Kevin Drum 🕸

A quick word about sentencing. As we all know, judges take into account the totality of the circumstances when they hand down sentences. First time offender? Was anyone hurt? Are there mandatory minimums? Etc. Conservatives often complain about this because it allows judges to be too lenient. But it's going to be on their side ...continue reading "Trump isn’t going to prison"

The weird shit just keeps coming and coming. Today a pair of professors at UT Austin, backed by the state of Texas, sued the Biden administration over its new Title IX rules. Here's what they specifically object to: They won't refer to their students using the pronoun "they." They refuse to allow their TAs to ...continue reading "Texas profs file bizarre anti-abortion lawsuit"

Donald Trump and his friends can—and have—claimed that both the DA and the judge in the New York hush money case are political enemies. They can say that Michael Cohen is a liar. They can say that Joe Biden stage managed the whole thing. Plenty of MAGA fans will believe this stuff, and plenty of ...continue reading "Trump can rant and rave, but he can’t dismiss the jury"

I guess it's time to update my table of Donald Trump's court cases. Case Outcome Details E. Jean Carroll #1 Lost Ordered to pay $5 million. On appeal. E. Jean Carroll #2 Lost Ordered to pay $83 million. On appeal. New York business fraud Lost Ordered to pay $454 million. On appeal. Stormy Daniels hush ...continue reading "UPDATED: All the major Trump court cases since 2016"

The big news in the EV world is the announcement of a new hybrid car from Chinese automaker BYD. They claim it has a range of 1,300 miles, but that may be conservative. A couple of Chinese journalists took one out for a test and drove it until it literally coughed and died. It lasted ...continue reading "New Chinese car has an 81 mpg gasoline engine"

We have a verdict! That was quick. Gotta be guilty, right? There's no way they'd acquit Trump so fast. UPDATE: Yep, guilty on count 1. And if he's guilty on count 1, he's guilty on all of them. UPDATE 2: Trump is guilty on all 34 counts. UPDATE 3: As I suspected, all we get ...continue reading "The verdict is in. Trump is guilty on all counts."

Over at Mother Jones, Katie Herchenroeder writes about the new conservative love affair with tightening up divorce laws: The right has long pushed policies to enshrine a specific view of marriage. But the open discussion of making divorce harder has—in large part because of dudes online with podcasts and politicians who want to appeal to ...continue reading "America is not on board with making divorce harder"

A couple of weeks ago I got to see an early morning flag-changing ritual on our cruise ship. As we exited a lock on the Danube near Gottsdorf, just before we crossed the border from Germany to Austria, the captain of our cruise ship took down the German flag and hoisted an Austrian flag. The ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Politico has yet another article today about Joe Biden's weakness among Black voters: Prominent Black officials are warning the Biden campaign that the president’s efforts to keep Black voters firmly and enthusiastically in his electoral coalition aren’t working — and that time is running out to get his message across. The publicly voiced concern from ...continue reading "Biden’s problem with Black voters still doesn’t add up"

A South Korean company called Hanwha Group is building a huge solar panel factory in Georgia using a new technology that promises lower prices and higher efficiencies: The new technology comes from an Israeli startup that promises to simplify one of the most cumbersome steps in solar manufacturing and cut costs by reducing the amount ...continue reading "New solar tech comes from . . . Israel"

Along with revisions to economic growth, BEA also released corporate profit figures this morning. Profits were way up for banks and way down for everyone else, but this is just a blip in the long-term picture: I hadn't quite realized things were so stark. Nonfinancial corporations saw their profits skyrocket during the pandemic and then ...continue reading "Raw data: Corporate profits for banks and non-banks"

This morning the BEA announced that real GDP growth in Q1 was actually 1.3%, not 1.6%. This isn't great news, but it's only one quarter and probably isn't that meaningful. However, they also released GDI figures, and the mysterious gap between GDP and GDI has disappeared for the second quarter in a row. Both estimates ...continue reading "Economic growth was kind of sluggish in Q1"

This is one of the more cowardly headlines I've read in a while: Emerging Portrait of Judge in Trump Documents Case: Prepared, Prickly and Slow If you read the actual piece, it contains one (1) example of judge Aileen Cannon being prepared—set against half a dozen where she was confused or mistaken. But the main ...continue reading "Trump judge Aileen Cannon is more than just prickly and slow"

Sunset at the Dana Point marina.

It is quickly congealing into conventional wisdom that Joe Biden's big economic problem is not the current inflation rate, which is fairly moderate, but the fact that prices are still higher than they were a few years ago. People have memories of those lower prices, so they're unhappy with the current higher ones. It's only ...continue reading "Why Biden isn’t getting credit for crushing inflation"

OK, it's official. Donald Trump's "other crime"—the one that turns a falsification of records from a misdemeanor into a felony—can be anything from a menu of three choices. CNN has a good description of the judge's instructions to the jury this morning: Judge Juan Merchan explains that the jury must determine whether Trump conspired to ...continue reading "Donald Trump’s “other crime” finally officially explained"

I've just spent the past hour reading half a dozen reports about the closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money case. And I'm confused. As you all know, Trump is accused of ordering his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay off Stormy Daniels in order to keep her quiet about an affair they had. This ...continue reading "What is Donald Trump’s “other crime”? Take your pick."

This is Angela, a young gorilla on a mission. I don't know what her mission is, but apparently it involves some sticks and she's obviously determined to see it through. The bottom photo is Kelly, the tribe's silverback. He's keeping a close eye on things because you never know what Angela might be up to.

From the Washington Post today: In communities of color, long-covid patients are tired of being sick and neglected It has been four years since covid began burdening people with lingering symptoms often dismissed by mystified medical providers who were dubious and unwilling to help — especially when treating patients of color, according to clinicians and ...continue reading "Are Black people being “erased” from the long-COVID story?"

Here's the latest YouGov test matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump: I could have picked any other poll. They all look roughly the same. I want to point out two things: It's close! Only 81% of voters expressed an opinion. The other 19% said neither, or RFK Jr., or don't know. This gets to ...continue reading "Trump and Biden remain tied, but Biden will win in November"