Kevin Drum

I wish I could convince everyone that prison sentences in America are, across the board, way too long. All of them. Even the ones for crimes you personally think are unusually heinous. The nickel version of the argument goes like this:

1. Since the early '80s we've basically doubled sentences and doubled them again.
2. That was an overreaction, though to a genuine crime wave. The first doubling was arguably justified. The second wasn't.
3. Extremely long sentences barely affect crime at all, especially the very longest sentences. They have virtually no additional deterrent effect, and since people age out of crime it does almost no good to keep them in prison past their mid-30s. However, long sentences do ruin lives and cost taxpayers a lot of money.
4. Both common sense and common decency point the same way: pretty much every prison sentence in America should be cut in half or close to it.

Many liberals are open to this argument except when it's for something they especially disapprove of. But that's wrong. If you believe that we over-punish, then we should stop doing it. For everyone.

Take the kerfuffle over Joe Biden's mass commutation of sentences for prisoners who were released to home confinement during COVID and have had clean records ever since. It so happens that one of the commutations ended up going to Michael Conahan, the notorious "kids for cash" judge in Pennsylvania who sent thousands of teens to a for-profit prison in return for kickbacks. After being caught he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He had served 14 of those years when the balance of his sentence was commuted.

17 years! The fact that this probably didn't shock you shows just how inured we've become to ever more absurd sentencing. That's a massive sentence, even for a monstrous crime—and so is 14 years. It never should have been more than ten years at most in the first place, especially for someone who pled guilty and showed honest remorse.

But everyone is shocked not at the original sentence but at the fact that it got cut from enormously too long to merely way too long. We shouldn't be. Save your shock for the fact that Biden's commutations affected only 1,500 prisoners rather than the 90% of the prison population they should have.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is yet again running into his usual problem: He has a strong caucus that just wants to cut spending on everything, but on each individual topic he also has a strong caucus that wants to keep spending high. Meanwhile Democrats watch on blandly. The latest fight is over adding a few billion dollars to the upcoming farm subsidy bill:

Republicans in agriculture-heavy states and some Democrats have warned about a crippling economic crisis hitting rural America, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in the last election.

Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) said the farm aid “needs to be a part of any end of year actions. U.S. farmers across our nation are simply at the end of their debt and equity resources,” Duarte said.

Is this true? The USDA maintains vast resources dedicated to farm income, but the complexity of the farm sector combined with the complexity of US farm subsidy programs make it all but impossible to extract reliable numbers for the things non-experts like us are interested in.

But let's take a crack at it anyway. First, here are farm subsidies over the past couple of decades:

These figures don't include all indirect subsidies, which are mostly price supports. I think. In any case, these are still pretty close to correct as totals and give you the basic lay of the land. Subsidies were fairly steady until they skyrocketed in 2019 and 2020 to make up for Donald Trump's tariffs and then the COVID pandemic. Since then they have indeed fallen to recent lows.

But that's not the whole story. About two-thirds of all subsidies go to big commercial farms—which account for only 10% of all farms but the vast bulk of farm acreage.

So how much do subsidies affect farm income? Here is approximate total US farm income before and after subsidies:

Income has fallen from its pandemic heights but is still well above its recent average. However, here's some context: The only farms that make money from farming are big commercial farms. Non-commercial farms (both small and medium size) make about -$2,000 per year in farm income. Essentially all of their income comes from outside jobs and government payments.

Keeping that in mind, here is median total household farm income:

This is median, so it's not affected by the outsize income of commercial farms. The bottom line is that small and medium size farms do OK compared to the average household. They just do it mostly with non-farm income.

What does this all mean? Subsidies have definitely declined. If you're not anti-subsidy in general it's pretty easy to make a case for boosting them back up to their pre-pandemic level.

However, the macro evidence doesn't suggest that American farms are in great distress. They're down from pandemic peaks, but basically doing fine—with the caveat that for most of them "fine" is due to outside income, not farming itself.

