Bloomberg.com • 20th August 2025

NIMBYs Are Coming for the Data Centers AI Needs

The emerging political battle over data centers has a feature unfamiliar to present-day policymaking: The opponents are not divided along partisan lines. Instead, the conflict is between local communities and Big Tech developers, with elected officials caught in the middle.

Bloomberg.com • 19th August 2025

Abolishing Voting by Mail Will Hurt Republicans More Than Help

If President Donald Trump were to issue an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, as he announced he would on social media on Monday, it would almost certainly be unconstitutional. It would also be baffling — because eliminating vote-by-mail would probably hurt Republicans more than it would help them in next year’s midterm elections.

Bloomberg.com • 14th August 2025

To Beat Paxton, Cornyn Is Relying on a MAGA Makeover

The Senate primary in Texas has turned another well-respected establishment Republican into a MAGA culture warrior who has traded civility for theater: Senator John Cornyn.

Bloomberg.com • 9th August 2025

Texas Is Betting Latinos Will Swing Republican. That’s a Risk.

Republicans are making a risky assumption as they attempt to rewrite the Texas Congressional map with a mid-decade power grab designed to net five additional seats: They’re betting that Latino voters who voted for President Donald Trump in record numbers last year will elect Republican congressional candidates in the midterms.But Texas’ Latino voters have soured on the president.

Bloomberg.com • 5th August 2025

The DOJ’s Push to Collect Your Data Is a Fishing Expedition

With his approval rating sinking lower and lower, and facing the prospect of losing control of the House to Democrats, President Donald Trump is engaged in an unprecedented attempt to manipulate the midterm elections. Not only has he demanded that Texas redraw its congressional districts, he’s now got Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice embarking on another insidious strategy: Building a dossier of private information on every voter that Trump can use for political advantage.

Bloomberg.com • 31st July 2025

Roy Cooper’s Senate Bid Could Do More Than Flip a Seat

Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s entry into the US Senate race this week was a rare bit of good news for Democrats in the run-up to the 2026 midterms. Cooper is a well-liked and well-known moderate — a former attorney general and state legislator with a record of competence.

Bloomberg.com • 27th July 2025

Bondi Has Been Failing Epstein’s Victims for Years

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to withhold the Department of Justice’s records on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have put her in the crosshairs of the MAGA universe this month, but Bondi dropped the ball on investigating Epstein and his sex trafficking co-conspirators long ago.

Bloomberg.com • 23rd July 2025

The Texas Redistricting Fight Is a Four-Alarm Fire

President Donald Trump is attempting a massive power grab in Texas and most Americans aren’t aware of it. That’s a very bad sign.If, by the end of August, most Americans don’t know that the president is trying to use Texas to manipulate the results of the 2026 midterm elections by changing three to five congressional seats in his favor, it’s a loud signal that the decline of democracy isn’t capturing public attention — and that Democrats are failing, again. President Donald Trump is attempting...

Bloomberg.com • 20th July 2025

Georgia Republicans Have Gone Full ‘Knives Out’

The MAGA-world blow-up over the Trump administration’s about-face in handling the Jeffrey Epstein files isn’t the only conspiracy-fueled dispute splintering Republicans. Another feud is playing out in the state of Georgia, where a group of ultraconservative Republicans that rose to power with the backing of a wealthy financier is at war with the GOP leadership over control of the party.

Bloomberg.com • 17th July 2025

Trying to Pay for College? Your Options Just Got Worse

The message from the Trump administration to working-class Americans who want to go to college is: You’re on your own. It is part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s broad effort to scale back spending on the poor and middle class in order to finance tax breaks for the rich. It’s also a dramatic reversal in the American compact with higher education that enshrines into law a flawed policy that will discourage college enrollment among a generation of lower-income Americans.For a century, the US h...

Bloomberg.com • 10th July 2025

The GOP’s Medicaid Cuts Have a Very Convenient Timeline

Voters in swing states are unlikely to punish lawmakers for slashing health-care benefits next year. Why? The pain is postponed until after the election. Voters in swing states are unlikely to punish lawmakers for slashing health-care benefits next year. Why? The pain is postponed until after the election.

