2:00PM Water Cooler 7/12/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Great Horned Owl, Racine, Wisconsin, United States. “Half way through this recording, I was able to locate the GHOW approximately 20 m away, located ~ 7-9 m up in an ash tree where the trunk split into two. As it vocalized these atypical calls, it slightly leaning forward with tail slightly raised with each phrase given (as a GHOW typically does when calling). Near the end of this recording, it switched to its more familiar call/’song’.”

Who? Who?

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

Good, decent, etc., etc.:

Since Biden took office, the Pentagon budget has grown by $212 billion and the budget for social & economic programs has shrunk by $30 billion: pic.twitter.com/tQEfVVH6LQ

— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) July 11, 2024

But not an issue, of course.

2024

Less than a half a year to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages: CTUTP

Second post-debate polling: No massive swing to Trump that I can see. It would be hilarious if the Biden Debate debacle had exactly the same effect as Trump’s 34 bazillion felony convictions, i.e., none, both parties are so dug in. Of course, the Biden “buzz” (yesterday) is bad, and may yet have an effect. And who, may I ask, is making the buzz? Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error.

* * *

“Behind the Curtain: Committee to Unelect the President” [CTUTP] [Axios]. Important. Note that Axios (like the TImes, as we saw two days agp) is a player, not a journalistic enterprise as we typically understand them (not that there’s anything wrong with that). They also have form: Their “scoop” of a “deluge” of post-presser defections turned out to be twelve, so you can discount to 25%. That said, it’s an interesting article about the Flexians* trying to take Biden down. I’m leaving out all the names to make the structures more salient. “President Biden beat back the initial public campaign by Democrats to oust him from the party’s presidential ticket, swiftly and decisively. But very-connected Democrats, mostly veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations, are plotting hourly to get him to withdraw quickly…. This loose anti-Biden network is growing by the day — and is circulating polls showing Democrats would shoot from sure losers to big winners with a new ticket. Some donors are talking of a massive financial commitment to any non-Biden presidential ticket.” And the strategy: “These Democrats see the race in stark, black-and-white terms: Just three states matter — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That’s the Blue Wall, all of which Biden won in 2020. And they see an obvious solution: Forget the niceties of backing Biden or even Vice President Harris. Be ruthless about finding the two people most likely to win those three states.” Sounds like (spook-adjacent) Big Gretch for the Upper Midwest, to me; I think she’d do well in Pennsylvania, too. More: “No one is more than one person away from everyone else,” a central player told us. And almost all are one step away from former presidents Obama or Clinton.”** More: “No one’s sure the pressure campaign is working. It all depends on Biden, who controls the party’s delegates and cannot be defeated for the nomination if he stays in — no matter how bleak the outlook for November.” Emphasis in the original. And: “The committee includes… Former Obama aides, former Clinton advisers, elected Dems, swing-seat Dems (“This is the group that really matters”), the donor class, late-night liberals, N.Y. Times Opinion, Biden aides busily leaking. Axelrod concludes: “President Biden is a historic figure, and a lot of that is gonna be tainted if he persists and loses this race. The people around him have [a collective] hundreds of years of campaign experience. They know how to interpret data. They know how to read the moment. It’s just a question of whether their affection for him clouds that.” • As far as interpreting data, we can throw out all the Clintonites after 2016. And I don’t think the donor class, late-night liberals, or N.Y. Times Opinion know anything about data at all. Frankly, if these excresences were scraped from the Democrat Party, it and the country would be better off. Who exactly do these people represent but themselves?

NOTE * Janine R. Wedel, “Beyond Conflict of Interest: Shadow Elites and the Challenge to Democracy and the Free Market,” Polish Sociological Review. “Flexians exhibit the following four features: One, they personalize bureaucracy, working across government, business, think tanks, media, and national borders in pursuit of their own agendas…. Two, flexians privatize information, while branding conviction. Flexian’s cachet is in information: their access to and control of official (or should-be official) information… Three, flexians juggle roles and representations. These operators share the pattern of overlapping, mutually influencing, and not always fully disclosed, professional roles…. Four, flexians relax rules at the interstices of official and private power. They flout both democracy and the free market. In so doing, they change how business is done, either temporarily or more lastingly. The result, often, is the interdependence of official and private power—the disappearance of conflict of interest, because the players define the interest.” If you look at all of the “bold-faced names” in the Axios piece, Flexians they are.

