Kevin Drum 🕸

Apparently the Republican National Committee, under the direction of Comrade Trump, has decided to do away with long, boring fights over the party platform at this year's Republican Convention. I actually think this is a good idea, since party platforms are meaningless these days anyway. But what will replace it? The answer is: a platform ...continue reading "Behold the 2024 Republican Party platform"

I was out in the desert Friday night and took this picture of the Trifid Nebula, one of the best nebulas in the night sky. However, it's only really visible in the summer, so it was now or never (until next year, anyway). My initial integration of the images was disappointing. The problem was that ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Some time ago I became fatally suspicious of the word trope. Technically there's nothing wrong with it, but in practice it's used exclusively to imply someone has said something vaguely offensive without having the receipts. Here's the latest: Three Columbia University administrators have been removed from their posts after sending text messages that “disturbingly touched ...continue reading "Columbia deans found guilty of tropes"

A few weeks ago there was a story about a senior citizens center that had won a grant for a new elevator. Great! But on Twitter it was an object of scorn: Why were we so delighted about a $365,000 elevator that would have cost half that in Europe and been installed twice as fast? ...continue reading "Europe has a lot more elevators than the US"

Historically, the Black unemployment rate has always been higher than the white unemployment rate—and the difference spikes during recessions as Black workers are the first to be let go. However, the gap has steadily declined over the years. After peaking in 1983 at above 10%, it's come down to just over 2% more recently. If ...continue reading "Raw data: Black unemployment vs. white unemployment"

Hum de hum. You may know that a number of studies have demonstrated that higher intelligence is correlated with left-wing political beliefs. And that might be so. But I've always been a bit skeptical because (a) it seems unlikely, and (b) maybe what's really going on is that smart people tend to go to college ...continue reading "Are lefties really smarter than conservatives?"

This is just a coincidence, but I happened to run across two similar stories today. The first is about a guy who had to replace his credit card due to fraudulent charges and therefore wanted to make sure that all his auto-payments weren't automatically updated: He said Bank of America told him his credit-card account ...continue reading "Why does customer service suck so bad?"

Marine Le Pen's right-wing populists appear to have won barely more than 20% of the vote in France's election today. This was a dismal showing for a party that was finally expected to win after years of rebranding and makeovers. But voters weren't fooled: a strong turnout unexpectedly powered an alliance of the left to ...continue reading "The left is winning"

Are there things you firmly believe even though you know they aren't true? I'll start: I get way more red lights than I should. Do not bother arguing about this. Your so-called "facts" mean nothing to me.

News from Britain: Sir Keir Starmer has killed off the Rwanda deportation plan on the first day of his premiership Labour insiders confirmed to The Telegraph that the scheme to deport migrants who arrived in the UK illegally to Rwanda was effectively “dead” Read more 👇https://t.co/B3JyXMNLKB pic.twitter.com/cl7nsgRcSl — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 5, 2024 Perhaps ...continue reading "Was Britain really planning to ship illegal immigrants to Rwanda?"

I was stargazing last night and mostly out of cell phone reach, so I didn't see the big interview with Joe Biden until I got home this morning. Now I have, and it seems like a big meh. Biden was OK. He had plenty of facts and figures at his command. He denied he was ...continue reading "Biden moves sideways in ABC interview"

The Wall Street Journal writes today about Joe Biden's difficulties among union workers, but it's pretty much the same story as it's been since Reagan Democrats started defecting 40 years ago. Lots of working class voters are more concerned about immigration, trade deals, and culture war issues than they are about support for unions. For ...continue reading "Fear of trans"

Charlie loves his bird bath. And as you can see, he's not afraid of getting his paws wet. He just jumps up and camps out in the water while he watches the birds fly by.

In the Washington Monthly today, Joshua Douglas says: The lengthy delay in deciding the Trump immunity case and the likely appeals that will follow the complicated ruling mean that Americans will not have the knowledge they need—whether Trump is guilty of election subversion—before they vote in four months. I can't count the number of times ...continue reading "Trump’s election trial has been delayed. Who cares?"

There's no big point to make here, just an observation. The unemployment rate is still low, and will likely remain low for the rest of the year. But it's definitely going up.

The American economy gained 206,000 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 116,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate increased to 4.1%. This was a fairly ordinary employment report with no special gotchas to report. It's basically an extension ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in June"

The exit polls are in and it looks like it's finally Independence Day for Britain's Tories: Labor: 410 (63%) Conservatives: 131 (20%) Liberal Democrats: 61 (9%) SNP: 10 Reform UK: 13 Plaid Cymru: 4 Greens: 2 This is very close to Tony Blair's historic landslide Labor victory in 1997. A couple hundred Conservative MPs now ...continue reading "Conservatives destroyed in British election"

Has the press been covering for Joe Biden over the past few months? Until now I've considered this to be little more than typical Fox News nonsense, but I'm beginning to wonder. Here is Olivia Nuzzi: This April, at a reception before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, I joined a sea of people waiting for ...continue reading "The press and Joe Biden"

Happy Fourth of July, everybody.