Author: Kevin Drum

Here are average weekly earnings for full-time workers:

Since 2000, men's earnings have gone up 0.16% ($2) per year in real terms. Since 2019, men's earnings have gone down 0.08% ($1) per year.

Since 2000, women's earnings have gone up 0.67% ($6) per year in real terms . Since 2019, women's earnings have gone up 0.76% ($7.50) per year.

NOTE: This is the median for full-time workers and does not include those who don't work or work only part-time. Thus, it doesn't account for the fact that fewer people are working than in 2000. Compared to 2000 levels, about 300,000 more women are working and 2 million fewer men.

As preparation for my leukopheresis next month, when T-cells will be extracted from my bloodsteam, my body needs to be cleaned up as much as possible. That means stopping the chemo treatments. Hooray! But yesterday I learned that it also means stopping the Evil Dex™. Doubleplus hooray!

I already feel a little better, and within another two or three weeks I should be feeling pretty good. Then, a few weeks after that, it will be time for the CAR-T treatment and I'll go back to feeling crappy. But then, a few months after that, I'll be fine again!

There's an ironic problem hovering over all this, though. I took up my astronomy hobby because I was looking for something I could do on dex days, when I'd be awake all night anyway. But now it's possible that I'll never take dex again, which makes astrophotography a bit of a problem. Will I be able to stay up all night and still be alert enough to drive home in the morning? Or will I be able to sleep a bit in the car while the telescope does its thing?

Next week I plan to find out on a test trip for three different deep sky objects, including the C/2022 E3 (ZTF) comet, aka the "green comet." I'll report back.

On Monday, CBS News published a report saying that "a small number" of classified documents had been discovered while cleaning out Joe Biden's old office at the Penn Biden Center. Subsequent reports put the number of documents at about ten.

On Wednesday, NBC News reported that more classified documents had been found in Biden's garage at his home in Wilmington. Later reports put the number at about ten.

On Thursday, the attorney general appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the situation.

Today the White House announced that another six classified documents had been found in a room "adjacent" to the garage.

Shortly after the first report I called this whole thing a nothingburger, and I stand by that on substantive grounds. But on media grounds, I said that one reason the story didn't have legs was because "there's no reason to think that any further documents will be found, which would have provided the drip-drip-drip that stories like this need to stay alive."

That was sure wrong! It's been a whole week of drip-drip-drip so far, and who knows what will happen next. There's still probably nothing here, but there's not much question that it will be a media show for quite a while.

A new study is out that tries to measure the effectiveness of social media advertising campaigns in political races. The unique part of this study is that it makes use of an actual advertising campaign during the 2020 presidential contest that deliberately held out a control group so that its effectiveness could be measured:

We present the results of a large, US$8.9 million campaign-wide field experiment, conducted among 2 million moderate- and low-information persuadable voters in five battleground states during the 2020 US presidential election. Treatment group participants were exposed to an 8-month-long advertising programme delivered via social media, designed to persuade people to vote against Donald Trump and for Joe Biden.

The funny thing is that I think the authors underrate their own results. For example, here is turnout for Republicans and Democrats:

The authors say, "We found both small mobilizing effects among Biden leaners and small demobilizing effects among Trump leaners." But this is a net difference of 1.8% in turnout. In most political campaigns this would be considered pretty substantial and the price tag of $8.9 million for five states pretty modest. Most campaign managers in battleground states would be thrilled with it.

Basically, I think you can say two things here. First, on an absolute basis this study shows a fairly small effect. Second, within the context of a close political race, it shows a very substantial effect.

I must be missing something here. The Washington Post reports that Republicans are getting ready to pass a bill that mandates precisely how the Treasury Department handles a breach of the debt ceiling. In particular, it would specify which bills have to be paid and which can be blown off. The must-pay bills are likely to be these:

• Social Security
• Medicare
• Military
• Veterans
• Interest on the national debt

The curious thing about this is not the choice of which bills to pay. It's a pretty conventional list. The curious thing is why MAGA Republicans are so hot to put this down on paper. It's purely symbolic since it will never become law, and it opens up Republicans to pretty obvious attacks:

“Any plan to pay bondholders but not fund school lunches or the FAA or food safety or XYZ is just target practice for us,” a senior Democratic aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a proposal that hasn’t yet been released publicly.