NOTE ** A Flex-Net, a network of Flexians. “Members of a flex net achieve their shared goals in part by undermining the rules and standard sprocesses of the government they supposedly serve and supplanting them with their own.” For example, substituting a “mini-primary” for the real (however flawed) primary.

* * *

Let’s try to get our arms round the detail with some buckets:

The Calendar

Lambert here: The date for the mid-July virtual convention has not been set, indicating that the succession crisis within the Democrat Party has not been resolved. But–

“Is it too late for DNC delegates to abandon Biden? A look at the Democrats’ nomination process” [FOX]. “Though Biden has not indicated he plans to withdraw from the race, if he were to do so, his delegates would no longer be pledged to him. His withdrawal would lead to an open convention, resulting in Democrats being able to make suggestions for potential nominees and cast votes until one candidate receives a majority of delegate votes. ‘Biden has a hammerlock on those delegates and alternates. Only he can release them if he wants, and he’s not gonna release them,’ Craig Shirley, a presidential historian and biographer of former President Reagan, told Fox News Digital.” True, Democrats could “vote their conscience” to “reflect the sentiments of those who elected them,” but on current data (see charts below) that means Biden. More: “A potential [note “potential”] date for Biden’s nomination is July 21, the day the Democratic National Convention’s credentials committee meets virtually.” • That’s nine days away. The CTUTP had better get cracking!

“Democratic delegate rules, 2024: Pledged vs. automatic delegates” [BallotPedia]. “Pledged delegates are elected during primaries, caucuses, or party conventions, and must express either a presidential candidate preference or an uncommitted preference as a condition of their election. Rule 13(J) of the Democratic National Committee defines a pledged delegate’s responsibility: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.” Automatic delegates are unpledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Automatic delegates, who are often called superdelegates, are not required to pledge their support to any presidential candidate. Automatic delegates include members of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic members of Congress, Democratic governors, or distinguished party leaders, including former presidents and vice presidents. They are free to support any presidential candidate of their choosing. Following the 2016 presidential election, the Unity Reform Commission was formed to revise the Democratic nominating process, including reducing the number and power of automatic delegates. At the conclusion of the party’s national convention on August 25, 2018, officials voted to adopt a measure banning automatic delegates from voting on the first ballot at a contested national convention.”

“Democratic delegate rules, 2024: Replacing a presumptive nominee before the national convention” [BallotPedia]. “The Democratic and Republican parties do not formally nominate candidates until delegates vote at the party’s national convention. The Democratic National Convention will take place from August 19-22, 2024, and the Republican National Convention will take place from July 15-18, 2024. A party’s presumptive nominee, meaning the candidate who receives an estimated majority of delegates after state nominating events, could be replaced at the convention. Delegates could elect a candidate who they were not initially bound to at the time of their state’s election. Both state law and party rules govern how a delegate must vote at the national convention, including whether a delegate remains bound to a withdrawn candidate and for how many rounds a delegate remains bound to a candidate.”

“Replacing a nominee between the national convention and the election” [BallotPedia]. Under Article 2 of The Bylaws of the Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has the responsibility to fill vacancies in presidential and vice presidential nominations between national conventions. In the event of a vacancy on the national ticket, the chairperson would call a special meeting. Under Article 2 § 8(d), questions before the DNC, with some exceptions otherwise outlined in the charter and bylaws, are determined by a majority vote of the DNC members who are present and voting by proxy. The bylaws also state that voting to fill a vacancy on the national ticket must proceed in accordance with procedural rules adopted by the Rules and Bylaws Committee and approved by the DNC. It is important to note, however, that states require political parties to submit names of presidential and vice presidential nominees and presidential electors before election day in order to certify them for the general election ballot. Deadlines vary by state and depend on the election calendar, including early voting, voting by mail, and absentee voting considerations.”

