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2:00PM Water Cooler 4/22/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

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Bird Song of the Day

American Woodcock, Nebraska Missuonary Baptist Church, Macon, Alabama, United States. Lovely night sounds, but I’m struggling….

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In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Bragg’s theory of the case at last.

(2) Pennsylvania, the Jewish vote.

(3) Carl Schmitt, Nazi legal theorist

(4) Anosognosia, Word of the Day, if not the decade.

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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

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2024

Less than a year to go!

RCP Poll Averages, April 19:

Here this Friday’s RCP polling. Trump is still doing very well in almost all the Swing States (more here), leading with one exception: PA. Forget all the arithmetic, and look at PA as a test of the Trump campaign’s basic competence. What are they doing to fix this? (I’ll work out a better way to present this, but for now: Blue dot = move toward Biden; red dot = move toward Trump. No dot = no change (presumably because state polls are not that numerous so far from election day).

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Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg) “Trump criminal trial wraps for the day after opening statements and first witness” (live blog) [CNN]. Recall that Trump’s alleged records violations are all misdemeanors unless they were part of an “other crime,” in which case they become felonies. However, neither Bragg’s Indictment nor his Statement of Facts identified that “other crime” (as I showed here). In Bragg’s opening statement, he did that. His theory of the case: “Trump, along with his attorney Michael Cohen and David Pecker, the former chairman of the National Enquirer’s parent company AMI, ‘formed a conspiracy … to influence the presidential election…. ‘It was election fraud, pure and simple,’ [prosecutor Matthew] Colangelo told the jury. The scheme was three-pronged, Colangelo said: the trio sought to help Trump kill negative stories about Trump – a process known as ‘catch-and-kill’ – publish favorable stories about Trump and publish negative stories about Trump’s political opponents. He laid out three different instances where the trio allegedly conspired to prevent harmful information about Trump from becoming public prior to the 2016 election.” • So election fraud, presumably at the State level (and not the other possibilities, state tax law, and Federal election law). I would need to see the statute to be sure, but this seems very weak to me, even weaker than the concept that the only real estate magnate in New York who ever engaged in puffery was Trump. It seems to me that it’s trying to outlaw oppo (granted, a dark art, but not illegal). And in terms of Democrart moralstanding, how is this any different than getting most major venues to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and suborning 50 spooks to write a letter saying it was Russian disinformation? Make it make sense, as the kids say these days.

Trump (R) Merchan: “The Crucial Factor of the Stormy Daniels Case” (Merchan/Bragg) [The Atlantic]. “In his indictment, Bragg lays out a detailed case for why the former president, in hiding the payments, intended to violate both state and federal election laws.” • This is either lying or stunning ignorance (or possibly groupthink). As I show here, Bragg does no such thing. Only today does Bragg show his hand on the “other crime” Trump commmitted (and if I read CNN’s live blog correctly, only at the state level).

Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg): “Did Donald Trump Just Get Lucky With His NYC Criminal Trial Juror Pool?” [Newsweek]. • Sadly, I can’t get past the paywall now. The idea is that the jury is full of professionals, who will therefore apply their critical thinking skills and really dig into the detail. Well, maybe (and all it takes is one holdout). That said:

Trump (R) (Merchan/Bragg): “How large parts of Trump’s trial are playing out in the shadows” [Politico]. “Behind the scenes, a maze of arcane rules and archaic systems has made it virtually impossible for the media — and the public — to access key motions and pretrial rulings in real time. New York’s docketing practices have not been updated for the digital age. The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, has imposed policies that force days or even weeks of delays before crucial documents become public. When they do, they have been subject to a heavy, court-imposed redaction process. And Merchan frequently uses email to communicate with Trump’s defense lawyers and the prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. That’s led to a ballooning set of off-the-book messages that are shielded from the public. The result is that one of the most consequential chapters of American history is being drafted with missing pages and invisible ink. ‘Especially in a case like this, where 48 hours can turn news into history, that’s not acceptable,’ said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University law school who specializes in legal ethics. He described the redaction requirement in particular as an impediment to public access. ‘The judge, with a responsibility to make the public informed, should have made it easier,’ Gillers said, ‘and so should Bragg.'” • How convenient.

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Trump (R) (Engoron/James): “New York judge sets new conditions on Trump’s civil fraud bond” [Axios]. “New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Monday accepted the $175 million bond former President Trump posted to appeal his civil fraud case, but the judge imposed several new conditions to ensure sufficient cash funds remain available…. While Engoron allowed the bond to stand, Trump and Knight Specialty Insurance Company agreed to meet several new requirements, per a spokesperson from the New York State Attorney General’s office. These include that Knight Specialty Insurance Company will retain “exclusive control” of the $175 million account, and the company and Trump will provide a monthly account statement certifying that there are sufficient cash funds for the bond. Knight Specialty Insurance Company has agreed to designate an agent of process in New York The agreement between the company and Trump also can’t be amended without court approval.”

Trump (R) (Chutkan/Smith): “How Trump could win at the Supreme Court even if his broad immunity argument is rejected” [NBC]. “At issue in the high-stakes showdown Thursday is whether Trump’s criminal charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results should be dismissed based on a broad claim of immunity. Even if the court rejects that bold argument, it could still send the case back to Washington-based U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan for more proceedings on whether some of Trump’s actions are insulated from prosecution With the case, initially scheduled for trial in March, already plagued by delays, such a ruling would further imperil the chances of any trial being concluded before November’s election.

