Kevin Drum 🕸

Apparently Wall Street is having second thoughts about how wonderful another four years of Donald Trump will be: The Trump rally was never much of a rally in the first place, but it's all gone now. On the other hand, Bitcoin is staying strong: Wall Street might be having second thoughts, but the crypto bros ...continue reading "The stock market rally is no more"

Here is Charlie a couple of months ago enjoying the front yard garden at the tail end of summer. Whenever we can't find him, it turns out he's snoozing somewhere in the underbrush here. In fact, just last night that's where we found him, ignoring our calls for hours until he finally got hungry and ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 15 November 2024"

I've been reading lately that we might have passed Peak Woke. For example: AOC removed the pronouns from her bio on 𝕏. This is a clear sign of the cultural pendulum swinging back to the centre. — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 14, 2024 Fine, but Science™ requires data, not anecdotes. We need evidence that wokeness ...continue reading "Wokeness has declined 24% over the past three years"

Here is Elon again: Here’s what the U.S. Government wasted $900 Billion of your tax dollars on in 2023. The Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) will fix this. America deserves leaders that prioritize sensible spending. pic.twitter.com/uKmNmAF4yk — America (@america) November 15, 2024 Good work! Except for one thing: $895 billion of his $900 billion is ...continue reading "Elon Musk knows nothing about government efficiency"

Today the Washington Post presents us with the Top Ten RFK Jr. Conspiracy Theories. This is great service journalism, but it's too damn long for those of us with busy lives. So as a further service, here is Shorter RFK Jr, a brief compilation of just the conspiracy theories themselves: Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines ...continue reading "Top ten RFK Jr. conspiracy theories, now in handy index card format"

Elon Musk, as is his wont, casually endorsed a tweet last night saying there were now 83 levels from top to bottom in the federal bureaucracy. ZOMG! Is that true? No. This is based on a study by Paul Light of Brookings, and if either Musk or the original poster had bothered to read past ...continue reading "Would you like to be an associate assistant deputy assistant secretary?"

From the Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump is considering naming Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow to a senior economic policy role in his administration.... possibly the Treasury. You heard it here first.

Retail sales continued to hold up in October, rising at an annual rate of 1.3% after adjusting for inflation: Retail has been pretty flat for the past year, but it's still above its pre-pandemic trend. There's no sign of weakness yet.

Here it is: the distilled wisdom of 66 years on planet Earth. The list is numbered so you can mock them in comments more easily. Enjoy. Crime didn't skyrocket in the '70s and '80s because of drugs or poverty or family breakdown. It skyrocketed because of an increase in lead poisoning that had begun decades ...continue reading "Pearls of wisdom, all for you"

How has the incidence of cancer risen over the past half century? Not the death rate from cancer, which has gone down because of better treatments, but the actual number of new cancers. Here it is: Between 1975 and 2020, cancer has risen by about 20% in women but only 5% in men. However, men ...continue reading "Raw data: A cautionary tale"

Yesterday I happened to come across a tweet bemoaning the state of reading among fourth graders. Pretty standard stuff. But as things so often do, it got me curious. Here are reading proficiency scores for fourth graders over the past 50 years: I'm showing this for white kids so it isn't affected by demographic changes ...continue reading "Raw data: Miscellaneous student reading scores"

Former Georgia Rep. Doug Collins is Trump's pick to head the VA. Collins is a hardline abortion opponent; opposes Obamacare; thinks climate change is a hoax; opposes gay marriage; signed onto a lawsuit contesting the 2020 election; and. . . . . .has no experience even remotely related to the VA. However, he has two ...continue reading "Collins for VA! No, not that Collins…"

So it's officially RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services—which includes the CDC, NIH, FDA, the Surgeon General etc. But it could have been worse, right? Trump could have nominated Martin Shkreli. Or he could have staged a competition: whoever silences Dr. Fauci with extreme prejudice gets to be HHS secretary.¹ We're still waiting on ...continue reading "RFK Jr. will head HHS. Sure! Of course he will."

This is a Joshua tree at sunset.

Matt Gaetz is getting all the attention as the Trump appointee most likely to be turned down by the Senate, but what about Tulsi Gabbard? Fair or not, she's widely considered to be practically a Russian asset. Will the Senate seriously consider her for the nation's top intelligence job even so? And who's next in ...continue reading "Will the Senate confirm Tulsi Gabbard?"

We've all been inundated lately with the news that America's teens are in terrible shape. Addicted to social media. Lonely. Depressed, anxious, and suicidal. Fragile. But did you also know this? Marijuana is still fairly widespread, but every other drug is down to practically nothing since 2000. Cocaine, heroin, meth, ecstasy, inhalants, sedatives—you name it ...continue reading "Raw data: Drug use among teens has plummeted"

How's your Swedish? Does it help if I tell you that fobi is Swedish for phobia? Not really? Fine: Swedish tabloid Expressen revealed Wednesday that government officials have been ensuring in advance that all places frequented by Gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg are free of bananas — due to the minister’s strong phobia of the ...continue reading "Fear of bananas is big news in Stockholm"

Over at New York, Kevin Dugan asks the question on everyone's mind: Why has DJT stock tanked over the past week? Shouldn't it have gone up after Donald Trump won? Instead it's plummeted 25% since the election: Dugan notes that there's been some insider selling, and also that DJT might be suffering due to the ...continue reading "I’ve been rethinking Truth Social"

US air travel has continued to grow steadily since the end of the pandemic: Of the 87 million passengers in August, 75 million were domestic and 12 million were international.

There is still much discourse about Donald Trump bypassing the Senate confirmation process via recess appointments. And I still don't get it. Neither house can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other, and the Supreme Court says you need to be adjourned at least ten days for it to count ...continue reading "This whole recess appointment meme is nuts"