President Trump’s ridiculous tweet this morning – taking credit for a record low number of civil aviation fatalities this year – made me think about the remarkable record over the last two decades. Read More

As a small organization we go to a skeleton staff over the two end of year-long weekends. But here we are. It’s the second day of the year. And we are back. I am going to share some thoughts later today on the state of the Russia investigation, which seems to me to be at the end of the beginning. More on that later this morning. What I want to share with you is that this will be a special and transformative year in the life of this organization.

I already mentioned yesterday that I am optimistic about 2018 on the public front. I want to share with you what we plan to do on the TPM front. Read More

Two South Carolina legislators who sponsored a bill to erect a monument to African-American Confederate Veterans were confronted over the weekend with new evidence that the men they wish to honor never existed. Read More

The last couple years have had a way of making saps and chumps out of optimists. They’ve gotten shot down enough they don’t even want to poke your head above the parapet. Optimism is an ethic and an attitude, not a belief. But surveying the ground in recent days I’ve seen hints of better things afoot for 2018. Read More

Reading your responses (for which I thank you) to my post on Bob Dylan’s ‘Christian period’ music, I thought I’d go back through our archives and try to pull together everything I’ve written about Dylan over the years. I was mainly surprised at just how little I had in fact written. My knowledge of how much thought I’ve given to the matter and my memory of putting together words to convey those thoughts simply doesn’t match up with the evidence. I have some sneaking fear that some stuff may be hidden in our imperfectly indexed archives. But selective memory is the more logical culprit. Read More

TPM is pleased to announce the winners of the 11th Annual Golden Duke Awards recognizing the year’s best purveyors of public corruption, outlandish behavior, The Crazy, and general nonsense in this fine nation’s political arena. The awards are named in honor of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the poster boy of the wacky modern scandal (for now, at least).

Our celebrity judges—Susie Bright, Katherine Krueger, Simon Maloy, KT Nelson and Erin Ryan—waded through the muck of all 34 finalists in seven categories, and selected the winners.

Check out the lucky nominees and reader/staff suggestions that selected them here. And now, drum roll please, the winners:

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It seems revealing to me that key Republicans are already suggesting that the new GOP tax law was too generous to corporations and the wealthy. This is not to valorize these voices. They knew this a week ago when they voted for the bill. But those who are least principled are often the most sensitive feel for public opinion. That is how to see these day-two faux-second thoughts. Read More

Here’s a fascinating look at how California Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to survive 2018. As I’ve mentioned, on top of the general unpopularity of President Trump, California is one of the states hardest hit by the end of most deductions for SALT taxes. Altogether it could crush what remains of the still sizable Republican House delegation from California (39-D, 14-R). How to survive? Led by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, they plan to hitch their fates to a proposition to repeal a new gas tax dedicated to roads and infrastructure spending.

The aim seems less to change minds as simply to make certain Republicans turnout. They need every angle they can get. Not surprisingly, the new tax is not terribly popular, certainly not among Republicans. But it actually has a fair degree of support among business groups who are major GOP donors but yet realize that a decrepit infrastructure is bad for business.

I heard the Times Carl Hulse a few moments ago on CNN tell Dana Bash that he thought President Trump saying Bob Mueller would “be fair” contradicted and in some ways complicated the chorus of attacks on Mueller we see from Republicans on Capitol Hill. ‘You say Mueller is biased and on a witch hunt. But the President himself says Mueller is fair’, and so forth. I think this misreads what the President said. Read More

There is almost no limit to the bad policy included in the new GOP tax law. Indeed, even within ‘bad policy’ which can distinguish between ‘bad policy’ in the sense of conservative public policy which I and likely many readers think will have bad outcomes and ‘bad policy’ in the sense of poorly constructed tax law which almost no one would devise if they had time and weren’t so focused on giveaways to major donors. Of all these however I continue to believe that the (near total) end of deductions for SALT taxes are likely to have the greatest political impact. They are also stimulating a new debate about the distribution of resources within the US federal system.

Let’s rehearse some details. Read More