Finally, if you're hard-hearted you might take a look at this and conclude that smallish farms are doomed and we should accept reality and let them all get bought out by productive commercial farms—and then cut subsidies completely since corporate agriculture can hedge good and bad years without any help from Uncle Sugar. This is especially appealing because even small farms are generally worth well over $1 million. Selling out the family heritage may be emotionally distressing, but it does have monetary compensations.

But that's only if you harbor coastal elitist disdain for our hard-working yeoman heartland farmers. Which you probably do, don't you, since you're all just a bunch of sniveling, woke, keyboard-clacking leftists who have never done an honest day's work in your lives.

As I was poking around to learn more about our East Coast drone invasion, one question kept popping into my head: Why New Jersey? I may have found the answer:

New Jersey is a Drone Industry Trend Setter

The state’s drone task force avidly promotes drone technology for initiatives related to traffic management, structural inspections, and aerial corridor 3D mapping.... In addition, the state passed a law that indemnifies drone fliers against lawsuits from New Jersey landowners for use of their property for drone overflights.

....New Jersey’s proximity to New York, where the drone industry is more tightly restricted, has also made it an attractive platform for drone operators seeking access to airspace shared by the two states. Drone air shows, for example, can be freely staged from the New Jersey side of Hudson River.... New York-based companies can also conduct drone operations at some of their facilities located in Jersey City to advance their business interests at home.

According to the Mercatus Center, New Jersey is the third most drone friendly state out of the ten highest density states:

There you have it. Most of the mysterious sightings have turned out to be ordinary aircraft or commercial drones with FAA-approved lighting, but not all of them. Some number of them remain unexplained.

But the New Jersey mystery is probably solved. It's the highest density state in the country by a bunch and is extremely drone friendly. So there are lots of drones flying around and lots of people to see them. Add to that New Jersey's reputation for, um, excitement, and it all starts to make sense.

The Washington Post reports that in North Carolina only 15% of households affected by Hurricane Helene have applied for FEMA assistance. That's half the rate of Georgia and South Carolina, even though they sustained less damage. You'll be unsurprised to learn why:

Local advocates and some inside FEMA say the barrage of conspiracy theories about the agency and a lack of knowledge about FEMA’s role in responding to disasters has discouraged and angered residents.

On Oct. 3, then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump stood onstage in Saginaw, Michigan, and falsely stated that the Biden administration didn’t have any money for hurricane relief and that the officials “stole the FEMA money … so they could give it to their illegal immigrants.” Other influential figures also propelled a range of conspiracy theories across the internet, exacerbating fears and tensions among residents and federal workers on the ground.

Around that time, applications fell and never bounced back as officials had hoped.

Trump's bluster and lies may have won him the White House, but not without cost. Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering needlessly because Trump has made them afraid of applying for loans or even no-strings cash grants:

For local volunteers such as Vicki Randolph, Oct. 4 was when “everything changed.”... Per usual, she said, they asked residents: “Did you apply for your FEMA?”

“And this one day, 100 percent of the people we talked to said ‘We don’t want the government to come around here. We have guns if they come around here,’” she recalled. “I had no idea why this was happening until I found out what had been said on television.”

It's not just Trump, either. The entire Republican noise machine joined in the lies because they figured it might give Trump a 1% better chance of winning an important swing state. What a bunch of depraved pieces of shit.

Hmmm:

The topic here is a defamation suit Donald Trump filed against ABC News last March. It's one of the zillions that Trump files regularly and loses just as regularly. But for some reason, only a few days before Trump would have been forced to sit through a damaging deposition, ABC caved and agreed to pay Trump $15 million plus $1 million in legal fees.

This might make sense if ABC had a disastrously weak case and just needed to pull the plug. But they didn't. Trump had sued over an interview George Stephanopoulos did with Rep. Nancy Mace where he repeatedly asked how she could support a man who had been found "liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll case. Trump protested that the jury found him liable only for sexual abuse, but the judge later clarified this:

The label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”

....[This] definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of “rape” in common modern parlance.... The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.... The proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump
deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.

