Kevin Drum 🕸

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, is almost comically corrupt. He's so corrupt that even though the legislature is controlled by his fellow Republicans, he's being impeached. The Texas Senate is voting on impeachment as I type this, and so far Paxton has survived on eight out of 16 counts. Only a couple of Republicans ...continue reading "Texas Senate voting now on Ken Paxton impeachment"

Maybe someone can finally get Donald Trump to shut up: Special counsel Jack Smith is asking a judge to issue a gag order against former President Donald Trump, prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, the judge or potential witnesses who may testify in his federal criminal trial stemming from his effort to subvert the 2020 election. ...continue reading "Prosecutor asks for Trump gag order"

Here is the average hourly wage for auto workers over the past 30 years: The view of the auto workers is that back when the industry was in trouble they made a lot of concessions on pay to keep the companies in business. Adjusted for inflation, auto workers today make about $12 per hour less ...continue reading "Raw data: Hourly pay in the auto industry"

Last week we got a closeup of Hilbert, so this week it's Charlie's turn. He was walking back and forth on the fence when I took this.

The UAW—my former union!—isn't happy with Joe "Mr. Union" Biden: Shawn Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, has privately expressed his frustration with Joe Biden, wanting the president and other Democratic lawmakers to come out more aggressively in support of his union, which launched a strike Friday against the so-called Big Three automakers. ...continue reading "Can Joe Biden really do anything about the auto strike?"

Nick Kristof wrote yesterday about the huge rise in single-parent households over the past 60 years, especially among Black families. This has been a subject of public discussion ever since the famous Moynihan Report was issued in 1965, which detailed the "pathology" of Black family life in the wake of hundreds of years of brutal ...continue reading "Were collapsing earnings responsible for the breakup of the Black family?"

As expected, the DOJ special counsel indicted Hunter Biden today on charges of lying about his drug use when he purchased a handgun in 2018: I was a fed'l l prosecutor for 20+ yrs. & did quite a few ATF cases, esp early on. I was also a supervisor for about 5 yrs, so I ...continue reading "DOJ caves in to Republican backlash over Hunter Biden"

The redoubtable Wall Street Journal opinion page says that Bidenomics is a crock. The Census Bureau just released its estimate of annual income for 2022, and after adjusting for inflation it's fallen from the previous year: The Census Exposes Bidenomics Its annual report shows how inflation has gutted real household incomes. ....Middle-class Americans who think ...continue reading "Average earnings today are about the same as just before the pandemic"

This is the Los Angeles skyline at dusk seen from Angeles Crest Highway. About a third of the way from the right-hand border you can see downtown with Catalina Island behind it.

While I was puttering around in the GSS data for my previous post, I happened to take a look at self-reported political ideology. In particular, I looked at how many Republicans described themselves as conservative and how many Democrats described themselves as liberal. Here it is: Republicans have been growing steadily more conservative for 50 ...continue reading "Democrats have gotten a lot more liberal recently"

According to the General Social Survey, here's the trend in people reporting that they aren't very happy: I struggle to reconcile this with reports that young people are depressed, stressed out, and generally kind of miserable. From 1970 through 2018, there was very little change in young adults reporting that they aren't happy. It bounces ...continue reading "Raw data: Young adult aren’t especially unhappy these days"

From Kevin McCarthy at a closed-door meeting of the Republican caucus, daring hard-right loonies to oust him: You guys think I’m scared of a motion to vacate. Go f---ing ahead and do it. I’m not scared. You tell 'em, Kevin.

The Wall Street Journal says oil prices are "soaring": Hmmm. Here is the spot price of West Texas Intermediate since the beginning of the year: It's up about 10%, from $77 to $87. The Journal got its much larger number by (a) using the NYMEX future price, and (b) cherry picking the start of the ...continue reading "Oil prices are up, but not yet “soaring”"

It appears to be a thing lately for CEOs to blurt out their frustration over the fact that their workers want raises. "Nobody wants to work anymore" is the usual refrain. Or, since unemployment is demonstrably low, perhaps they admit that people are working, they just aren't working very hard. But it ain't true: Productivity ...continue reading "Labor productivity is very high these days"

The August spike in inflation was obviously bad news, but there's a bit of positive news in today's figures too: Inflation in goods has been below 2% for the entire past year, and last month's spike was the result of a transitory rise in gasoline prices. Nothing much to worry about. But inflation in services ...continue reading "A tidbit of good news about inflation"

This is our nation's Capitol, where every day our elected representatives undertake their solemn duty to advance the public weal. It brings a flutter to your heart, doesn't it? At the time I was there, the Capitol building was covered in scaffolding. This angle, along with the intervening flora, is a clever way of taking ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Over at National Review, Charles Cooke approvingly cites this passage from a recent David Ignatius column about Joe Biden: He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad ...continue reading "High crimes and misdemeanors"

Adjusted for inflation, hourly earnings declined at an annual rate of 5.3% in August. However, the average number of hours worked rose, so weekly earnings were down only 1.2%. Weekly earnings are now 0.3% above their pre-pandemic level. For blue-collar workers, hourly earnings were down 4.9% and weekly earnings were down 1.5%.

August CPI numbers were released this morning, and both the core and headline rates spiked considerably: The spike in the headline rate was expected due to rising gasoline prices, but the spike in the core rate is harder to explain. Air fares were up a lot, but there were no big increases elsewhere. The so-called ...continue reading "CPI shoots up in August"

I don't quite remember what got me started on this, but a couple of hours ago I ran into a report about stress from the American Psychological Association. It reported that stress was simply overwhelming these days: A quarter of all Americans report feeling so stressed on most days that "they can barely function." Among ...continue reading "Are most young women “overwhelmed” by stress? I’m skeptical."