Yes, exactly. I mean, this is roughly what Democrats are going to do anyway, but you might as well make them work for it. Why go to the trouble of opening the door to the shooting range yourself instead of making them kick it down on their own?

There's a truly remarkable story unfolding in Pittsburgh right now. About a year ago the city council passed a bill instructing police to stop pulling over drivers for eight specific minor offenses:

1. Expired tags within 60 days
2. Technical violation of temporary permit display
3. Loose license plate
4. Single broken light
5. Stickers on windshield or hanging from mirror
6. Lack of proper bumpers
7. Expired inspection certificate within 60 days
8. Expired emission inspection within 60 days

But sometime during the first week of 2023 the acting police chief, Thomas Stangrecki, wrote a memo telling traffic officers to ignore the law and return to pulling over people for any violation, no matter how minor. There was no reason given.

Well, almost no reason. Stangrecki cited a new state law that pretty obviously has no relevance, and then this:

Stangrecki told WESA another reason for the reversal was to boost morale among the city’s police ranks. He said he’s received steady feedback that the ordinance is “preventing them from doing their jobs.”

Police morale depends on being able to pull over motorists who have recently expired tags? Or a single broken tail light?

We've unfortunately gotten accustomed to police departments essentially extorting city councils into not crossing them. That's bad enough. But in Pittsburgh they're not bothering with stuff like a blue flu or a million dollar campaign to toss out unfriendly council members. Too much work, I guess. Instead they're just flatly telling the council to fuck off and leave them alone.

It doesn't matter whether you agree with Pittsburgh's law. It's still the law, and police aren't allowed to flout it just because they don't like it. But they are.

Hilbert is such a magnificent cat.

Here's the difference between political junkies and normal people:

Me, political junkie: Can you believe this shit? Gas stoves! They think we're going to take their gas stoves away from them. What a bunch of lunatics. This been going on for almost a week now just because some bureaucrat made a comment about gas being dangerous for kids. Don't conservatives even care that their children are going to develop asthma? And what's wrong with induction stoves, anyway? They're great! Even professional chefs like them. And it's better for the environment, too. But no. It's another round of "Liberals want to take away your ______ ." I'm so sick of this shit. Yesterday, nine out of 20 posts on the front page of the National Review blog were about fucking gas stoves. These guys just . . .

You, a normal person: Huh?

As a bit of stretching before the real workout, here's a 10,000 foot view of federal spending in FY22:

The federal deficit in FY22 was $1.4 trillion and we're supposed to get that down to zero. The rules are that (a) you can't raise taxes, and (b) you can't cut defense. Other than that, swing that axe! Let's find out which of you has the stoniest heart in the land.

CNN has infiltrated deep into the bowels of the Republican Party to return this stunning scoop about their priorities for the coming year:

A slide shown in GOP Conference meeting showed the budget and spending priorities for the 118th Congress, including tying the debt ceiling to spending cuts pic.twitter.com/9h1EVQT9ku

— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) January 10, 2023

I am shocked, shocked, to learn that Republicans plan to insist on a balanced budget within ten years and are pretending they can do this solely by cutting domestic spending programs.

Paul Krugman is first out of the gate with a genre of column that used to be popular in Paul Ryan's day, pointing out that it's mathematically impossible to do this without cutting Social Security and Medicare. Which it is. About a thousand of us will eventually cave in and go through the arithmetic, even though we all know it doesn't matter. Republicans will (a) refuse to say what they want to cut, and (b) claim that they will enact tax cuts that supercharge the economy and send tax receipts through the roof. Take that, liberals.

It's the same old crap back for another round. I almost object more to the fact that Republicans are so tedious than I do to the fact that they're so petty and malignant.