Trump (R) (McAffee/Willis): “Fulton judge dismisses 6 of 41 counts in Trump election interference indictment’ [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]. “All of the charges that were dismissed relate to allegations that defendants illegally urged Georgia elected officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, then-House Speaker David Ralston and members of the General Assembly to violate their oaths of office by convening a special session of the Legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors…. McAfee said the six counts contain ‘all the essential elements of the crimes’ but don’t provide enough detail regarding the alleged felonies committed. ‘They do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently,’ he added.”… The indictment handed up in August contained 41 felony counts; there are now 35 counts that remain. Trump is still facing 10 felony counts, down from the 13 originally filed against him. Monday’s decision left intact the bulk of Fulton County’s sweeping racketeering case against the former president and his allies. It seemed McAfee wanted to make that clear in his order when he wrote, ‘This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed.'” • 

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Biden (D): “Joe Biden Is Now Favorite Over Donald Trump in Four Swing States” [Newsweek]. “According to Polymarket, an online prediction platform where users can place yes or no bets on world events, the incumbent president will beat Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, in November’s vote in Pennsylvania (58 percent to 42 percent), Nevada (58 percent to 41 percent), Michigan (57 percent to 44 percent) and Wisconsin (52 percent to 47 percent.)” Oh. A prediction platform. Anyhow: “Last month, the Biden campaign announced plans to open 44 field offices in Wisconsin. The campaign has opened 14 offices in Pennsylvania, and announced plans to open 30 offices in Michigan. Trump’s campaign has appeared less vocal about the intricacies of its campaign strategy.” • The polls are basically Brownian motion at this point, especially the State ones which tend to be infrequent and have big margins of error. But 14 in PA seems light to me. Is PA really going to be that easy? OTOH, 30 in MI is clearly a response to the “Uncommitted” movement.

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Kennedy (I): “Kornacki: Low Interest in the 2024 Election a Vulnerability for Trump” [RealClearPolitics] “What the Trump folks have been hoping is RFK, third-party candidates, they gobble up some votes and Trump doesn’t need to get to 50%. But look what happens when we add RFK’s name to the mix. Suddenly, we have a new leader. Joe Biden, 39%; Donald Trump, 37%. There’s Kennedy getting 13%. In other words, we’re seeing by a better than 2:1 margin, it’s Trump voters who are flipping over to Kennedy in this scenario, not Biden voters. You see it right here. 15% of Trump voters, when we add RFK’s name to the mix, they go to RFK. Only 7% of Biden voters. There’s a big change right there.” • This should not be surprising. “Change vs. more of the same.” Biden = “the same.” Both Trump and Kennedy are “change” — Kennedy perhaps even more than Trump.

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PA: “Summer Lee’s primary race tests fallout for critics of the US’s Gaza policy” [Al Jazeera]. “It was not a popular stance to take. Tensions were running high. And yet, on October 16, less than two weeks into Israel’s war in Gaza, United States Representative Summer Lee joined other progressive Democrats in calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave…. But Lee’s critical view of Israel’s war in Gaza has made her a target in the upcoming US election season. On Tuesday, Lee faces a competitive primary in her district, as a fellow Democrat seeks to unseat her for being too ‘extreme.’ Patel has seized on criticism that Lee’s rhetoric has been reckless. After the war broke out on October 7, 40 rabbis and cantors in the Pittsburgh area released a letter criticising Lee’s response. In March, they released a second letter accusing Lee of ‘divisive rhetoric’ that they ‘perceived as openly anti-Semitic.’ Patel has echoed that condemnation, highlighting the risk of anti-Semitism in the shadow of the war. But Lee has stood her ground, arguing that criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism. ‘We have to be clear that no government, no country is above critique,’ Lee said. ‘The way that [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this war, it’s indefensible.'” • Presumably AIPAC is airdropping palettes of cash into the district.

PA: “The Jewish vote could play a huge role in 2024. Pennsylvania is about to put up an early test” [NBC]. “Conversations with more than 30 political strategists, activists and voters outlined how that [post-October 7] tension has put Jewish voters in an unfamiliar spot ahead of the 2024 elections: on the front lines of the fight for control of the White House and Congress. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Pennsylvania, the swing state with the largest Jewish population — about 300,000 voting-age Jews in a state President Joe Biden won by roughly 80,000 votes in 2020. What’s more, the congressional district that includes Squirrel Hill features a primary Tuesday that is among the first electoral tests of sentiment on both sides of the conflict in Gaza and concerns over rising antisemitism in the U.S. Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, a ‘squad’-aligned progressive critical of Israel’s handling of the war and one of the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire last year, will face Bhavini Patel, an Edgewood Borough Council member who has painted Lee’s advocacy as harmful to Biden’s re-election chances and out of step with her district.” And: “Most Jewish voters in Squirrel Hill — and nationally — align with the Democratic Party. A Pew Research Center survey released this month found 69% of Jews leaning Democratic, while 29% aligned Republican. But Republicans aren’t looking for a massive defection. GOP strategists and Republicans involved in Jewish outreach expressed confidence that Democratic divisions over Israel will help move a small but potentially significant number of Jewish voters into their camp in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. They pointed to surveys showing President Donald Trump’s improved performance among Jews in 2020, compared with his 2016 race, as evidence of a slow shift that could continue.

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On third parties:

Democrats en Déshabillé

“The GOP’s Pro-Russia Caucus Lost. Now Ukraine Has to Win.” [Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic]. “It’s not too late, because it’s never too late. No outcomes are ever preordained, nothing is ever over, and you can always affect what happens tomorrow by making the right choices today.” • Wowsers. Applebaum’s career.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Down on Law” [Boston Review]. “Schmitt presciently grasped that the development of state intervention in the capitalist economy inevitably transforms the legal system by generating open-ended norms, vague delegations of authority to administrative agencies, and heightened bureaucratic and judicial discretion. And he understood the conflicts between these legal trends and traditional liberal notions of the law, and the ways in which these conflicts create endless invitations for the unbridled exercise of power. Instead of considering how we might make sure that the interventionist state maintains fidelity to the indispensable attainments of liberal legality, however, Schmitt simply considered these trends to be evidence for the superiority of a right-wing dictatorship free of legal restraint.” • Well worth a read.

