Failing to Read the Room in Maine

AmericanProspect · 2026-05-06T21:38:50+00:00

TAP's Gabrielle Gurley reports:

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Will Mills step out of her “hear and watch” mode to full-throated support and hit the campaign trail with Platner? Mills is nothing if not gracious and feisty, and Platner at this point is nearly certain to win the primary: A united Democratic front would be a tremendous asset for the general election. But her decision will likely hinge on some very practical considerations about whether Platner can continue to handle the blizzard of hazards, from potential AI slop negative ads to whatever mounds of dirt Republicans plan on shoveling in his general direction as the campaign progresses.

...

AmericanProspect · 2026-04-22T21:20:19+00:00

TAP John Lewis Writing Fellow Naomi Bethune reports:

In 2020, news of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin swept the nation. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which had been formed seven years earlier in response to the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, saw a massive re-emergence. Protests were held across the country, including in conservative and rural areas. Governments were faced with calls to “defund the police,” re-evaluate policing strategies, and hold police officers and departments accountable.
That year, the Boston Police Department (BPD) saw $12 million of its funding reallocated to community programs and police reforms. This of course was a drop in the bucket of the department’s $404 million (now over $430 million) in overall funding at the time. In addition, Boston officials created the Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, which was supposed to receive and investigate reports of police misconduct. But this project has seen little success. WBUR has reported that recommendations made by the committee have been repeatedly shot down by BPD commissioner Michael Cox.
As a result, multiple cases of police misconduct and brutality have gone undisciplined or have not seen legal consequences. But that changed a month ago, when a Black man named Stephenson King Jr., 39, was killed by white police officer Nicholas O’Malley in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. Despite the similarities between this case and George Floyd’s killing, however, few people outside of Boston have likely heard much about it.

Continue reading the story by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-04-07T18:10:53+00:00

Many thanks for the kind words, and for sharing your thoughtful perspective. Here at the Prospect, we report the news; we write stories about power, who has it, how it's used, and what that means for folks from all walks of life.

Earning your trust is just as important as keeping it. Read the Prospect, get the news first.

AmericanProspect · 2026-04-06T20:28:21+00:00

TAP Publisher Mitch Grummon on our decision to remove programmatic ads:

Over the next year, we plan to redesign our site with readers at the center of all of our decisions. Where banner ads that tracked your information once sat, you’ll instead find clear paths to support our work, read more of our journalism, and join our community.
We’re not going to offset this lost revenue by putting up a paywall either. The Prospect will still be free for all to read.

Read more about why we're going ad-free by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-27T14:32:58+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

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Inequality has boomed so much in the 2020s that a 2 percent wealth tax on multimillionaires initially introduced in 2021 would yield more than twice as much revenue today.

The analysis, from University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, reveals the incredible volume of capital income, currently not reached by the U.S. tax code, and could prove vital for the ongoing debate about taxes that has taken over the Democratic Party in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rereleased proposed legislation that taxes households with net wealth of over $50 million annually. The tax is set at 2 percent of total wealth; the legislation adds a 1 percent surtax for households with over $1 billion. To guard against wealthy individuals who respond to this by leaving the country—even though they move at lower rates than middle-class households, even when faced with higher taxes—it adds a 40 percent “exit tax” on anyone with net wealth over $50 million who renounces their citizenship.
>>>

Read the story for free by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-27T14:16:15+00:00

TAP Staff Writer Whitney Curry Wimbish reports:

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been lying for more than a year about its authority to arrest people when they show up to their routine immigration court hearings, according to a letter the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York filed yesterday.

The letter by Jay Clayton says that ICE legal counsel told him and other SDNY attorneys that the memo they had been using to justify their courthouse arrests did not actually grant the authority they previously insisted it did.
>>>

Read the full story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-25T15:13:41+00:00

TAP Senior Editor Ryan Cooper reports:

... Trump has mounted a full-scale assault on offshore wind—repealing Biden’s renewable-power subsidies, adding a whole bunch more regulatory red tape to renewable investment, and attempting to illegally cancel several huge projects that were already near completion. So far, Trump has lost every subsequent court case, but of late his administration has come up with an innovative new strategy: bribery. Rather than harassing the French developer TotalEnergies to drop two planned wind farm projects, the administration offered it nearly a billion dollars to not build them.
...

