Kevin Drum 🕸

In its initial incarnation USAID was a Cold War agency designed to help poor countries, but also to ensure that the United States was very visibly the one doing the helping. This focus produced both considerable efficiency and bipartisan support. When the Cold War ended, USAID lost some of its support, especially among conservative Republicans. ...continue reading "The real story behind the downfall of USAID"

According to the Economist, here are the fates of Europe's main parties from about 2000 to the present: Mainstream center-left and center-right parties have dropped a combined 20 points. Hard right parties have gone up about 20 points. So far, hard right parties have mostly been kept out of power except in Hungary, Italy, and ...continue reading "Raw data: The rise of the far right in Europe"

Are you interested in who supports whom after today's revenge fest in the Oval Office? Here's the scorecard: That's 25-2 by my count, with Italy remaining neutral.

Donald Trump has been on a tear to eliminate DEI programs throughout the federal government. Now, in one sense, he clearly ran on this, so fair enough. What's more, if we're talking about killing Robin DiAngelo programs or similar beacons of enlightenment, well, even a lot of liberals will cheer you on. But in MAGA ...continue reading "Trump is merrily ending civil rights protections for everyone"

Trump attack dog Ed Martin, the US Attorney for Washington DC, has demoted seven prosecutors in the DC office: The prosecutors are among a larger group targeted for “retribution” by President Donald Trump...because of their roles in Jan. 6 Capitol seditious conspiracy and riot cases and others, including ones involving Trump allies such as advisers ...continue reading "January 6 prosecutors demoted to entry-level jobs"

I want to reiterate something: Donald Trump has been plotting his revenge against Volodymyr Zelensky ever since 2019, when Trump was impeached for trying to extort dirt on Joe Biden from Zelensky. Trump is not especially pro-Putin on Ukraine and never has been. But he hates Zelensky, and he's happy to let Putin carve up ...continue reading "In Ukraine, it’s all about revenge"

For obvious reasons there hasn't been any catblogging lately, but today my sister comes to the rescue. One of her colleagues does regular kitten fostering, and she frequently brings her latest batch into work for everyone to ooh and ah over. This is Billie Jean, one of a litter of three. Just look at those ...continue reading "Friday Kitten Blogging – 28 February 2025"

Apparently the Oval Office meeting this morning to sign a US-Ukraine mineral agreement didn't go well: President Trump and Vice President JD Vance loudly berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday in an explosive televised shouting match unlike any seen in the Oval Office between an American president and foreign leader in modern times. ...continue reading "Trump descends into screaming match with Zelensky"

BEA releases everything all at once, so we have plenty more today than just an inflation print. Here's a couple of interesting ones. First up is plain old Personal Consumption Expenditures. I'm showing this because it's unusual for PCE to go down substantially on a raw dollar basis even during recessions. But in January it ...continue reading "Income and expenditures in January"

I think I still remember how to do this. Here is PCE inflation in January: Not good. In more conventional year-over-year terms, headline PCE came in at 2.5%. Core PCE was 2.6%.

The news is chock full of reports that Social Security may fire as many as half of its workers—all of whom are being pressured to take early retirement in one form or another. It's a huge and seemingly arbitrary layoff. What makes it especially odd is yesterday's memo from OPM telling agencies to create layoff ...continue reading "Why is Social Security about to be gutted?"

Kash Patel is director of the FBI and director of the ATF. Nevertheless: He told officials he planned to spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, where he was living last year. Um, OK. Maybe it's actually better this way.

Another big setback today for Donald Trump. His mass firings so far have been largely focused on probationary employees. However, a federal union argues that it's all a huge scam: “OPM, the federal agency charged with implementing this nation’s employment laws, in one fell swoop has perpetrated one of the most massive employment frauds in ...continue reading "Judge tells Trump to stop firing people"

NOAA has the unfortunate status of being the government's lead scientific agency for climate change—which no longer exists under the Trump administration. Today it's paying the price: I am now hearing from multiple folks in the past two hours (including some who have personally been fired) that mass firings have now commenced within NOAA--including, yes, ...continue reading "NOAA is being dismantled"

I walked about 15 feet today. Woo hoo! The doctors are getting eager to kick me out, but I'm a little reluctant. Nor am I excited about moving to a skilled nursing facility for a week. At this point, I think I'm going to bargain for a Sunday or Monday release, at which point I ...continue reading "Health update"

It's been nearly a year since California raised its fast food minimum wage to $20, so a couple of days ago the IRLE at Cal Berkeley released its second report on how things are going. First off, multiple sources make it clear that fast food workers are making more money. Duh. They're making $20 an ...continue reading "California’s $20 fast food minimum wage hasn’t had much effect"

Over the past few years the rate of measles vaccine coverage among kindergarteners has dropped nationally from 95% to 92.7% in the latest school year. This decline started during the COVID pandemic but has persisted ever since. The exemption rate for kids increased this year from 3.0% to 3.3%. But national numbers understate the problem. ...continue reading "Measles is a state problem"

I don't generally pay a lot of attention to weekly unemployment claims, but this week's numbers give me pause for thought: The latest numbers are for the week ending last Saturday. They're hardly at a record high, but they did jump considerably. Are we already seeing the effects of Elon Musk's mass layoffs? If so, ...continue reading "Unemployment up as Musk fires federal workers"

I don't care about the Washington Post's editorial direction all that much, but yesterday Jeff Bezos announced a big change: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll ...continue reading "Jeff Bezos is all-in on free markets"

Elon Musk has been taking a scattershot approach to firing federal employees, mostly focusing on probationary workers who have limited civil service protection. But today a memo went out from the Office of Personnel Management that made things more official. It demanded that all agencies submit plans by March 13 for "large scale reductions in ...continue reading "The big RIF is coming. But how big?"