Pandemics

“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

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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, 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!

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Airborne Transmission

University of Toronto’s Institute of Pandemics does the right thing:

But meanwhile in Toronto:

Airborne Transmission: Monkeypox

“Mpox, smallpox and the increasing threat of orthopoxvirus epidemics” [C Raina MacIntyre, Global Biosecurity]. “We should be on high alert for orthopoxvirus epidemics because of large, ongoing epidemics of mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mpox has been resurgent in the African continent in countries like Nigeria and DRC since 2017, where the infection is endemic in animals and can be zoonotic or human-to-human transmitted. It remained a low priority until the 2022 epidemic which affected non-endemic, high-income countries in Europe and the Americas….. The most concerning situation is the clade I Mpox epidemic in Kamituga, DRC. From January to November 2023 the World Health Organization reported 12,569 suspected mpox cases in DRC, with a 4.6% case fatality rate, (4) with 70% of the cases and 88% of deaths are in children. (5) Less than 10% of these were tested by PCR, due to low diagnostic capacity in DRC. The predominance of children in the DRC epidemic suggests transmission may be respiratory. In fact, smallpox and mpox are respiratory viruses, and mpox has been identified in ambient air.”

Sequelae: Covid

“Functional connectivity underlying cognitive and psychiatric symptoms in post-COVID-19 syndrome: is anosognosia a key determinant?” [Brain Communications (LawnDart)]. N = 102. From the Abstract: “Lack of awareness of cognitive impairment (i.e. anosognosia) could be a key factor for distinguishing between neuropsychological post-COVID-19 condition phenotypes. In this context, the 2-fold aim of the present study was to (i) establish the prevalence of anosognosia for memory impairment, according to the severity of the infection in the acute phase and (ii) determine whether anosognosic patients with post-COVID syndrome have a different cognitive and psychiatric profile from nosognosic patients, with associated differences in brain functional connectivity.” After a battery of tests: “Only 15.6% of patients who presented mild disease displayed anosognosia for memory dysfunction, compared with 32.4% of patients with moderate presentation and 34.8% of patients with severe disease. Compared with nosognosic patients, those with anosognosia for memory dysfunction performed significantly more poorly on objective cognitive and olfactory measures. By contrast, they gave significantly more positive subjective assessments of their quality of life, psychiatric status and fatigue. Interestingly, the proportion of patients exhibiting a lack of consciousness of olfactory deficits was significantly higher in the anosognosic group.” • Alert reader LawnDart compiled the following notes:

These are notes that I compiled from various sources in an effort to better understand my father’s mental health conditions, and the factors which may be involved in these. These notes define the scope and limits of my knowledge on these subjects.

Anosognosia: notes via Wikipedia, Cleveland Clinic, NIH, etc.. (I have re-written and re-worded these for my own benefit of understanding, so I am not directly citing sources)

Anosognosia; GR: to not know a disease [literally, a person who is ill does not know that they are ill?]

Anosognosia (noun):the inability of a person to recognize or to be cognitively aware of his or her own illness or handicap, or of one or more health conditions, due to underlying brain injury or abnormality.

Anosognosia commonly occurs with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s, and in stroke victims, where the processing of the information that gives us self-awareness or insight is hindered by damage to (or abnormalities of) the frontal lobe of the brain. This damage may result in the loss of the ability to take in new information that would alter or change the perception of one’s self. The brain cannot recognize the health conditions that one has; it cannot recognize or process what the senses tell it or connect these to a problem.

Anosognosia is not static: self-awareness or insight may be present at some times but not during others—it can come and go. It can affect a person’s awareness of their own deficits, difficulties, or problems involving judgement, emotions, memory, executive function (ability to make and/or execute plans), language skills, and motor-abilities. A person with the condition is unaware of their own mental health condition or are unable to accept it, and may try to cover-up or rationalize what they cannot understand. The brain, intellect, does not process the fact that its thoughts do not reflect reality, resulting in inappropriate moods or behaviors. This inaccurate insight is as real and convincing as “normal” insight, and this misperception can cause conflict with others and lead to anxiety.

With regards to memory, a person with anosognosia is not aware of loss or impairment of memory, or may insist that no memory-problem exists. A person with anosognosia may confabulate or lie to fill in the gaps of their memory, gaps which the mind cannot explain or understand, with false memories.

Anosognosia results from physical changes to the brain. It is not a defense mechanism such as denial. A person in denial rejects or avoids accepting reality because it’s unpleasant or distressing. A person with anosognosia cannot recognize the reality of a problem at all: anosognosia is anatomical in origin, denial is psychological. Anosognosia is not a matter of reason, intellect, or will, but of biology.

To recognize anosognosia, one must see that another is afflicted by a condition that has a significant impact on their life, and that this person who is afflicted cannot recognize that there is a problem.

Yikes. “Anosognosia” is the word of the day, for sure.

Elite Maleficence

I like this connotation of “Airborne”:

Rolling up sleeves and scrubbing my hands for the next HICPAC meeting:

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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Cases
★ National[1] Biobot April 22: ★ Regional[2] Biobot April 22:
Variants[3] CDC April 13 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC March 23
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data April 19: ★ National [6] CDC April 13:
Positivity
★ National[7] Walgreens April 22: ★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic April 13:
Travelers Data
★ Positivity[9] CDC April 1: ★ Variants[10] CDC April 1:
Deaths[11]
Weekly deaths New York Times March 16: Percent of deaths due to Covid-19 New York Times March 16:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.

[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….

[3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.

[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flattening out to a non-zero baseline. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Slight uptrend.

[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Uptick.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.

[11] Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist….

Stats Watch

The Economy: “United States Chicago Fed National Activity Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to +0.15 in March 2024 from an upwardly revised +0.09 in February, slightly exceeding market expectations of +0.09. It marked the highest reading since last November….”

