I thought I had heard every leftist slur against liberalism, but “liberals killed rock” is definitely a new one jacobin.com/2026/05/popt...

Eagle eyed commenter @gojomo.bsky.social pointed out Claude made an oopsie on the math here. I've redone the rings with corrected math, and it's way better now imo.

Another way of looking at our giving over the past 8 years.

As @jonrobinson2.bsky.social says, Democrats are good

It also means moderation on specific issues—particularly issues where a party is out of step with the public—may yield bigger electoral gains. These gains will still be small, though—meaning moderation across *many* issues is likely needed for parties to make a meaningful dent.

Yes, I AM obsessed with learning how to win elections! (from @gelliottmorris.com) And because this is social media, I will share my obsession w/ you. Starting tomorrow, I'll share one recent study on winning elections per (work?) day But first, why am I obsessed with how to win elections? Because:

Research Obsession Day 1: What do we know about the impact of creators? And what does it have to do with Elon Musk? Featuring this incredible research by @eunjikim.bsky.social, Nate Lubin & others: arxiv.org/pdf/2512.15401

New dream job just dropped: pewtrusts.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/CenterExtern... Pew Research Center is an extraordinary organization, and this is such a fantastic opportunity. When I was there, I felt like we were building mountains of data and only able to showcase a tiny slice of what was there.

I look like I’m praying for land value tax

The top 16 links @avizenilman.bsky.social sent his wife Noreen Malone this year that she did not open, from @maxread.info maxread.substack.com/p/the-read-m...

Elie is awesome and the Givewell story is a huge part of why we built Good Ventures to do leveraged philanthropy at scale.

I was also bored and pulled up the replication package. The results are quite sensitive in aggregate to needing the controls. Here's the replication of Figure 3, including the case w/o controls:

This is really disappointing from msifry.bsky.social, who I expect better from. Not only is the title ad hominem clickbait, but the substance of the post is simply wrong. We have to train ourselves to listen to evidence, even if it doesn't say what we want it to.

“We’re going to prevent all mergers” just means the mergers will happen when the other guys are in charge. Hopefully next time Dems will have a more thoughtful approach and facilitate some mergers on terms they find acceptable.

I think this is mostly San Francisco finally shrugging off the pandemic, but it is *really* funny that rent prices in San Francisco shot up *immediately* after the city banned RealPage and other algorithmic price setting software. My pre trends are incredible!

@natalifg.bsky.social will go on @wamu.org to talk about our housing crisis here in MoCo but at the same time she BRAGS about only rezoning ~1/3 of the properties in the new University Boulevard plan initial Planning Board proposal? Lower building heights + reduced density? What am I missing?

As far as I know not much has been written about the behind the scenes stuff on HR 1, but this post from Bruenig (who definitely is not a moderate!!!) on Childcare gets at a lot of the same dynamics. www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2022/04/19/t...

Base strategies are good at turning out your base. Just one small problem.

we asked the Moore administration to share their housing proposals well before session—and they delivered. introducing Moore Housing 3: 🏡 lot splits 🏡 smaller minimum lot sizes 🏡 allow townhomes statewide 🏡 permitting reform marylandmatters.org/2025/08/19/d...

"what is ideology?" the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,893 hours of heated debate,,,

This footnote on the NYT analysis that has been ciculing around tells exactly the pain Connecticut has been causing on those of us using national county-level data 😅😫😭

Storm/Death Cab partnership when?

My math here is Walmart has about $20B net income on $700B of sales. So they can eat about a 3% average price increase (vs 10%+ tariffs) before becoming a nonprofit organization.

I've also posted a critical note challenging the @nber.org paper that @michaelwiebe.bsky.social critiques here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

in 2009, this parking lot two blocks from the Silver Spring Metro was approved to become offices and a hotel. thanks to Marc Elrich, it will be a parking garage. if you're wondering why taxes keep going up, it's bc he's literally giving the store away bethesdamagazine.com/2025/04/11/c...

"Here are my regression coefficients. I'm sorry the numbers on the slide are so small. I'll read them to you."

Because Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's "Abundance" is less a book than a discourse-generating machine (by design), I'm going to review the *reviews* (I also have a review of the actual book coming, I'm not a total weirdo). Roughly from worst to best:

the single-stair and the ADU bill are both carried by @vaughnstewart.bsky.social, Maryland's housing MVP who for years has been pushing for more homes and a fairer housing market. I'm so grateful to see his hard work bear fruit, and to watch Maryland's nascent pro-housing movement grow.

Tired: I don't work at Meta Wired: I don't work in Congress (no but really, PSA - Rep. Moskowitz is a different person than me, no relation)

In business and in many other areas of life, a lot of confusion comes down to correctly distinguishing the difference between selection and treatment effects. I couldn't find a good explainer today, so I made one.

the most surprising and disappointing aspect of becoming a global health philanthropist is the existence of an opposition team

NYT Pitch: Just as Ukraine irresponsibly goaded Russia into invading it by being worried about invasion, Democrats are to blame for Trump becoming Putin’s ally, due to the inexcusable act of accusing him of already being one.

Just like writing is thinking and teaching is learning, I find that I often build little spreadsheet models of the world in service of improving my own understanding.

In case anyone needs it -- the tariffs are underwater (as of 2/2/25). The illegal federal firings are underwater. Just *3 percent* of voters wish Elon Musk was "more influential" in the government. I did not conduct this poll but if anyone wants help convincing their MC to act on it, let me know.

Main page is ups for me BUT they took down the 2020 Census data www.census.gov/2020results

Pissed off today? Just sad? Frustrated? If you're a mid-career Dem staffer, join our masterclass seminars. Featuring: @mattyglesias.bsky.social @tarensk.bsky.social @adamjentleson.bsky.social Let's learn from 20 years of RCTs & brainstorm about what we don't know--register today! www.war-room.us

People don't really think any of this! Overestimates of small proportions are a quirk of general innumeracy, not genuine misperceptions. See research by @brianguay.bsky.social et al: —PNAS forthcoming: www.brianguay.com/files/guay_2... —Psychonomic Bulletin 2017: link.springer.com/article/10.3...

@justupthepike.bsky.social, as usual, powerfully outlines what is at stake here. We already paused A pause is a “no” that you feel too guilty to say out loud. The county hurts itself, and its current and future residents by preserving the status quo.

Fair Vote and Lake Research asked 3rd-party voters which major-party candidate they'd have voted for (or abstained). They favored Trump 55-27, & his support was highest with Jill Stein's voters! Stein: 67-21 Trump RFK: 60-27 Trump Oliver: 36-31 Trump (27% abstain) (Via @jonrobinson2.bsky.social)

I have never been so thoroughly owned

Marc is still big mad about our poll that says MoCo Democrats support zoning changes that could create more homes for more budgets, telling Kojo Nnamdi “They don't know what the efforts are, and they're misled.”

Apparently, Marc Elrich also "always enjoys" lying about people who have the gall to disagree w/ him. According to his Kojo Show interview the people who support more attainable housing here are either "hardcore ideologues who basically hate suburbs" or "misled". Look in the mirror, Marc!

Biased but I think this is a great hire and excited to see where TransAlt goes under Ben’s leadership.

Since I am suddenly inundated with statistics-oriented followers, I should post again that I am still conducting free weekly open office-hours for anyone in the world with Econometrics questions, Wed 10-12AM Eastern or by appointment. Details and sign up at donskerclass.github.io/OfficeHours....

I will say that being a YIMBY is a bit like being Jewish in that it's another excuse for people to call me a rootless cosmopolitan who is party to a conspiracy that is somehow both Marxist and ultra capitalist

Really incredible reporting by @justupthepike.bsky.social‬ and @jonrobinson2.bsky.social at GGWash. They analyzed who signed up for listening sessions for Attainable Housing Strategies and found opponents are unrepresentative of the community: older, whiter, wealthier.

public meetings rarely look like the public and Montgomery County is no different. over the past few weeks @jonrobinson2.bsky.social and I have analyzed who came out to "listening sessions" on a big zoning proposal this fall and you can see our findings here ⬇️ ggwash.org/view/97613/c...