Kevin Drum 🕸

Every once in a while everybody in the country should look at this chart and be agog. We're the biggest country in the G7 by far and the fastest growing by far. That's not a combination you see very often.

The FBI has been a roll against politicians lately. Here's the roll call of national figures under investigation, indicted, or convicted of federal crimes this year: Democrats Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar Presidential son Hunter Biden New Jersey senator Robert Menendez New York mayor Eric Adams Oakland mayor Sheng Thao Missouri Rep. Cori Bush Republicans Former ...continue reading "FBI investigation count as of this morning"

The third quarter is almost over, which means the Atlanta Fed's GDPnow estimate is probably pretty reliable by now. They're forecasting Q3 real GDP growth of 2.9%: Not bad. They'll have an updated forecast tomorrow.

Something popped into my head this morning that reminded me of the golden rule of student testing: Always disaggregate by race. So I did. I took NAEP reading scores for 2019 and 2022 and then added an estimate for 2023 from a Harvard/Stanford report earlier this year. Here's the result for 4th grade: Everyone except ...continue reading "Test scores have recovered from the pandemic — except among white kids"

The Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2023 came out today. Here's how we've been doing since the pandemic: This is a direct survey of how much money we've been spending. Short answer: After inflation, we're still spending more. And it's not because of debt. Since 2019, total debt per adult has increased a grand total of ...continue reading "Americans are spending more money than ever"

I almost forgot again that Wednesday is YouGov poll day. I guess maybe I have an excuse this week. Anyway, here it is: Harris is now three points ahead nationally and things have been bouncing around that level for weeks within the margin of error. There's just nothing much to say about this except the ...continue reading "Harris lead at 3% in YouGov poll"

Over at Vox, Zack Beauchamp has a piece today headlined "The 6 thinkers who would define a second Trump term." The gist is that the people surrounding Trump would no longer be establishment figures who try to rein him in, but true believers who will egg him on. And those true believers are all being ...continue reading "Is the modern world a spiritual hellhole?"

We all know about judge shopping, right? It's the practice of filing lawsuits in districts with only one or two judges, which guarantees you a friendly face if you pick the right district. It's most prevalent in north Texas, which has several districts that are helmed solely by business-friendly, anti-government, right-wing judges, usually chosen by ...continue reading "A (really flimsy) defense of judge shopping"

This is the new Gerald Desmond bridge in Long Beach. It's not really that new anymore, but this is the first time I've captured it at sunset. Two things of note. First, the view is better now that they've demolished the old Gerald Desmond bridge. Second, there were a whole bunch of electrical wires spanning ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The Wall Street Journal reports today about a massive Chinese cyberattack on US broadband suppliers: The hacking campaign, called Salt Typhoon...is the latest in a series of incursions that U.S. investigators have linked to China in recent years. ....Last week, U.S. officials said they had disrupted...a China-based hacking group called Flax Typhoon. And in January, ...continue reading "We are facing a typhoon of Chinese cyberattacks"

Finally the preliminary steel import numbers for August are here. They're down 2.4% from July. And whether you care or not, you are going to see who we get our steel from:

The New York Times has a lengthy report this morning about the monthlong campaign of destruction that Israel has imposed on the towns of Jenin and Tulkarm in the West Bank: For months, Israeli raids destroyed roads and other infrastructure that local officials said they repeatedly fixed, only to see their work razed again in ...continue reading "Israel is brutally destroying towns in the West Bank"

There's still no steel report, but we do have the latest estimate of home sales. It was down 2.4% in August: This is within a hair's breadth of the lowest level in the past five years (November 2023) and well on its way to busting the record. But maybe the Fed's latest rate cut, which ...continue reading "Raw data: Home sales in August"

I'm in the DOU, the Definitive Observation Unit, which means I'm being observed by a lot of nurses. However, since I'm untethered from all the usual machines that go beep there's nothing much to observe except for the blood pressure readings they take every four hours. And you know what? It's surprisingly pleasant to be ...continue reading "It’s 5:30 am. How much steel are we importing?"

Here's an estimate of US carbon emissions through 2023: Are we meeting our goals? It doesn't look like it. If you take out the pandemic year of 2020, we've been consistently above target by about 10% since 2018. More here in the Wall Street Journal.

I'm sitting in a hospital bed tonight after my first chemo injection and I have nothing to do. So let's play a game of AITA. Before I checked in, I had already decided to make a nuisance of myself over two things. The first is that I wanted to wear my street clothes instead of ...continue reading "AITA? Hospital version."

John Lanchester says today that the inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, "has for a century described economic reality, shaped political debate and determined the fate of presidents." Amen to that. I wish we could staple the CPI to the forehead of every adult in America.

This is a example of Zephyranthes in our front yard. According to Wikipedia, there are now about 200 species of this flower "following the expansion of the genus in 2019." Also: The name is derived from Ζέφυρος (Zephyrus), the Greek god of the west wind, and ἄνθος (anthos), meaning flower, referring to the slender stalks. ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Did you know that Joe Biden held a cabinet meeting on Friday? Probably not. Why would you? But wait. Did you know that Joe invited Jill Biden to speak to the cabinet about the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research? Probably not that either. Did you know that Jill sat at the head of ...continue reading "BREAKING! Joe Biden is too feeble to run a cabinet meeting."

My PSA score is now well into the normal, healthy range: I was somehow expecting something even lower, but I don't know why. According to the Kaiser test portal, anything below 4.5 is normal, so this is a very good result. I'm now down to only one cancer, for which I'll be getting a new ...continue reading "Health update"