Kevin Drum 🕸

This is off the beaten path, but there's been some Twitter conversation recently about "great man" theories of history and how you can, for example, figure out the IQs of historical individuals in the first place. As it happens, there's a very famous study of historical figures written a century ago by IQ pioneers Catharine ...continue reading "How smart were all those old white males?"

Justin Glawe points out today that DOGE has so far identified $0 worth of fraudulent spending: A month into Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s much-hyped efforts to root out fraudulent and wasteful spending by government agencies, not a single instance of fraud or waste has been discovered. ....None of this has stopped Trump, Musk, congressional ...continue reading "Where’s the fraud?"

Did you know that Donald Trump plans a $200 million anti-immigrant ad campaign in the US and overseas? Trump says the ads will tell the real story of what he's doing on the border. They star Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota and currently Secretary of Homeland Security: Noem said that Trump instructed that ...continue reading "Trump somehow digs up $200 million for anti-immigrant ad campaign"

E-commerce sales continue to stay above their pre-pandemic trend: The growth rate isn't stronger than it was before COVID. It's just above trend and growing at the trend rate. But it shows no signs of slowing down.

I won't pretend to be a huge fan of James Carville, but he happens to have said something that's been on my mind ever since Donald Trump won the election: Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told Mediaite’s Dan Abrams that the Trump administration would “collapse” within 30 days and advised Democrats to sit back and ...continue reading "Democrats need to do a lot of nothing"

I read a piece a few hours ago suggesting that although the hard-right AfD did well in today's German election, they actually underperformed their polling. So I checked: Not only did AfD not underperform, there wasn't a single party that differed from its final poll figure by more than one percentage point. That's good polling! ...continue reading "German polling is stunningly accurate"

Today is Election Day in Germany. Here's what they're up against: Since the middle of 2019, Germany's GDP is down by 0.16%. By comparison, over the same period US GDP is up 13%. That's 80 times more.

It's remarkable how much conflict of interest Elon Musk has with the federal government he now so strongly controls. A few examples: Musk has been fighting with the FAA for years over regulation of SpaceX, culminating in a couple of large fines levied against SpaceX last year. Musk wanted administrator Michael Whitaker out and said ...continue reading "How Elon Musk benefits from being Elon Musk"

Donald Trump keeps prattling about how the Gilded Age from 1870 through 1913 was the richest era in US history. Why? Tariffs. Nobody with a room temperature IQ should buy this obvious foolishness, but just in case you need evidence, here it is: The most prosperous era in American history is . . . right ...continue reading "We are ten times richer than we were during Donald Trump’s favorite era"

There's not a lot to report. My oxygenation continues to be good and my colon virus appears to be gone. I'm eating more, which makes my doctor very happy. Marian even brought me a Sausage McMuffin from McDonald's this morning, along with some lovely orange juice. But—who cares? My breathing is still so shallow I ...continue reading "Health update"

In the end, every efficiency doge eventually becomes a micro-manager drone. Here is Elon Musk's latest: Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025 The ...continue reading "What did you do last week?"

As you know, Donald Trump has been recently trying to extort Ukraine out of half its mineral wealth. The odd thing about this is that Ukraine doesn't have very much mineral wealth: Revenues from Ukraine’s resources would be directed to a fund in which the United States would hold 100 percent financial interest, and that ...continue reading "Why is Trump demanding mineral wealth Ukraine doesn’t have?"

DOGE has published a "Wall of Receipts" claiming to have saved taxpayers $55 billion. The New York Times isn't buying it: The math that could back up those checks is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes.... Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained ...continue reading "DOGE has saved taxpayers about 0.33% of the federal budget"

Donald Trump has now fired seven senior military officers, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; the Chief of Naval Operations; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; the vice chief of the Air Force; and three judge advocate generals (Navy, Army, and Air Force). All were apparently fired for being a little too ...continue reading "Trump fires diverse military officers"

As we all know, if there's a natural origin for the COVID virus there needs to be an intermediate host. That is, the virus needs to have passed from a bat, where it originated, to some other animal, where it finished evolving into a form deadly to human beings. Today Nature published a longish piece ...continue reading "Are raccoon dogs key to the origin of the COVID virus?"

Inflationary expectations among consumers have skyrocketed since November: Thanks to Trump's tariffs and other economic illiteracies, inflation expectations have gone up 1.7 percentage points since Election Day, from 2.6% to 4.3%. Aside from the 2022 inflationary surge, this is the highest that consumer expectations have been over the past decade.

Remember the huge fuss Republicans made over Joe Biden's alleged interference with social media platforms? Naturally they took it to court, where a Louisiana judge went stone nuts: Mostly his opinion is a long, familiar conspiracy-esque recitation of right-wing hobbyhorses about efforts from public health officers to highlight COVID misinformation, with a bit of Hunter ...continue reading "Elon Musk is extorting ad companies"

You've probably seen Donald Trump's precipitous fall in four recent polls: But did you know that the all-time record holders for the poorest early approval ratings are Donald Trump and . . . Donald Trump? It's true: Right now Trump is doing slightly better than he did during his first term, but I doubt that ...continue reading "Trump is dropping fast in the polls"

The Senate passed a budget resolution last night: $175 in new spending on border security. $150 billion in new defense spending. $15 billion in new energy production. No framework for extending 2017 tax cut. And now for a look at the House budget proposal: $4.5 trillion to extend 2017 tax cuts. $880 billion in spending ...continue reading "The House and Senate are light years apart in their budget proposals"

Trying to figure out how much we spend on defense is a dog's breakfast. However, once you account for nukes and some other stuff it comes to $895 billion according to CBO and would increase 2% over the next four years for a total of $913 billion by 2029. Republicans worked hard during the budget ...continue reading "Pete Hegseth wants to cut $300 billion from the Pentagon"