Federal Deficit Rises to 4.6% of GDP in FY2020
The news is full today with scary stories about the federal deficit approaching a trillion dollars this year. And that’s true. But as you know, money comparisons should always be presented with inflation accounted for. In this case, the equivalent method is calculating the deficit as a percentage of GDP. Here it is: That doesn’t…
Republicans Are Sneering at Impeachment. It Will Backfire.
Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA Marc Thiessen has taken on the thankless task of defending the ridiculous riot Republicans staged on Wednesday, as they gathered in the Capitol basement to protest closed impeachment hearings being held in a SCIF, a room specially designed to be immune to electronic eavesdropping. Let’s hear his case: Let’s be…
Donald Trump Compared Impeachment to a Lynching. Eric Holder Explains Why It’s “Reprehensible.”
Nate Palmer The day after President Donald Trump ignited backlash by comparing his impeachment inquiry to a lynching, former Attorney General Eric Holder called the comment “reprehensible.” “You think about thousands of people who were lynched in this nation. To compare that to a constitutionally mandated, or constitutionally authorized, process that’s underway in our Congress…
Under Trump, Whistleblowers Have Even Less Protection Than Usual
choness/Getty For the entire Trump administration, the federal government has been operating without a functioning agency to protect whistleblowers. “Although seldom in the public spotlight, no institution is more important for accountable government than the Merit Systems Protection Board,” Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project said at a February congressional hearing on…
Blood on the Sidewalk: A Look at the Political Clashes of the Trump Era
This article was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. For the last two years, photojournalist Rian Dundon has documented the escalating protests by Trump supporters and right-wing extremists like the Proud Boys in addition to their antifa counterparts on the left. Each of Dundon’s images examines what the media theorist Daniel Boorstin in the…
The White House Wants Climate Change Off the G7 Agenda. It Doesn’t Really Work That Way.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump at the 2019 G7 summit.Michael Kappeler/Getty Buried in the flurry of headline-grabbing statements last week by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney about Ukraine, presidential quid pro quo, and a plan to host the next G7 summit at the president’s own golf resort was another announcement that…