Tag Archives: politics

Hat tip Linda Beale contact forwards this Propublica job tracker post: What Happened to All the Jobs Trump Promised? President Trump has made many claims promising that individual companies such as Amazon, Alibaba and Boeing will hire large – and specific – numbers of American workers, a total of 2.4 million in all … We found that only about 206,000 of those jobs have been created so far … Roughly 136,000 of those were genuinely new positions, as opposed...

Along the line in the movie “The Sixth Sense, I see dead people. They don’t know they’re dead.” Repubs; “I see Secret Societies, others do not know they exist. They are everywhere.” Daily Beast’s Rick Wilson; “The story was falling apart even before the Moron Caucus beclowned themselves with the ‘Secret Society’ theme, because the memo obviously hadn’t done enough to reduce the Republicans in stature and seriousness. Seizing on a single, obviously joking...

By Marc Chandler Originally posted at Marc to Market The short-term solution reached last month to extend the US federal government’s funding expires on Thursday, February 8. Leaders from both parties say they want to avoid another partial closure. Last month, parts of the federal government were closed for three days, which is about par for the course (around half of the government’s 19 shutdowns since 1977 lasted three days). The House of Representatives is planning to vote tomorrow on a...

Kind of hard to ignore the blathering of a Republican jerk on the pay increase a school secretary will receive as a result of Trump/Republican tax break. Gosh darn, she can afford a Costco membership now! What an ass . . . He needs to go. Deleted by Ryan afterwards. Secretary was being sarcastic.

David Dayen at The Intercept points us to the latest on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: On Tuesday night, he (Trump)stood before the nation and boasted about the lowest unemployment rate on record for African-Americans. But just hours before his State of the Union address, his lieutenant and handpicked head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, told staff in an email that he was seizing control of the unit responsible for...

I’m not sure this is of general interest, but I would like to argue (again) with Glenn Greenwald. In this tweet, he asks an interesting and important question The FBI, and many Democrats, insisted vehemently that release of the Nunes Memo would endanger national security. Now that we’ve all read it, is there anyone who believes that this argument was even remotely true or honest? Yes. This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions....

Distractions,  Distractions Wow!  We have a great controversy!  A squib of a memo by the House Intel Comm has completely devoured the media.  A constitutional crisis!  Egad!  In two weeks, or maybe two months, it will be nothing.  But for now, well, very very very serious. At a minimum it has distracted everybody from Trump’s gloriously successful State of the Union speech, which was so well received until this distraction that he thinks will bring about...

It’s inequality. By James Kwak This American Life‘s forays into politics and economics are generally less satisfying than their ordinary storytelling fare. That’s especially true when they try to answer some specific question, like “What is wrong with the Democratic Party?”—the subject of a segment last month. The story did have some telling moments, however, most vividly when moderate Congresswoman Cheri Bustos was trying to pitch the party’s forgettable and already-forgotten “Better...

It’s inequality. By James Kwak This American Life‘s forays into politics and economics are generally less satisfying than their ordinary storytelling fare. That’s especially true when they try to answer some specific question, like “What is wrong with the Democratic Party?”—the subject of a segment last month. The story did have some telling moments, however, most vividly when moderate Congresswoman Cheri Bustos was trying to pitch the party’s forgettable and already-forgotten “Better...

About that Trump wage boom Over last weekend, I read a bunch of notes which indicated that Trump was claiming credit for a boom in wage growth. Let’s take a look: THIS is a wage boom: In the 1960s, real wages grew by almost 9% over 7 years, an average of 1.3% per year. THIS is also a wage boom: In the late 1990s, real wages grew by just over 9% in 7 years, again averaging 1.3% per year. This is NOT a wage boom: During the...