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Kevin Drum 🕸

The FBI found an awful lot of empty folders marked “Classified” at Mar-a-Lago

2 years 2 months ago
A newly released property inventory from the Mar-a-Lago search indicates that the FBI found lots of classified documents. We already knew that. But they also found lots of folders marked classified but with no documents inside: In Box No. 2, for example, taken from Trump’s office, there were 43 empty folders with classified banners; 28 ...continue reading "The FBI found an awful lot of empty folders marked “Classified” at Mar-a-Lago"
Kevin Drum

NR editor: Biden has no right to attack Trump

2 years 2 months ago
From the editor of National Review: It’s amazing that Biden and his team feel comfortable lecturing us about the rule of law and the Constitution without feeling the slightest self-consciousness about his having just lawlessly spent up to $1 trillion… They think they can get away with it—and they’re right — Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) September ...continue reading "NR editor: Biden has no right to attack Trump"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

2 years 2 months ago
This is Honey Island swamp in Louisiana. I took this picture at the end of the tour as the sun was going down, which helped provide an interesting sky. I wish I could have taken it an hour later, but you take your pictures at the tour times you have, not the tour times you ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
Kevin Drum

Democrats continue to make slow progress in congressional balloting

2 years 2 months ago
How are Democrats doing at the moment? Here are three takes on the generic congressional ballot during the last week of August: Morning Consult has Democrats ahead by four points. The two aggregators have it at about a tie. All three show Democrats doing about four points better than a couple of months ago. Conventional ...continue reading "Democrats continue to make slow progress in congressional balloting"
Kevin Drum

Let’s not panic over fourth-grade test declines during the pandemic. Not yet, anyway.

2 years 2 months ago
My plea for everyone to react calmly to the NAEP's test scores of fourth-graders during the pandemic has apparently been ignored: These headlines are technically correct: Scores declined to the level of 1999, which is indeed "decades." (Two of them.) But that was possible only because we had made such small gains since then in ...continue reading "Let’s not panic over fourth-grade test declines during the pandemic. Not yet, anyway."
Kevin Drum

Fourth graders lost about half a grade level of learning during the pandemic

2 years 2 months ago
Earlier this year the Department of Education conducted a "special administration" of the long-term NAEP test for 9-year-olds. Why the long-term test instead of the main NAEP test? Because by chance they had conducted a long-term assessment in 2020, which meant that a 2022 retest would tell us a lot about how the COVID-19 pandemic ...continue reading "Fourth graders lost about half a grade level of learning during the pandemic"
Kevin Drum

Our victory in the Cold War is still intact

2 years 2 months ago
Jim Geraghty is afraid that maybe we didn't win the Cold War after all. Sure, he says, it seems like we won: And yet… Putin-era Russia doesn’t look all that different from the bad old days of the Soviet Union, particularly this year. The Russian army invaded neighboring territories....horrifying brutality and the deliberate targeting of ...continue reading "Our victory in the Cold War is still intact"
Kevin Drum

Michigan Republicans refuse to approve abortion initiative just because they don’t feel like it

2 years 2 months ago
The good people of Michigan recently gathered a huge number of signatures to put an abortion-rights measure on the November ballot. The Bureau of Elections examined the petitions and found that the vast majority of signatures were valid. So, the citizens having spoken, they duly recommended it be put on the ballot. But wait. The ...continue reading "Michigan Republicans refuse to approve abortion initiative just because they don’t feel like it"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

2 years 2 months ago
This is—finally!—the first real picture I've taken with my new telescope. It's an image of the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023), a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It's blue thanks to the romantically named SAO 19158, the young star in the center that illuminates it. This is not a bad image, but it's not as ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
Kevin Drum

Election momentum is swinging toward Democrats

2 years 2 months ago
Republicans in swing districts are running scared: At least nine Republican congressional candidates have scrubbed or amended references to Trump or abortion from their online profiles in recent months, distancing themselves from divisive subjects that some GOP strategists say are two of the biggest liabilities for the party ahead of the post-Labor Day sprint to ...continue reading "Election momentum is swinging toward Democrats"
Kevin Drum

Health update

2 years 2 months ago
This might well be my last M-protein test: It's been flat for the past three months, which is fine. It would be a little worrisome under normal circumstances, but since I'm now off the chemo regimen and just waiting for the CAR-T treatment, all that matters is that I'm not getting worse. And I'm not! ...continue reading "Health update"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

2 years 2 months ago
This was taken in the Saint-Martin neighborhood near the Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad. This is apparently a guy whose wife/partner/whatev really, really doesn't want him smoking indoors.
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

2 years 2 months ago
The snowy peak in this photo is Iron Mountain, part of the San Gabriel range. It may not look like much, but here is Wikipedia's description: While this mountain is far lower in elevation than other Southern California summits, it is the most difficult mountain to climb in the entire region. There are no water ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
Kevin Drum