Kevin Drum 🕸

The truth is that I'm not sure how I'm doing. But there's this: My oxygenation level is consistently high. That's good, but my breathing is still pretty shallow if I move around even a little bit. My colon virus seems to be gone. This is based on a lack of bowel movements lately. But I'm ...continue reading "Health update"

Donald Trump fired a few thousand Park Service workers, but apparently Doug Burgham has decided to hire them back. Efficiency! However, the one maintenance guy at Yosemite who has the keys to unlock people from the bathrooms remains fired. Elon Musk got mad at Danish astronaut Andreas Morgensen and called him "fully retarded." The contretemps ...continue reading "Folie à deux in the White House"

Before Trump was elected, I figured there were a a range of possibilities if he won. On one end: he's a blowhard. He says lots of stuff he never follows up on. On the other end: He's dead serious this time. He's going to deport millions; put tariffs on everyone; take a sledgehammer to DEI; ...continue reading "Madness"

Not a good day. Nothing is improving and my breathing is very shallow. Still waiting for the immunoglobulin stimulant to kick in. That might start a recovery. If not, we're running out of options.

Pneumonia appears slightly better today. Maybe. Hard to tell for sure. My oncologist finally showed up this afternoon and finally agreed my immune system was shot. A multiple myeloma specialist tells me this is a common side effect of bispecific therapies like Talvey. Oh. So we've agreed on a treatment that spurs regrowth of immunoglobulins. ...continue reading "Health update"

Fading fast. Pneumonia worse. Ventilator next. Not looking good. Take care of Donald Trump for me.

Too tired to blog.

It's been a while since we've checked in on the Trump meme coin scam, but today the New York Times checked in for us: As of the middle of this week, more than 810,000 wallets had lost money on [$Trump].... The total losses are almost certainly much larger: The data does not include transactions that ...continue reading "(Almost) everyone is getting torched by the Trump meme coin"

I forgot to mention this, but as threatened, I'm back in the hospital. So far we've duplicated every single test from seven days ago and gotten the same results as before. The only thing new is that my pneumonia is either a little better or a little worse depending on whether you believe the X-ray ...continue reading "Health update"

When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party. We are living in a country ruled by fantastic conspiracy theories and personal revenge, and not a single Republican is willing to stand against it. Not one.

This would be something: Draft Exec Order wld halve FDA staffing, slash NIH, eliminate CDC. WH being warned of impact on public health, biopharma industry, science. OPM back to work starts at FDA March 17. https://t.co/FvA1ul50W5 — steve usdin (@steveusdin1) February 7, 2025 This may or may not happen, or the draft EO might get ...continue reading "Trump wants to wipe out medical research"

Good news and bad news this morning. The DOGEbros have been banned from accessing Treasury's payment systems: Judge Engelmayer ordered any such official who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” He also restricted the Trump ...continue reading "DOGE is being steadily reined in"

Somebody asked Donald Trump today why Elon Musk's crew of techbros needs access to private information about Americans: Trump suggested that he has given the tech billionaire free rein and appeared blase about the details. Asked why Doge needs access to treasury payment systems including Americans’ social security numbers, home addresses and bank accounts, he ...continue reading "Trump: DOGE is rooting around in stuff they don’t need"

I can barely walk to the kitchen without prompting a lengthy attack of uncontrollable shakes and gasping for breath. This is worse than it was a week ago, and if it doesn't resolve soon I'm heading back to the hospital. For now, though, it means I can't wander around to take pictures of the cats. ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 7 February 2025"

What's going on here? Several U.S. military branches are pausing training related to the prevention of sexual assault in order to comply with one of President Trump’s executive orders related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. A directive issued by Marine Corps headquarters on Tuesday “asked the fleet to PAUSE on all [Sexual Assault Prevention ...continue reading "Why is the Navy killing sexual assault training?"

The first jobs numbers of 2025 are out. The American economy gained 143,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 53,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.0%. This is obviously a fairly weak jobs report, ...continue reading "2025 starts out with a weak jobs report"

Hum de hum: A key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics. ....“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the Journal’s review of ...continue reading "Trump and white people"

It's time for another episode of "What Republicans Believe": Give or take a bit, about 10% of Democrats believe each of these things.

A pair of painted terrapins at the LA Zoo.

The latest: Panama says Trump is full of shit and it hasn't agreed to let US warships transit the canal for free. A judge has paused Trump's offer to federal workers to resign their jobs and still be paid through September. Another judge has issued a nationwide injunction against Trump's attempt to do away with ...continue reading "The pushback against Trump is now well underway"