Kevin Drum 🕸

From the Wall Street Journal today: Republicans want to extend the Trump-era tax cuts that lapse after 2025. A big point of debate now: Should they cover any or all of the $4 trillion cost—and how? Etc. Spare me. Republican concern over the federal debt is no more real than it's ever been—which is to ...continue reading "Republicans don’t care about the deficit, part one million"

It's worth keeping in mind that, as near as I can tell, American conservatives don't have any moral qualms about Israel's war in Gaza. In fact, they're livid whenever Joe Biden so much as says that maybe Israel should be just a wee bit more careful about killing civilians if it wouldn't be too much ...continue reading "Do Republicans really want to level Gaza and salt the earth behind it?"

Andrew Van Dam, head of the Washington Post's Department of Data, routinely does interesting data-driven pieces, and he's out with another one today. This time it's a survey asking people about the best decade of the last century. Here are the results: Obviously much of this is a matter of opinion, but most of it ...continue reading "We are living in the worst decade ever"

A reader has pointed me to some additional data on this morning's burning question about American History professors. Out of a total of 245 doctorates awarded in American History, here's the racial breakdown: Give or take a bit, just under 100 tenure track positions were hired in American History in 2022. The total number of ...continue reading "Yep, there are still plenty of white folks being hired in American History"

Here's an interesting tidbit I happened to run across today. For the past eight years Pew has been asking people if they believe their side is mostly winning or mostly losing on important issues. Here are the results: Generally speaking, people think they're losing when the other party is in power. That's natural. But in ...continue reading "Everyone thinks they’re losing these days"

This is called service journalism, my friends. First off, a Wall Street Journal test of five AI engines on everyday questions picked a surprise winner: Perplexity. So I tried it out. It's pretty good! On a scale of 1-to-10, none of the answers in my short tryout were less than about 7. All were up ...continue reading "News you can use"

Today is Memorial Day, so here's a picture of the Soviet War Memorial in Vienna, lovingly maintained to this day by the Austrian government. Which is all very fine, but why? And why not a picture of the American War Memorial? Well, the Soviet Union was one of the occupying powers in Vienna after the ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Today's minor Twitter kerfuffle: Absolutely unbelievable. Today was the day that David Austin Walsh, one of Twitter's premier leftists, complained that he can't get a job because he's discriminated against for being a white man. pic.twitter.com/fit6TTTT4f — Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) May 27, 2024 This is frustrating for a person with a numerical brain like ...continue reading "Overall, academia remains pretty white"

There's nothing new about radical Jewish settlers in the West Bank attacking Palestinians, but it's now spread to attacks on aid truck bound for Gaza. And as usual, the Israeli government does nothing about it: Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from ...continue reading "Will Netanyahu ever stop the settler violence?"

I don't suppose it will do much good to point this out yet again, but here's the standard, headline inflation rate over the past six years: In the years before the pandemic, inflation averaged 2.1%. Over the past year, inflation has averaged 3.3%. For the Fed, this is a big deal. It means they feel ...continue reading "Raw data: Inflation has been nearly normal for the past year"

I missed this when it first came out, but a few weeks ago David Wallace-Wells wrote a piece in the New York Times taking a look at the evidence that cell phones have been responsible for big increases in teen depression, especially among teen girls. He ends up being skeptical. The whole piece is worth ...continue reading "Cell phones really don’t seem to be causing an epidemic of teen depression"

How much food is getting into Gaza these days? I have no idea. Israel opened the Erez crossing last week and reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing. The Rafah crossing remains closed. Since then, COGAT claims that nearly 300 trucks a day have been crossing into Gaza. The UN puts the number at about 100 per ...continue reading "Nobody knows how much aid Gaza is getting these days"

The Wall Street Journal points to a fascinating study today. Three researchers took a look at recent inflation expectations among Democrats and Republicans. Here it is: Democrats maintained relatively stable inflation expectations the entire time. By contrast, Republican inflation expectations skyrocketed literally on the day Joe Biden won the 2020 election—long before actual inflation appeared. ...continue reading "Study suggests Republican panic caused recent inflation"

Atrios is deeply angry about Joe Biden rejecting an order from the International Criminal Court for Israel to halt their offensive in Rafah: I wish some good faith people (many people are not) would UPDATE THEIR PRIORS, as the kids say, a bit about Biden and recognize that they spent months running interference for him ...continue reading "Biden’s position on the Gaza war has always been clear"

There's a very peculiar article making the rounds from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site. The gist of the piece is that ever since 2020, when Jennifer Lucero took over as dean of admissions for the UCLA Medical School, diversity has ruled the day and standards have plummeted: Race-based admissions have turned UCLA ...continue reading "Is UCLA a “failed medical school”?"

Isn't this a cute Viennese kitten? So adorable. What's that? It doesn't look quite real to you? Fine. But I never came across any cats in Vienna, and now that I'm home my sister still has custody of Hilbert and Charlie. So this is the best I can do. I promise real live catblogging next ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 24 May 2024"

Here's an interesting thing. A recent Emerson College poll asked voters what their most important issue was. Very standard stuff. But here are the replies from Trump supporters: Trump supporters literally care about only two things: immigration and the economy. Every other issue is background noise. By contrast, here are Biden supporters: The economy is ...continue reading "Republicans today care only about illegal immigration"

Matt Yglesias had a long rumination about Israel and Zionism yesterday that matches a lot of my thinking. My shorter version is more or less this: Zionism was solely a movement of the first half of the 20th century. In 1948, when the UN created Israel, Zionism won—and thereby wrote itself out of existence. There ...continue reading "Zionism is dead"

With literally only a few minutes of work, I recently booked (a) high-speed phone data for a month outside the US, (b) travel insurance, (c) a car to LAX, (d) a flight to Prague via Helsinki, (e) an Uber to the hotel, (f) a cruise down the Danube, (g) a hotel in Vienna, (h) transit ...continue reading "The wonders of modern travel"

As you read this, Marian and I are over the Atlantic Ocean on the way home. It's goodbye to Austria. This is a gelateria store at Schwedenplatz on Sunday night. It's crowded because it was Pentecost and everyone had Monday off. It also happened to be the night I worked up the energy to haul ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"