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Shipping: “The 100-year-old railway Mexico hopes will rival the Panama Canal” [The Week]. “The revival of the railway line means that a ship could “unload its cargo from one side, send it by rail across the Isthmus, and reload it back onto another ship on the other side”, thereby providing a new route through which international freight could flow, explained Mexico News Daily…. The $2.8 billion project has been “buoyed” by Mexico’s increasingly important trading relationship with the US; the country ‘surpassed China this year to become the US’s top trading partner’, said The Daily Upside. Given that America’s relationship with China remains ‘decidedly frosty’, Mexico can ‘feel secure in its new position for a while longer’. Droughts are also putting pressure on the canal. Last year the major shipping route, which relies on fresh water for its operation, faced its worst drought on record, causing significant delays.” • Interesting, though I’d like to see some numbers. A Panamax isn’t that big, but how long is a doublestack train that takes all its containers?

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 34 Fear (previous close: 31 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 22 at 12:48:27 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 188. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Bird flu not a concern, apparently. And I hate even to go here, but the “Tribulation Temple” category is a mere 3. If Tribulation Temple = Third Temple = whatever temple it is that the Red Heifer loons want to build, then the Rapture Index is making a call, and it’s saying “Don’t worry about the Red Heifers.”

Book Nook

Not wrong:

The Gallery

Flat:

Not flat!

What ambition, to paint rain!

Groves of Academe

Yale:

“Police storm Yale University’s campus with riot gear, 47 arrested as hundreds stage anti-Israel protest” [New York Post]. “Police clad in riot gear swarmed Yale University’s Connecticut campus early Monday and arrested dozens of students who refused to clear out from an anti-Israel protest encampment. At least 47 protesters were cuffed and hauled away from the Ivy League’s New Haven campus on shuttle buses, a university spokesperson confirmed to The Post. They were slapped with trespassing summons — and will be referred for Yale disciplinary action, which may include suspensions, the rep added…. It comes after protests at Yale turned violent over the weekend when a Jewish student journalist reporting on an encampment, which was erected Friday, was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag Saturday night.” • I’d want more detail on the incident.

Columbia:

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News you can use:

A thread of very good tips.

Class Warfare

“When the German left was expropriating princes” [When the German Left was expropriating the princes]. “Just over a century ago, in the spring of 1924, the German left launched an uphill battle to redistribute the wealth of the Hohenzollerns, the ruling family who had lost power with the abdication of Wilhelm II and the creation of the Weimar Republic in 1919. Rich in lessons for today, this little-known episode deserves to be remembered. It illustrates the ability of elites to use the language of the law to perpetuate their privileges, regardless of the scale of their wealth or the importance of collective needs. Yesterday, it was the reconstruction of European societies ravaged by war; today, it is the new social and climatic challenges…. In Austria, the Habsburgs’ imperial estates had become community property without compensation. In Germany, however, the Hohenzollerns managed to retain their properties (over 100,000 hectares of land, a dozen castles, works of art galore, etc). No federal redistribution measures were adopted…. The Communists of the KPD, eventually followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), introduced a bill to expropriate the princes for the benefit of the poorest. They gathered over 12 million signatures in 1925, in what remains to this day the largest petition in German history. The law was about to be passed, but the vagueness of the constitutional wording on compensation allowed President Hindenburg to demand a constitutional revision beforehand. The June 1926 referendum attracted 16 million voters (90% in favor of expropriation). However, the turnout was slightly below the 50% threshold required to amend the constitution. By calling for abstention and denouncing the risks that a Communist victory would eventually pose for small and medium-sized property owners, the German right and large landowners (very influential in the east of the country), allied with the center and the Nazis (who opposed class struggle and advocated expropriating Jews who had arrived in the country since 1914), succeeded in blocking the process and preventing the left-wing union that could then have been put in place.” •

I find this model appealing up to a point:

How hubs are created MR SUBLIMINAL Capital accumulation seems, however, underspecified

News of the Wired

“Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated” [JSTOR]. “Noah Webster’s roles in the formation of the early United States were manifold: editor of the Federalist Papers, owner and editor of the first American daily newspaper, textbook author, a founder of Amherst College, promoter of the first US copyright laws, and author of one of the first works on epidemiology, used by nineteenth-century medical schools. But his 1828 dictionary is what he’s remembered for, coming at a tremendous personal cost: twenty-one years invested, and a lifelong struggle with debt. In his preface to the three-volume work, he writes of his hopes that the dictionary will result in his fellow Americans’ “improvement and their happiness; and for the continued increase of the wealth, the learning, the moral and religious elevation of character, and the glory of my country.'” • Webster edited the Federalist Papers?! What an amazing true fact. And I wonder what his epidemiology book has to say about airborne transmission.

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Errors (1): “The ‘blem wit’ error messages” [The Register]. “Most of [the messages] were verified in one way or another; however I once collected the delightful but unverified ‘Shut her down, Clancy, she’s a-pumping mud.’… In those days, though, most error message were a little less creative. The reason? Memory was expensive. So some of them were terse. I mean rlly trs… My personal favorite is still one from the early 90s. And it was about as trs as they get: “blem wit”….. Unfortunately, the very problem that triggered the error message had the unfortunate side effect of screwing up the ability of DOS to write to the screen. So only a part of the error message was actually written to the screen. What was that error message? ‘There is a problem with the Memory Control Block for the shell.” • Oh.

Errors (2):

Errors (3):

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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 SV:

SV writes: “Western Cape, South Africa, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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79 comments

  1. Vicky Cookies

    From Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal, in a section about PMC enlightened technocracy:

    “Let me confess here a nostalgia for the the managerial professionalism that I have just described. It was, after all, the system that administered the country’s great corporations, its news media, its regulatory agencies, and its welfare state in the more benevolent years of the American Centuey. Here and there, in certain corners of our national life, this older organizational form still survives, keeping out passenger jets from exploding and our highway bridges from collapsing.”
    [Emphasis mine]

    My thanks to the NC writers and their readers and commenters; I’m devouring this book. Reading some of the internal Democrat party machinations detailed is as infuriating an experience as reading Marx’s treatment of the English poor laws, in their constant injustice.

