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Kevin Drum 🕸

Fani Willis allowed to stay on Trump election case

1 week 6 days ago
The judge in the Fani Willis case ruled today that Team Trump failed to prove a conflict of interest because of her romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade: But the judge also found a “significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team” and said either Willis and her office must ...continue reading "Fani Willis allowed to stay on Trump election case"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

1 week 6 days ago
This is the surprisingly colorful view from Mesa Verde National Park, looking west toward the Ute Mountain Reservation. I don't know what the purple and green and yellow vegetation is, but it's pretty striking.
Kevin Drum

Do we really need a financial literacy requirement in high school?

2 weeks ago
A group in California is hoping to make financial literacy a requirement in high school: The plan is to make all high school students, as a condition of graduation, take at least a one-semester class in financial literacy.... Petition organizers said Tuesday that they are submitting nearly 900,000 signatures to county registrars across the state ...continue reading "Do we really need a financial literacy requirement in high school?"
Kevin Drum

America’s teens probably don’t get very much real news from TikTok

2 weeks ago
The primary objection to Chinese ownership of TikTok is based on stats showing that something like a third of teenagers "regularly" get news from TikTok—which could make them targets for Chinese propaganda. But this is based on survey data, and most people have a very wide definition of news. It includes celebrity news, sports news, ...continue reading "America’s teens probably don’t get very much real news from TikTok"
Kevin Drum

Denmark

2 weeks ago
Denmark has given us Legos, Earth Shoes, Danish pastry, Google Maps, the Egg chair, Scanpans, Carlsberg beer, C++, Christmas plates, the international wheelchair symbol, open-faced sandwiches, and Ozempic. Clever people, those Danes.
Kevin Drum

Housekeeping update

2 weeks 1 day ago
Comments are back up! Apparently some kind of noaccess code got mysteriously added to the site, but Bluehost deleted it and now everything is fine.
Kevin Drum

Conservative judge shopping finally gets banned

2 weeks 1 day ago
You're aware of the practice of judge shopping, right? Most often it's used by conservatives, who file suits in specific locations where they're guaranteed to get a wingnut judge who will issue a nationwide injunction based on even the flimsiest evidence. Favored judges include Matthew Kacsmaryk (mifepristone, "Remain in Mexico"); Drew Tipton (immigration); Mark Pittman ...continue reading "Conservative judge shopping finally gets banned"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

2 weeks 1 day ago
It's time for some zoo pictures. The LA Zoo, for some reason, requires you to walk several hundred yards up a "promenade" after you get your ticket but before you get to the zoo itself. This is boring because there's very little along the way except for a few little pop-up shops. But. There is ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
Kevin Drum

Transcript shows Biden was fine during Hur interview

2 weeks 2 days ago
The Justice Department has released a transcript of Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, and the Wall Street Journal has read it: Other news outlets basically agree, mostly opting to present their findings as "nuanced" or providing "context." But they fundamentally say the same thing: Biden was being Biden. He joked, he veered ...continue reading "Transcript shows Biden was fine during Hur interview"
Kevin Drum