2:00PM Water Cooler 1/9/2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Peaceful Dove, Casuarina Coastal Reserve–Dripstone Park, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

* * *

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

The Constitutional Order

“If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He?” [Jamelle Bouie, New York Times]. It depends on what the meaning of “-ist” is. From my OED app:

-ist /ɪst/ suffix. [ORIGIN: French -iste, Latin -ista, Greek -istēs forming agent nouns from verbs in -izein: see -ize.]

Forming personal nouns, sometimes agent nouns corresp. to verbs in -ize, as antagonist; more freq. denoting

(a) a person who makes a systematic study of a particular art or science or who is occupied with something professionally or on a large scale: orig. corresp. to Greek abstract nouns in -ia, -mat-, etc., as chemist, dramatist, economist, geologist; later formed from nouns of other origins, as dentist, pianist, tobacconist;

(b) an adherent of a particular system of beliefs, principles, discrimination, etc., corresp. to nouns in -ism, and often used also as adjectives, as Buddhist, Darwinist, idealist, Marxist, positivist, racist.

The difficulty with the term “insurrectionist” propagated by Democrats is that it conflates active participation in an insurrection (sense (a), “occupied with something”) with — say — First Amendment-protected speech in favor of an insurrection, or even belief (sense (b), “adherent”). Now, it’s clear that Democrats would like to bar both classes of person from political life, which is why they instituted the Censorship Industrial Complex, to take one example. In fact, they view this as entirely unproblematic.

Biden Administration

“Lloyd Austin hospitalized and Biden is clueless. So much for ‘adults being back in charge.'” [USA Today]. “After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, I recall the self-righteous assurances from the news media and Democrats that the ‘adults are back in charge.’ … One of the most important Biden administration Cabinet members – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – has been hospitalized since the beginning of the year. … And not only was the public kept in the dark until Friday, but Biden, who after all is the commander in chief, had no clue for three days that the person he appointed to run the Pentagon was out of commission…. As Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who worked in the White House under President Barack Obama, told USA TODAY: ‘This is not a minor miscommunication. It’s about the confidence that our national security structure has in its leadership and that the leadership is acting in a transparent way.’… I hate to break it to Biden, but if our country isn’t ready to defend itself at a moment’s notice and doesn’t have competent leaders, democracy also is at risk.”

2024

Less than a year to go!

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“Donald Trump, America’s Comic” [Matt Taibbi, Racket News]. “You know Donald Trump is feeling good when he moves into Triumph the Insult Comic President mode, early in a speech. In Iowa Friday, ten days before Americans officially start voting for the man, Trump was a violin short of Henny Youngman. He had everything working…. As is nearly always the case, Trump peppered the Poconos delivery with observations that blow your mind when you pause to consider it’s the former President of the United States saying these things.” • I’m really glad that Taibbi is on the trail, and I hope this series remains unpaywalled. That said, Taibbi is not the first to make these observations. From 2019 (!): “One tip to make reading Trump more tolerable is to hear him as a borscht belt comedian like Rodney Dangerfield or Henny Youngman.” From 2016 (!!): “What I did not expect to find is that Trump is funny, since dictators are not famous for their sense of humor.” I grant that my pointillist method, kaizen-style troping, and light irony are not susceptible to amplification. You’ve got to pay attention. Nevertheless!

“‘Already attempted it once’: Trump condemned for dodging Illinois pledge not to overthrow government” [Salon]. “Former President Donald Trump opted out of inking a loyalty oath instituted by the state of Illinois in which candidates pledge against advocating for overthrowing the government, according to a WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times report published over the weekend. “The pledge, a vestige of the McCarthy Red Scare era, is not mandatory, but has been signed by candidates for decades, including by Trump in 2020 and 2016,” the report noted, adding that President Joe Biden and Trump’s Republican primary rivals have signed the pledge this year. Biden’s campaign sharply condemned Trump’s move.” • Quite a tell. Democrats turning McCarthyite, I mean.

“Trump chooses trial over trail for the Iowa stretch run” [Politico]. “For part of the closing week of the caucus, Donald Trump is choosing to put a spotlight on his legal troubles by taking himself off the trail and heading into a courthouse. On Tuesday, he will fly to Washington to make an appearance in a federal appeals court for oral arguments related to his criminal trial for election interference. On Thursday, he is set to fly to New York for closing arguments in his civil fraud trial. Neither of the appearances is mandatory. The ex-president believes he is his own best line of defense and is making a calculated bet that there is value in primary voters seeing him on trial than in meeting him on the trail. ‘Every time Democrat prosecutors have dragged him through the court system it has galvanized and increased his support among Republicans. There’s no reason that should change. They’re trying to put him in jail and keep him off the ballot in as many places as they can, and Republican voters are leaping to his defense,’ said Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s 2020 communications director.” •

“Special counsel probe uncovers new details about Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6: Sources” [ABC]. “Many of the exclusive details come from the questioning of Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, who first started working for Trump as a teenager three decades ago and is now a paid senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign. Scavino wouldn’t speak with the House select committee that conducted its own probe related to Jan. 6, but — after a judge overruled claims of executive privilege last year — he did speak with Smith’s team, and key portions of what he said were described to ABC News…. Sources said Scavino told Smith’s investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump ‘was just not interested’ in doing more to stop it…. what sources now describe to ABC News are the assessments and first-hand accounts of several of Trump’s own advisers who stood by him for years — and were among the few to directly engage with him throughout that day. Along with Scavino and Luna, that small group included then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and Cipollone’s former deputy, Pat Philbin. Scavino hoped Trump would finally help facilitate a peaceful transfer of power, sources said [but note: No direct quote for that].” • This is the theory of the case?

