Kevin Drum 🕸

After overturning abortion protections, is contraception next for the Supreme Court? A couple of years ago Gallup polled Americans about the moral acceptability of various issues and this is what they came up with: A Pew poll taken a couple of years before this one came up with an even lower number: nationally, only 4% ...continue reading "Practically everyone approves of contraception"

Can someone tell me what's going on with the Russian army? Nothing I've read truly seems to explain its epic incompetence. I mean, I know all about the maintenance issues and the logistics and the pallets and all that stuff, but Russia's operational problems go way beyond that. They seem literally unable to accomplish anything. ...continue reading "Somebody please explain Russia to me"

Here's a look at how many abortions are likely to be halted after Roe v. Wade is overturned and conservative red states have passed laws outlawing abortion (red bars): I've counted any state with a 50% majority opposed to "all or most" abortions as a state likely to pass a law banning all or most ...continue reading "For $7-8 million per week, we can tell the Supreme Court to go fuck itself"

Hilbert jumped onto our marble coffee table this morning and began rolling around deliriously. This attracted the attention of the camera, and eventually it attracted the attention of another cat, too.

The American economy gained 428,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 338,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate remained at 3.6%. Among blue-collar workers, weekly wages were up 0.37% from last month. That's an annual rate of 4.6%, ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in April"

Well, partially. After four weeks of adjustments to my bionic lenses, they are as good as they're going to get. Yesterday was Phase One of locking them permanently into place, and next week will be Phase Two. At that point, the whole process will be done and I'll have fully adjusted artificial lenses in both ...continue reading "I am locked down"

Today I have remarkable photographic news. It starts pretty slow. Monday was dex day, so I decided to go out and look for the Milky Way again. I took it a little more seriously this time, driving out to Joshua Tree for some good night sky, but in the event I stopped a little short ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The LA Times writes about homelessness today: The Los Angeles mayoral primary has seen candidates throwing big numbers around concerning how much shelter they’d like to see built for homeless people. Rick Caruso wants 30,000 new beds in his first year in office, Rep. Karen Bass says 15,000 new beds in hers and Councilman Joe ...continue reading "Here’s my plan to address homelessness in Los Angeles"

For what it's worth, you should ignore all the folks talking about how badly Roe v. Wade was written. I've read plenty of commentary on this, and even liberal scholars mostly agree that Blackmun did a lousy job. But it doesn't matter. The opinion could have been written by John Marshall himself and no one ...continue reading "Nobody cares how badly Roe was written"

There's not a ton of state-by-state polling on abortion, but when Roe v. Wade is overturned and control of abortion law is returned to the states this is suddenly going to become very important. Here is a Pew survey from 2014 that asks whether abortion should be legal or illegal in "most or all" cases. ...continue reading "Raw data: Views on abortion by state"

This is a lovely yellow alstroemeria hiding in the shadows in our front yard. It is apparently commonly known as a Peruvian lily or lily of the Incas, which I didn't know until about half a minute ago. I'm learning more about flowers every day.

As I was trying to think of something else besides Roe v. Wade, it occurred to me this afternoon to wonder how long the Ukraine war was likely to last. We fought the Soviet Union as proxies in Vietnam for about a decade. We fought them as proxies in Afghanistan for five or six years. ...continue reading "How long will we fight the Russians in Ukraine?"

From the Wall Street Journal: Job openings and the number of times workers quit reached the highest levels on record in March, as a shortage of available workers continued to pressure the U.S. labor market. Sure, this is true, and the BLS press release even said so. But who cares? Quits always go up when ...continue reading "People are quitting their jobs at totally normal rates"

Why does my local medical center have an outline of a cannabis leaf on its floor?

I imagine that this week is going to be abortion always and everywhere unless a meteor hits Kyiv or something. However, even though you might not be in the mood for good news about Justice Alito's latest tactical nuke on the progressive movement, there is a small bit of good news in his opinion that ...continue reading "A (tiny bit) of good news about Samuel Alito’s decision overturning abortion rights"

According to Politico, a draft Supreme Court ruling has been leaked that overrules Roe v. Wade completely. If this turns out to be a final opinion, I find it fitting that it was written by the Court's worst member, Samuel Alito; and affirmed by its most crotchety ideologue, Clarence Thomas, along with its three Trump ...continue reading "Court leak spells end to constitutional right to abortion"

I have no idea why I did this. I was just curious what the latest American Time Use Survey¹ showed about the difference in activities between working-age men and women. [Clarification: That is, this chart shows how many more minutes men spend on each activity compared to women.] Here it is: On average, working-age men ...continue reading "Raw data: How working-age people spend their time"

White backlash. One of the most powerful cultural forces throughout American history is white backlash. It is intense, self-righteous, often brutal, and absolutely inevitable. Anyone in the civil rights activism biz is an idiot if they don't understand this and have a plan to deal with it. Sex education. Conservatives have always been conservative about ...continue reading "Three random things"

Believe it or not, I've been meaning to take this picture for years. I've just never had my camera handy at night when I've driven past it. But a few weeks ago, on a dex night, I was puttering around at 3 am and finally got my picture. There's just something about the sharp lines ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Data here.