Reading this WSJ article about the behind-the-scenes battle between Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and board chair Frank Yeary, amid President Trump’s call for Tan to resign, reminds me of the sad fate of our very own Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC). Both Digital and Intel were once colossal giants within their respective tech sectors – giants that went into spectacular nosedives after failing to see looming market trends. Digital ultimately spent years in turmoil, thrashing this way and that, before selling off to Compaq in 1998. Intel, which recently sold off its former chip facility in Hudson, is still in its own turmoil stage, searching for ways to survive and revive. … What is its future? I’m actually rooting for Tan to succeed. He’s not giving up on Intel’s core chip businesses. But I fear Yeary, a former investment banker, might be right about the need to effectively pack it in.
Update – Tan is defending himself afterTrump’s public demand he step down due to his China ties.
Update II — 8.12.25 – From the WSJ: “Forget the White House Sideshow. Intel Must Decide What It Wants to Be.”
The Globe is trying its very best to discredit President Trump’s assertion that Massachusetts lawmakers have gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts in order to prevent Republican representation in the state. It’s easy to poke holes in the president’s argument – especially if you cherry-pick the numbers like the Globe does. Sure, the president is dead wrong, not to mention typically bombastic, to suggest that his 36 percent (not 40 percent) presidential vote performance in 2024 in Massachusetts should somehow translate to a roughly corresponding number of GOP-held congressional seats in the state. That’s not how redistricting and elections work. But to rule out, or downplay, the role of political gerrymandering in Massachusetts? In the very state that gave us the word “gerrymander”? In the very state in which a former Massachusetts House speaker was charged with lying under oath about his role in redistricting in 2001? Please. If you really believe Democrats in this one-party, bluest-of-blue states haven’t engaged in systemic gerrymandering for partisan reasons over the decades, then I have a few bridges to sell to you in Brooklyn and Boston.
As the Princeton Gerrymandering Project reports, computer simulations show that Massachusetts Republican voters are so few in number today and “so evenly distributed around the state that drawing a Republican congressional district is impossible.” So take that, President Trump. Then again, that’s not to say maps aren’t drawn to heavily favor Dems, dramatically reducing the odds of any surprise GOP congressional victories. After all, as the Princeton Gerrymandering Project also notes, redistricting here is indeed “under single-party control by Democrats” – and they’ve largely dominated the redistricting process here for well over half a century.
Let’s set aside the fact that Massachusetts hasn’t elected a Republican to the U.S. House for 31 years. Let’s look at our Massachusetts legislature, which is charged with drawing up new congressional and legislative maps every ten years and sending a final plan to the governor. Care to guess how long Dems have dominated both legislative chambers on Beacon Hill? Answer: since 1959, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president and Foster Furcolo was sitting in the corner office. Do you really think redistricting has had nothing to do with this multi-generational dominance by Democrats? Nothing?
I’m not saying redistricting is the sole reason Dems have been so politically dominant in Massachusetts over the decades, both at the congressional and legislative levels. Other factors are at play, including a statewide electorate that’s genuinely become more liberal over the years (particularly after Vietnam and Watergate) and a Massachusetts Republican Party that’s become ever more incompetent.
But partisan redistricting – and partisan redistrictings on top of partisan redistrictings – have cumulatively helped grind the Mass GOP into political dust and reinforce Dem control of Beacon Hill and the state’s congressional delegation. The partisan competitiveness has gotten so bad in Massachusetts that most legislative incumbents (i.e. Dems) face no opposition in general elections – and congressional races aren’t that much better.
As much as I hate to admit it, Donald Trump isn’t completely wrong to complain about the effects of our partisan redistricting process in Massachusetts.
I’m not wild about the strike by bar advocates over their pay. But at the same time they are paid considerably less than their counterparts in other New England states — and the bill just signed by Gov. Healey doesn’t adequately address that disparity. The state’s counterproposal comes across as a take-it-or leave-it offer with more than a little spite. Unfortunately, bar advocates will probably respond with their own righteous spite. …
Just a passing thought: Why didn’t lawmakers show similar frugalness when the state was blowing through billions of dollars on emergency shelter programs?
