Author: Kevin Drum

Do you like pictures of butterflies? I sure hope so, because on Wednesday we visited Vienna's Schmetterling Haus and I spent some time collecting photos of the (alleged) 400 species of butterflies they boast.

The star of the show was the blue morpho, because they're big, bright, blue, and flying around by the dozens. The blue morpho is blue on the inside and brown with a large eye on the outside. They don't seem to land much, which made it very hard to get a good shot of them.

The top photo is a pair of blue morphos, showing their blue insides brilliantly backlighted by the glass of the greenhouse. The bottom photo shows another pair, one with wings spread and one with wings up so you can see both sides.

For the fourth month in a row, illegal border crossings remained steady at a high but non-catastrophic rate:

Total encounters in April came to 180,000, of which 41,000 were migrants who made appointments for asylum through CBP's mobile app. The number apprehended crossing illegally was 129,000.

Busy day today! The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of liberals again:

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a broad challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reversing a lower-court ruling that would have undermined the watchdog agency created by Congress 12 years ago.

The CFPB case is one of several the Supreme Court heard this term that challenge the power of federal agencies, long a target of conservatives concerned about regulation and government bureaucrats whom they see as unaccountable to the public. In a 7-2 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court upheld as constitutional the bureau’s funding mechanism — which is based on profits from the Federal Reserve, rather than an annual appropriation.

This was a ridiculous case claiming that the CFPB was funded unconstitutionally because it doesn't require an annual appropriation from Congress. Instead, it draws whatever funds it needs from the Federal Reserve—which itself is self funded. This means the CFPB is doubly insulated from Congress, which supposedly created some kind of magical quandary that the Constitution prohibited. This is despite the fact that the text of the Constitution is crystal clear:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law....

CFPB funding is plainly "made by Law," which is all that's required. The details are left for Congress.

Nonetheless, the usual suspects on the Fifth Circuit were willing to uphold the right-wing challenge because, hey, that's what they do. But even the current conservative Supreme Court wouldn't play along with them. The only two who dissented from the ruling were Alito, who's hopeless, and Gorsuch, who's becoming more Alito-like all the time.

And Clarence Thomas got to write a majority opinion of some importance! That doesn't happen very often.

A new study is getting a bit of attention for its startling claim that Facebook use is associated with more votes for Donald Trump. Maybe so, but take a look at the key chart:

This chart shows the results of deactivating Facebook and Instagram six weeks before the 2020 election for several thousand users. Note two things. First, Trump's favorability is entirely unaffected by social media use. Second, Facebook deactivation reduces the Trump vote but Instagram deactivation increases the Trump vote.

The combination of these two things makes it unlikely that the Facebook effect is real. I would be very skeptical of this result unless it's replicated multiple times in future elections.

I know you will be shocked by this headline in the Wall Street Journal today:

This is pretty plainly code for "never," since Hamas will never be entirely defeated and Netanyahu has no intention of ending the Gaza war or agreeing to any kind of political plan for Gaza in the future. Instead, it will most likely remain under Israeli occupation with no end in sight, just like the West Bank. This is the lesson Netanyahu has learned from his long-ago decisions to exit Gaza; agree to elections in Gaza; and (sotto voce) conspire with Hamas in Gaza for the past couple of decades. As far as he's concerned, the only path to relative peace is to keep Palestinians firmly under an Israeli boot, full stop. Gaza's future is to be West Bank 2.0.

Today brings yet more evidence that the Supreme Court is not quite the conservative steamroller we often make it out to be:

The Supreme Court restored a congressional voting map in Louisiana on Wednesday that includes an additional majority-Black district, handing a victory to African American voters and Democrats less than six months before the November election.

Oddly, the three liberals dissented, for reasons that went unexplained. In any case, this overturns a lower-court decision and pretty obviously gives Democrats an additional safe seat in a red state.

Yesterday we toured Schönbrunn Palace, and when we got to the ballroom our guide asked if we knew how long imperial balls lasted in the age of Maria Theresa. The obvious answer is "a few hours," with the exact length variable. But here's how things went:

Short silence, then someone pipes up.

"24 hours."

"Three days!"

"A week."

"Never. There were no imperial balls." (We were literally standing in the imperial ballroom.)

This is an impressive example of groupthink. We've all seen a million period movies and TV shows where people show up in the evening for balls and then leave later in the night, all gossiping about who caught the eye of Baron Handsome and who danced with Countess Beautiful. Nevertheless, because one person in our group thought it was a trick question and answered "24 hours," everyone followed along, each trying to outdo the others even though their answers made no sense.

Is this a good story? Beats me, but I'm easily amused. In any case, the answer turned out to be 2½ hours, because that's how long imperial candles lasted.

And here's the ballroom itself. It was surprisingly small. Add some musicians and chairs, and imperial ballgoers must have been packed in like sardines. That's fine in winter, but Schönbrunn was a summer palace. These must have been uncomfortable affairs even aside from the torture chamber clothes they all had to wear.

A trio of academic researchers are concerned that most Americans don't know how pregnancies are dated. It turns out I didn't know either. I've always assumed that pregnancy is dated from conception and lasts about 39 weeks.

Nope. Pregnancies are dated from the start of the mother's last menstrual period, which is usually about two weeks before conception. The average gestation lasts a hair over 38 weeks, for a total of 40.

Does this matter? The authors suggest it does because it means "6-week" abortion bans are actually 4-week bans dated from conception—when it's unlikely a woman even knows she's pregnant. So it's an important distinction.

I suppose. My own take is that the whole point of a 6-week ban is to seem a little less extreme than the zealots while still effectively prohibiting all abortions. So it's not as if the dating distinction is just an innocent mistake that needs explanation. It's all part of the plan.

Via Stefan Schubert, here's an interesting chart:

The sudden increase in the 1860s is likely due to the invention of reliable guns, which made assassinations a lot easier. But what's up with the big increase starting in the '50s and then dropping away in the early 2000s? Why were there a record number of assassinations in the '70s?

Those of you who have put up with me for a long time will recognize this particular shape immediately: it's nearly the same as the violent crime trend caused by automobile lead. That trend was worldwide, which explains why it might also underlie an international assassination trend.

This isn't a perfect fit, since it peaks in the '70s, but even more than crime there are probably lots of other conditional factors that affect assassination trends. So we shouldn't be surprised with a loose fit instead of a tight one.

Alternatively, lead might not have anything to do with assassinations. But I'll bet it does. The world has, in general, just gotten less dangerous over the past few decades since the end of the lead era. It will get less dangerous still as the late lead phaseouts in the Middle East take full effect by the end of this decade. Unleaded gasoline may be the most important invention of the entire postwar era.

I've made this point before, but it's worth making again: inflation at the grocery story has been very, very low for over a year. Here is monthly inflation in groceries:

Over the past 12 months, inflation in groceries has averaged 1.1%, way below the normal rate.

The press ran about a million pieces when food inflation was high, complete with the usual B-roll of clanging cash registers and highlights of whatever product happened to be up the most. And they're still writing them!

But food inflation is nearly zero. When will they start writing about reality? That is:

• Food inflation has been super low for over a year now.
• In April prices went down.
• Compared to a year ago, eggs are down 9%! Apples are down 13%. Seafood is down 3%. Coffee is down. Citrus fruits are down. White bread is down. Peanut butter is down. Lunchmeat is down.

And this has all been happening while average wages have gone up 4% in the past year. You'd think all of this would be of some interest to news consumers.