Kevin Drum 🕸

At the start of COVID, Congress passed a law requiring states to maintain enrollment for anyone then on Medicaid. This produced a sharp increase in Medicaid enrollments until early 2023, when the requirement was ended. Since then, Medicaid has been unwinding and returning to normal operation, which means everyone has to qualify anew each year. ...continue reading "We have added 20 million people to Medicaid in the past decade"

Yesterday a reporter asked Donald Trump if he thought Kamala Harris's career had been helped by her relationship in the 1990s with powerful California politician Willie Brown. This was a perfect opportunity for Trump to throw out a remark about Harris sleeping her way to the top, or something equally Trumpish and obnoxious, but he ...continue reading "Donald Trump is hallucinating things"

This is Hilbert being uncooperative. As soon as he saw the camera he trotted off to the far side of the yard to hide behind the bushes and then just stayed there. He also made it clear that if I tried to follow him he would lead me on a chase around the entire house ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 9 August 2024"

The Society of Family Planning released its latest abortion estimates a couple of days ago, and they show that the number of abortions continues to increase. Here is the abortion rate in states where abortion is permitted: However, not all of these abortions are performed in states where abortion is permitted. Check this out: Shield ...continue reading "Abortions continue to rise in wake of Dobbs"

This is so stupid I can hardly bring myself to write about it, but just for the record: No, Tim Walz did not sign a law that requires schools to stock free tampons in boys' restrooms. The law leaves implementation up to individual school districts, and they're free to do as they want. Most districts ...continue reading "Tampons in boys’ restrooms? Nope."

Donald Trump doesn't know what mifepristone is: Reporter: Would you direct your fda to revoke access to Mifepristone Trump: You could do things that would supplement. Absolutely. And those things are pretty open and humane… pic.twitter.com/963ovR6MRR — Acyn (@Acyn) August 8, 2024 It's hard to believe, but Trump is getting more ignorant over time. Or ...continue reading "Trump is running scared on abortion"

We will have at least one presidential debate: Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC, the network said Thursday. Yesterday I was telling a friend that after a bunch of hemming and hawing and blustering, Harris and Trump would negotiate a debate as usual. ...continue reading "The ABC debate will proceed as scheduled"

This is the last of my photos of the Eastern Sierra from 2021. I'm not sure why I've never put it up before this, but it's finally getting its day in the sun.

All done! My prostate has been fully fried and now it gets to rest and heal up. Follow-up testing will tell us how well the radiation treatment worked, but the excellent interim PSA results make me pretty confident that everything went well.

Here is tonight's headline in the Washington Post: The GOP nominee has grown increasingly upset about Kamala Harris’s surging poll numbers and media coverage since replacing Joe Biden on the ticket. Poor baby. There's more, of course: “It’s unfair that I beat him and now I have to beat her, too,” Trump told an ally ...continue reading "Donald Trump is unhappy"

A recent paper by Christopher Ruhm of the University of Virginia quantifies the value of various efforts to combat COVID-19 in the US. The headline result is a composite score for different states based on what kinds of restrictions they imposed, but I found the detailed national breakdown more interesting. Here are his estimates of ...continue reading "What worked to stop the spread of COVID-19?"

I suppose everyone has already noticed this, but it's remarkable to see how much laser-focused pandering Donald Trump has been doing lately: He attended the Libertarian Party convention and suddenly announced he would pardon their hero, convicted internet drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht. After a call from billionaire mega-donor Jeff Yass, an early investor in TikTok, ...continue reading "Donald Trump, panderer in chief"

A pair of bored chimps at the LA Zoo.

In the latest YouGov poll, Kamala Harris is two points ahead of Donald Trump, the same as last week. I think she might get another little bump out of Tim Walz and the Democratic convention, but from here on out it's mostly just going to be a three-month grind. The big spikes from newfound Democratic ...continue reading "Kamala Harris is preferred to Trump 49% to 44%"

By now you know everything about Tim Walz. Grew up in Nebraska. Joined the National Guard and eventually rose to the rank of command sergeant major. Moved to Minnesota and became a schoolteacher and high school football coach. Ran for Congress and won. Ran for governor and won. Two kids via IVF. Got his son ...continue reading "Meet Honey"

A few weeks ago House Republicans released a 40-page report blasting GARM and its parent, the WFA, for illegal collusion and restraint of trade. The report— Wait. Who is GARM? I'm glad you asked. GARM is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers. The Republican report is here. ...continue reading "Here’s the story behind Musk v. GARM"

On our recent Danube cruise the ship stopped briefly at a town called Weissenkirchen. Sure enough, there was a white church at the top of a hill in the center of town. Marian and I walked up and down and all around to find a way in, but all the streets went in circles around ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Over at National Review, Hadley Arkes says Donald Trump has been terrible on abortion, but you can hardly blame the poor guy: Trump and Vance are dealing with a bad hand that has been dealt them by the Supreme Court.... The most striking thing about the holding of the Court in the Dobbs case is ...continue reading "Spare a thought for poor Donald Trump, prisoner of abortion politics"

Oh great, Democrats now have two people on their ticket with names that are easy to mispronounce. For the record, our new VP-to-be is Tim WALLZ, not WALTZ or anything like that—though God only knows what Fox News will decide to call him. In any case, welcome to the show, governor. It's gonna be an ...continue reading "Tim Walz is Kamala Harris’s running mate"

Just in case you care, today is the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It happened at 8:15 am on August 6 in Hiroshima, which is 7:15 pm on August 5 in Washington DC. It is nearly conventional wisdom these days, certainly on the left, to say that the attacks on Hiroshima and ...continue reading "Today is the 79th anniversary of Hiroshima"