Sorry for the long excerpt, but I wanted to provide judge's full context. In short: Trump was not liable for rape under New York's stringent legal requirements, but he did rape Carroll as the term is commonly understood in modern usage.

It doesn't matter if the judge was right about this. It's what he wrote in an "official public proceeding," which means it's privileged and can be freely quoted as long as the source is noted. Stephanopoulos would have argued he did exactly that when he explicitly said, "the judge affirmed that it was rape."

Would he have prevailed? That's impossible to say, but he sure seems to have a strong case. The jury found that Trump had jammed his fingers into Carroll's vagina; a judge said that met the common definition of rape; and Stephanopoulos then cited the judge.

So why did ABC roll over with barely an effort to defend itself? It's a good question. It might have to do with the fact that ABC is owned by Disney, which recently fought with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for over a year and eventually paid a stiff price. Maybe they weren't up for another mud wrestling bout with the MAGA crowd.

But one way or the other, their decision seems to have been based on fear, not legal weakness. They were afraid of the retribution Trump might be able to mete out as president. And in this they aren't alone. Trump's revenge-based MO has proven remarkably effective. It's not clear what it will get him in the long run, but in the short run it's already earned him groveling fealty from politicians, foreign leaders, corporate CEOs, and now a major media outlet. This is unique—and uniquely chilling—in American presidential history.

And anyway, how big a deal is a $15 million contribution settlement? For Disney—net profit in 2024: $7.6 billion—it's barely noticeable. Best to just stay safe and write the check.

I've gotten my second ramp-up dose of Tecvayli and everything is fine so far. My brain is complibikkprrr clear.

Blood sugar is the new hotness. Last time I was here no one cared about it. This time they're pricking my finger five or six times a day to keep track of it and getting excited if it's too high or too low. I'm not sure why they're suddenly so concerned when no one ever has been before. All that's happening is that my glucose level is shooting up temporarily after I take the dex, but they're getting excited anyway.

Did I ever show you my A1C after three years of weekly dex? No? Don't pretend you don't want to know.

I've taken dex off and on for the entire ten years of multiple myeloma, but there was a three-year period of constant dex when I was taking darzalex/pomalyst/empliciti, and toward the end of that period I asked for an A1C test. Shazam! 10.6. But then I stopped the dex in preparation for the CAR-T treatment and within a few months it was down to the low sixes. It's bounced around there ever since.

This has produced endless confusion about whether I "have diabetes." My latest score, for example, was 6.5, which just barely puts me in what's normally considered diabetic range. But for some reason, a few months ago the Kaiser computer decided the normal A1C range for me extended up to 7.4, so my score is OK. Sort of. Depending on who's looking at it.

And all the pre-meal finger-prick tests have been consistently around 105 after the dex wears off, which is just lovely. It's the equivalent of an A1C around 5.3.

So . . . I don't know. I guess I'm high enough that I should be careful about things, but not so high that I need to panic.

Pretty riveting stuff, eh?

Shadi Hamid says that liberalism is simply unable to cope with the idea of assisted dying:

A political philosophy built around individual autonomy eventually runs into questions it can’t answer. Why should we preserve life if someone doesn’t want to live? Should the state have the right to facilitate the death of its own citizens? These aren’t just abstract philosophical puzzles — they’re questions that real bureaucrats are answering every day in countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and now Britain.

I'm a liberal and I can answer this question just fine. The problem is not with liberalism, the problem is only that Hamid disagrees with the liberal answer.

The question he should be asking is not why the state should have the right to "facilitate" a desire to die. It should instead be why the state—as it does—has the right to get in the way. We spend millions on netting under bridges to keep people from jumping off. Helium tanks are partially filled with oxygen to prevent it being used as a way of ending life. Lethal medication is tightly regulated to prevent "unauthorized" use. Right to die legislation often restricts medical assistance to those with less than six months to live.