    Reply ↓
    1. Randall Flagg

      Amen to that, it was here at NC that I got turned onto that book as well.
      I’ve at times wondered about an NC suggested books to read list by its community and even MS. Smith and Mr. Strether. A sort of books to read before you die type of list. Or to best understand what’s going on today and/or how we got here. Please do not interpret this as some kind of assignment. Just a curiosity.

      Reply ↓
      1. Vicky Cookies

        Until it becomes a regular feature, we can keep one another abreast of what we consider to be must-reads by mentioning and quoting the texts. For my part, beyond the Frank book, I’ve been enjoying a collection of Bertrand Russell essays centered around “In Praise of Idleness”, H.G. Wells’ semi-autobiographical “The New Machiavelli”, and C. Wright Mills’ “Power, Politics, and People”. I recently finished Graeber’s “Dawn of Everything” on the advice of the commentariat here; further suggestions are most welcome! I’m a high-school dropout, and so I love to learn that which I did not know.

        Reply ↓
        1. Randall Flagg

          Thanks for the suggestions. Considering I got out of high school with what would be considered a ” Gentleman’s C” (on a good day),and then straight into the working world, this place has been an education for me too.

          Reply ↓
        2. Wukchumni

          I’ve mentioned this one before, The Great Depression: A Diary, by Benjamin Roth, who was a lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio trying to understand the era, one day at a time.

          The diary starts in 1931 as banks are suddenly closing up all over the country until FDR in 1933 and depositors can’t get to their funds in the bank unless you can cut a deal on real estate the bank is holding, and thus a secondary market for your own money is created, with adverts offering anywhere from 35 to 65 Cents on the $ for your deposits-depending on the bank, with the idea they can buy some el cheapo real estate, utilizing the arbitrage of once again, your money.

          The big difference between them and now, is nobody had any money and this was before credit cards, or any version of widespread credit. He recounts buying a bushel of apples for 25 Cents one day, that’s about 125 apples, 1/5th of a Cent each.

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        3. Amfortas the Hippie

          ill bite.
          let us now praise famous men.

          and ep thompson’s the making of the english working class.

          for starters.

          Reply ↓
            2. ambrit

              Robert Graves, “The White Goddess.”
              Follow up with his “King Jesus” for an alternative ‘religious reality.’
              Terran humans have been trying to interpret and understand the cosmos for a very long time.

              Reply ↓
                2. Martin Oline

                  Wonderful. It reminds me of Jim Harrison’s novel Returning To Earth. He wrote many novellas and I admire him for that. He must have felt that when a story is done, however brief, it is complete, so he would gather them together. Legends of the Fall was one such glimpse.

                  Reply ↓
        4. Martin Oline

          Fiction is always easy to read but non-fiction can become a chore at times. I have found certain books, even when they deal with unpleasant subjects, can be rewarding. Eduardo Galeano wrote a trilogy quite some time back called Memory of Fire, which is composed of the books Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind. They are ordered chronologically and the first deals with creation legends and is quite charming. The second and third books descend into the brutality of the genocidal slavery of colonial Spanish South and Central America. Horrifying but factual books of the history of a region often overlooked in Western ‘culture’. They have become available as an electronic resource recently and so are more easily accessible through libraries. They are also available by checking out the book at Archive.org.

          Reply ↓
        5. fjallstrom

          The elder Galbraith’s The Affluent Society is an excellent little book that is really a snapshot of when the PMC ruled and money was less politically relevant. Interesting book and well written, so a delight to read.

          Reply ↓
          1. Randall Flagg

            Thank you all for the above suggestions.
            If in return I could suggest a very easy read: The Long Haul, by Finn Murphy. A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road.
            Mr. Murphy dropped out of college and became an over the road trucker, the book is a collection of stories from his years on the road. We see them go by everyday on the roads and Interstates, his stories are about the people he encounters, the clients he is hauling furniture for in a cross country move, the people he encounters at the truck stops. A small slice of life in a segment of our economy about getting things from one place to another

            Reply ↓
    2. Louis Fyne

      so I watch news from non-US public broadcasters….it is wild the footage that they show that is forbidden on US tv.

      eg, the neonatal ward at a Gaza clinic or non-flattering B-roll footage of Biden at public events (not gaffes, but latent moving around like a 99 y.o.).

      American media reinforces the PMC and vice-versa….pure cycle of simulacra

      Reply ↓
  2. antidlc

    Lambert, have you seen the facebook post from Yale School of Public Health?

    https://www.facebook.com/YaleSPH

    Five years with SARS-CoV-2 in our midst, and the CDC reports that 43 million Americans have experienced Long COVID. Some have recovered, but roughly 17 million – the same number of people who have cancer in the U.S. – still deal with the condition, and that number continues to grow.
    At Yale, Dr. Akiko Iwasaki’s laboratory is investigating how the virus can create long-lasting impacts on the immune system. And with many left incapacitated by the novel condition and at risk from rolled-back mitigations, the desperate need for answers grows.
    “There is a lot we don’t know,” Dr. Iwasaki says. “Based on our insights of the drivers of Long COVID disease, we need to develop diagnostics and therapies that restore healthy immune systems and [people’s] health back to normal.”
    As the CDC states, Long COVID can happen to anyone. But thanks to the dedicated work of scientists like Dr. Iwasaki across the world, there are a few knowns. Scroll through for the explanations we have, and the ones 17 million Americans, and counting, need.

