I woke up this morning, pulled my iPad off my nightstand and opened Twitter to see if there was any overnight news. There was a horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas. I spun around to get a handle on the scope of the attack, the death toll and other basic facts. Then I started thinking through what has now become a basic ritual. Read More
Here’s part two of my podcast interview with Bhaskar Sunkara, founder, editor and publisher of Jacobin Magazine, Episode 23 of The Josh Marshall Show. (If you missed part one, you can find it here.)
TPM Reader JL shared these thoughts about the progress of the unfolding situation in Puerto Rico … Read More
As I’ve read and reread these hideous three tweets which I transcribed below, I’ve realized they are not just a disgrace but something like a primary text of Trumpism. Everything is there. Read More
On Twitter this morning, stung by criticism, President Trump attacked the people of Puerto Rico, all American citizens, as lazy and disorganized people who “want everything to be done for them.” I am cutting the verbatim text out of the tweets here.
“The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump. Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job.”
There’s more. But I don’t think we need to hear more after these words. Read More
Folks, this is the last weekday or our annual Prime sign-up drive. Our goal for this drive and for September was to get to 23,000 members. That puts us on track to get to our 2017 goal of 25,000. We are currently at 22,999 members. If you’re a regular TPM reader, we need you to sign up. Just click right here. If you can sign up now, just click and don’t worry about reading the rest of this post. If you’re not sure or if you give me a solemn assurance that you’ll remember to click and sign up and reading the rest of this post, then it’s okay to join after the jump to read the rest of this post. Read More
This is super important to watch.
In addition to being slow to react to the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Maria and inclined to blame Puerto Rico itself for a lot of the problems, there’s been something specific about his comments. He keeps talking about Puerto Rico’s public debt. Read More
As I tried over the last year or two to understand the world of Trump, one thing I tried hard to get my head around was the stark and often comical pattern of Trump Organization loyalists’ strict public subservience to Trump. They’re not just loyal. Dignity jettisoning protestations and affirmative declarations seem to be part of the deal. What I heard or read again and again is that there’s a pretty clear if perhaps unspoken deal in the Trump universe. If you work for Trump as one of his people – not the thousands who must work for various Trump businesses but the high level, visible retainers – you get to enjoy the lifestyle. But the price is total loyalty, total self-abnegation and whatever loss of dignity is required to serve Trump.
Many people seem to be happy with that bargain. Read More
A quick Editor’s Brief on Tom Price’s pricey chartered flights (sub req).