Kevin Drum

Ronna McDaniel spent the past seven years as chair of the Republican National Committee until Donald Trump fired her a few weeks ago. On Friday she was hired by NBC News on a reported $300,000 contract.

Today she was interviewed on Meet the Press. The interview was scheduled weeks ago, before McDaniel was hired, but it was still awkward. Longtime NBC political analyst Chuck Todd went ballistic afterward:

Let me deal with the elephant in the room. I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation because I don't know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn't want to mess up her contract.

....There's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination. So that's where you begin here. And so when NBC made the decision to give her NBC News' credibility you've got to ask yourself, "What does she bring NBC News?"

Kudos to Todd for saying this publicly, but I still have to ask: Now that he's no longer the anchor of MTP, Todd is willing to say that the RNC is basically a bunch of thugs and liars. Did he ever say that while he was the anchor of MTP?

Maybe he did! Please school me if he's ever spoken the truth about this before. Somehow, though, I doubt it. It's sort of like all those Republican members of Congress who stolidly go along with everything until they leave office, whereupon they suddenly admit their party has been a disgrace for years. Maybe say it a little sooner, guys?

Did you know that health care inflation has been lower than overall inflation for the past decade? It has:

This has kept Medicare costs nearly flat recently, though CMS projects this will change over the upcoming decade:

The reason for the increase is not because medical inflation is expected to be high. In fact, CMS estimates it will continue to be lower than overall inflation. It's because the leading edge of the boomer generation is starting to enter their 80s, when they'll require far more medical care than they have in their 70s.

A few months ago the LA Times ran a story about a serial squatter who rented an Airbnb guesthouse in Brentwood and then refused to move when her time was up. She ended up staying an additional 570 rent-free days.

Response: Nothing.

The Times tried again in February with a story about an abandoned office tower covered in graffiti. The story got some brief play, but that was all.

Response: Nothing.

Later in the month the Times wrote about a Hollywood mansion taken over by squatters. It included the titillating fact that one of the squatters was an OnlyFans model making "content" for her page.

Response: Nothing.

In Early March the New York Post tried its hand at the genre with a story about a squatter "living the luxe life" in a $2 million home in Queens.

Response: Nothing.

Finally, the LA Times got back in the game with a story about Flash Shelton, the "Squatter Hunter." For a fee of $5,000 or more, Shelton and his team "out-squat" squatters and get them to leave.

Response: Bingo! Fox News picked it up. Ben Carson got involved. Joe Rogan did a podcast and Elon Musk tweeted about it. Inside Edition did a segment. CNN, CBS News, the New York Post, and the Daily Mail all piled on. This is why you're suddenly hearing about squatters:

Stories about an "epidemic" of squatting have been common for more than a decade, and there's no reason to think it's on the rise at the moment. Even the LA Times piece about Flash Shelton admits "squatting isn't common" (in the 23rd paragraph), and says he's handled ten jobs "over the last few months" (in the 34th paragraph).

Still, if you push a button often enough eventually you'll get a response. That's how squatting finally went viral.

Obamacare has been around for ten years and it's been growing steadily more popular the entire time:

Even a third of Republicans have a favorable view of Obamacare these days. To put this into perspective, the overall approval rate for Obamacare is 59%. That compares to about 80% for Social Security.

And use of Obamacare has nearly doubled since Joe Biden was elected:

Expanded subsidies are probably the main reason for increased use of Obamacare, but not the only one. Following the pandemic many states started unenrolling people from Medicaid, and some of those who lost coverage switched to Obamacare. Overall, though, net coverage has gone up.

Here is the growth in the teen suicide rate since 2000:

I'd like you to notice two things. First, the rise in teen suicides begins in 2007 and ends in 2017. Second, the overall growth in teen suicide through 2022 is the same as it is for adults. Neither of these things seems consistent with the smartphone theory of teen depression and anxiety:

• Teen suicides start to go up well before the introduction of smartphones and social media, and the rise stops in 2017 even though smartphone and social media penetration continued to grow.
• Adults didn't grow up with smartphones or become nearly as addicted to social media as teens did. Yet their suicide rate grew just as much.

