Kevin Drum 🕸

Tyler Cowen links without comment today to a paper that estimates whether immigration research is tainted by bias: Our analysis exploits a rare opportunity where 158 researchers working independently in 71 research teams participated in an experiment. After being surveyed about their position on immigration policy, they used the same data to answer the same ...continue reading "How honest are immigration researchers?"

Non-elderly Americans have pretty much give up on the COVID vaccine: The CDC counts vaccination rates starting from zero at the beginning of each flu season in September. By the end of the 2024 season only 15% of middle-age Americans had bothered getting freshly vaccinated. In the 2025 season so far the number is 12%. ...continue reading "Americans have given up on the COVID vaccine"

A few days ago I said I was "on the fence" over the issue of China hawkery. A few people suggested I expand a bit on this, and why not? The nickel answer is that China is an ascendant power that's often a bad actor on the world stage, but it's also a country with ...continue reading "On the fence over China"

Iran is experiencing an energy crisis. But this isn't something new. It's the culmination of long-term trends that have finally gotten out of hand: These numbers are approximate, but it hardly matters. Over the years Iran has encouraged massive and wasteful household consumption of natural gas, while sanctions and mismanagement have prevented production from catching ...continue reading "Sanctions and mismanagement have finally caught up to Iran"

World economic growth has been slowing down over the past 60 years.

How dangerous is the United States? We certainly have far more homicides than most comparable countries, but homicides are quite rare and don't really have a big impact on overall safety. For that you need to look at violent crime more broadly. Unfortunately, as with so many things American, you also have to look at ...continue reading "Raw data: Violent crime victimization in America"

Politico has a story today about Democrats being doomed, more or less. That's fine, I guess, if a little tiresome, but it turns out this conclusion is based on three focus groups. Check it out: The focus groups — held immediately after the 2024 election and conducted by GBAO, a Democratic polling firm — featured ...continue reading "BREAKING: Voters who don’t like Democrats didn’t vote for Democrats"

You have to hand it to Donald Trump: no matter what kind of shit sandwich he happens to be eating at any given time (currently on the menu: getting played on the CR and the debt ceiling), he comes up with some kind of freakish distraction. Tonight it's a rant about how we're getting screwed ...continue reading "Panama is the latest country in Donald Trump’s gunsights"

The post-revolt CR passed by the House performatively cut off both funding for pediatric cancer research and the transfer of RFK Stadium to DC. Why? Who knows. It demonstrated toughness from fiscal conservatives, I guess? But it was just a show. It turns out both of those things had been passed by the House months ...continue reading "Fiscal hawks killed CR provisions that had already passed"

The all-new Musk-approved CR has passed and there will be no government shutdown. Huzzah. But I'm curious. The CR still contains farm aid and hurricane relief—which accounted for the vast majority of new spending. It fully funds the Francis Scott Key bridge. It extends funding for Columbia and Virginia-class subs. It killed the transfer of ...continue reading "Did all the CR drama end up saving any money?"

From the Wall Street Journal: OpenAI’s new artificial-intelligence project is behind schedule and running up huge bills. It isn’t clear when—or if—it’ll work. There may not be enough data in the world to make it smart enough. The project, officially called GPT-5 and code-named Orion, has been in the works for more than 18 months.... ...continue reading "18 months is not an AI crisis"

According to a new report commissioned by Waymo and conducted by SwissRe, Waymo driverless cars are about ten times safer than cars driven by people: The report is based on 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo cars in four US cities (San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin). This was before Waymo began freeway driving, ...continue reading "Raw data: The safety record of Waymo driverless cars"

Hardworking Iowa senator Joni Ernst delivers a bombshell: My investigations exposed that just 8 out of 5,000 @ENERGY employees show up on the average day! There are more reindeer on Santa’s sleigh than bureaucrats showing up @ENERGY. 🎅🏻🦌🦌 pic.twitter.com/yLvcRNL1gI — Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) December 20, 2024 ZOMG! And this is the result of "investigations," so ...continue reading "In which I investigate the investigations"

Derek Thompson writes in the Atlantic about a mysterious new "health wave" sweeping the United States: In May 2024, the U.S. government reported that drug-overdose deaths fell 3 percent from 2022 to 2023, a rare bright spot in a century of escalating drug deaths. In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic ...continue reading "The “health epidemic” isn’t, really"

Here is Hilbert surveying his domain before setting out for the day to find the best place for a noontime nap.

If it's inflation day that means it's also personal income day. Adjusted for inflation, disposable personal income increased at an annual rate of 1.3% in November: After accounting for inflation, disposable personal income is up 10% since the start of the pandemic.

Core PCE is The Fed's Preferred Measure of Inflation™, so let's focus on that this month. On a month-over-month basis, it came in at 1.4% in November: PCE is a volatile series, so it's best not to get too excited about monthly ups and downs, including this one. Nonetheless, core PCE has been on a ...continue reading "Core PCE inflation plunges in November"

Today the Border Patrol reported a total of 94,190 Southwest border encounters in November. This was the first time the number has dropped below six figures since Joe Biden took office. Out of the total, about 47,000 were caught trying to cross the border illegally. The rest were asylum seekers who presented themselves at border ...continue reading "Border crossings drop in November"

I forgot to mention that I'm out of the hospital and back home. In fact, I came home yesterday. I was scheduled to stay until today, but I made a nuisance of myself and bullied them into releasing me early. Why? This was my third time getting a treatment with a risk of causing Cytokine ...continue reading "Health update"

Our story so far: Democrats negotiate with Speaker Mike Johnson on a CR to keep the government open for another three months. After a bit of minor pressure from Elon Musk, Johnson reneges on the deal. The new deal is: Fuck you. We get everything we want, you get nothing. Now, I'm no Master of ...continue reading "Republican “fuck you” bill goes down to massive defeat"