But why should the state should have any opinion one way or the other about this? My family? Sure. My pastor? Sure. But in the end, legal "assisted" suicide is misnamed. It's really just a narrow exception to the otherwise nearly universal prohibition against ending your life if you want to.

I don't understand why anyone—and certainly not the state—should be intent on forcing people to continue living against their will. Nor should the state care why someone wants to die. What could possibly be a more personal decision?

Should we be worried about a slippery slope if we take this attitude? I don't think so. There have always been a small number of people who want to end their lives, but it's never become widespread and it never will. We are powerfully programmed by evolution to continue living even under horrific conditions.

That said, I favor minimal state assistance for ending life. There are two reasons for this. First, it allows the state to continue taking vigorous steps against accidental or spur-of-the-moment suicide (bridge netting, restrictions on lethal meds, etc.). Second, it requires a person to affirmatively choose to die, and I guess I'm enough of a squish to think that at least a few soft barriers should be in place.

And this is for adults only. The problems with extending this to minors are pretty obvious, I think.

For my entire adult life—and I do mean entire—we've been having precisely the same argument about Daylight Saving Time—and I do mean precisely the same. There are two sides:

• Make it permanent so we have more evening light all year round.
• That's a bad idea. Children would have to go to school in the dark during winter.

This never changes. Twice a year newspapers roll out the same stale DST thumbsuckers copied from the previous year. You know the drill: It started during WWI, Arizona and Hawaii don't use it, etc.

There's long been a substantial cadre of DST fans who want to make it permanent. For example, Donald Trump:

There's also a substantial cadre of opposition to permanent DST, which is what's kept the clock-changing status quo in place. The one thing there's never been is a substantial movement to completely eliminate DST. Until now:

So, seriously, where did this pop up from? Has there ever been any hint that Trump felt this way? Is it some kind of Elon Musk obsession? Or maybe RFK Jr. convinced him it was unhealthy? Or he decided that standard time was God's time? Does anyone know what the deal is with this?

Donald Trump's agenda is taking shape. Apparently he plans to ditch the post office, deregulate the banks, ban polio vaccines, bomb Iran, eliminate daylight saving time, and gut the FBI. I don't really remember any of that stuff from the campaign, but I guess it must have been what we all voted for.¹

Good times are coming, my friends. Good times.

¹Well, 29.7% of us, anyway.

I'm bored, so I finally decided to find out what the Caitlin Clark kerfuffle is all about. I clicked on a Fox News story because, hey, if I'm going to dive in I might as well do it in the deep end, right? But first, here's what she said, complete and unabridged:

Going into the WNBA season, [A'ja] Wilson, a two-time league champion and now three-time WNBA MVP, told the Associated Press she thought Clark’s race was a “huge” contributor to her popularity. “It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug,” Wilson said. “That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”

Clark is cognizant of the racial underpinnings of her stardom. “I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” says Clark. “A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that. The more we can elevate Black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing.”

So Clark, asked about the racial undertones surrounding her rookie season—which were pretty relentless—first acknowledged her "Great White Hope" reputation and then politely said Black players are really good and we should support them all we can. Basically her usual low-key effort to get along. Six sentences total from a multi-hour interview. Now for the commentary:

Well, it happened. Caitlin Clark finally bent the knee to the insufferable, gaslighting, disgusting, race-baiting woke mob.... Anyway, Clark got her roses, and then proceeded to bend the knee to the mob.... Caitlin Clark bends the knee to an invisible mob.... Why did the best player in the WNBA — by a laughably wide margin — crumble like a cheap tent?

Wow. I mean, sure, Clark mentioned white privilege in passing, and no self-respecting conservative can pass that up. But even for a MAGA die-hard doesn't this seem a little overwrought? Is it that infuriating just to briefly acknowledge that Black people are pretty good basketball players? The MAGA mind virus is a powerful thing.