Tag: politics
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Continuing Resolutions
The Senate reached a compromise on a two-year budget that increases spending by nearly half a trillion dollars on both the military and domestic programmes. This comes after a series of continuing resolutions, which are temporary spending bills that allow the government to function when the fiscal year has begun, but a budget has not…
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Short and Long Term
One week ago today, President Trump touted soaring stock prices as an indicator of a roaring economy. In truth, stock market prices are not that. They are driven by fundamentals, such as GDP growth, wage increases, and inflation. Furthermore stock prices can be fickle and volatile. Whereas a recession does not begin overnight, the factors…
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The Memo
So last week the House of Representatives published a highly controversial memo by Representative Devin Nunes. Why controversial? Because it is apparently missing dozens of pages of additional facts, data, and context. But what the memo does contain are connections between people and things. And this Friday piece from the Washington Post does a good…
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Remapping the 2016 Election
Today’s post clearly fits within the storyline of mapping, redistricting, and gerrymandering over the last week or so, but the work is a bit older. (Side note, the previously highlighted Pennsylvania 7th Congressional District, well it is in the news for a different story, its congressman just announced he would not be standing for reelection…
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Gerrymandering Again
The last two weeks we twice looked at gerrymandering as it in particular impacted Pennsylvania, notorious for its extreme gerrymandered districts. And now that the state will have to redraw districts to be less partisan, will Pennsylvania usher in a series of court orders from other state supreme courts, or even the federal Supreme Court,…
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Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Followup
Remember how last week I wrote about gerrymandering in Pennsylvania? It was as the State Supreme Court was about to hear a case involving the partisan redistricting in 2011, widely perceived as one of the most egregious examples of gerrymandering in the nation. Well yesterday afternoon the State Supreme Court ruled that yes, Virginia, Pennsylvania…
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Gerrymandering Pennsylvania
Here in Pennsylvania this week, the state Supreme Court will hear arguments on the legality of congressional districts drawn by Republicans in 2010. The state is rather evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, e.g. Donald Trump won by less than one percentage point or less than 45,000 votes. But 13 of its 18 congressional districts…
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Jones–Moore Election Results
Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week or so, I have alternately been on holiday or sick while spending other time on my annual Christmas card. This will also be the last post for 2017 as I am on holiday until the new year. But before I go, I want to take…
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Voting
On the Friday after the president retweeted support for British extremists, then when told it was inappropriate, told off the British prime minister. On Twitter. But at least we made it to week’s end. So Happy Friday, all. Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.