I spent some time last week with Alex Morse, the 30-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, who has just announced his primary challenge to Ways and Means Chair Richie Neal, 70, the most corporate of congressional Democrats. Neal’s constituents in western Massachusetts are rather more liberal than he is. Morse has gained national attention for running […]
ON TAP
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Walmart and Guns, Part II
In my Tuesday On Tap, I noted that a number of Walmart employees, in the wake of the mass murder at an El Paso mega-store, had begun expressing concern about the company’s policy of selling guns (Walmart is the nation’s leading gun retailer) and allowing open carry in stores in the states that permit it. […]
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Breaking China
Trump’s latest impulsive moves against China, which reflect no coherent trade strategy other than his own petulance, could well derail the strongest thing he has going into the 2020 election: a relatively strong economy. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman has calculated that the costs of a trade war with China could equal or exceed […]
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Walmart and Guns
In the wake of the assault-weapon murders at El Paso’s mega Walmart, America’s number-one gun seller and largest private-sector employer has come under justifiable criticism for its gun policies. Roughly half of Walmart’s 4,750 stores sell guns, and the company announced on Monday that that policy would not change. It also announced that it wouldn’t […]
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The Hispanic Invasion of Texas?
The mass murderer of El Paso, shortly before he started shooting, posted that he was seeking to repel “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” In this, consciously or merely zeitgeist-ly, he was echoing our president, who’d previously spoken of the “invasion” of the United States by Hispanics at the border. It’s clear (and not surprising) that […]
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Will Hate Strangle Its Author?
As you sow, so shall you reap. The manifesto posted online in advance of the El Paso Walmart slaughter leaves little doubt that the killer, who lifted language from Trump tweets, was energized by the climate of white supremacist and anti-immigrant hatred stoked by the rantings of the Hater-in-Chief. As were so many other haters. […]
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The Idiocy of Ballot Bouncing
Today’s pop quiz: In the election of 1860, how many popular votes did Abraham Lincoln receive in the Southern states? Answer: None. The Southern states refused to allow Lincoln’s name, or that of any Republican, to appear on their ballots. I was reminded of good old Dixie’s commitment to democracy earlier this week, when California […]
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The Idiocy of Campaign Coverage
Please excuse this rant. Today’s offender is, once again, the best of the mainstream media, The New York Times. Two items, actually. Exhibit A: Front page, Sunday piece on Kamala Harris. Print Headline: “Pragmatism, not Ideology, Defines Harris.” OK, for starters, this is a completely false framing. There is no such thing as a politician […]
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Taxing Remittances? How About Taxing the Rich When They Send Their Money Abroad?
The Trump hath tweeted, and proclaimed that he wants to subject Guatemalan imports to tariffs, and to subject the remittances that Guatemalan immigrants in the United States send back to their families in Guatemala to a tax. What, you may ask, has the little Central American nation done to deserve such treatment? Simple: Its Supreme […]
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Politicians Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Real-Time
In 2019, it’s still the case in America that if you deposit a check or have funds wired into your bank account, it can take up to five days for you to access your money. This puts the United States behind such advanced economies as India, Poland, and Kenya, the latter of which has had […]