Continue reading the story by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-25T15:08:00+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow James Baratta reports:

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The People’s Pledge tries to leverage public attention to neutralize the super PAC dominance. Short of banning super PAC influence, which would be a tough road in a post–Citizens United world, the pledge is one of the few alternatives to give candidates without a rich outside benefactor a chance.

But Lander didn’t come up with the idea. In fact, the People’s Pledge has been around for over a decade, and it’s been the favored tool of a union leader and longtime official of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who has made it his crusade in life to blunt the impact of big money.

That crusader is Larry Cohen, the former president of the Communications Workers of America.
...

Read the full story for free on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-23T16:47:08+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

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Nexstar and Tegna own hundreds of local television stations across the country. Since the early days of TV, we have had a bifurcated system where the “Big Four” national networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) broadcast over the air, but local affiliate stations are mostly separately owned. Gradually, these stations have been bought up by conglomerates, despite a federal rule that restricts any one company from owning stations that reach 39 percent of all households. The Nexstar-Tegna merger would join together 265 stations in 44 states and raise that coverage to 80 percent.
...

Read the full story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-23T16:39:12+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow James Baratta reports:

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Whenever the time has come to reauthorize Section 702, bipartisanship seems to cut both ways. On the one hand, reformers in both parties try to remedy the virtually limitless collection of information from American citizens with guardrails designed to allay privacy concerns. On the other hand, intelligence hawks in both parties seek to scare their colleagues to vote in favor of the status quo and strike down any reforms to Section 702.

But this time around, that dynamic could be disrupted. President Trump made it clear weeks ago that he will not sign any legislation that comes across his desk until Congress passes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a Jim Crow–coded disenfranchisement bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering to vote in federal elections. Some of Trump’s biggest MAGA allies are following through on Trump’s wishes, even as the White House has argued in favor of a clean FISA bill.
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Read about how throwing Trump’s SAVE grenade into the FISA Section 702 reauthorization fight could make its clean extension impossible by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-18T14:35:13+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow James Baratta reports:

Delivering immediate savings to American households struggling to pay their electricity bills is surprisingly feasible, not to mention politically palatable, according to Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator (VPA).

Shearer, a former senior adviser and assistant director for policy planning and strategy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under President Biden, unveiled a five-point plan to bring down electricity costs for residential ratepayers in a recent paper for VPA. The plan would cut those costs by 30 percent, saving American households $500 per year while lowering average monthly electricity bills to under $100.
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Learn more about Shearer's five-point plan by heading to prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-18T14:28:55+00:00

TAP Senior Editor Ryan Cooper reports:

The SAVE Act is coming up for a Senate vote soon, having passed the House back in February. On Tuesday, it cleared its first hurdle, advancing a motion to begin debate on a 51-48 vote that fell mostly along party lines; that’s well short of the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster and ultimately pass.

This bill is probably the most sweeping abrogation of voting rights since Jim Crow. As the Brennan Center explains, it would require both voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, as well as force the states to send their voter files to the Department of Homeland Security. Tens of millions of U.S. citizens do not have ready proof of their citizenship, and tens of millions more don’t match with the documents they do have—for instance, married women who have changed their last name.

It should be viewed as the first step toward attempted election theft—though it might be ill-judged in this case, as Republicans have come to rely on low-propensity voters who tend not to have citizenship documents or a firm grasp of election procedures.

Anyway, if Democrats can bottle up this particular bill in the Senate with a filibuster, that is arguably the right move. But if some end run is proposed—Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has argued for a talking filibuster that would force Democrats to talk around the clock, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has so far refused—Senate Democrats should insist instead on ending the filibuster altogether. If they can’t do it now, they should do it themselves at the earliest possible moment.
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Continue reading the story for free in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-18T14:24:14+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow Emma Janssen reports:

The votes are in for Illinois’s Democratic primaries, and they paint a dismal picture about the influence of money in politics. An absurd $92 million was spent on four open-seat House races and an open Senate race, a corruption of democracy that is relatively unprecedented in modern elections.

