Kevin Drum 🕸

Is it time to play Speaker Roulette again? Reigning House lunatic Marjorie Taylor Greene is mad that Mike Johnson passed a budget package with the help of Democratic votes: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, on Friday took the first step toward ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson, filing a resolution calling for his removal ...continue reading "Mike Johnson has pissed off the Freedom Caucus again"

Remember the great infant formula shortage of 2022? It was caused by a bacterial infection at a plant run by Abbott Laboratories, makers of the popular Similac brand. Or was it? About half the formula in the US is provided free to low-income families via the WIC program, which runs competitive bidding in each state ...continue reading "A conservative take on the infant formula market"

The Washington Post reports today that misinformation about birth control has surged on social media: Physicians say they’re seeing an explosion of birth-control misinformation online targeting a vulnerable demographic: people in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms that feed them a ...continue reading "Is social media duping impressionable teens about contraceptive use?"

In 1983 Congress passed a Social Security bill that, among other things, raised the retirement age from 65 to 67. This was justified on the basis that life expectancies had gone up a lot since the program started in 1937. There was something to this. Life expectancy after reaching adulthood (age 25) increased more than ...continue reading "The working class has a lower life expectancy than 30 years ago"

This is a cute little house jutting out over the Seine. I guess the passage under the house is sort of like having an attached garage: just tie up your boat and take the elevator directly up to your living room. It's got an elevator, doesn't it?

Punchbowl reports today about a bill that trades a Republican tax cut for a Democratic increase in the Child Tax Credit: The Wyden-Smith tax bill is in deep trouble. The Senate Finance Committee’s top Republican, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, told GOP colleagues privately on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to pass a tax bill ...continue reading "Are House and Senate Republicans even the same species?"

Sales of existing homes rose sharply in February, up 9.5% from January: Prices broke a yearlong slide, rising 1.6% from January.

Huh: Surgeons in Boston have transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into an ailing 62-year-old man, the first procedure of its kind. If successful, the breakthrough offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans whose kidneys have failed. I'm personally looking forward to new eyes from a genetically engineered hawk and a new ...continue reading "Kidney of a (genetically engineered) pig"

Total factor productivity is, roughly, the increase in productivity due to technological progress. The BLS reported today that it rose 0.7% in 2023: This is right at the average of the past five years and slightly below the average since 2000. In other words, kind of meh. I have a feeling that we're in a ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Productivity was up 0.7% in 2023"

The Republican Study Committee—which includes nearly every Republican in Congress—released its latest budget proposal today. It's getting a lot of attention on Twitter because it includes cuts to Social Security even though Republicans have spent the past year angrily denying Democratic claims that they plan to cut Social Security. But that's not what struck me. ...continue reading "The new GOP budget is just the same old claptrap"

Somebody help me out here. The Washington Post reports that in order to avoid posting a $454 million bond in his business fraud case, Donald Trump could file for bankruptcy: As Donald Trump faces dwindling options to pay off a massive fine imposed as a result of losing a fraud case in New York, financial ...continue reading "Can Donald Trump file for bankruptcy?"

Julian Assange's extradition hearing in London has been ongoing for weeks with seemingly no end in sight. Today the Wall Street Journal reports that the US is considering a plea deal that would eliminate the 18 espionage charges against him, leaving only a single charge of computer hacking: If prosecutors allow Assange to plead to ...continue reading "Julian Assange may be close to a plea deal"

Last month I took a picture of a globular cluster catalogued as M5. I wasn't able to do a great job with it, however, and thought I'd give it another try sometime. A week ago I was out in the desert again, but M5 was too low in the sky to image properly. Pretty much ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The EPA announced new tailpipe emissions standards today. The headline impact is that the new standards will spur sales of electric vehicles, but they'll also cut air pollutants substantially: And here are the new rules for CO2 emissions between now and 2032: This is all from the text of the final rule, which is 1,181 ...continue reading "New EPA rules cut emissions, promote sales of EVs"

The 2024 World Happiness Report was released yesterday, and it showed the youth of America becoming steadily unhappier. Wait. No it didn't. Happiness among the young actually ticked up a bit in the latest report. But no matter: Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general...described the report findings as a “red flag that young people ...continue reading "New report suggests that more internet = more happiness"

What causes cavities? Lots of things, it turns out, but mainly sugar, just like you learned in grade school. However, sugar doesn't directly produce cavities. As with all things in biochemistry, the actual mechanism of cavity production is pretty complex. But let's simplify. The main culprit in the conversion of sugar into cavities is a ...continue reading "Did the FDA kill a promising new way of preventing cavities?"

It's too bad Southern California is so hazy. This is a lovely picture of a sailboat cruising serenely off Dana Point, but it's a bit ruined by the orangeish smear at the horizon. Oh well.

Today brings a limited but interesting decision from the Supreme Court. It involves Yonas Fikre, a US citizen from Sudan, who was placed on the no-fly list 15 years ago. Here's the summary: Mr. Fikre alleged that he traveled from his home in Portland, Oregon to Sudan in 2009 to pursue business opportunities there. At ...continue reading "No-fly victim wins (limited) victory in the Supreme Court"

The Guttmacher Institute released numbers today for abortion in 2023. They're from a new monthly survey that isn't as precise as Guttmacher's usual annual abortion count, but probably still pretty close. The figures are startling: This is a 10% increase from 2020. A big part of the reason is the rise in medication abortions: If ...continue reading "The abortion rate spiked upward in 2023"

The FBI released crime figures for Q4 of 2023 today, and violent crime is down everywhere: Nationally, every type of crime was down except for auto theft: