The Daily Chart
September 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Last week we noted that newsrooms skew more heavily Democratic than ever, and the AllSides report this was based on has additional ways of viewing the problem: If you think this heavy skew doesn’t affect news coverage, if only by selection bias, then I have Florida swampland and a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. A separate survey of elite opinion by our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity
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September 23, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The Washington Post has published a possibly major story about how climate scientists have recreated the earth’s temperature record for the last 485 million years. Paleoclimatology, as it is called, is based on a wide range of ingenious “proxy” measures (fossil records, ice core samples, geology, astrophysics, etc) to estimate temperatures in the distant past up to the present. How solid are these measurements? I have no idea, and I
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September 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward
As noted here previously, the recent British election produced the anomaly of a huge Labour Party majority in the House of Commons with barely a third of the total vote, basely above Labour’s share in the wipe-out election of 2019. And Labour has installed the mild-mannered Kier Starmer as PM, though beneath the benevolent veneer of Starmer and his cabinet is a current of deep leftism. Their ideas are not
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September 19, 2024 — Steven Hayward
We’ve presented graphs and charts before of the ever- widening ideological gender gap between especially younger males and females. There’s fresh data out from Gallup that goes beyond general dispositions (i.e., “liberal” vs. “conservative”), and adds a look at specific issues:
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September 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The Pew Research Center is out with new survey data on the identity label the left prefers for Hispanics, the mockable “Latinx.” Awareness of the label among Hispanics has increased substantially over the past few years, but—they still don’t like it, and almost no actual Hispanics (outside of faculty roomsAA) use it. In fact, the proportion of Hispanics who think the term shout not be use has risen: So we
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September 17, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Glenn Reynolds likes to refer to mainstream journalists as “Democrats with bylines,” and the most recent data from Syracuse University substantiates the point: In other words, newsrooms increasingly have the same political diversity as university faculty rooms—virtually none at all. (And don’t be fooled by the rise of “independents” in these results. I have no doubt a careful survey of so-called “independent” journalist would find they differ almost nil from
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September 16, 2024 — Steven Hayward
While we are distracted by uneaten cats chasing laser pointers that are somehow pointed once again at the nation’s pre-eminent Taylor Swift hater, Bruce Mehlman points us to some data on the issue map as it relates to the election contest—you know, actual issues, like the economy, and other quaint things. The economy remains the number one issue for voters, and while Trump maintains a lead over Harris, that lead
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September 13, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is a fact that the public never seems to grasp that government makes vastly more on the sale of each gallon of gasoline than the oil companies and refiners do, in the form of excise and sales taxes. If the government really wanted to make gasoline more affordable, they might suspend their taxes in the summer, when seasonal demand drives up the price. This step is never proposed. Likewise,
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September 12, 2024 — Steven Hayward
What do fire departments do these days? Put out fires—duh. And occasionally rescue cats from trees and other traps, a specialty that may see increased demand in Springfield, Ohio, just now. In fact fire departments are mostly adjuncts to EMS services these days, for reasons that I’ve never quite understood. How does a 911 call for someone having a heart attack trigger the response, “we better send an engine company,
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September 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The United States is providing military assistance to both Israel and Ukraine, and although civilian casualties are likely far higher in Ukraine than in Gaza, for some reason almost no one is calling for a cease-fire in the Ukraine-Russia War. Why this disharmony? I think we know the reason why. The other notable thing about this chart is that the European Union is suppling no military aid to Ukraine—only humanitarian
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September 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Conservatives like to point to the Progressive Era for the turn in constitutional philosophy that paved the way for the administrative state that then got into business during the New Deal. Though this is account is true, it is not complete. As the chart below of Federal Register pages—a rough measure of bureaucratic and regulatory activity—shows, the administrative state doesn’t really reach escape velocity until the 1970s, under Presidents Nixon
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September 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Herewith some practical news you can use as your plan your travel. I think it is important to know, when going overseas, which countries do—and do not—have Irish pubs: Next, when driving in the U.S. and you want to plan for the highest probability of finding a McDonald’s or Popeyes, then you want to stay on interstate corridors:
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September 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is generally well known that electricity rates in Europe are higher than in the United States because Europe got a head start on green energy madness, and have heavily taxed energy for much longer than we have. But there is a lot of variation among European nations, just as there are among the 50 states, and for the same reason: widely different energy source portfolios and regulatory regimes. The
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September 5, 2024 — Steven Hayward
So Kamala says her proposed tax on “unrealized” capital gains (which is just a wealth tax by another name) would only be applied to the very very rich. Who can afford it because as we know all rich people are fully liquid. But I digress. More to the point: does anyone believe this promise? For one thing, an unrealized capital gains tax on anything other than publicly tradable financial assets
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September 4, 2024 — Steven Hayward
By all indications the only thing the upcoming razor-close election will settle is that America remains a 50/50 nation. It has been this way now for 30 years, and is one reason among many for the increasing bitterness of our political polarization. One thorough treatment of this issue is political scientist Morris Fiorina’s 2017 book, Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate. Although the book is obviously dated, its
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September 3, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Last week John posted up this chart showing that depression rates among liberal women have soared in recent years. Maybe liberalism should come with a warning label at women’s health clinics? Further to the point, I wonder if there is a correlation between the high rates of depressed young women and this survey finding:
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September 2, 2024 — Steven Hayward
If you corner a political campaign manager after a couple of drinks, they will tell you that the hardest problem the face today is how to reach voters in our fragmented media environment. Once upon a time you bought ads in network TV and the local broadcast stations in your area. But that strategy has collapsed. The mainstream media has squandered its credibility, and every day reveals itself to be
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