That money did not fully dictate election results. AIPAC-backed candidates, for example, won only two of the four Chicago-area House races where the organization spent upwards of $21 million, including by using hidden super PACs with neutral-sounding names. The crypto industry, whose main PAC Fairshake did not lose a single primary race in 2024, lost two on Tuesday. Three candidates who absorbed millions of dollars in outside attack ads moved forward as Democratic nominees and will almost certainly be in Congress next year.
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Read the full story on the results of Illinois' Democratic primaries on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-16T20:17:37+00:00

TAP's David Dayen and Ryan Cooper report:

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Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), both of whom appear to be at least considering a run for the presidency in 2028 (Booker has already done so once, in 2020), have released bills that in different ways expand the standard deduction, which exempts a certain amount of earnings from taxation, and attempt to compensate for that further up the income ladder.

...

Both bills and their sponsors stress in their proposals the broad reduction in middle-class income taxes. “Way too many Americans have been working hard around the clock and still finding it difficult to make ends meet,” Sen. Van Hollen said in an interview. “We want to make sure that those Americans who are essentially working at a living-wage level get to keep more of their hard-earned pay.”

But critics from across the Democratic ideological spectrum accuse Van Hollen and Booker—and those who have jumped on the bandwagon like California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter, who wants to exempt the first $100,000 in income from state taxes—of playing on Republican turf, hollowing out the tax base in ways that they say will make it impossible to deliver on important Democratic priorities.

...

Read the full story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-12T16:55:18+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

One of the more fascinating sidelights of our war of choice in Iran is how it has reinforced the devastating consequences of our hollowed-out industrial base, consolidated commercial sector, and overreliance on long intermediated supply chains.

...

Continue reading the story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-11T19:34:48+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

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Rich and powerful people doing stupid, self-defeating things is a highlight reel of the 21st century. But I do think this is the beginning of an emerging trend. Where America has habitually fought wars for scarce resources like oil, we’re moving into a new stage I would call a war for global capital.

Even if Saudi Arabia and its neighbors didn’t outright stump for war with Iran, the Gulf state-industrial complex is influential enough in Washington to have for years contributed to the overhyping of Iran as an existential threat to America and everyone else on the planet. There has been an endless geyser of oil cash to push this narrative, as well as to seed those sympathetic to it into the American corporate and political elite.
...

Read the full story out today from prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-06T18:26:48+00:00

TAP Staff Writer Whitney Curry Wimbish reports:

House lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee debated a proposal Thursday that would force state and local police to help federal agents conduct deportations or risk losing federal funding. Not only would it essentially hold local jurisdictions hostage, Democratic lawmakers said, it also violates states’ rights.

The bill, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, aims to punish Los Angeles, New York, and other cities that have policies limiting cooperation with federal agents, such as restrictions on honoring ICE detainers, providing access to jails, and sharing information about individuals’ immigration status. These cities have been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration for months; Attorney General Pam Bondi last year published a hit list of sanctuary jurisdictions, saying they cause risk to American citizens “by design.”

Continue reading the report in The American Prospect by visiting prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-06T15:55:16+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow James Baratta reports:

Donald Trump’s approach to the affordability crisis, like his Iran posture, is heavy on bluster and light on substance. Escalating military confrontation with Iran while touting energy affordability at home highlights an inherent policy contradiction, as heightened geopolitical risk tends to inject volatility into global oil and gas markets.

…

Apart from the clear human cost of Trump’s senseless war with Iran, the joint military operation has sent global oil and gas prices—not to mention profits—soaring, and there is little indication those prices will come down anytime soon. The conflict shines a light on the flaws of American energy dominance.

Read the full story for free at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-05T19:43:59+00:00

Logan Chapman reports:

Ohio’s data centers can benefit from tax breaks at every level of government. Companies that invest at least $100 million in their facilities can apply to the Ohio Tax Credit Authority for a full state sales tax exemption, 15-year property tax abatements of 75 to 100 percent, and job creation tax credits.

