Kevin Drum 🕸

You may recall that a couple of months ago a right-wing federal judge ruled that the Biden administration had been engaging in a "regime of mass censorship" straight out of 1984. This was all about the government's effort to fight social media disinformation in the areas of public health and election administration, and the judge's ...continue reading "Appeals court upholds tiny part of “mass censorship” ruling"

What false things do Republicans routinely believe these days? I'm not talking about wild-ass conspiracy theories like QAnon, or matters of opinion, like whether tax cuts produce higher revenue or CRT is wrecking our schools. No, I'm talking about simple, factual matters that are 100% contrary to expert opinion but are accepted routinely by most ...continue reading "What Republicans believe, 2023 edition"

The 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, says this: No person shall...hold any office...who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States...shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. After the Civil War ...continue reading "States cannot remove Donald Trump from the ballot for engaging in insurrection"

Here's the latest FDA POWER GRAB OVER YOUR DRUGSTORE: Americans have been wasting billions a year on cold medicines like Sudafed & Benadryl with the active ingredient phenylephrine, despite conclusive evidence they don't work. But a report published yesterday may finally lead to the removal of these drugs from pharmacy shelves. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/eCv7UlR1dZ — John ...continue reading "Most popular nasal decongestants don’t work"

This is Hilbert investigating the camera while I'm taking pictures of him. I did this with the flash on, and as usual it turned Hilbert's eyes almost entirely black. It's really weird, as if his eyes just don't reflect the spectrum produced by the flash unit. I had to do some massive photoshopping to bring ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 8 September 2023"

Most polls on abortion break up responses into three categories: Should always be illegal. Should always be legal. Should sometimes be legal. The first two are obviously clear enough, but the third encompasses a very wide range of views. For example: Should be illegal except in cases of rape and incest. Should be legal early ...continue reading "Did Dobbs really prompt a backlash against abortion restrictions?"

Ron DeSantis thinks the Proud Boy leaders of the January 6 insurrection have received unfairly harsh sentences. I agree with him. However, we have very different reasons for thinking the sentences should be shorter. DeSantis says that BLM protesters who broke the law got lenient sentences, so the Proud Boys should too. But this doesn't ...continue reading "Ron DeSantis is right about excessive 1/6 sentences, but for the wrong reason"

Here is Elon Musk's version of the story about how and why Starlink satellite coverage around Crimea was inactive when the Ukrainian government wanted to use it to guide a drone attack on the Russian navy: There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent ...continue reading "Did Elon Musk deactivate Starlink coverage around Crimea?"

Bob Somerby is annoyed that liberals continue to say that Florida's Stop WOKE Act bans any classroom discussion that "could prompt students to feel discomfort" because of their race. In fairness, early drafts of the law did use that word, and it was only dropped in the final bill. Nonetheless, he's right that the bill ...continue reading "Here’s what Florida really means by “Stop WOKE”"

Cactus photographed against the sky along Laguna Canyon Road.

Measurements of the COVID virus in wastewater have now quadrupled since their low point in June. But what does that mean? Wastewater measurements are now about the same as they were at this time in both 2021 and 2022. In 2021 that led to a huge outbreak later in the year. In 2022 it led ...continue reading "COVID tracking in wastewater has quadrupled since June"

Here are the results of a new CNN/SSRN poll about Joe Biden's involvement with Hunter Biden's business dealings. I had to interpolate a few numbers because CNN inexplicably provided only some of them, but they're all pretty close. It's almost impossible to overstate how completely nuts this is. There is literally zero evidence that Joe ...continue reading "Polling about Hunter Biden is off-the-charts insane"

In case you haven't heard, Tucker Carlson's latest is that in 1999 Barack Obama had a night of coke-fueled sex with a guy named Larry Sinclair, a serial con artist with a very long rap sheet and a slew of aliases. Seriously. I say "latest," but only because it's new for Tucker. For the rest ...continue reading "Tucker Carlson has gone nuts"

Via Tyler Cowen, a new study estimates the incarceration rate of immigrant men vs. native born Americans from 1870 to the present day. In the present context of the immigration debate we care mostly about immigrants from south of the border, so here's the chart for that: Up until 1960 male Latino immigrants had a ...continue reading "Raw data: Incarceration of 1st generation Latino immigrants"

The Wall Street Journal has alarming news: Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, walloping businesses and their workers. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, which provided their survey results exclusively to The Wall Street ...continue reading "Just stop it: Health insurance costs are rising moderately *if you adjust for inflation*"

This is apropos of nothing aside from running across something that made me wonder if demand for paper was up or down. I expected to see that it was still going up, which would prompt a snarky remark about the paperless office and related things. But no: Global demand for ordinary office paper (i.e., not ...continue reading "Raw data: We’re using way less paper these days"

You may have heard of the replication crisis. It mostly refers to studies in the social sciences that get a lot of media attention when they're first published but then fail to produce the same results when other researchers try to replicate them. The reason it's become a crisis is that a lot of studies ...continue reading "Replicating a study is very, very hard"

This bridge was built by the Army Corps of Engineers after the 1970 flood in Silverado Canyon washed out the old bridge. It spans Silverado Creek, which is normally pretty dry but got some water during our big rains earlier this year.

Over at Mother Jones, we have this headline today: The Real Crisis Driving America’s Teacher Shortage The article describes a real problem: in some areas of the country, housing is so expensive that teachers can't afford a place to live. But the premise is still wrong. There's no overall teacher shortage in the US: This ...continue reading "What teacher shortage?"

Hmmm. The Wall Street Journal says that the boom times in commercial real estate loans are now well and truly over: With the commercial real-estate market now in meltdown, those trillions of dollars in loans and investments are a looming threat for the banking industry—and potentially the broader economy. Banks’ exposure is even bigger than ...continue reading "Banks are in danger of a commercial real estate “doom loop”"