Kevin Drum 🕸

This is a little down in the weeds, but Josh Marshall today points to another analytic estimate of how many Haitians actually live in Springfield, Ohio. We all agree that various data points suggest a moderate population increase up through 2022, but what if the big surge was in 2023? David Jarman at The Downballot ...continue reading "OK, maybe there are 4,000 Haitians in Springfield?"

Health care, in broad outline, is pretty simple. The free market, for obvious reasons, doesn't do universal. It sells stuff only to people who can pay for it. That’s why, for things like roads, national defense, the postal service, and old-age pensions—all of which we’ve decided ought to be available to everyone—we let the government ...continue reading "Donald Trump doesn’t want to broaden health care coverage"

Adjusted for inflation, retail sales and food services declined 1.6% in August at an annualized rate. But despite more than three years of flatness, it's still above its pre-pandemic trend: In March 2021 there was a sudden spike in retail sales, and that level has been maintained for more than three years. But what happens ...continue reading "Retail sales decline in August"

Exciting news! Next week I'll be starting a new multiple myeloma treatment called Talvey, aka talquetamab. Technically, it's similar to the Carvykti CAR-T treatment I had last year, but instead of targeting the BCMA antigen it targets two receptors called GPRC5D and CD3. Because it targets two things it's called a bispecific. Unlike Carvykti, it's ...continue reading "Health update"

There was no change in border crossings in August: Out of a total of 107,000, about 58,000 were caught trying to cross the border illegally. The rest were asylum seekers who presented themselves at border stations or gave themselves up after crossing between stations.

Over at National Review, Noah Rothman laughingly calls yesterday's wannabe assassin of Donald Trump "a highly impressionable figure radicalized in the support of progressive causes": That might shock the press, but finding a single Trump supporter who is surprised by Sunday’s news would be a struggle. The political media are constantly on the lookout for ...continue reading "Political violence in America"

This is a Red River hog at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zookeepers have hung a 5-gallon water bottle from the fence and the hog plays with it continually. Basically, he just knocks it around with his snout and seems to get endless joy from it. Kinda strange.

Republicans are chattering once again about imposing work requirements as a condition for receiving Medicaid. The CBO has estimated the effect this would have: This option would decrease federal spending...about $15 billion per year, on average, because about 2.2 million adults would lose Medicaid coverage. That reduction in enrollment represents a substantial portion of the ...continue reading "Work requirements for Medicaid would have no effect on spending"

According to the Washington Post, here is the partisan lean for all men in the US with names that start with "Ke": I'm pleased to note that Kevin is the most bipartisan name of the bunch, leaning only slightly Republican. Oddly, Kenneth is +14 Republican while Kenny is -15 Democratic. Apparently there's something Republican about ...continue reading "I have a very bipartisan name"

Here's a timeless story about the way a widely cited pseudo-statistic managed to worm its way into the discourse. It all starts with a brief funding request 20 years ago that describes the outcome of a program among the Kalinga and Umili peoples in the Philippines: 2004: "From 1990-1996, a total of seven indigenous communities ...continue reading "How a fake biodiversity statistic took over the world"

The whole Haitian cat-eating hoax has highlighted one of the most stunning things about the Trump era: whenever Trump makes up a story, even one that's absurd and quickly debunked, his allies immediately start up a desperate attempt to prove that he was right anyway. In the case of Springfield, we get a picture of ...continue reading "Donald Trump is always right, even when he isn’t"

Here's the uninsured rate during the Trump and Biden presidencies among the non-Medicare population: Despite a good economy, the uninsured rate rose 1.0 percentage points under Trump even if you give him credit for the pandemic decline. Under Biden, the uninsured rate has declined 1.5 points so far.

Time for something weird. Springfield, Ohio, as you know, is currently famous as the site of the Haitian cat-eating hoax being promoted by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. This has turned out to be a fabrication, but there's broad agreement about the background story: Springfield was a dying town until 2014, when local leaders began ...continue reading "How many Haitian immigrants really live in Springfield? Maybe 2,000?"

Kamala Harris sat down yesterday for an interview with Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s Action News. He asked her this: When you talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people, what are one or two specific things you have in mind for that? Harris is getting a lot of flak for not ...continue reading "Kamala Harris talks about prices"

The Wall Street Journal has a story today about consumers becoming delinquent in paying their bills. The story isn't wrong: both credit card and auto loan payments have transitioned into delinquency (30 days late) at increasing rates over the past couple of years. The data comes from a quarterly Fed report, and the problem is ...continue reading "How’s your credit? Signals are mixed these days."

Ezra Klein put up an interview yesterday with our real border czar, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. It was interesting. Mayorkas talked about several causes of increased illegal immigration, the prime one being the evolution of highly professionalized smuggling organizations. He also mentioned wars and crime surges in certain Central American countries, which have ...continue reading "Why has illegal immigration gone up and down so much?"

I'll confess up front that I have no idea if this is legit: Just plotted the new @OpenAI model on my AI IQ tracking page. Note that this test is an offline-only IQ quiz that a Mensa member created for my testing, which is *not in any AI training data* (so scores are lower than ...continue reading "Latest AI almost has an IQ of 100"

From Donald Trump, asked if he plans to sell Truth Social stock when his lockup period ends a week from now: No, I’m not selling. I’m not leaving. I love it. I think it’s great. Well, that's that. He's selling.

J.D. Vance has let slip Donald Trump's secret plan for peace in Ukraine: Mr. Vance said Mr. Trump would sit down with Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans and say, “You guys need to figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like.” Um, OK. Gotta say, though, that I expected a little more from the master of ...continue reading "Trump wants Ukraine to surrender to Putin"

Donald Trump is on an insult tour of California, and today he stopped by his 17-hole championship golf course for an impromptu press conference.¹ Here's the news the New York Times doesn't report but the LA Times does: Trump said if he is elected, he would stop sending California federal firefighting aid unless Gov. Gavin ...continue reading "Trump to California: Toe the line or I’ll take away your wildfire money"