Kevin Drum

The American economy gained 379,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate declined slightly to 6.2 percent. As usual, I’d caution everyone about interpreting these figures since they say more about the COVID-19 pandemic than the actual jobs situation.

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through March 4. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Marco Rubio responded today to President Biden's comment that reopening states too early is "neanderthal thinking":

President Biden’s use of an old stereotype is hurtful to modern Europeans, Asians & Americans who inherit about 2% of their genes from Neanderthal ancestors. https://t.co/aXHJV5wLlr

He should apologize for his insensitive comments and seek training on unconscious bias.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 4, 2021

Unless I've lost my sense of humor completely, I assume this is a joke. Why are so many people treating it otherwise?

Luckily for everyone, this UPS plane decided not to follow the arrows to San Diego.

Democrats in the House have passed HR1, an extensive package of voting reforms designed to fight back against the voter suppression efforts of Republicans. I find myself in an odd position about this: I firmly support passage of the bill, but I don't really care that much what's in it. Let me explain with a chart:

The chart starts in 1992, right before the motor voter law was passed. It goes through 2016, and thus includes all of the various Republican state laws enacted over the past couple of decades to restrict voting.

The results are pretty obvious: Voter turnout has been steady; Black voter turnout has gone up a bit; and both early voting and mail voting have increased. Roughly speaking, all those Republican voter suppression efforts just haven't had much impact on a national level.

On a national level. This is the key. On the level of individual states, it's likely that Republican efforts have been more successful. And this obviously makes a difference in Senate races, in the Electoral College, and in gerrymandering of House districts.

So here's the thing: it's absurd that state political parties are essentially able to control the voting process to their own advantage. No other democratic country that I know of allows this. Voting in national elections should be regulated at the national level, just as the Constitution suggests:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations...

Congress should set the rules for registration and voting and they should be the same for every state. This is so obvious that it barely even needs to be defended.

HR1 would do this. But once we've agreed to national rules, what should those rules be?  It's here that I think we have a lot of leeway. As the chart above shows us, national voting has been pretty steady despite the hundreds of individual laws passed over the past couple of decades. Things like Sunday voting, early voting, mail voting, ID requirements, and so forth haven't had a big impact. I'd be perfectly happy to compromise considerably on those details as long as the resulting rules applied equally to every state and territory.

Needless to say, this would also put a stop to the tidal wave of state lawsuits that consume so much time after every election. Very often these cases turn on state legislatures that have tried to change the voting rules at the last minute in a desperate effort to squeeze out a few extra votes for their party, and a national law would put an end to that.

I think it's unlikely that HR1 will pass in the Senate. No matter what it includes, Republicans will conclude that they have a better chance of winning by allowing Republican states to create their own rules. But you never know. It's possible that Democrats could attract a dozen or so Republicans by insisting on national rules but making substantial concessions on the details of the rules. My take—subject to correction from experts—is that Democrats will be in good shape as long as they know what the rules are;¹ Republicans will be satisfied if we agree to some of their hobbyhorses; and the country will be far better off if voting regulations are national. We should give it a try and see if Republicans are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

¹As an example, photo ID laws are one of the worst examples of Republicans trying to suppress the votes of groups that vote Democratic. And yet, it turns out their effect was minimal. The reason is that once Democrats understood the new rules, they were able to turn that into higher energy among Black and Brown voters to get to the polls. On net, then, photo ID laws worked in both directions and had only the smallest effect on election results.

Over at the Washington Post, Philip Bump confirms a suspicion of mine. Fox News has been going absolutely ballistic over the "canceling" of Dr. Seuss books but hasn't shown the actual offensive images themselves:

The Washington Post isn’t showing the images for obvious reasons, but they can be seen elsewhere. But you know who else has avoided showing the images? Fox News.

Instead, the network’s coverage is heavy on B-roll footage in which cameras pan across Seuss titles seen on bookstore shelves....None of the books shown there are among the ones which the Seuss estate has pulled from publication.

The reason for this is obvious. Here, for example, is one of the images:

This is so obviously offensive by today's standards that even the whitest Fox News viewer would cringe at seeing it. And that would ruin the whole schtick. If Fox viewers realized that the images in question actually were offensive, and not just the fever dreams of some lefty social justice warriors, they'd realize that Fox was duping them.

So no pictures for Fox! Much better to rail endlessly and let their audience assume that this is just some ridiculous liberal freakout over nothing. That's much better for ratings.

 

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through March 3. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Democrats in the Senate are negotiating the stimulus bill:

Like the House bill, the proposal under discussion would send $1,400 checks to people earning up to $75,000 and households earning up to $150,000, with those earning more receiving smaller payments. But the Senate proposal would end the checks altogether for those making $80,000 or couples earning $160,000, while the House measure had a higher cap of $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for households.

Apparently this would save about $15 billion from a $1.9 trillion bill.

A decade ago the 2009 stimulus bill got cut down from the (approximately) $2 trillion that it should have been to about $1 trillion. That was a mistake, but at least it's understandable. If you're a deficit hawk, that's a big chunk of money you've saved.

But $15 billion out of $1,900 billion? That's a cut of 0.8%. What's the point? Is it just part of an obsession with being able to tell your constituents that you helped cut a wasteful bill down to skin and bones? Does anyone buy this?

Here in Irvine the schools have been open all year, and today it occurred to me that I've heard . . . nothing . . . about this. No complaints big enough to make the paper. Apparently no dramatic deaths. Nothing. According to the school district:

Since resuming in-person instruction on September 24, IUSD and the Orange County Health Care Agency have found no evidence of student-to-staff or student-to-student transmission, and only two confirmed cases of staff-to-staff transmission. In each of these cases, physical distancing practices were not followed.

....Case rates remain extremely low and isolated. Our site rates have not come anywhere close to the state’s threshold for closing schools or other facilities.

Here's the current caseload throughout the district:

That's a total of 17 students out of 23,000 and 3 staff members out of 3,000.

Irvine is an upper middle class district, and obviously that makes a difference. And this is just one anecdote. Still, it's the real world and classrooms have been open for more than six months without any drama. It sure seems like this could be the case nationwide too.

Spring is sproinging, and our front yard garden is starting to bloom. This gave me a chance to indulge in my new obsession of panoramic photography, since our garden is so close to the wall that a single shot can't capture more than half of it. This picture, believe it or not, is made up of ten separate shots.