Kevin Drum 🕸

I suppose everyone has already noticed this, but it's remarkable to see how much laser-focused pandering Donald Trump has been doing lately: He attended the Libertarian Party convention and suddenly announced he would pardon their hero, convicted internet drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht. After a call from billionaire mega-donor Jeff Yass, an early investor in TikTok, ...continue reading "Donald Trump, panderer in chief"

A pair of bored chimps at the LA Zoo.

In the latest YouGov poll, Kamala Harris is two points ahead of Donald Trump, the same as last week. I think she might get another little bump out of Tim Walz and the Democratic convention, but from here on out it's mostly just going to be a three-month grind. The big spikes from newfound Democratic ...continue reading "Kamala Harris is preferred to Trump 49% to 44%"

By now you know everything about Tim Walz. Grew up in Nebraska. Joined the National Guard and eventually rose to the rank of command sergeant major. Moved to Minnesota and became a schoolteacher and high school football coach. Ran for Congress and won. Ran for governor and won. Two kids via IVF. Got his son ...continue reading "Meet Honey"

A few weeks ago House Republicans released a 40-page report blasting GARM and its parent, the WFA, for illegal collusion and restraint of trade. The report— Wait. Who is GARM? I'm glad you asked. GARM is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an initiative of the World Federation of Advertisers. The Republican report is here. ...continue reading "Here’s the story behind Musk v. GARM"

On our recent Danube cruise the ship stopped briefly at a town called Weissenkirchen. Sure enough, there was a white church at the top of a hill in the center of town. Marian and I walked up and down and all around to find a way in, but all the streets went in circles around ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Over at National Review, Hadley Arkes says Donald Trump has been terrible on abortion, but you can hardly blame the poor guy: Trump and Vance are dealing with a bad hand that has been dealt them by the Supreme Court.... The most striking thing about the holding of the Court in the Dobbs case is ...continue reading "Spare a thought for poor Donald Trump, prisoner of abortion politics"

Oh great, Democrats now have two people on their ticket with names that are easy to mispronounce. For the record, our new VP-to-be is Tim WALLZ, not WALTZ or anything like that—though God only knows what Fox News will decide to call him. In any case, welcome to the show, governor. It's gonna be an ...continue reading "Tim Walz is Kamala Harris’s running mate"

Just in case you care, today is the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It happened at 8:15 am on August 6 in Hiroshima, which is 7:15 pm on August 5 in Washington DC. It is nearly conventional wisdom these days, certainly on the left, to say that the attacks on Hiroshima and ...continue reading "Today is the 79th anniversary of Hiroshima"

Paul Krugman says today that the economy is looking "pre-recessionary." He blames the Fed: What’s especially galling about the current situation is that we may be about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As of right now, America has basically achieved what many economists had considered impossible: a soft landing, in which we ...continue reading "Pre-recessionary? That’s probably an understatement."

Google lost the first round of its antitrust suit today. As you may recall, there are two big things you have to prove in order to find a company guilty of antitrust violations. The first is that the company is a monopoly, and Judge Amit Mehta made quick work of that: Plaintiffs easily have demonstrated ...continue reading "Judge finds that Google is a very, very evil monopolist"

Behold the Lagoon Nebula, M8, one of the biggest and brightest nebulas in the Northern Hemisphere. It is, unfortunately, only visible for a few hours each night in July and August, and it's low in the sky. However, I trekked out even farther into the desert than usual this weekend and got some very dark ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Wall Street is panicking over the stock market. Here's what it looks like at the moment I'm writing this: This is not yet even in "correction" territory, let alone a full-blown collapse. But a headline in the New York Times says traders are so panicked they think the Fed might hold an emergency meeting to ...continue reading "Yes, the Fed should lower rates. But not because of the stock market."

Is California a high-tax state compared to red states like Texas and Florida? It depends! Here's what things look like if you're rich: California is a ball-buster, with the second highest tax rates in the country. Texas and Florida are way down the list. But what if you're working class? Let's take a look: California ...continue reading "Raw data: Tax rates in California, Texas, and Florida"

It's sort of fascinating to watch The Big Lie unfold in real time. In this case I'm talking about Donald Trump's assertion that Kamala Harris used to identify as Indian and then switched to being Black when it became politically expedient. Usually there's some small kernel of truth to these kinds of attacks, but this ...continue reading "Trump’s attack on Kamala Harris’s blackness was very precisely aimed"

A couple of days ago I posted a chart showing that Democrats were more likely to be childless than Republicans. I thought this was mainly due to religiosity, but I wasn't sure. However, a friend emailed me a link to Ryan Burge's substack, called "Graphs About Religion." This is an admirably clear name, and it ...continue reading "Cooked data: Another look at childless families by political party"

Just for the record, it really is true that sometime soon Kamala Harris is going to have to (a) put up a few policy positions on her website, and (b) start giving interviews to the national media. It doesn't have to be tomorrow, but it ought to be pretty soon.

US conservatives are in a remarkable lather over the results of a women's boxing match between an Algerian and an Italian. The Algerian is Imane Khelif, a journeyman welterweight with a lifetime record of 38-9, who suddenly might or might not be 100% female depending on who you listen to. Here's what happened. Khelif was ...continue reading "The strange tale of Imane Khelif"

Donald Trump recently proposed eliminating income taxes on Social Security benefits. Why? No one knows. Maybe because low-income seniors already pay no tax on benefits, so it would mostly benefit the well off. And what Republican ever passed up the chance to make a regressive tax even more regressive? In any case, let's see what ...continue reading "The stupidest man in the world strikes again"

Five weeks down, one to go. I'm almost done with my radiation treatment. I'm pleased to report that the "super sunburn" pain I was warned about hasn't materialized. So far I've gotten a very minor bit of soreness in one or two places, and that's it. With only four treatments left it looks like I ...continue reading "Health update"