Kevin Drum 🕸

The Hunter Biden case keeps getting weirder and weirder: The lawyer who represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses stepped down early Tuesday, saying that he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son. ....This week, Abbe Lowell, a veteran ...continue reading "Hunter Biden lawyer steps down so he can be a witness"

Here's a bonus chart from today's retail sales report. Sales of cars were up slightly, but still aren't close to their pre-pandemic level: Vehicle purchases have been increasing since late 2021 but are still about 6% below their pre-pandemic level.

Retail sales increased slightly in July, but have remained basically flat for more than two years: It's good news that retail sales aren't dropping, but that's about it. There's nothing much to see here.

We don't yet know the details, but apparently the shoe has finally dropped in the Georgia "find 11,780 votes" case. A grand jury has returned ten indictments against Donald Trump, but we won't know exactly what the charges are for another hour or two. In any case, Trump has now been impeached twice for high ...continue reading "Trump indicted in Georgia"

David Brooks has a question: Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on ...continue reading "Americans have been getting nicer over the past decade"

This is a snail on Highway 70 in Louisiana just north of Morgan City. I suppose I must have been taking a picture of something else when this caught my eye, but I don't remember what. Today's photo would have been a picture of a meteor, but I didn't get one this weekend. I put ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

National Review's jihad against electric cars continues today: There’s nothing wrong with high-end cars or electric powerplants, per se. But the idea that the U.S. auto market is forced to accept a technology that is still underdeveloped and low-scale while the year quickly approaches that auto manufacturers will be required to produce EVs primarily is ...continue reading "Is Joe Biden bullying us to buy electric cars?"

Danielle Paquette has a piece today in the Washington Post about Tony Thurman, a home security dealer in Kansas City who says business is brisk: But Thurman is troubled by what he senses is driving much of the demand: Americans’ growing preoccupation with the specter of deadly threats. They fear burglars, gangs and child predators. ...continue reading "Even a home security guy thinks we’ve gone cuckoo over security"

Thanks to TikTok and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez we are currently going through yet another micro-frenzy about why awesome European sunscreens aren't approved for sale in the US. This happens roughly every summer, and as usual there's nothing new to report. The active ingredients at issue could probably be approved easily in the US if their makers ...continue reading "European sunscreen makes its annual media appearance"

There seem to be a lot of people who still don't understand how it is that researchers in 2020 concluded that a lab leak of the COVID virus was implausible just because they had discovered a particular bat virus. Surely the discovery of a bat virus similar to COVID makes a natural origin more plausible ...continue reading "Here’s why scientists concluded a COVID lab leak was implausible"

The Washington Post informs us that Millennials are screwed: Homeownership — the main driver of wealth for most Americans — is out of reach for large swaths of the population. But the pinch is most pronounced for millennials, who are buying homes at a slower pace than those before them. ....Those born between 1981 to ...continue reading "Millennials are doing fine, part XXXVII"

In newspaper articles about court cases it's now routine to name the president(s) who appointed the judge(s) involved.¹ The reason is simple: it tells you everything you need to know. Hell, if they put this information in the lead you could skip the whole rest of the story. Democratic appointees reliably deliver liberal results and ...continue reading "Lower courts are the most reliably partisan in the country"

A common meme is one where you suggest that kids these days are unfamiliar with some item or activity from the past. The usual suspects are things like dial telephones, stick shifts, cursive handwriting, and so forth. But this is ridiculous. There's so much period TV available that kids are familiar with practically all this ...continue reading "Spam, glorious Spam"

This is Hilbert relaxing in our front yard. He's taking a little me time. Just a cat alone with his thoughts.

David Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years, ever since Donald Trump appointed him US Attorney for Delaware. Apparently he requested special counsel status on Tuesday, and today Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had granted it. This is a very strange story. Last month Weiss wound up his investigation and agreed ...continue reading "Why did David Weiss suddenly rejuvenate the Hunter Biden investigation?"

The producer price index is our glimpse into the future: Changes in the PPI are usually reflected in the consumer price index a few months later. July's PPI wasn't good news: The overall PPI was up 3.6% in July compared to -0.5% in June. The component indexes were also up. We can hope for better ...continue reading "Producer price index up 3.6% in July"

We keep asking when driverless cars will "really" be here, but it's an odd question. They already are: California regulators agreed on Thursday to the expansion of driverless taxi services in San Francisco, despite the safety concerns of local officials and community activists. In a 3-to-1 vote, the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates self-driving ...continue reading "Driverless cars are here"

This is a panoramic view of the Orangerie, part of the gardens of Versailles, looking southwest from the palace toward the Swiss Lake. It's certainly an impressive bit of craftsmanship, but I can't bring myself to love it. Even to my OCD-inflected mind, it seems just a little too overplanned and sterile. But I guess ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

From Vox today: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is tripling down on his state’s newly approved social studies curriculum guidelines that erroneously teach students that enslaved people “developed skills” that they could use for “personal benefit.” I've had enough of this. There are plenty of problems with Florida's Black history curriculum,¹ but the "skills" passage isn't ...continue reading "Some American slaves really did earn money from skills they developed"

ProPublica today provides us with the fullest accounting yet of the endless largesse provided over the years to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas from his cadre of billionaire friends: Their gifts include: At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional ...continue reading "ProPublica: Clarence Thomas accepted yet more millions from billionaires"