Via Scott Van Voorhis, we learn that some of our state Democratic leaders, including Gov. Maura Healey, are fans of the book ‘Abundance,’ which basically argues blue state pols haven’t been managing blue states all that well over the years. Here’s hoping local leaders take some of the ‘Abundance’ lessons to heart, as they apply to housing, energy, and transportation issues, etc. … And here’s hoping they might also apply ‘Abundance’ lessons to the increasingly radical agenda of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which, every day, seems to be testing and pushing the limits of its power in Massachusetts. The union’s latest political antic: sinking a million bucks into local school-committee elections, as Contrarian Boston also reports. That effort comes as the MTA explores backing yet another new wealth tax to pay for free public colleges, pushes to legalize teacher strikes (while backing illegal teacher strikes), fends off repeated accusations of sponsoring antisemitic initiatives and politicizing school curriculums, revels in past political wins involving MCAS, charter schools, the millionaire’s tax, etc., etc. … Considering how much the MTA has pumped into Dem campaign coffers over the years, it’s unlikely Dems will stand up to the union any time soon. But it sure would be nice if they could at least firmly say ‘no’ to the MTA now and then.
Update – 8.11.25 – From the Globe: “State’s largest teachers union makes big play to influence more municipal elections.”
So Harvard is bristling over the $50 million deal Brown University recently cut with the Trump administration, as the NYT reports. Can’t blame them. Harvard is looking at a deal that could cost it $500 million, or ten times more than what Brown is paying. It’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense. But of course it’s not fair. And of course it doesn’t make sense. That’s because Harvard is dealing with an irrational, unpredictable, impulsive president surrounded by hand-picked loyalists whose top priority is to obey his every irrational, unpredictable, impulsive demand. The president has privately decided Harvard must pay more for its transgressions, and so it must be, his followers have concluded. …
They’re going wild over Joe Milton in Dallas. … OK, maybe I’m obsessing too much about the loss of Joe. Maybe Mike Vabrel made the right call when the Pats traded him away in April. But I still have this awful feeling the Pats made one of worst trades in the team’s history when they unloaded Joe for a measly fifth-round draft pick. … Meanwhile, Drake Maye continues to not impress.
As the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, Eliot Cohen at the Atlantic has an interesting article on George Washington’s seemingly undramatic days in Boston in 1775. They didn’t include dramatic battles, marches, meetings and pronouncements. But they were still critical days. From Cohen:
“What happened that summer outside Boston was of monumental importance. If this was to be an American army and not just an assembly of colonial militias, then Washington would have to be the first American general, and not just a provincial. He would have to create a system out of chaos, and hold together a force against a dangerous enemy.”
And he did so while experiencing a major culture clash in New England:
“A slaveholding Virginia gentleman and loosely religious Anglican was going to lead an army that was mainly made up of New Englanders—including both psalm-singing, Bible-quoting descendants of the Puritans and dissenting freethinkers. For his part, Washington was appalled at what he saw: militia units that elected their own officers and called them by their first names, free Black men carrying weapons, money-grubbing Yankees (as opposed to land-grubbing Virginia gentry), and general squalor. ‘They are an exceeding dirty and nasty people,’ he told his cousin Lund Washington.”
Update — He just confirmed the severity of the jobs news. From CNBC: “Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets.”
Update II — 8.2.25 — From the WSJ: “The Wild Week in the American Economy.”
Former Gov. Deval Patrick set the precedent years ago when he proposed spending $1 billion to boost the local biotechnology sector. So Gov. Maura Healey’s plan to spend $400 million to boost scientific research across the state, amid Trump administration cuts, isn’t exactly radical. In fact, it’s a good idea in general. But I have problems with the timing and proposed funding sources. Re the timing: let’s see how negotiations go between the Trump administration and Harvard before jumping into the funding breach. After Harvard, MIT and possibly Tufts etc. are next on the Trump ideological shakedown list. Let’s see what happens with them too. … Among other things, my fear is the Trump groupies will see the Massachusetts funding moves and conclude they can simply deduct that amount from final federal funding tallies. … Re funding sources: dipping into proceeds from the millionaire’s tax is a real stretch in terms of what the surcharge is supposed to fund (transportation and education). And using interest from the state’s rainy day fund? That fund is for recessionary periods – and for all state programs. Leave it alone. …
What the state needs is a well thought out funding plan, similar to what was done in 2008 with Patrick’s 10-year Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative, half of which relied on revenue from long-term bonds. … Bottom line: don’t rush into this. Think long-term.
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