Kevin Drum 🕸

The Wall Street Journal reports that restaurants continue to struggle thanks to surging wages for workers: The surge in restaurant and bar worker wages since 2021 followed years in which their hourly earnings ticked up by an easier to manage 2% to 4% annually. For independent restaurants that make food from scratch, higher labor costs ...continue reading "Why are so many restaurants struggling?"

I see this morning that the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump can't be tossed off the ballot for participating in insurrection. The ruling was unanimous. The Court ruled, first, that "more or less formal" proceedings are required to decide if someone is guilty of insurrection and therefore ineligible to hold office under Section ...continue reading "Supreme Court rules states can’t throw Trump off the ballot"

Joe Kent is a MAGA Republican running for Congress against Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state. He is opposed to replacing an aging bridge that crosses the Columbia River: Mr. Kent, who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election and has referred to those jailed for taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack ...continue reading "Bridge to Portland is an “Antifa superhighway”"

Monica Hesse writes in the Washington Post today about a crop of new books on marriage and divorce: All of these treatises about divorce are really, no surprise, about marriage. Who benefits from it? Who carries it? Who gets to be the show pony and who has to be the workhorse? What should we make ...continue reading "Divorce rates have plummeted over the past 20 years"

Here's some good news for millennials. In 2019 they were way below the curve in terms of wealth accumulation. Older millennials were 9% below expectations and younger millennials were a whopping 44% below expectations. But that's all changed: As of 2022, millennials of all ages were nearly 40% above expectations based on the wealth of ...continue reading "Millennials have suddenly become the wealthiest generation"

I rely frequently on the YouGov polls done for the Economist. There are two reasons for this. First, they have a excellent reputation for accuracy. Second, they routinely make crosstabs available, which helps a lot if you want to dig past the simple topline numbers. Here's their latest poll of Trump vs. Biden: Nationally, they ...continue reading "Biden and Trump are in a dead heat"

The Washington Post reports today on the latest in fertility treatments: Red-state Christian women are rising up, speaking out to defend IVF A typical example is Sara, who was angered by a viral Twitter post from a Christian influencer who condemned IVF: “Show others love, grace and sympathy rather than judgment,” Sara wrote back online. ...continue reading "Here’s the secret to being pro-life and pro-IVF"

Here's something you may or may not know: home prices in the US are nearly down to their pre-pandemic average. In January, the median price of a new home was $420,000, only about 6% higher than the pre-pandemic average of $395,000. The data is very similar for existing homes. POSTSCRIPT: It's worth noting that this ...continue reading "Raw data: The price of new homes in the US"

Waymo is getting ready for freeway driving in California: California regulators on Friday granted Alphabet’s self-driving car division Waymo permission to expand its robotaxi service to include highways in several Bay Area cities and large swaths of Los Angeles, a massive expansion that comes amid concerns about the impact more driverless cars will have on ...continue reading "Waymo is ready to take on highways"

You have questions. I have answers. Question: What is DWAC? Answer: DWAC is a SPAC. Q: Thanks a ton. A: I just had to get that out of my system. A SPAC is a Special Purpose Acquisition Vehicle—a big pile of money that does nothing, but is nonetheless traded on the stock market. Eventually, a ...continue reading "There sure are a lot of people who want to give Donald Trump money"

America's manufacturing construction boom continued apace in January: This is mostly due to a series of federal government initiatives: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act. In total, manufacturing construction has more than doubled over the past two years, from an annual rate of $90 billion in late 2021 to ...continue reading "Raw data: Manufacturing construction in the US"

Here is Hilbert on the bed with me getting his head scratched. You can't hear it, but he was purring his furry little face off while this was going on.

Finally: The U.S. military will be conducting airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the coming days amid tense negotiations for a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, President Joe Biden announced on Friday. The mission is designed to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza as Palestinians struggle to get food, ...continue reading "US to airdrop aid to Gaza"

Michael Flynn tonight: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” pic.twitter.com/ShGVrsQ9hW — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 13, 2021

Ranked-choice voting has been gaining popularity lately, and that's sparked a MAGA backlash. But why? There's no obvious reason it would benefit either Democrats or Republicans. Nevertheless, conservative groups have launched a large number of very well funded and coordinated attacks on RCV. Alaska, for example, approved RCV in 2020 but opponents have now gathered ...continue reading "Why does MAGA hate ranked-choice voting?"

Talk about your low-hanging fruit. The IRS is finally starting to send letters to people who make $400,000+ but haven't filed a tax return: One thing nonfilers haven’t had to fear, until recently, was hearing about their shortcomings from the IRS. The agency generally knows who should be filing a return but hasn’t had the ...continue reading "The IRS would like you to pretty please file a tax return"

"Check out this video of Biden at the border," says Rich Lowry, so I did. It's 25 seconds long and there's no sound, just Biden walking along stiffly thanks to his arthritis. So what's the big problem? Answer: "Most people are simply not going to feel comfortable with a president who walks this way," says ...continue reading "Joe Biden has arthritis"

I keep hearing about how Mitch McConnell was a terrible person because he stacked the Supreme Court and enabled Donald Trump. That's fair enough, but it's hardly McConnell's biggest achievement: These days you often hear reporters and commentators saying matter of factly that legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate. This is truly McConnell’s greatest ...continue reading "Mitch McConnell’s real legacy is anarchy"

Sunset near the south entrance to Grand Canyon National Park.

This effect may or may not be permanent, but a team of researchers in England has found that long COVID significantly reduces cognitive ability—and the longer the COVID the more it hurts: Six IQ points is no joke, though this loss is found only in the most extreme cases. On the other hand, these are ...continue reading "Long COVID is wrecking our IQs"