Lambert here: Getting the Biden’s pledged delegates to “vote their conscience”, a floor fight, or “declaring a vacancy” will take take planning, time, and effort, across the entire party. Who’s doing that in the CTUTP?

* * *

Staff changes take time and cause friction:

Some of the reporting is cryptic, but one of the factors perhaps influencing everyone’s behavior is that Biden’s staff would presumably like to be “in charge” or heavily involved in a Harris campaign, whereas donors etc. might be inclined to totally clean house.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 11, 2024

The DNC

“DNC Chair Jaime Harrison: No Doubt Whatsoever That Biden Should Be Nominee, “Lock Your Knees”” [RealClearPolitics]. Harrison: “Listen, 14 million people in 50 states, in our five territories, in DC, and our Democrats abroad went to the polls, did caucuses, and voted for Joe Biden to be our nominee. Without any hesitation and equivocation, I am saying Joe Biden, who had over 90% of the delegates to the DNC convention, is the nominee for our party. So folks, it’s time to follow the lead of the CBC. It’s time to follow the lead of the CHC and what we saw with labor yesterday. It’s time to lock your knees, stiffen your spines, and get on board to support this president. If you’re spending more of your time on TV talking about Joe Biden than talking about Donald Trump and Project 2025, folks, you got to do a course correction.” • Harrison came up through Clyburn’s operation. More from Harrison:

Once again if you want to gauge whether someone can do the job… then dammit look at how they have been doing it for the past 3.5 years!

Some folks always looking around for the newest thing when we have had the most transformational president/vice president duo in the last 40… https://t.co/vcvfu5lhCe

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) July 11, 2024

And:

We need to elect President @JoeBiden because he’s a president who Gets. Stuff. Done. pic.twitter.com/KbDjz3Bh56

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) July 11, 2024

Hard to walk back from.

From the hustings:

“As leaders of the Democratic Party representing New England, the Mid Atlantic states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, we strongly support Biden/ Harris.”

The DNC Eastern Region Caucus executive committee unanimously supports President Biden and VP Harris. pic.twitter.com/avebeycSZg

— Raymond Buckley 👨‍⚖️🫏🌊 (@ChairmanBuckley) July 11, 2024

I need to track down other statements like this (if any).

“Former DNC chairperson shares support for Biden” [Associated Press]. “Another prominent Black Democrat is making clear that she won’t jump ship on President Biden. Donna Brazile, the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman who managed Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000, said in a brief interview Friday that she is ‘ridin’ with Biden’ and that he remains able to do the job and campaign effectively to keep it. ‘I don’t know when we all decided that a president has to be perfect,’ she said. ‘It’s not like he’s out on bail and carrying 34 felony convictions.’”

Electeds

“Obama, Pelosi privately expressed concerns over Biden” [CNN]. “Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have spoken privately about Joe Biden and the future of his 2024 campaign. Both the former president and ex-speaker expressed concerns about how much harder they think it’s become for the president to beat Donald Trump. Neither is quite sure what to do. Democrats are desperate for the dispiriting infighting to end so they can get back to trying to beat the former president. And they’re begging either Obama or Pelosi to help them get there, aware that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the trust of Biden and that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doesn’t have the depth of relationship to deliver the message. CNN spoke with more than a dozen members of Congress, operatives and multiple people in touch with both Obama and Pelosi, many of whom say that the end for Biden’s candidacy feels clear and at this point it’s just a matter of how it plays out, even after Thursday night’s news conference.” • For “multiple people” see the discussion of Flexians and Flexnets at the opening of this section.