    Photos:
    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=852992056853478&set=pb.100064280755914.-2207520000

    Included in the photos:
    altered immune system cells
    viral reservoirs
    immune dysregulation
    the more infections you have, the higher the risk of long COVID
    increased risk of autoimmune disease
    asymptomatic infections
    good ventilation (carbon dioxide < 800 parts per million

    This info should have been presented years ago by the CDC.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      I have Yale’s tweet (I don’t read Facebook), but just couldn’t get to it. Leonardi must be happy because he got it right. Immune dysregulation is a thing, and a big thing.

      Reply ↓
      1. Jason Boxman

        The only good news in any of this, for myself personally, is all of this confirms and continues to confirm what NC was early and right about in 2020, that this is a serious Pandemic to be taken Seriously and that as a vascular, airborne disease, avoiding infection as much as possible is the most important thing; I’ve despaired on occasion that my exit from American society, as garbage as it might be, has been isolating in a way I haven’t enjoyed, and maybe after all without benefit on my worser days, but every day for the past year there has been ongoing, iron-clad confirmation that this is an extremely serious and damaging virus, and avoiding infection is both the right course of action and paramount.

        So there’s that. On the other hand, the longterm effects upon society, upon financial and industrial capitalism, can’t be great, and sadly from this system I eat and gain shelter. So the future doesn’t exactly look great, but facing it without immune disregulation, and vascular and neurological damage, is far better than the alternative.

        Stay safe out there!

        Reply ↓
  3. Wukchumni

    An End of Times local snapshot:

    Not the brightest group of true believers you ever saw-here in Godzone, where efforts to breed 5 red hamsters have nearly come to fruition, although more fuchsia than the desired hue as of yet, for the wheels of breakthrough move slowly.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Last I heard, the Ukrainians were refusing to return Lira’s body to his father unless a massive bribe was paid to them and I think that it was in the range of about $80,000. Haven’t heard anymore about it since.

      Reply ↓
  5. Wukchumni

    We were watching the NCAA basketball finals and of all sports, nobody does the skin trade like basketball, every other sport is fairly covered up, baseball showing off lower arms only.

    What I noticed what was missing on their bodies was tattoos…

    There were a few here and there, but nothing really. It was as if a dozen young impressionable players all had decided that being an illustrated man wasn’t for them.

    And talking missing, i’m not seeing any political signs for Trump 2024 anywhere in my travels in the Central Valley, not a 1.

    Of course, Trump screwed over almond & pistachio growers by raising tariffs on a host of goods, and the Chinese retaliated by doing the same on our nuts, figuratively.

    The wholesale price on almonds collapsed largely on account of the tariffs, why would a right wing farmer ever want more of that action?

    Reply ↓
    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Trends come and go. The Greek guy, I’m not spelling it, on the Bucks and Steph Curry, because they think he’s short, are the stars that matter to those kids. LeBron is just a creepy old dude.

      Curry has been the most relevant US athlete for nearly a decade even though Klay is better.

      Reply ↓
  6. Judith

    American Woodcock. A birdwatching ritual during the spring in the eastern US is to go out at dusk to a grassy field near a wood edge to see and hear the male woodcock’s courtship display. The male birds fly into the air and descend making a peenting sound. Woodcocks are generally secretive, so unless you are lucky enough to flush one or spy one out and about for a few munutes, this is your only chance.

    Reply ↓
    1. Harold

      When I was out walking with my dog on a sandy pathway near the Long Island Sound, a woodcock practically collided with me, making weird noises. It was an unforgettable experience. I was ten years old. I assumed my dog, a cocker spaniel, no less, had flushed it out. I never thought I would see one again.

      During COVID it was discovered that there was one hanging out in Bryant Park, NYC, behind the Main Library, the one with the Lions, during migrating season. The woodcock has come back every year including this one: at two blocks from Times Square, there couldn’t be a more urban environment. It’s very illusive, though. One year I went to Bryant Park to just to see it , but all I saw was a group of bird watchers with telephoto lenses. Bryant Park: https://twitter.com/bryantparknyc/status/1780693912148943149/photo/1

      Reply ↓
  7. barefoot charley

    Interesting that Columbia and Yale are teeming with controversies regarding the Gaza controversy, with NYU and Harvard me-tooing it seems–all without factoring in the many Jewish students included among purported ‘anti-semitic terrorists.’ Columbia’s C-Suite has acknowledged campus word crimes to Stefanik’s congressional Star Chamber–no more Goth rhetoric, kids! And while affronted Jewish ears are protected, Palestinian supporters get stink-sprayed and bused to jail, their tents destroyed like homeless tents everywhere. Given that policies against moralizing youth are ultimately decided by old rich donors (and hired hoots like Stefanik and the Zionist/Jewish press gang), these conflicts have no resolution. Morality vs oligarchy–neither side ever quite wins.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      No, but those kids at Columbia and Yale are getting a real education on what their society is really all about and the “values” that they hold.

      Reply ↓
  8. digi_owl

    “The ‘blem wit’ error messages”

    Gets a guy thinking about the Linux bootloader LILO (LInux LOader).

    It would simply print LILO on screen before the kernel took over, and the number of characters printed indicated how far it got before an error.

    And now i lament how i could easily tell when DOS or Linux got stuck during boot, as they would print each command as they went. But these days everything is hidden behind eyecandy and happening in parallel.

    Sometimes i really do wonder if home computers would be better of with something akin to DOS sans the RAM shenanigans.

    Reply ↓
    2. JM

      You can still get a verbose boot on Linux, but you might need to undertake a massive weeding operation to remove SystemD.

      Reply ↓
      1. hunkerdown

        Just remove the quiet and splash flags from the kernel command line in /etc/default/grub. Then the text console with its full kernel and init output will remain visible during boot and shutdown.

        Reply ↓
        1. John

          Flora, JM, Hunkerdown: Booting I understand. I even understand rebooting. After that you departed my universe at warp speed. Ah, specialized vocabulary.

