dance With the Federal Reserve
It’s hilarious to watch the three-way dance between the economy, the stock market, and Trump’s hapless effort to fill two open seats on the Federal Reserve. Or, it would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high. Alert readers will recall that Trump has been badgering the Fed to push interest rates even lower, […]
Posted inTAP
The Medicare for All Red Herring
Some pundits have taken to warning supporters of Medicare for All that it is a gift to Republicans in the general election. Supposedly, Medicare for All would dismay the vast majority of Americans who are broadly satisfied with their employer-provided insurance. And as Representative John Delaney declared in the first of the two Democratic debates, […]
Posted inTAP
The House Border Supplemental Debacle
While we’ve spent the past two days watching candidates who want to win the next election, we’ve neglected a disaster from the winners of the last election. For the past week, the House has been working on a $4.5 billion emergency border supplemental appropriation, responding to the inhumane conditions in migrant holding cells. Progressives wanted […]
Posted inTAP
When the Grown-Up in the Room is Trump
For two years, the grown-ups in the room restrained Trump. He managed to get rid of all of them—an attorney general in Jeff Sessions who wasn’t willing to do all of Trump’s bidding; some White House chiefs of staff such as Reince Priebus who acted to protect him from himself; the traditional generals who served […]
Posted inTAP
Why Willie Sutton Is a Sounder Guide to Taxing Wealth Than Chuck Lane
Today, the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies are holding a conference entitled “Taxing the (Very) Rich,” featuring such luminaries as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, author Barbara Ehrenreich, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Congresswomen Pramila Jayapal and Jan Schakowsky, and a veritable minyan of economists. Moreover, a number of certifiable gazillionaires, […]