“Superdelegates” [Steve Waldman, Interfluidity]. “The only person with any democratic mandate to choose a successor to Joe Biden as Democratic Party nominee is Joe Biden himself, who won a Democratic Party primary open to the public at-large. Putting aside endlessly contestable arguments about legitimacy, the whole point of switching horses is risk management. The only reason Joe Biden would and should step down is if he is sure his replacement would have a much stronger shot of winning the general election. Throwing the dice on an unpredictable disorganized contest, one that might become bitterly divisive and even inspire rioting or violence at a Chicago Democratic Party convention, does not meet that bar. By the time of the convention, the identity of the Democratic nominee will be a fait accompli. Not-really-elected delegates will not decide, and should not decide. There are two supedelegates. They will decide. The first superdelegate, of course, is Joe Biden himself. The second superdelegate is Kamala Harris. No change of ticket can occur without Harris’ enthusiastic endorsement. One way to win her endorsement is to put Harris at the head of the ticket. That might be a reasonable option! But observers underestimate Harris by presuming that she herself — me! me! me! — is the only alternative candidate that she would endorse. Harris ran in a Presidential primary, and withdrew quickly when she realized the electoral stars would not align for her. The Biden-Harris Administration will study the politics of potential tickets as best it can. There may be some degree of bias, some tendency to overestimate the strengths and underestimate the deficiencies of a Harris-led ticket. But some degree of bias will be a limited degree of bias. If the Biden-Harris Administration comes internally to a conclusion that a different candidate would have a much stronger shot, Harris is not such an egotist that she will risk throwing the country to Donald Trump in exchange for a lottery ticket to become President. Of course, Harris will negotiate a cabinet position for herself, or a quiet promise of favorable consideration should a vacancy arise on the Supreme Court. But she will not stand implacably in the way of whomever the administration determines to be the strongest contender. The most likely outcome of all of this is just what it was before the miserable debate. Most likely, the general election will be a contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.” • I love the idea of buying off Kamala with a Supreme Court seat.

“House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with President Biden” [Associated Press]. “Jeffries of New York said in a letter to colleagues Friday that he met with the president Thursday evening and ‘directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together.’” • Whatever “the path forward” might be.

CBC, Black Women

“Rep. Clyburn: Let Biden ‘make his own decision about his future’” [WaPo]. “When asked whether the conversation within the Democratic Party should continue about Biden’s future, he replied, ‘No.’ ‘The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative to his election and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions about his future,’ said Clyburn, a staunch ally of the president. ‘He’s earned that right, and I am going to give him that much respect.’ The comments a day after Biden participated in a high-stakes news conference echo those that former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made this week when she did not directly call for Biden to step aside but subtly reframed the discussion. She indicated that, despite Biden’s insistence, the matter of his candidacy was not settled.” • And we still don’t know how Pelosi will exercise the option she created.

“Black Democrats are emblematic of a House torn over Biden” [WaPo]. “The Congressional Black Caucus — roughly 60 House Democrats who represent Biden’s fiercest champions — earlier this week seemed to publicly embrace the president, even before a virtual call in which he promised to have their “backs” in the same way Black Democrats have always had his. Private conversations suggested a statement of support from the crucial bloc was imminent after a faltering debate performance two weeks induced panic that the president could not beat Donald Trump in November. But that statement never came. Following their Wednesday luncheon, many Black House Democrats started to voice private concerns about Biden’s electability and the potential downstream effects on vulnerable lawmakers running in swing districts, four people familiar with the discussions said. And there was increased finger-pointing at the White House and those in Biden’s orbit who members believe are not properly guiding the president by refusing to focus on issues that would resonate in their districts and help solidify support for Biden. Some are suggesting staff changes should be made.” • Sounds like the staff changes are the key ask…

AKA is a powerful Black sorority:

🧵🧵🧵I spent the day at the AKA convention in Dallas where VP Harris spoke and I am still hard pressed to find a Black voter who thinks it’s a good idea to push President Biden off the ticket even people who are mega fans of Harris. I am just not hearing this from Black voters.

— Eva McKend (@evamckend) July 11, 2024

Donors

“Biden admin opens line with crypto industry amid icy relations” [The Hill]. “The Biden administration opened a line with the cryptocurrency industry Wednesday, as the White House and Democrats find themselves increasingly at odds with powerful players in the digital assets space. Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Biden, met with dozens of crypto leaders in her personal capacity on Wednesday at a roundtable organized by crypto-friendly Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.).” • Ka-ching! Take that, Hollywood!