          Reply ↓
    3. Jason Boxman

      Better than no error message; I have a process I’m running that mysteriously disappears, and it always takes with it the active terminal and the ssh session that login shell runs under. Why? Who knows, complete mystery. Never see anything quite like it!

      Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      And until not that long ago, there was no entry for The Grayzone on Wikipedia. But there is now and includes such useful information such as ‘The Grayzone’s news content is generally considered to be fringe, and the website maintains a pro-Kremlin editorial line’

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone

      Can’t wait until AI is used to write Wikipedia entries.

      Reply ↓
  10. Lunker Walleye

    Matisse Egyptian Curtain. Henri attended a drawing class that was intended for curtain designers while he was a lawyer’s assistant. The red, green and black shapes look like the cutouts he was working on about the same time he painted this.

    Reply ↓
      1. Lunker Walleye

        Catalog from MOMA exhibit, 2014-2015, shows “unused gouache cut-out elements,1945-1954”. He had apparently been working in this medium for some time before his 1952 application in the dining room in Nice, according to MOMA’s director.

        Reply ↓
    1. LawnDart

      Yeah, nightmare-fuel… Anosognosia is a word everyone will want to add to their vocabulary, because you will encounter someone who has this condition– and heck, you might even be the one who first recognizes this condition in another.

      Reply ↓
      1. Ranger Rick

        In hindsight, the Yankee Candle index was perhaps the first sign of this occurring. None of the commenters even considered what the problem might be. It was the candles, surely.

        Reply ↓
  14. LawnDart

    Enjoyed the MachinePun Kelly tweet– courtrooms actually do have some fun moments.

    [Edit to add, especially if you’re a sadist.]

    Reply ↓
  15. DJG, Reality Czar

    Noah Webster and the Federalist Papers. Not so, Lambert Strether. The only source that I can find asserting such is that JSTOR article.

    Webster has a highly regarded essay sometimes included among The Federalist Papers, entitled “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution” (1787).

    Webster *was* the editor of a Federalist Party newspaper, the American Minerva, during the 1790s.

    Here is the publishing history of the first editions of The Federalist Papers, according to Wikipedia, and the info seems to check out okay: “On January 1, 1788, the New York publishing firm J. & A. McLean announced that they would publish the first 36 essays as a bound volume; that volume was released on March 22, 1788, and was titled The Federalist Volume 1.[1] New essays continued to appear in the newspapers; Federalist No. 77 was the last number to appear first in that form, on April 2. A second bound volume was released on May 28, containing Federalist Nos. 37–77 and the previously unpublished Nos. 78–85.[1] The last eight papers (Nos. 78–85) were republished in the New York newspapers between June 14 and August 16, 1788.[1][19]”

    I don’t see how Webster was involved. Wikipedia says that Hamilton lent him money to move to NYC in 1793, after the ratification of the Constitution. He was then “a Federalist editor” in the sense that the American Minerva was a Federalist newspaper.

    If anyone can turn up evidence of his role as editor of The Federalist Papers, let me know. As an editor, I have worked on more than one U.S. history book, and this assertion about Webster is new to me.

    Here is Webster on disease:
    https://www.neh.gov/article/noah-webster-chronicler-disease

    Reply ↓
    2. Belle

      A few years back, I read “American Aurora”, the book by Richard Rosenfeld on the leading anti-Federalist paper. It made me less of a fan of Federalists like Adams, Hamilton, and Webster. (It also helped my opposition to immigration restrictions, religious rightists, federalists (and their society), and British election interference.) It’s a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it, especially to Adams and Hamilton fanboys.
      As a side note, Webster’s original dictionary is popular among religious right homeschooling types.

      Reply ↓
  16. Jason Boxman

    In fact, smallpox and mpox are respiratory viruses, and mpox has been identified in ambient air.

    Yep. What a said over a year ago; we have to assume airborne transmission by default of every pathogen where we do not yet know this to be false. There’s simply no other sane way to approach it. No wonder hospital infection whackjobs are against any airborne mitigations. They see the costs attached to this.

    Reply ↓
  17. DavidZ

    Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump.
    —————–

    I must say, I’m sick of reading this line, as if Trump was actually the reason for the valleys. According to Perplexity AI – assuming it’s right
    https://www.perplexity.ai/search/trump-covid-timeline-jErc.B6bQSGJKjtUnncRug

    “In May 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the White House pandemic response team.1

    In July 2019, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was forced to scale back its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks.1

    Despite early warnings about the threat of COVID-19, the Trump administration initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic. Trump made numerous public statements dismissing the threat and criticizing the media’s coverage of COVID-19.14

    He also pressured officials to highlight the “rosiest scenarios” in briefings.3

    However, in mid-March 2020, Trump was eventually convinced by his advisors to support an unprecedented 15-day national shutdown to slow the spread of the virus.”

    Not only this – I read that by Feb 27, 2020 – Trump was already going around saying that Covid was nothing but a mild Flu when in private he was telling Bob Woodward – it was going to be a massive crisis.

    The valley’s under Trump were despite Trump & the Republican administration at the time.

    Reply ↓
  19. Wukchumni

    In Austria, the Habsburgs’ imperial estates had become community property without compensation. In Germany, however, the Hohenzollerns managed to retain their properties (over 100,000 hectares of land, a dozen castles, works of art galore, etc). No federal redistribution measures were adopted….
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Everybody knows about the 1923 Weimar hyperinflation as the numbers bandied about were in the billions, but Austria was first out of the gate with hyperinflation in 1921, and while not in the billions, by 1922, inflation in Austria reached 1,426%, which was enough to render savings in the bank, moot. Thus the grab for the Habsburg assets, maybe?

    In 1914 a pound sterling was worth about 25 kronen. By May, 1922, when the pound could still purchase only 1200 marks, it would have bought 35,000 kronen.

