Kevin Drum 🕸

ProPublica continues its investigation of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas today. It unearthed some records from around 2000 suggesting that, following his appearance at a "conservative thought weekend" on Sea Island, Thomas had threatened to quit the court unless he got a pay raise: After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated ...continue reading "The endless supply of gifts to Clarence Thomas finally comes into sharper focus"

Republicans are split in half these days. On one side you have the MAGA crowd. They cheer Donald Trump for saying that no will dare give us trouble if he's president—and if they do he'll rain down hellfire like no one has ever seen before. But in real life they're effectively antiwar because Joe Biden ...continue reading "Bloodlust on the right"

Stop it, stop it, stop it: First off, it's not true that everyone expected a recession. What everyone expected was that inflation wouldn't go down unless we had a recession. And that was only because "everyone" is apparently an idiot who forgot all about the pandemic of [checks notes] two years previously. Second, the Fed ...continue reading "The Fed did not cleverly find a way out of recession"

Last night I went out to the desert to take a picture of the Crab Nebula. My telescope is not really up to the task, but I've always wanted to do it anyway. But I have no pictures of the Crab for you. I tried it two ways: with my narrowband filter and without. The ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The reported death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 20,000. Here's an update of the daily death toll: Whether by design or by chance, the daily fatality figures have dropped from about 300 per day to 200 per day over the past week. It's not much, but it's a slight improvement.

Apple is halting sales of its watch because of a finding that it violated some patents: The case revolves around medical-technology company Masimo, which alleged in a 2021 complaint that Apple violated its patents related to measuring blood-oxygen levels. Apple has included a sensor, called a pulse oximeter, in most new models of the Apple ...continue reading "No more Apple watches for Christmas"

The Washington Post reports that AI has turned fake news into an industrial business: Since May, websites hosting AI-created false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent, ballooning from 49 sites to more than 600, according to NewsGuard, an organization that tracks misinformation. I would take this with a grain of salt since NewsGuard ...continue reading "Fake news is now an AI specialty"

One of the big sticking points in the negotiations for tighter border security revolves around the Biden administration's use of parole. Until about an hour ago, I had wondered what the big deal was. In January Biden unveiled a parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV parole) that allowed them to come into ...continue reading "Parole is the main hurdle in border security talks"

The New York Times writes today about the latest round of complaints from poor countries about the loans they get from the IMF and the World Bank, which were created shortly after World War II and haven't changed much since then. This time the pretext for reform is that loans are getting more complicated and ...continue reading "Time to kill off the IMF and the World Bank?"

After a recommendation from a bipartisan congressional commission, the Army is finally about to take down a 32-foot memorial at Arlington cemetery dedicated to "our dead heroes" of the Confederacy. Naturally Republicans are angry: This month, 44 Republican lawmakers cautioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the first African American to hold the post, that the Pentagon ...continue reading "Republicans angry about removing huge Confederate memorial"

Michelle Goldberg asks today why so many progressives have been moving to the right recently. Among the famous—Russell Brand, Matt Taibbi, Naomi Wolf—I think she gets it right: They suffered some kind of indignity from lefties and then turned on them. For the great masses, though, I think the answer is simpler: They haven't. In ...continue reading "Are progressives really turning to the right?"

Brian Beutler has a piece up today that's gotten a lot of attention. He argues that Democrats haven't adjusted to a new online media environment that gives Republicans a big advantage in spreading their preferred dystopian narratives. He points to 2012 as the last old school election: Back then, Republicans were just as invested in ...continue reading "We have always been idiots"

Since January, grocery prices have gone up a grand total of 1.1%. That's literally not noticeable. So why are people still complaining about high food prices? This chart tells the story: Since 2021, which is when the big inflationary surge started, food prices have gone up 20% while wages have gone up only 12%. Shoppers ...continue reading "Food inflation is gone, but food prices are still high"

Rudy Giuliani has been found liable with extreme prejudice for defaming two Georgia poll workers: Jurors [awarded] roughly $33 million for the two women together. But plaintiff’s attorney Michael Gottlieb made no specific ask when it came to emotional or punitive damages. Instead he told the jury to “send a message “to Giuliani and any ...continue reading "Giuliani ordered to pay damages of $148 million in defamation case"

Charlie is not a happy cat. He wounded his back leg somehow, so we took him to the vet and got him an antibiotic shot, but of course recovery also includes a cone to keep him from licking the spot. The regular cone was too big, so we got him this stylish Darth Vader cone ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 15 December 2023"

On an annual basis, the United States supplies about 12% of Israel's military budget. That's the equivalent of topping up the US military budget by $100 billion per year.

TikTok and Instagram get all the attention, but YouTube remains by far the most popular social media app among American teens: On YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, Hispanic teens report using them "almost constantly" at rates more than three time higher than white teens. Among teens, generally speaking, social media is most heavily used by Hispanics, ...continue reading "YouTube remains the national champion of teen social media sites"

How are our family farms doing? The USDA's annual survey reports good news: As in previous years, the median total income of all U.S. family farm households ($95,418) was greater in 2022 than the median income of all U.S. households ($74,580). The median total household income for all family farms in 2022 increased from $92,239 ...continue reading "Fact of the day: Most family farms make no money"

The New York Times presents us today with this chart showing congressional retirements compared to the past couple of election cycles: It looks like everything is perfectly normal this year. Both Democratic and Republican retirements are right on track with their 2022 levels.

Ho ho ho: Congress has approved legislation that would prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without approval from the Senate or an Act of Congress. The measure, spearheaded by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), was included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed out of the ...continue reading "Republicans to Trump: We’re not pulling out of NATO"