Kevin Drum 🕸

New home sales increased by 71,000 in July, bringing the total number to an annualized rate of 739,000. Adjusted for population, this is 2.19 new houses sold per thousand people: This looks pretty healthy: we're holding steady at the level from just before the pandemic. But if you zoom out and take a longer view, ...continue reading "We should be buying a million new homes per year"

Over at National Review, Charles Cooke says Kamala Harris's convention speech was fine but didn't really say anything about what she wants to accomplish as president: Harris’s Speech Advanced Harris — and Nothing Else Besides I agree wholeheartedly with the commentators who have suggested that the address was “unthreatening” for swing voters or undecideds. The ...continue reading "Beating Trump isn’t everything, it’s the only thing"

One of the things I liked about Kamala Harris's convention speech was her explicit plea at the end to reject Donald Trump's apocalyptic view of American decline: You know, our opponents in this race are out there every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used ...continue reading "America is not in decline. Not even close."

Here is Donald Trump in North Carolina yesterday: Remember when Biden sent Kamala to Europe to stop the war in Ukraine. She met with Putin, and then three days later, he attacked.... She met with Putin to tell him, "Don’t do it." And three days later, he attacked. Once again, we have a head scratcher. ...continue reading "Donald Trump is (still) losing his mind"

NIMBY means Not In My Backyard. In other words, build stuff all you want as long as you don't do it near me, where it will bring traffic and crowds in its wake. It's a powerful force, but over the past couple of decades a counterforce has been steadily growing that blames NIMBY for slow ...continue reading "Is YIMBY really becoming a political force?"

When I go out to the desert for a bit of astrophotography, I never take pictures of the moon. This is because I deliberately go out on moonless nights. However, I happen to have the telescope set up in my backyard at the moment because I wanted to test out a few things, so last ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

I'll admit that the nonstop pronouncements of joy at the DNC kind of set my teeth on edge, but regardless of the word itself it sure does highlight an aspect of the Trump campaign that never got much attention before: it's relentlessly dour, angry, and driven by grievance. It's almost like we had all forgotten ...continue reading "I’m in favor of ordinary this year"

Here's the latest YouGov breakdown of the presidential race: Kamala Harris started out three points behind Trump and is now three points ahead. I should note that I routinely show the YouGov poll for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's a pretty good poll: reliable, weekly, and with good crosstabs. The second ...continue reading "Harris is now three points ahead"

There are several reports out today about Kamala Harris's stand on taxes, though I'm not quite sure why. They're apparently based on vague statements from the campaign that Harris supports Joe Biden's tax proposals from several months ago, but there have been no firm details about this. Nonetheless, two of Biden's proposals have been making ...continue reading "Kamala Harris’s kinda sorta tax plans"

Here's a headline in the Los Angeles Times today: Southern California electric bills are soaring. Here’s why, and how to save money There have been anecdotal reports that, for some consumers, bills have skyrocketed, even by hundreds of dollars. And Californians are looking for answers. ....In California, the driving force behind rate hikes is utilities ...continue reading "Why oh why are electric bills so high in LA?"

This is a Fly River turtle at the Los Angeles Zoo, also known as a pig-nosed turtle for obvious reasons.

I just got back from a visit to City of Hope, and it turns out I have no choices to make after all. My prostate cancer makes me ineligible for clinical trials, so my best option is an FDA-approved bispecific treatment called Talvey, or talquetamab: TALVEY™ is a bispecific T-cell engaging antibody that binds to ...continue reading "Health update"

Donald Trump is hellbent on punting abortion 100% to the states so that he himself doesn't have to take a stand on it. On Monday he extended this even further in an interview with Caitlin Huey-Burns of CBS News: As president, would you enforce the Comstock Act, which could prohibit the sale of, or the ...continue reading "Trump: Forget about the Comstock Act"

Blecch: My M-protein level has now increased from zero to 0.51 in just three months. When the CAR-T decided to stop working, my multiple myeloma didn't just saunter back, it roared back. Tomorrow I see a doctor about possibly participating in a clinical trial. Afterwards, I'll have to decide whether to take a chance on ...continue reading "Health update"

I don't subscribe to or read any of the morning political newsletters because I've never felt the need to be told what's important and what isn't. I'll make up my own mind, thank you very much. But this afternoon I happened to get referred to Politico's "West Wing Playbook," where I came across the following ...continue reading "BREAKING: Lynn got backsies in line (but not really)"

From longtime Biden aide Anita Dunn on how The Godfather can teach youngsters about the uses of power: Some very invaluable lessons in it that I just thought people should carry forward and the most surprising — and very upsetting — thing was how many people on this staff had never seen the movie. It's ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Don Corleone’s lessons for politics"

I believe this area of the Mojave Desert is zoned for single-family homes, but it looks like a pair of enterprising critters have decided to build a duplex anyway. They probably did this before SB9 got struck down.

Last Wednesday night Kamala Harris offered some proposals to fight price gouging. They've gotten pretty bad reviews in the press, so I was curious to read what she actually said. Not paraphrases from reporters or speculation about what she "probably" meant from columnists. Just what she actually said. That turned out to be surprisingly hard! ...continue reading "Harris’s price gouging proposal looks pretty modest"

In the Washington Post today, David Lynch writes about the economic problems of Erie, Pennsylvania, a "left behind" community that's been devastated by the decline of the Rust Belt. And make no mistake: Erie is a very poor area, with low incomes and high poverty rates. And yet, there's something interesting about it: At its ...continue reading "The comeback of Erie, Pennsylvania"

The Washington Post reports that Kamala Harris has a "slight" lead over Donald Trump in its latest poll: Harris stands at 49 percent to Trump’s 45 percent among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup.... Given the margin of error in this poll, which tests only national support, Harris’s lead among registered voters is not considered ...continue reading "Harris continues polling ahead of Trump"