    When Money Dies, by Adam Fergusson

    https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=4ac76b971cf67594de3627b14bb7f2244b973815

    Reply ↓
  20. XXYY

    Community guidelines for the Columbia University Gaza Solidarity Encampment:

    These are really nice. An admirable blend of the practical and the ideological. Respectful to the reader and the protesters, without being irritatingly woke or naive.

    It would be interesting to compare these with similar documents from previous protest eras. Are we growing?

    Reply ↓
    1. Judith

      My ex-husband was a student at Columbia during the Vietnam War. Lots of student protests and sit-ins. Police repression then as well.

      Reply ↓
  21. The Rev Kev

    ‘Machine Pun Kelly 🇺🇦
    @KellyScaletta
    Lawyer: Can you be obejctive?’

    In any other context what that lawyer said was slander and character assassination. No awareness on his part that there might be a difference between ‘fact’ and ‘opinion.’

    Reply ↓
  22. NotTimothyGeithner

    14 in PA is giving up especially with Bidens cash. It’s possible he doesn’t have enough people soulless enough to phone in phony numbers.

    Reply ↓
    1. Pat

      Or they may be making an assumption that the eastern part of the state is a slam dunk and only be targeting the most urban areas of Western PA.
      Unfortunately there is far too much evidence that much of America is either delusional or soulless or both so that shouldn’t be the problem. What might be is that the PMC crowd who are the Biden supporters expect to be paid. Not just the big money to the consultants and their companies, but the people manning the offices may not be volunteers and in that case Biden’s purse may not be as deep as it sounds. Not if they are going to go full on for six and a half months.

      Reply ↓
  23. upstater

    A pretty picture! At least it didn’t explode…

    Fiery CPKC train rolls through London, Ontario

    Bizarre fire aboard moving train being investigated by Transportation Safety Board

    The train stopped in a residential area along Waterloo and Pall Mall streets adjacent to a multi-story office building. CPKC crews uncoupled the locomotives and cars behind the burning gondolas, giving the London Fire Department better access, says Colin Shewall, fire department platoon chief. At one point, 28 fire fighters with 10 trucks were battling the blaze, which took about 90 minutes to bring under control.

    Reply ↓
  24. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Bragg’s theory

    Yeah I’m not buying that either. If it were a criminal offense to have a newspaper print favorable stories for a candidate, or spike unfavorable ones, most of our politicians would be in the slammer. As you noted, there was the fingers on the scale for the laptop story. Also, there is direct evidence from leaked emails that the Clinton campaign called their media friends to promote Trump over other Republicans on the theory he would be easier to beat. That one still cracks me up!

    And I’m so old, I remember the NYT holding on to the illegal wiretapping story until after the 2004 election to help out Bush. And then there was the Portland Press Herald declining to print the very true story about Shrub’s youthful DUI arrest prior to the 2000 election.

    This practice is commonly known as Freedom of the Press. Apparently that part of the 1st amendment is no longer operable either.

    Reply ↓
    1. Pat

      I think it is stretching it, but I have no doubt that if any of that were to be broached the money will be the smoking gun. Ostensibly there was no conspiracy because no money changed hands to hide or disguise Hunter’s laptop or to delay the wiretapping story. Not only was Daniels cut a settlement, but Cohen was paid by Trump. A twisted pretzel, but considering how twisted most of NY’s legal dealings with Trump have been in the last couple of years, this is where I bet it will go if in some unlikely circumstance they have to outline the difference.

      Think of it as the quid pro quo theory of conspiracy to influence an election.

      Reply ↓
  25. cfraenkel

    A Panamax isn’t that big, but how long is a doublestack train that takes all its containers?
    13000 TEU x 20 ft / 5280 = 50 mi (25 mi doublestacked)

    The railway is 303 km (189mi). Canal traffic was ~38 ships/day, so a train carrying all that cargo would be 900 mi long. Or, in other words, you could just push containers on one end, and pop them off the other – no pesky locomotives needed!

    Reply ↓
    1. Pat

      Hey Bluto is a sober genius in comparison to Applebaum.

      (I haven’t seen that movie in years. I may have to watch it again just to see how it holds up in an even more politically correct atmosphere than when it was made.)

      Reply ↓
  27. chris

    Listening to Breaking Points this evening is breaking my heart. Why is my government full of evil, soulless people? How can anyone equivocation when asked if the Geneva Conventions apply to Israel? How can we continue to pretend that Iran’s consulate wasn’t hit by Israeli missiles, or that the Israeli atrocities reported by Palestinians aren’t plausible? How do we have a Speaker of the House who can say that he voted to bend all the rules for congressional action to fund a war based on his biblical beliefs?

    Life in a failed state is awful.

    Reply ↓
  28. DG

    Interesting, though I’d like to see some numbers. A Panamax isn’t that big, but how long is a doublestack train that takes all its containers?

    I agree, a good question. I did a rough estimate.

    A Panamax carries 14,000 TEU.
    The long trains in the USA are 14,000 feet. They contain. between 170 – 220 cars.
    Using 200 cars, the train would haul 800 TEUs.
    It would take 17.5 trains to offload a Panamax.

    Reply ↓
  30. kareninca

    I am behind on reading posts, due to travel. But I have to comment on this even though my comment will not be seen:

    “Compared with nosognosic patients, those with anosognosia for memory dysfunction performed significantly more poorly on objective cognitive and olfactory measures. By contrast, they gave significantly more positive subjective assessments of their quality of life, psychiatric status and fatigue.”

    That’s why my well-off boomer acquaintances (and younger ones who can afford it) are all traveling constantly like parasite-infected grasshoppers.

    On the bright side, I feel that my life sucks, I am my usual miserable self and I am wiped out if I don’t take methylene blue and creatine (not medical advice0. So my guess that I haven’t been infected yet may be correct.

    Reply ↓

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