Tag: politics

  • Open Door Cabinets

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Here in the States we are accustomed to unstable governments—the Trump administration has set records for the most departures so early in its term. But the United Kingdom is not to be outdone as Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, resigned in response to an immigration scandal. She makes six the number of cabinet officials who…

  • Down on the Farms

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Just a neat little piece today from FiveThirtyEight. They take a look at the potential impact of the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on the farm vote in the United States. The screenshot of the table shows how the farm population compares to Trump’s margin of victory in 2016. The three states at the top? The…

  • News Deserts

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday we looked at the shrinking Denver Post. Today we have a graphic from a related story via Politico. The article explores the idea that President Trump performs better in what the article terms “news deserts”, those counties with a very low level of newspaper circulation. (The article explains the methodology in detail.) This piece…

  • All Hail the Nurses and Working People

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Let’s start this week with a quick hit on popularity and politics. It ties in nicely with the fact that my local congressman, a Republican, announced on Sunday he would not be seeking re-election in a very competitive district. This piece in particular comes from the Economist and in terms of form, it is fairly simple.…

  • Pennsylvania 18th Congressional District: The Special Election

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today is Tuesday, 12 March. And that means a special election in the 18th congressional district of Pennsylvania, located in the far southwest of the state, near Pittsburgh. Long story short, the district is uber Republican. But, the long-time Republican congressman, the avowedly pro-life type, was caught urging his mistress to abort their unborn child. Needless to say,…

  • The Russian Threat

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    A few days ago a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent, e.g. VX, in Salisbury, England. Over a decade ago, another former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, died in London after being poisoned with polonium, a highly radioactive substance produced inside nuclear reactors, placed inside his tea. Russia’s spies are…

  • When No Change or Growth Is the Story

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    For many years I would often tell people that sometimes a visualisation can be “boring”, because the data itself is boring—a lack of growth in a market, no real mergers, or even steady and consistent but unspectacular growth. Those can all be stories, even if they likely result in very monotone choropleths or straight line…

  • Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part V

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday we looked at the new congressional district map here in Pennsylvania, drawn up by the state supreme court after the Republican legislature and Democratic governor could not come to agreement. Also yesterday, FiveThirtyEight explored the redrawn map in more detail to see if, as I’ve read in a few places, the new map is…

  • Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part IV

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court published the new congressional district map of Pennsylvania, the latest chapter in this tale. Republicans in the state legislature have already said they will take this to the federal courts, but they tried that just a few weeks ago and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. So the…

  • Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part III

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Almost a month ago I wrote about how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was considering a case involving the state’s heavily gerrymandered US congressional districts, which some have called among the worst in the nation. About a week later the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that the map is in fact so gerrymandered it violates the Pennsylvania…