The Spooks

No “deluge,” however:

Moments after Biden presser ends, the top Democrat on House Intelligence calls on Biden to step aside. https://t.co/sJdyumGroE

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 12, 2024

Mark Warner hasn’t come across my feed recently. Am I missing something?

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump on Cruise Control Before Convention” [The Bulwark]. “Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican who flew to the Doral rally with other members of the state delegation and spent time with Trump, said it was “remarkable” to see how calm the candidate is. Waltz co-chaired the Republican National Convention’s platform committee and said Trump personally edited the platform document twice and made sure it was written in a more colloquial style (it sounds like one of his speeches, the Washington Post noted). This year’s document differs markedly from the previous platform (which dates from 2016 because the party decided not to adopt a platform in 2020). Its length was reduced from 66 pages to 16, and the prior platform’s opposition to gay marriage was eliminated. It also, as Joe Perticone notes in Press Pass today, deemphasizes abortion, a big issue for Trump, who realizes it’s a general-election drag for Republicans. And it includes his call for mass deportations of illegal immigrants, a popular issue according to polls, even with Hispanic voters. When Trump mentioned the idea at his Tuesday rally, the heavily Hispanic crowd applauded.”

* * *

Biden (D): “Biden Opens Two-Front Fight in Bid to Save 2024 Reelection Bid” [Bloomberg]. “On Friday, he’ll head to a campaign event in Detroit, taking that effort to the crucial swing-state of Michigan. Next week, he’ll look to shore up his standing with key Democratic blocs with a stop Monday in Austin to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act — an attempt to also counterprogram the Republican National Convention which starts that day. That will be followed by visits to the NAACP National Convention and a gathering of Latino activists.” • This reminds me of a passage from Parkinson’s Law, on engineering succession without a crisis:

The problem, it is now clear, is to make X retire at the age of 60, while still able to do the work better than anyone else. The immediate change may be for the worse but the alternative is to have no possible successor at hand when X finally goes. And the more outstanding X has proved to be, and the longer his period of office, the more hopeless is the task of replacing him. In this, as in so many other matters, modern science is not at a loss. The crude methods of the past have been superseded. In days gone by it was usual, no doubt, for the other directors to talk inaudibly at board meetings, one merely opening and shutting his mouth and another nodding in apparent comprehension, thus convincing the chairman that he was actually going deaf. But there is a modern technique that is far more effective and certain. The method depends essentially on air travel and the filling in of forms. Research has shown that complete exhaustion in modern life results from a combination of these two activities. The high official who is given enough of each will very soon begin to talk of retirement. It used to be the custom in primitive African tribes to liquidate the king or chief at a certain point in his career, either after a period of years or at the moment when his vital powers appeared to have gone. Nowadays the technique is to lay before the great man the program of a conference at Helsinki in June, a congress at Adelaide in July, and a convention at Ottawa in August, each lasting about three weeks.

We’ll see how Biden holds up on the trail.

Biden (D): “Kalamazoo, Michigan Democratic Voters: ‘Relieved, He Should Stay In’” [RealClearPolitics]. “Biden voters at a Western Michigan senior center offer mostly positive opinions on the president’s Thursday press conference with CNN’s Gary Tuchman. Two said Biden did about as well as they expected on Thursday, while five said it was better than they expected. One who liked Biden but was ultimately undecided said she was ‘relieved’ and Biden ‘should stay in’ the race. A second previously undecided voter said: ‘The same, I think he is the logical choice.’ One who said Biden should ‘pass the torch,’ said: ‘I think he conveyed more defensiveness versus confidence, and I think we are really craving to be confident about the candidate.’ ‘I think Joe Biden did an excellent job,’ another pro-Biden voter said, ‘I’ve always been confident.’” • A tiny focus group of older white women, but also an indicator that Biden has suffered no slippage in that demographic FWIW.

