December 2018 - Robert Kuttner

Personal News and Prospect News

The very talented David Dayen, whose writing you probably know from our pages and other national publications, will be joining the Prospect in the spring as executive editor. In addition to adding immeasurably to our magazine, this will enable me to reach a long-sought personal goal of pulling back from management, to focus on writing, for the Prospect and other magazines and blogs. The rest of our leadership team will continue, joined by our wonderful new publisher, Ellen Meany, [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-21T21:52:32+00:00December 21st, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Corporate Free Speech and the Israel Lobby

As you may have read, the latest ploy by the Netanyahu government and its allies in the U.S. Senate is a provision that would apply criminal penalties against U.S. corporations that boycott companies that operate in the occupied West Bank. This is opposed by the liberal pro-Israel organization, J Street, and the ACLU. The measure, in the form of a Senate rider to the emergency bill to keep the government open, is one of those ideas that gives bipartisanship [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-19T18:04:09+00:00December 19th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Republicans: Hazardous to Their Health

Just about everything they are doing manages to backfire politically: the threatened government shutdown, Trump trying to lie his way out of an increasingly likely impeachment, and now health care. On Friday, a federal judge in Texas, Reed O’Connor, who was appointed by George W. Bush, decided to overrule the Supreme Court and hold the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. He ruled that because the individual mandate was unconstitutional, the entire law is unconstitutional. Very ingenious. The only problem [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-18T00:25:46+00:00December 18th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Trump’s Unreality TV

Uh, it’s probably not a great idea for Democratic leaders to play Trump’s game of pretending to have serious budget negotiations on live TV. This is nothing if not Trump’s terrain. Trump uses the others as props, to demonstrate his swagger and their supposed lack of concern for “border security,” spelled W-A-L-L. In this case, in line with Trump’s own short attention span and penchant for changing the subject, the stunt was also intended as a diversion from his [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-12T21:07:46+00:00December 12th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Is Britain Finally Coming to Its Senses?

A year ago, I bet a pint of Guinness with an old friend that Britain would never leave the European Union. I’m beginning to think I just might collect. My point, then and now, was that as the degree of likely damage sank in, British voters would come to their senses. Both major parties, in their own ways, colluded to prevent that salutary outcome, but history sometimes has its own logic. Last week, the European Court of Justice, the [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-10T21:51:09+00:00December 10th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Circular Firing Squad Report

Oh, those Dems. You’d think they’d be feeling pretty good, but no. It’s more than a year before the first primaries, and the fratricide has already started. Actually, the opening gun was more like sororicide, which the dictionary defines as the act of killing one’s sister. Sister Nancy Pelosi beat back the naysayers handily, and more power to her. But in the next ring of the circus, we have nasty infighting between the party’s center and left about whether [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-07T16:42:21+00:00December 7th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Tariff Man: Trump’s Fragile Male Ego Crashes the Market

You would think this moron would savor what passed for a trade victory before immediately raining on his own parade. In Buenos Aires, Trump managed to paper over deep differences with the Chinese, faking progress on trade talks and achieving a deferral of immediate sanctions. He also appointed his chief trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, to lead the talks. Lighthizer is one of Trump’s few competent appointees, with extensive experience as a negotiator. He’s respected as both tough and pragmatic, [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-05T20:57:41+00:00December 5th, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

What’s Matt Whitaker Up To?

In case you’ve been vacationing on Jupiter, you may have missed the fact that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is under fire on multiple fronts. He’s been sued on the long-established premise that a senior constitutional officer who has not been confirmed by the Senate cannot assume his duties when someone who has been duly confirmed (Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein) is available. He’s also been the subject of an investigative piece pointing out that the Federal Trade Commission has [...]

By Robert Kuttner|2018-12-03T21:29:04+00:00December 3rd, 2018|Kuttner on TAP|0 Comments

Monthly Archives: December 2018