Bloomberg.com • 7th July 2025

Want Students to Thrive? Lock Up Their Phones.

There are few things most American politicians seem to agree upon, but banning mobile phones in classrooms seems to be one of them. Based on the experiences of some schools that have required students to prioritize learning over TikTok scrolling, there’s also a welcome side benefit: less conflict and more “hellos.”When school starts this fall, students in most US states and DC will be required by law to turn over or turn off their smartphones during all or most of the school day, according to an...

Bloomberg.com • 1st July 2025

Thom Tillis Knew What the GOP Refused to Hear

Earlier today, Republican Senator Thom Tillis became one of only three GOP senators to cast a vote against President Donald Trump’s budget bill. Ultimately, his vote was mostly symbolic — the measure passed on a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaker.But the vote has already had consequences for the two-term lawmaker from North Carolina. On Sunday, he made the announcement that he would not be running for re-election in 2026. His decision came a day after he took to the...

Bloomberg.com • 26th June 2025

‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Is a Dystopian Pipe Dream, Not a Plan

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been getting a lot of attention this week for erecting an ICE deportation camp on an abandoned airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades and calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.” In a glossy video, he suggests that the flood-prone wetland is perfect for housing detained immigrants in the heat of the summer because if anyone escapes “there’s not much waiting for them — other than alligators and pythons.”As a policy, building a tent city in a fragile sw...

Bloomberg.com • 24th June 2025

Florida Could Be Flying Blind This Hurricane Season

As the US heads into the June-to-November Atlantic hurricane season, many of the tools weather forecasters rely on to assess risk and warn the public have been weakened or all but dismantled by the Trump administration’s scorched-earth campaign to cut government services. Coastal states are going to feel the brunt of the impact.The deep cuts to the programs that supply data for the forecasts mean that meteorologists will be left “flying a plane in the clouds with no navigation system,” said Mich...

Bloomberg.com • 20th June 2025

The White House Plans for Texas Could Backfire

President Donald Trump’s push for Texas lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional districts in hopes of preserving the slim Republican majority in the US House is yet another example of the president putting his own fortune above his party’s.In an ideal world, it’s also a good idea — because it could lead to more competitive elections and a more representative democracy. Of course, that’s the opposite of Trump’s intention: He wants to make it more difficult for voters to punish him for his u...

Bloomberg.com • 15th June 2025

Pell Grants Are an Engine of Social Mobility. Don’t Cut Them.

To preserve tax cuts for the wealthy, the Republican budget reconciliation proposals moving through Congress cut programs for the neediest in ways that will lead to higher costs for everyone in the long run. The plans include not only cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, but also to Pell Grants, the program that provides federal assistance for higher education.The first Pell Grant was awarded in 1973 and since then has helped millions of low-income students attend college. The grants overwhelmingly go to...

Bloomberg.com • 8th June 2025

US Democracy Is Sicker Than Many Realize. Look at These States.

Political scientists are issuing stark warnings about the way they see President Donald Trump’s second term pushing the US into authoritarianism, with its sweeping executive orders, defiance of court rulings, threats and coercion to enforce ideology, and steamrolling of a Congress that appears only too willing to give up its power.But to focus only on the White House ignores the broader picture: the gradual rise of illiberal instincts in US politics, and especially on the right. It began with th...

Bloomberg.com • 20th May 2025

Musk’s AI ‘Colossus’ in Memphis Is Everyone’s Problem

Build a massive supercomputer housed in a plant powered by methane gas-burning turbines that emit an undisclosed amount of pollutants into a disadvantaged community. Obtain no environmental permits. Ask permission later. That’s the approach Elon Musk has taken in the city of Memphis as he rushes to build two massive data centers to provide computing power for his artificial intelligence startup xAI. It’s a scenario America might have to get used to.

Bloomberg.com • 15th May 2025

Oklahoma High Schoolers Are Getting a Dangerous Lesson Plan

The state’s superintendent of public instruction wants teachers to present unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and Covid.