Kevin Drum 🕸

I still don't understand how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got away with his move last year to eliminate Disney World's special tax district as retaliation for Disney speaking out against one of his bills. It was outrageous and surely illegal, especially since DeSantis explicitly said he was taking action as revenge against Disney's statements. Somehow ...continue reading "DeSantis continues using state power to conduct a personal vendetta"

Holy cow. It looks like Germans are really, really rethinking electric vehicles.

Via Albert Pinto, here is a chart of inflation from the Financial Times: I don't know why anyone would care that these two lines are similar,¹ nor do I know why you'd get ordinary inflation figures from Jesper Rangvid of the Federal Reserve. But the bigger problem is that this chart uses year-over-year inflation, which ...continue reading "Oh no, it’s the ’70s all over again!!!"

This is moonset above the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. I returned to this same spot about an hour later hoping to capture an even lower moon, but it had moved behind the buildings by then. You'll note that the picture was taken from the middle of the street. Gosh, Kevin, didn't you have to ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Everything is wonderful: Employers added more than half a million jobs in January, the housing market shows signs of stabilizing or even picking back up, and many Wall Street economists have marked down the odds of a downturn this year. After months of asking whether the Fed could pull off a soft landing in which ...continue reading "Everyone agrees: No recession this year!"

Here's an excerpt from last year's Report on International Religious Freedom, published annually by the State Department. The topic is Afghanistan: According to international sources, Baha’is and Christians continued to live in constant fear of exposure and were reluctant to reveal their religious identities to anyone. Christian groups reported public sentiment, as expressed in social ...continue reading "Please don’t mention the plight of nonbelievers to Republicans"

A report from the Brookings Institution says that political podcasts have become steadily more popular over the past five years—and steadily more unhinged. The shows with the most lies false claims are the ones above the dashed line: Poor Sean Hannity. He only barely makes the cut. Steve Bannon is the Big Lie champion these ...continue reading "Chart of the day: The worst podcasts are also the most popular"

Daniel Friedman writes today about whether Twitter blew it by suppressing tweets about Hunter Biden prior to the election: [Steve] Bannon in October 2020 gave data from Hunter’s laptop to Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese mogul. Guo then oversaw an effort by his own subordinates to post that material, much which consisted of explicit material—like ...continue reading "Why was there so little reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election?"

My latest bit of astrophotography is an image of the M81 Group, which consists of three big galaxies and a bunch of dwarf hangers-on. The big one in the picture is M81, aka Bode's galaxy. The smaller one (seen side-on)  is M82, aka the Cigar galaxy. I'm not posting this because it's an especially good ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Fascinating: Former Trump administration officials and Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the ... Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives ...continue reading "Apparently the Twitter Files missed a few things"

Apparently President Biden is fond of the British Parliament's tradition of Question Time, because that what tonight's State of the Union address resembled. The crowd heckled him and he heckled them back—with a big grin on his face. Biden's finest moment came about halfway through, when he baited Republicans about Social Security and Medicare. Some ...continue reading "A very, very brief review of tonight’s State of the Union speech"

What's the best way of comparing violent crime between countries, as I did yesterday? Lots of people are asking me this—in Twitter's usual polite fashion—so maybe you'd be interested in a brief primer. The short answer is that it's really hard. The two biggest problems are both ones of measurement: Different countries put different sets ...continue reading "Murder vs. violent crime: Which is more reliable?"

Happy Birthday, Karen! Marian picked this photo just for you.

Social Security is back in the news. The word on the street is that MAGA Republicans—unlike Donald Trump himself—want to "reform" Social Security so it doesn't go "bankrupt" and cut off our kids from their rightful pensions. I'm willing to go toe-to-toe on the gritty details of Social Security with anyone, but not today. Instead, ...continue reading "Fixing Social Security forever requires only 1.5% of GDP"

The New York Times has a story today about Jaden Rashada, a star high-school quarterback who initially committed to play college ball at Miami. Part of the commitment involved endorsing a company called LifeWallet via an NIL contract: Three people with knowledge of the negotiations said that LifeWallet eventually reached a deal to run through ...continue reading "Today I was startled to learn about endorsement deals for high school athletes"

The balloon is the latest shiny object in our national discourse, and I'm weary of shiny objects. Still, I have to admit that the Pentagon is doing its best to keep balloon mania going. Here they are following up on their previous admission that balloons had flown over the US during the Trump administration: “Every ...continue reading "The Pentagon needs to put up or shut up about the balloon(s)"

This is a little house in La Roche-Guyon, about 30 miles west of Paris. There's nothing special about it except for one thing: it has enough wiring coming into its roof to support a CIA surveillance station. What do you think they're doing in there?

From Chris Clarke of the National Parks Conservation Assn., about siting a commercial solar farm in the Mojave Desert just off Interstate 15: We favor renewable energy but not here. Roger that. After all, it's a "deceptively delicate and vital ecosystem rich in wildlife." I'm being surly here, but it sure seems as if everyplace ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Solar energy vs. bighorn sheep"

In the Washington Monthly today, Keith Humphreys puts up this chart: Keith probably doesn't know this, but one of my pet peeves is using homicide as a proxy for violent crime. So I redrew the chart with the same countries but using violent crime rates instead of murder rates: Guatemala is now an ideal country, ...continue reading "In the US, both crime and incarceration are too high"

A new poll says that Americans don't think Joe Biden has accomplished much as president. That might seem surprising, but as usual it's meaningless. Here's the partisan breakdown: Democrats think Biden has done a lot and Republicans think he's a failure. This is hardly news.