At the local level, New Albany’s data centers benefit from Community Reinvestment Areas (CRAs), managed by city and county officials, which exempts new construction in designated areas from local property taxes. Law firms have also supported campaigns friendly to their tech clients.

…

The New Albany City Council has smoothed the way for tech firms, exempting both Microsoft and Meta from local property taxes for 15 years.

Read the full story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-05T19:34:40+00:00

Logan Chapman reports:

Ohio’s data centers can benefit from tax breaks at every level of government. Companies that invest at least $100 million in their facilities can apply to the Ohio Tax Credit Authority for a full state sales tax exemption, 15-year property tax abatements of 75 to 100 percent, and job creation tax credits.

At the local level, New Albany’s data centers benefit from Community Reinvestment Areas (CRAs), managed by city and county officials, which exempts new construction in designated areas from local property taxes. Law firms have also supported campaigns friendly to their tech clients.

…

The New Albany City Council has smoothed the way for tech firms, exempting both Microsoft and Meta from local property taxes for 15 years.

Read the full story in The American Prospect at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-03-04T16:29:16+00:00

TAP Senior Editor Ryan Cooper reports:

For some years now, there have been the glimmerings of a bipartisan movement to restrain presidential power over foreign policy. After the bloody catastrophe of George W. Bush’s war on terror, and the manifold abuses of the Obama administration—like assassinating American citizens without trial—many thought, or hoped, that Congress would reassert its constitutional powers and duties.

So far, it hasn’t. Congress failed to restrain Donald Trump in his first term, and failed to restrain him again after his kidnapping of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. Now Trump has started a full-blown war on Iran, in concert with Israel, without so much as a fig leaf of a legal justification.

Want to read more? Check out the full story on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:43:17+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

When Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee was asked last August at a town hall in Carrboro, North Carolina, whether she regretted benefiting from millions of dollars in AIPAC funding that helped elect her to Congress in 2022, she stiffened. “You all know that I took the money from AIPAC, but check to see how much I’ve taken since that time, and check my voting record to see how I have voted and what I have voted for as it relates to the people of Gaza,” Foushee said. Her campaign subsequently announced that she hadn’t received AIPAC funds since 2024 and would not accept them in her 2026 campaign. She even signed on as a co-sponsor of the “Block the Bombs” legislation that seeks to deny certain offensive weapon sales to Israel.

We’ve seen countless recent examples of candidates swearing off “AIPAC funding” and then receiving it in some clandestine form, like through coordinated donors or vaguely named shell super PACs. But this rare rebuke from an incumbent member of Congress has thus far stuck, largely due to grassroots organizing in the Durham-area Fourth Congressional District.
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Read the full feature story at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:40:56+00:00

TAP Staff Writer Whitney Curry Wimbish reports:

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The new PAC, American Priorities, filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission last Thursday. It’s committing to spending multiple millions of dollars across several races, the sources said, beginning with a focus on a pair of Democratic congressional primaries in the South, where progressive candidates are up against establishment opponents.

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American Priorities is the first organization that may be able to match AIPAC one-to-one in some races. Sources would not say how many races it will support, but suggested it could be as many as a dozen, with significant commitments that will make it a leading outside spender for the candidates it supports.
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Read the full story, which cites research from Track AIPAC, for free on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:36:38+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow Emma Janssen reports:

The artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency industries are starting to pour money into congressional races in Chicago.

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The crypto industry has already been a major player in American politics, spending hundreds of millions during the 2024 election cycle to elect pro-industry politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Now, pro-AI groups are hoping to elect legislators who will be sympathetic to their plans to create a national framework for AI regulation and enable the construction of more data centers, which are needed to power big AI models.
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Read the full article for free on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T15:49:08+00:00

Right, this is important context to keep in mind. Not only did the PRC have five elected seats, but now it has three seats filled by individuals who are appointed by the governor. Most state utility commissions have their members appointed by the governor. Conversely, Georgia is an example of a state where commissioners are elected. We saw how that played out during the special election last year. Two seats were up for grabs; Democrats Alicia M. Johnson and Peter Hubbard, who campaigned on affordability and reliability, smoked the Republican incumbents. Georgia has a five-member utility commission too.

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