Kevin Drum 🕸

Good news today: The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed unlikely to limit access to a key medication used in more than 60 percent of U.S. abortions and first approved more than two decades ago. A majority of justices from across the ideological spectrum expressed skepticism that the antiabortion doctors challenging the government’s loosening of regulations ...continue reading "Mail-order mifepristone likely to stay fully legal"

How much is Donald Trump's social media company, Truth Social, really worth? It's never made money, so you can't judge it that way. But lots of startup companies are unprofitable in their early years, and venture capitalists figure out values for them anyway. The most common alternative is to look at net sales. Generally speaking, ...continue reading "Why is Truth Social trading at 100 times its actual value?"

It's long been a truism in hard right-wing circles that the harder you hit the better. This has produced a culture in which they believe they can say anything they want with impunity. What are you gonna do? Sue 'em? Actually yes. Over the past year or so a whole bunch of right wing actors ...continue reading "The era of random right-wing terrorism is over"

A new study published in JAMA shows that the informal health care network¹ increased its provision of abortion pills following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. Here's a summary of their findings: The average provision of abortion pills increased by about 4,500 per month nationally following the Dobbs decision. But this is not what interests me. ...continue reading "Abortion pills are on the rise post-Dobbs"

This is a picture of the Christmas Tree Cluster and the Cone Nebula (upside-down at at the top), jointly catalogued as NGC 2264. It's a star-forming region containing both young and old stars. I took this picture last month and it plainly didn't have enough exposure time. I had planned to do it over when ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

For no particular reason, here's another health care chart. This one shows how much people spend each year personally on professional health care. It doesn't count aspirin or massages or stuff like that. It's the personal share of employer premiums plus out-of-pocket costs not covered by insurance. This is per-person; spending per family is higher ...continue reading "Raw data: Personal health care spending"

Donald Trump has been let off the hook for the full amount of the $454 million bond he was ordered to pay in his business fraud case. An appeals court cut it to $175 million. This is disappointing for those who enjoy watching Trump squirm, but it's probably reasonable. The court gave no reason for ...continue reading "Trump fine cut in half—for now"

When you see figures for K-12 teacher pay it's normally an average of all teachers, including those who have master's degrees and PhDs, or specialized skills such as ESL. But what about your garden variety fourth-grade teacher with a BA? They now make less than the average for all workers: The average base pay for ...continue reading "Raw data: Teacher pay in the US"

I don't really know anything about Candace Owens. I gather that she's a fairly standard issue MAGA lunatic, but she drew attention recently for parting ways with the Daily Wire following some arguably antisemitic comments. So what's made her so popular? Theory: The secret to Candace’s success is she exudes at a subliminal level deep ...continue reading "Every politician should be precisely as smart as me"

Ronna McDaniel spent the past seven years as chair of the Republican National Committee until Donald Trump fired her a few weeks ago. On Friday she was hired by NBC News on a reported $300,000 contract. Today she was interviewed on Meet the Press. The interview was scheduled weeks ago, before McDaniel was hired, but ...continue reading "Chuck Todd says the Trump-era RNC is a bunch of thugs and liars"

Did you know that health care inflation has been lower than overall inflation for the past decade? It has: This has kept Medicare costs nearly flat recently, though CMS projects this will change over the upcoming decade: The reason for the increase is not because medical inflation is expected to be high. In fact, CMS ...continue reading "Raw data: Real medical costs have been negative over the past decade"

A few months ago the LA Times ran a story about a serial squatter who rented an Airbnb guesthouse in Brentwood and then refused to move when her time was up. She ended up staying an additional 570 rent-free days. Response: Nothing. The Times tried again in February with a story about an abandoned office tower ...continue reading "Why are squatters suddenly everywhere?"

Obamacare has been around for ten years and it's been growing steadily more popular the entire time: Even a third of Republicans have a favorable view of Obamacare these days. To put this into perspective, the overall approval rate for Obamacare is 59%. That compares to about 80% for Social Security. And use of Obamacare ...continue reading "Raw data: Everyone loves Obamacare"

Here is the growth in the teen suicide rate since 2000: I'd like you to notice two things. First, the rise in teen suicides begins in 2007 and ends in 2017. Second, the overall growth in teen suicide through 2022 is the same as it is for adults. Neither of these things seems consistent with ...continue reading "Adult mental health is as bad as teen mental health"

It's too early etc. etc., but I thought everyone could use a little dose of good news this morning. Joe Biden has been picking up support lately: This is from the Economist, which updates its poll average weekly. The big caveat, of course, is that this doesn't say anything about the polls in swing states, ...continue reading "Joe Biden is now eking out a lead over Donald Trump"

CBP released border numbers on Friday and they were about the same as last month: Total encounters in February came to 190,000, of which 42,000 were migrants who made appointments for asylum through CBP's mobile app. The number apprehended crossing illegally was 141,000. About 29,000 immigrants gained temporary residence via the CHNV parole program in ...continue reading "Illegal immigration remains steady in February"

Here are my top ten traffic pet peeves. Some are fairly ordinary, some are probably sort of unique to me. Feel free to add your own in comments! If you're going to make a turn, put on your blinker. Don't worry about whether anyone is around. Just do it. Also: if you're turning right, move ...continue reading "My top ten traffic pet peeves"

Remember a few years ago when Joe Biden was vice president and visited Israel? In a deliberate move to embarrass him, a right-wing minister chose that exact moment to announce 1,600 new housing units for Jews in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Well, even in their darkest moment, when US support is more important than ever, they're ...continue reading "Israel just can’t stop insulting Americans"

This is nuts:

I was curious about some detail of the crime rate today so I pulled up data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. And I noticed something I never have before: NCVS reports that about 10% of all households are victims of property crime. We normally think of this as home burglary, but it turns out ...continue reading "Raw data: Burglary in the US"