Kevin Drum

This is a young sandpiper examining its reflection in the water. Or maybe it's a stilt? In any case, it genuinely seemed to be mystified every time it looked down and saw itself in the marshy waters.

UPDATE: Yep, it's a black-necked stilt, about a month old.

Yesterday's mystery photo was a trick of sorts: it's just a picture of John Wayne Airport here in Orange County. Here's a wider view from a different angle:

There are lots of conservatives who are willing to criticize Donald Trump and the Trumpification of the Republican Party. OK, maybe not "lots." But a fair number. It's definitely a thing.

But are there any conservatives who are willing to criticize Fox News? There might be! I don't follow every conservative in the country. Can anybody name a dozen or three?

The bullshit just never stops:

So, investors supposedly panicked yesterday about COVID-19 even though there was nothing new going on, and then today they all took a deep breath and decided COVID-19 wasn't so bad after all. Seriously?

I wonder if anyone realizes that this kind of thing makes investors look really stupid? The truth, of course, is that no one knows why the market plunged yesterday and no one knows why it recovered today. But I'd say the unlikeliest explanation is a massive, coordinated, one-day freakout over a coronavirus variant that's been around for months.

I don't have a lot to write about at the moment, so I just want to take this chance to remind everyone that the last time a Republican was president he lowered taxes on corporations and the rich and raised taxes on the middle class. This chart shows the combined effect of the Trump tariffs and the 2017 tax bill:

I used the 2025 estimates for the impact of the 2017 tax bill.

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 19. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

This photo was taken a few years ago. Where is this plane taking off from?

UPDATE: golack was the first to correctly guess that this was good ol' John Wayne Airport here in Orange County, but gunther gets special props for detail: "To be more specific, the picture was probably taken in the parking lot a little south/southwest of the ACI Jet building off Campus Drive."

The Washington Post reports that Republicans are really and truly committed to a bipartisan infrastructure bill but have one itsy bitsy little problem still to solve: how to pay for it. What's their answer? To reduce funding by insisting that Democrats remove a provision that increases IRS auditing and forces rich people to pay all the taxes they owe. Can't have that!

Naturally, this means Republicans need more time:

Without that provision, Democrats and Republicans were left scrambling into the weekend to try to identify alternative ways to pay for their infrastructure blueprint.

....In the meantime, though, the clock continued to tick on their talks: On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to set in motion a Wednesday procedural vote to begin debate on the infrastructure proposal. With the package still in flux, the deadline greatly troubled Republicans, some of whom blasted Democrats for rushing already fragile negotiations. “Unless Senator Schumer doesn’t want this to happen, you need a little bit more time to get it right,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) stressed during an interview on Fox News Sunday.

Just a "little bit more time." Just a little bit! After months of negotiations, Republicans just need a few more days. Honest.

And if they don't get those few more days? Then the failure is all the fault of Democrats.

ffs, does anyone actually believe this stuff?

If you've been watching Fox News since last November, you believe that:

1. Democratic voter fraud was rampant in the 2020 presidential election, which Donald Trump probably won.
2. The 1/6 insurrection was a false flag operation of some kind that was planned and carried out by liberals, the FBI, and other parts of the Deep State who then tried to blame it on Trump supporters.
3. There is no reason to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
4. Our nation's public schools have been taken over by left-wing teachers who tell white kids that they should all be ashamed of being white.

If I were a multi-billionaire, what would I do with my money? Unfortunately, the really big problems—climate change, national healthcare, racism, etc.—are too big even for a billionaire. Only national governments can really address them.

Instead I would dedicate my fortune to destroying Fox News. I would do it any way I could. Marketing. Lawsuits. Boycotts. Talent poaching. Cable access. Making Rupert Murdoch's life miserable. You name it. Nor would I have any qualms about playing fair. You have a plan for a space-based laser that interferes with Fox News broadcasts and makes them unwatchable? Great! Here's a hundred million to give it a go.

Fox News may have started out with narrower goals, but today it's explicitly aimed at undermining American politics and getting us to hate each other. Why? Because it adds to the fortune of an Australian plutocrat who thinks that plundering the American public is a great way of becoming ever richer. Ditto for the on-air "talent," which has become rich by figuring out ever bigger and better ways of scaring the poor schmoes who trust them.

American politics is unlikely to recover until Fox News is reduced to rubble. Anyone know a billionaire who agrees?

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 18. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

I'm not trying to get everyone even more depressed about COVID-19, but I assume we all understand that the Delta variant isn't the worst possible thing that could happen, right? In fact, until we get the whole world vaccinated, it's almost a certainty that new, even more deadly variants will pop up now and again.

Anyone who's resisting vaccination should think about this long and hard. Sure, maybe your odds of getting/dying from COVID-19 are pretty low even with the Delta variant spreading around the country, but that might not be the case with future variants. They might be twice as contagious. Or three times. Or ten times.

What is a good bet, though, is that current vaccines will continue to work pretty well even on future variants. That's not guaranteed, but it's for sure where you ought to put your money.