This is why I remain skeptical of the Jonathan Haidt/Jean Twenge theory that smartphones have wrecked American teens. The suicide stats don't fit. The research results are thin. And the state of American adults seems to be about the same as it is for teens:¹

It's obvious that something happened around 2012 or so, but it's happened equally to both teens and adults. This doesn't mean the smartphone theory is wrong. Maybe adults are affected as much as teens. But nobody seems to believe that, and it should make us cautious about accepting a theory just because two starting points² sort of match up—sometimes.

The smartphone theory really does seem to have some commonsense power to it, and I'm in favor of limiting social media use among young teens—though I'm not entirely sure how to do this. Still, I think something else is going on too. We just don't know what yet.

¹This is a complicated chart stitched together from several sources. It's meant to be suggestive, not definitive. The rate of teen major depression comes from Jean Twenge here. The teen depressive symptoms are an average of three questions on an annual survey, also from Jean Twenge as reported here. Adult mental health care comes from "Trends of mental health care utilization among US adults" here. The trend is extrapolated through 2022 using adult data from "Antidepressant Dispensing to US Adolescents and Young Adults" here.

²Smartphone use and teen depression both started rising at about the same time.

It's too early etc. etc., but I thought everyone could use a little dose of good news this morning. Joe Biden has been picking up support lately:

This is from the Economist, which updates its poll average weekly.

The big caveat, of course, is that this doesn't say anything about the polls in swing states, which are hard to track but still seem to be generally in Trump's favor. So any celebration is limited to one cookie, OK?

CBP released border numbers on Friday and they were about the same as last month:

Total encounters in February came to 190,000, of which 42,000 were migrants who made appointments for asylum through CBP's mobile app. The number apprehended crossing illegally was 141,000.

About 29,000 immigrants gained temporary residence via the CHNV parole program in February. Total numbers under the program are now nearly 400,000:

Through the end of February 2024, over 386,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans arrived lawfully and were granted parole under the parole processes. Specifically...79,000 Cubans, 151,000 Haitians, 64,000 Nicaraguans, and 91,000 Venezuelans arrived lawfully and were granted parole.

Here are my top ten traffic pet peeves. Some are fairly ordinary, some are probably sort of unique to me. Feel free to add your own in comments!

1. If you're going to make a turn, put on your blinker. Don't worry about whether anyone is around. Just do it.
2. Also: if you're turning right, move over to the right so other cars can pass. You don't have to make a tractor turn from the middle of the street.
3. If you want to drive at the speed limit on highways, that's fine. Just don't do it in the fast lane(s).
4. In parking lots, drive on the right.
5. Make a full stop at stop signs. But once you've done that you don't need to wait five seconds or three seconds or even one second. If the intersection is clear, just go.
6. In school zones, go 25 mph if children are present. But if children aren't present then drive at the ordinary speed limit.
7. At a stop light, don't leave ten feet between you and the car ahead of you. A couple of feet is plenty, and tighter spacing makes it less likely you'll block the left turn lane when traffic is heavy.
8. If you're in the right lane on a freeway, don't react to merging traffic unless you're forced to. This one sounds a little weird, but if I'm merging it's up to me to do it safely. This is a lot easier if you just keep doing whatever you're doing instead of slowing down or speeding up.
9. If you have the right of way, take it.
10. When turning into traffic, wait until traffic is clear. Being annoyed because you've already waited a long time is not a sufficient reason.

NOTE: Items #5 and #6 might vary depending on the laws in your state.

Remember a few years ago when Joe Biden was vice president and visited Israel? In a deliberate move to embarrass him, a right-wing minister chose that exact moment to announce 1,600 new housing units for Jews in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Well, even in their darkest moment, when US support is more important than ever, they're still at it:

Considering everything else Israel's leaders have done over the past year—and the past 20 years—I suppose this is small potatoes. You can just add it to the bonfire of insults and provocations that explain why, after 40 years of defending Israel at all costs, Biden has truly and finally had enough:

This is nuts: