Kevin Drum Quotes

In other words, in the same way that mass incarceration surged because of a real thing, it's finally starting to ebb because of a real thing: the actual, concrete decline in violent crime that started in the early 90s and which appears to be permanent. America is simply a safer place than it used to be, and looks set to stay that way.

The fallout from the Supreme Court halfway killing Obamacare would likely be more serious than conservatives believe...Even their own base, which has been told relentlessly that Obamacare represents the end of the America they love, might start to demand a fix once it becomes clear just what they’re missing - and what all those blue states with their own exchanges are getting.

There's no liberal equivalent of Donald Trump.

We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons, like lots of things, are done with uranium, including some bad things.

[Ronald]Reagan and[George W.] Bush were far more radical than other presidents.

Donald Trump lied about criticizing Mark Zuckerberg.Ben Carson lied about Mannatech.Carli Fiorina lied about the size of the tax code.Marco Rubio flatly refused to answer a question ("discredited attacks from Democrats") that I guess he didn't think he could just lie about. This is quite a debate.

The ability to focus on a single task for an extended period is a talent that’s underappreciated - especially by extroverts, who continue to exercise an unhealthy hegemony over most workplaces.

The folks who want to be left alone are the ones who actually get most of the work done, but they’re still mocked as drones or beavers or trolls. That’s bad enough, but now technology is helping the extroverts in their long twilight campaign against actually concentrating on anything.

Open office plans, cell phones, constant notifications: these are all things that fight against sustained attention on a task. For some people and some tasks, that doesn’t matter. But for a lot of important work, it matters a lot.

Smart hiring managers in the modern world should be asking, “How long can you concentrate on a task before you have to take a break?” I wonder how many of them do?

If you don’t want your followers to give up in disgust, your inspiration needs to be in the service of goals that are at least attainable.

I don't support everything Bernie Sanders supports, but I support most of it: universal health care, reining in Wall Street, fighting climate change, reversing the growth of income inequality, and so forth. If we could accomplish all this in a couple of years, I'd be delighted. But we can't.

The WHO took care to explicitly say that processed meat didn’t rank alongside smoking when it comes to cancer risk.

We stiffened the penalties for fraud, we extended nationwide efforts to make sure that payments are accurate and they closed a loophole in which people were gaming the system. We didn't change eligibility requirements or reduce the level of benefits.

On the Medicare side, they limited their cuts to far in the future, and to providers.

Apparently the Republican base got radicalized first, and Democrats picked up the ball later. Or something.

Democrats are awfully sensitive to losing power for a few years. I report, you decide.

Apple has never allowed ad-blocking software on the iPhone or iPad. This is one among many reasons that I ditched both. Not because I hate ads all that passionately, but because it's an example of the obsessive corporate control Apple maintains over its environment.

You're more likely to vote Democratic if you hate Republicans than if you love Democrats, and vice versa.

Apple is happy to allow users more control over their devices as long as it also happens to benefit Apple. If it doesn't, then tough.

Like it or not, war is not always the answer. The better part of wisdom is to stay out.

They [Republicans] assume that military action always shows strength, while avoiding military action always shows weakness. That's just crazy.

I'd like to see college debt levels drop by a lot, but I'm not quite sure what the best way to do that is.

If you want to make a difference in America, you need to be prepared for a very long, very frustrating slog.

Our system is a mess, but 90 percent of America has insurance coverage.