Kevin Drum 🕸

The discourse is suddenly alive with revived talk of how the public turned against Joe Biden because of his mental incapacity. In particular, they hated being gaslit: told he was fine when the evidence of our eyes told us otherwise. However, there are some problems with this theory. Here's the first one: Biden's approval rating ...continue reading "Did Democrats lose because voters were mad at Joe Biden?"

Another one of the sand dunes near sunset at the Cadiz Dunes Wilderness in the Mojave Desert.

The Washington Post says people are "scrambling" to buy cars, appliances and other big-ticket imports before Donald Trump takes office and puts tariffs on everything. These kinds of stories are usually based on super thin anecdotal data, but maybe there's something to this one: There's no telling what's really driving this, but auto sales started ...continue reading "Tariff fears are (supposedly) driving car sales"

There's trouble brewing for Pete Hegseth. Apparently the Armed Services Committee takes seriously the nomination of someone to head up our armed services: At least a dozen senators are pushing to see the FBI’s background check on Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled pick for Pentagon chief — a rare move for the committee that oversees ...continue reading "Is Pete Hegseth in trouble?"

I'm not sure if this is surprising or not: The most vaccine skeptical folks are independents, not Republicans. And skepticism is highest among the middle-aged. Worth a ponder.

From Rep. Blake Moore, asked why Democrats would vote for a spending bill that had killed off all of their priorities: Great question. Republicans can't pass anything by themselves because they're in such violent disarray. They know this perfectly well. They need Democratic votes. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can ...continue reading "Quote of the day: “Great question”"

More weirdness from Donald Trump, insisting that a CLEAN spending bill has to include farm aid, hurricane relief, and a debt ceiling increase: Can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating, or extending, the Debt Ceiling guillotine coming up in June? Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till ...continue reading "Donald Trump is afraid of the debt ceiling"

After Elon Musk had already coordinated a Republican revolt against the CR, Donald Trump jumped in to take credit: Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with ...continue reading "Trump wants a CLEAN spending bill except for almost everything in it"

I see that the CR is dead again, thanks to right-wing Republican opposition. Ah well. Who needs farm aid in the Midwest and hurricane relief in the South? But just to show what we're arguing about, here's yet another chart showing domestic spending by the federal government. This includes everything: discretionary spending, welfare entitlements, even ...continue reading "A quick look at every penny of domestic spending"

David Dayen says Democrats are adrift because they have no widely accepted leaders. That's true. Nancy Pelosi was a strong Speaker but she retired. Joe Biden is now a widely-derided lame duck. Kamala Harris lost, and losers never wield much influence. Chuck Schumer spends most of his time on legislative blocking-and-tackling. Young up-and-comers like AOC ...continue reading "Democrats in disarray! (For awhile.)"

Conservatives are up in arms because the compromise CR continues funding the GEC for another year. “Bad,” said Chip Roy. “Brazen,” said Dan Bishop. “Unbelievable,” said Andrew Clyde. Eh? This would be the State Department's Global Engagement Center, an agency originally dedicated to fighting overseas terrorism. It started up under the Obama administration and was ...continue reading "GEC survives to fight Russian psy-ops for another year"

This is a greater one-horned rhinoceros at the LA Zoo. It looks more like a no-horned rhinoceros, amirite?

Ben Casselman writes about the economy in the New York Times today: After five years of uncertainty and turmoil, the U.S. economy is ending 2024 in arguably its most stable condition since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Inflation has cooled. Unemployment is low. The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates. The recession that many ...continue reading "We have no idea if the economy is headed for a soft landing"

From CNN: The House Ethics Committee secretly voted earlier this month to release its report into the conduct of former Rep. Matt Gaetz before the end of this Congress, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. ....The vote, which has not previously been reported, amounts to a stark reversal for the panel after ...continue reading "CNN: Gaetz investigation will be released"

Even though I have some views on this, I'm weary of the endless debate about what liberals should do to win back American voters. I read the same polls as everyone else, and that's really all of us have to go on. The truth is that unless you have a remarkably large and diverse set ...continue reading "Who I am"

The number of housing units under construction fell again in November, but it's worth noting that total construction is still higher than it was at the peak of the housing bubble: 1.43 million units vs. 1.42 million units on an annual basis. However, the composition of construction has changed dramatically: We never recovered our outsize ...continue reading "America is in love with apartments"

Why did the murder rate spike in 2020? There are two obvious possibilities: the killing of George Floyd and the start of the pandemic. The problem is that both of these things happened at practically the same time, which makes it all but impossible to tease out which one was the actual cause. I took ...continue reading "Brookings: The 2020 murder spike was COVID all along"

RFK Jr. is pandering and kowtowing until his lips turn blue in a desperate attempt to win Republican approval for his nomination to run HHS: He pledged to reverse the Biden Admin’s Section 1557 rule and also said all of his deputies at HHS would be prolife. He told me he believes there are far ...continue reading "RFK Jr. throws his longstanding abortion support under the bus"

Elon Musk's latest whinge is that the Biden administration is out to get him. In particular: This year Reuters won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into the seamy side of Musk's businesses. AT THE SAME TIME, Biden has awarded $300 million in federal contracts to Reuters!!! I wouldn't normally waste time with this, but ...continue reading "Elon Musk uncovers huge Deep State scandal targeting . . . Elon Musk"

Just to get serious for a moment, there's really no mystery about New Jersey's mystery drones. Most of them are just ordinary airplanes and whatnot, while the rest are . . . drones. Right? I mean, what else could they be? Even if, for the sake of discussion, there are lots of them around, they're ...continue reading "The mystery drones are . . ."