Biden (D): “Take a cognitive test NOW, Joe: You owe it to the voters and America” [New York Post]. “President Biden should listen immediately to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who said Wednesday: “I don’t think that it would hurt” for the embattled prez to take a cognitive test. That’s an early contender for understatement of the millennium. And Biden’s ongoing refusal to get tested — or at least release the results of any secret ones he’s had — amounts to a direct and brazen lie to the voters he’s asking to trust him with four more years in the most powerful political office in the world.” • Big Gretch slips in the shiv. Thing is, these verbal slips aren’t in the same category as cog slippage such as 51 million people in the debate:

I’m old enough to remember that George W. Bush would puke up garbled nonsense every time he opened his mouth & the entire establishment would rush to assure us that it was just a charming quirk & he was really smart & competent despite appearances.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) July 12, 2024

We Democrat bloggers did endless dogpiling on Bushisms, plus armchair psychology, and it never amounted to a hill of beans. This aspect of the current dogpile — not all aspects — reminds me of that.

Biden (D): “Biden Can’t Spin His Way Out of This” [Peggy Noonan]. “I don’t agree with the narrative that what was revealed in the debate was a sudden and dramatic decline. What he has been showing, for at least two years, is a steady and unstopping decline. In January 2022 we worried here about the president’s propensity for ‘unfinished sentences, non sequiturs; sometimes his thoughts seem like bumper cars crashing and forcing each other off course.’ In April 2022 we wrote of a poll in New Hampshire that asked if Joe Biden was physically and mentally up to the job if there is a crisis. Fifty-four percent said, ‘not very/not at all.’ In June 2022 we said there’s a broad sense it’s not going to get better: ‘He has poor judgment and he’s about to hit 80 and it’s not going to change.’ Voters feel ‘unease.’ In December 2022: Mr. Biden doesn’t think he’s ‘slipping with age,’ but he’s wrong. ‘He’s showing age and it will only get worse, and he will become more ridiculous, when he’s deeper into his 80s.’ Trusted Biden intimates must tell him to get out of the race. ‘You got rid of Donald Trump. You got us out of Afghanistan. You passed huge FDR-level bills that transformed the social safety net. . . . You did your job in history. You fulfilled your role. And now you should go out an inspiration.’ In September 2023 Mr. Biden had been busted in the press for telling tall tales that didn’t check out. We noted that while repeated lying is ‘a characterological fault, not knowing you’re lying might suggest a neurological one.’ ‘The age problem will only get worse.’ ‘In insisting on running he is making a historical mistake. . . . He isn’t up to it.’ What we saw in the debate isn’t new. That’s why voters won’t accept the idea that it was just a bad night. They think it’s been a bad and worsening two years.” • Commentary:

Many of us who had to care for people in cognitive decline, saw what was clearly going on with Joe Biden 4 years ago. We saw it then and we definitely see it now. https://t.co/x1Btmo2ui1

— AshleyStevens (@The_Acumen) July 12, 2024

“After Biden’s debate performance, the presidential race is unchanged” [NPR]. “The race for the presidency remains statistically tied despite President Biden’s dismal debate performance two weeks ago, a new national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds. Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate. In this poll, he leads Trump 50% to 48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump holding the slightest advantage with 43% to 42%. Those numbers, though, do not represent statistically significant differences, as the margin of error in the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could be 3 points higher or lower. The poll also found that, at this point, no other mainstream Democrat who has been mentioned as a replacement for the president on the ticket does better than Biden.” • This article has a lot of interesting charts:

On potential replacements for Biden:

You can argue that Biden will, as it were, depreciate faster than the other three. But how much before November (unless Jon Stewart panics the staff and they turn the campaign trail into a death march).

On mental fitness (supports Nooners):

On whether it’s better for a President to be old, or to be a liar (goes unmentioned by Nooners):

On character generally:

Fascinating that with independents, character is pretty much a wash.

