Kevin Drum 🕸

Stained glass window at the Regensburg Cathedral in southern Germany.

It is now three months since we should have passed a budget, and naturally we're still nowhere close. So it's time for yet another Continuing Resolution, which keeps the lights on and maybe a wee bit more. According to various reports, here are the extras we can expect in the upcoming CR: $10 billion in ...continue reading "Congress working hard to do the bare minimum"

The ordinary poverty line is based on a set amount of money that's the same nationwide. It's currently $15,060 for a single person and $31,200 for a family of four. The Supplemental Poverty Measure accounts for both benefits and expenses, so it can vary in different places. Economist Jed Kolko recently analyzed Census data to ...continue reading "Raw data: Poverty in big cities"

This year Harvard Law School admitted only 19 new Black students: This is a 65% drop from their average Black enrollment rate over the previous 55 years. The impact of the Supreme Court's ban on university affirmative action action last year has obviously been substantial.

For no good reason I've become sort of fascinated by the daily Economic Uncertainty Index. I'm sure this will pass. But until it does, here's the latest: The index has been above 75 every single day since November 2nd. The only other time that's happened in the past decade was during the first few months ...continue reading "There is wariness in the financial markets"

Today's adventure in idiocy: Q: Can you comment on the drones that are flying around with New Jersey ports? It seems like the American people have a big— Donald Trump: The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that ...continue reading "Donald Trump shares some deep thinking on drones"

Women's singles at the French Open. It translates a little awkwardly to an English speaker, no?

A wee bit of fact checking from the New York Times today: Mr. Trump also said that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will cut $2 trillion out of the $6.8 trillion annual federal budget and “it’ll have no impact on people.” In fact, if you rule out cuts to Social Security, Medicare and defense, as ...continue reading "Why does the press treat Donald Trump so unfairly?"

This is really remarkable: This isn't about the COVID vaccine. It's about childhood vaccines in general: measles, polio, pertussis, hepatitis, RSV, etc. After a yearslong jihad sparked by COVID conspiracy mongering, only 26% of Republicans still think childhood vaccines are important. 26%! It's like half the country has gone back to living in the Dark ...continue reading "Raw data: Partisan differences on childhood vaccinations"

Another incumbent party bites the dust, this time in Germany. Worst. Year. Ever.¹ ¹For incumbents.

Here's the vote for president in California for 2020 and 2024: It's easy to see what happened here. Donald Trump gained no traction at all, but two million Democratic voters from 2020 didn't bother to show up and vote for Kamala Harris. Why? There are two obvious theories: They didn't like Kamala much. They knew ...continue reading "What really happened in 2024?"

I wish I could convince everyone that prison sentences in America are, across the board, way too long. All of them. Even the ones for crimes you personally think are unusually heinous. The nickel version of the argument goes like this: Since the early '80s we've basically doubled sentences and doubled them again. That was ...continue reading "Biden was right to commute the sentence of the “kids for cash” judge"

House Speaker Mike Johnson is yet again running into his usual problem: He has a strong caucus that just wants to cut spending on everything, but on each individual topic he also has a strong caucus that wants to keep spending high. Meanwhile Democrats watch on blandly. The latest fight is over adding a few ...continue reading "A quick look at the state of US farming"

As I was poking around to learn more about our East Coast drone invasion, one question kept popping into my head: Why New Jersey? I may have found the answer: New Jersey is a Drone Industry Trend Setter The state’s drone task force avidly promotes drone technology for initiatives related to traffic management, structural inspections, ...continue reading "New Jersey’s drone mystery solved by statistics!"

The Washington Post reports that in North Carolina only 15% of households affected by Hurricane Helene have applied for FEMA assistance. That's half the rate of Georgia and South Carolina, even though they sustained less damage. You'll be unsurprised to learn why: Local advocates and some inside FEMA say the barrage of conspiracy theories about ...continue reading "Donald Trump wrecked North Carolina to win an election"

Hmmm: The topic here is a defamation suit Donald Trump filed against ABC News last March. It's one of the zillions that Trump files regularly and loses just as regularly. But for some reason, only a few days before Trump would have been forced to sit through a damaging deposition, ABC caved and agreed to ...continue reading "Why did ABC News roll over for Donald Trump?"

I've gotten my second ramp-up dose of Tecvayli and everything is fine so far. My brain is complibikkprrr clear. Blood sugar is the new hotness. Last time I was here no one cared about it. This time they're pricking my finger five or six times a day to keep track of it and getting excited ...continue reading "Health update"

Shadi Hamid says that liberalism is simply unable to cope with the idea of assisted dying: A political philosophy built around individual autonomy eventually runs into questions it can’t answer. Why should we preserve life if someone doesn’t want to live? Should the state have the right to facilitate the death of its own citizens? ...continue reading "The state should stop judging who gets to die"

For my entire adult life—and I do mean entire—we've been having precisely the same argument about Daylight Saving Time—and I do mean precisely the same. There are two sides: Make it permanent so we have more evening light all year round. That's a bad idea. Children would have to go to school in the dark ...continue reading "Donald Trump becomes a Standard Time truther"

Donald Trump's agenda is taking shape. Apparently he plans to ditch the post office, deregulate the banks, ban polio vaccines, bomb Iran, eliminate daylight saving time, and gut the FBI. I don't really remember any of that stuff from the campaign, but I guess it must have been what we all voted for.¹ Good times ...continue reading "Donald Trump’s vision for America"