<— Our Famously Free Press

–>

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Maskstravaganza

Masking tips:

Earloop-wearing #YallMasking friends, I want to share some tips to improve fit & comfort of your respies. Pls be mindful of gaps between your face & your respie however small (especially in the nose bridge area). If you can, do a DIY fit test to check for leaks. Stay safe! ✊😷💜 pic.twitter.com/diwTgLwCZk

— A. 🇵🇭🇪🇸🏳️‍🌈😷🍉💜 (@coffeeteanxiety) July 11, 2024

Censorship and Propaganda

Lambert here: CDC claims (albeit with an exculpatory footnote) to update its vaunted National Wastewater Surveillance System data every Friday by 8pm. It has not updated the data since June 24. If it’s not updated by Monday, I can only conclude that the data is really, really ugly. Stay safe out there!

Inflation: “United States Producer Prices” [Trading Economics]. “Producer Prices in the United States increased to 144.40 points in June from 144.08 points in May of 2024. Producer Prices in the United States averaged 117.06 points from 2009 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 144.40 points in June of 2024 and a record low of 100.20 points in November of 2009.”

The Bezzle: “AT&T says hacker stole some data from ‘nearly all’ wireless customers” [ABC]. “AT&T has announced that the company believes a hacker stole records of calls and texts from nearly all of AT&T’s wireless customers, according to a financial filing from the company. ‘The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information,’ AT&T said in their statement released early Friday morning. ‘These records identify the telephone numbers with which an AT&T or MVNO wireless number interacted during these periods, including telephone numbers of AT&T wireline customers and customers of other carriers, counts of those interactions, and aggregate call duration for a day or month.’”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 57 Greed (previous close: 51 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 52 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 12 at 12:26:44 PM ET.

Class Warfare

“Beyond kingdoms and empires” [Aeon]. “Contemporary historians tell us that, by the start of the Common Era, approximately three-quarters of the world’s population were living in just four empires (we’ve all heard of the Romans and the Han; fewer of us, perhaps, of the Parthians and Kushans). Just think about this for a minute. If true, then it means that the great majority of people who ever existed were born, lived and died under imperial rule…. But where do the statistics come from, to support such grand claims? Are they reliable? Venture down into the footnotes, and you discover that everyone is citing the same source: an Atlas of World Population History, published in 1978; in fairness, Scheidel does provide one additional citation, to Joel Cohen’s How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995), but this turns out to comprise a chart showing estimates of past human population sizes in which all figures for the premodern era derive from, again, the Atlas of World Population History or from subsequent publications based on it. In light of all this, anyone today who consults the Atlas of World Population History for the first time is in for a surprise. It is an unassuming tome, and a very old one at that. It comprises simple-to-read population graphs for different world regions, accompanied by pithy essays, which sometimes verge on the laconic. There is also an Appendix on ‘Reliability’ that begins: ‘The hypotheses of the historical demographer are not, in the current state of the art, testable and consequently the idea of their being reliable in the statistician’s sense is out of the question.’” Hmm. And (unsurprisingly for those who read 1491: “t’s take the example of the Amazon rainforest, an area of well over 2 million square miles, with no history of empire until the European conquest, and which the Atlas characterises as yet another demographic backwater, thinly scattered with nomadic foragers, whose mode of livelihood (its authors assumed) could never support dense populations. How does this hold up today? It doesn’t. Over the past decade, archaeologists have been busily turning the whole picture on its head, using airborne lasers to peer through the forest canopy. Tropical landscapes that resisted terrestrial survey are giving up their secrets. In place of blanks on the map, we’re now able to see highly cultivated landscapes with massive infrastructure stretching back to the early centuries BCE. Road networks, terraces, ceremonial earthworks, planned residential neighbourhoods, and regional settlement systems ordered into patterns of geometrical precision can be traced across Amazonia, from Brazil to Bolivia, as far as the eastern foothills of the Andes. In certain parts of Amazonia, the forest itself turns out to be a product of past human interaction with the soil.” • Maybe the empires will collapse, but that doesn’t mean everything will collapse? Or at least not in the same way?

News of the Wired

I am not feeling wired today.

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:

TH writes: “With a 5.6 aperture, there’s a pretty shallow depth of field here. In fact you might be thinking, ‘No, Tracie, you moved the camera.’ Always a possibility with me. 😊”

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