“Trump co-defendant alleges ‘improper’ relationship between Fani Willis and fellow Georgia prosecutor” [NBC]. “One of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case [Michael Roman] alleged in a court filing Monday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade had engaged in a ‘romantic relationship.’ In a 39-page filing seeking a dismissal of charges, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman made accusations that Willis and Wade have traveled together to destinations including Napa Valley and that they’ve been seen together around Atlanta in a personal capacity. The filing does not provide any direct evidence to support the claims — citing only ‘sources with knowledge; and raising questions about the process by which Willis hired Wade, who has represented the DA’s office in court proceedings for the case. When reached for comment, [Roman’s lawyer Ashleigh] Merchant addressed the lack of evidence in Monday’s filing, saying that she cannot share some of it until Wade’s divorce records are unsealed. ‘At a hearing, the concrete evidence would be presented. So, when we get a hearing, there would be concrete evidence and obviously that could be in the form of two of the prosecution team members,’ she said, referring to Willis and Wade potentially testifying.” • Georgia politics!

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“Remarks by President Biden on the Third Anniversary of the January 6th Attack and Defending the Sacred Cause of American Democracy” (transcript) [The White House]. “… LGB[T]Q rights …” • Whoops.

“‘The Most Urgent Question of Our Time'” [A.B. Stoddard, The Bulwark]. “The fragility of democracy won’t bring everyone to the table, but it can inspire enough votes on the margins where it matters.” • Well, except Sanders voters, who are quite aware of how Democrats practice democracy, as opposed to merely preaching it. Or supporters of Williamson, West, or Phillips, all of whom the Democrat Party is systematically trying to deny ballot access. Or RFK Jr.

“Biden Makes It All About Trump. Will That Be Enough?” [The Free Press]. “As Salena [Zito] sees it, Biden’s campaign is doubling down on the democracy rhetoric because they believe this is the key to their stronger-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterms. But his team is making a mistake if they fail to make a positive case for their own candidate, Salena told me. ‘They’ve got to address Biden’s own problems, and if he wants to win over voters, he’s got to address the issues.’… Salena added that it’d be a mistake to assume Biden will definitely be his party’s nominee. ‘I’m old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson dropping out, so I am of the belief that anything can happen,’ she said. ‘We’re all operating under the assumption that it’s Trump and Biden. But I think we should expect the unexpected—if the past four years haven’t taught us that, then we haven’t been paying attention.'” • (Zito coined “seriously, not literally.”) Volatility, not stability.

“Top JPMorgan strategist includes Biden dropping out among 2024 surprises” [FOX]. “The strategist wrote that Biden could withdraw from the race sometime between Super Tuesday on March 5 and the November election, and that the president would cite his health as the reason behind the move. Then, the Democratic National Committee would tap a nominee as Biden’s replacement.” • Once again, a vote for volatility, not stability. I’ve been muttering about this for some time; remember that the Democratic National Convention (that DNC) has plenary power. So let the room fill with smoke after Biden’s tragic whatever!

“Democrats question whether Biden should agree to debate Trump” [The Hill]. “Carville said Trump will have legitimacy as a candidate if he wins the GOP nomination, even though he would be barred from even voting in most states if he’s convicted on any of the dozens of felony counts he’s now facing. ‘If he gets the nomination, Republican primary voters will have given him legitimacy. I mean, we don’t hand it out like gummy bears or something,’ he said. Carville noted that the Commission on Presidential Debates has already scheduled three general election debates for later this year in Texas, Virginia and Utah, though neither Biden nor Trump has committed to anything yet. ‘Somebody’s going to take a poll, and 73 percent of the people will think there ought to be a debate,’ he predicted. ‘You can do it or not do it as you see fit, but there are consequences to it.'” • Carville isn’t always right, but I agree with him here.

2024 and Covid (DG):

DC suburbanite at present. We kept our kids in online school for the last three years and sent them back in person (with masks) this year. We missed the autumn back-to-school mini-peak, but we all got it for the first time beginning in mid-Dec and finishing last week. Still shaking out coughs, still can’t smell right, etc. We are able to pay for kids to have music lessons. The younger kid’s viola teacher begged off last week due to COVID and the elder kid’s cello teacher begged off this week. It’s coursing through the whole of society. It’s reaching the middle and upper classes again, just like the first wave the rich imported in the winter of 2019-20. MD’s goalsought-green hospitalization dashboard is mostly yellow now. This is going to be a three ring shit show with tightrope clown fiesta. Hilariously one would expect the Biden administration to give a few family blogs out of electoral self interest alone. This will burn brightest in higher population density areas per the WC section on airborne transmission, which skew Dem. I’m voting third party because it’s the closest thing to a vote of no confidence we have, but I’m expecting another Trump presidency on this wave of COVID and the loss of Muslims in key swing states due to our participation in Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Amazingly, Covid — except for the Koch-funded service providers still yammering about lockdowns — isn’t a “political” issue at all, except for outliers like Joaquín Beltrán , of course:

We did it! Mask requirements are back in healthcare settings in LA County as of today Dec 29th! Thank you to everyone who has been tirelessly working on protecting our community for months, you made this happen! pic.twitter.com/KxAWn7ZDr9

— Joaquín Beltrán for Congress #FreePalestine (@joaquinlife) December 29, 2023

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Yo Nicky about that door:

It shows how disconnected the right is from issues of corporate power (with some outliers like Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Ken Buck) that Nikki Haley sitting in Boeings board as it went through a massive scandal has barely been used by her opponents https://t.co/cGPcTMdyVN

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) January 8, 2024

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IA: “How Trump Captured Iowa’s Religious Right” [Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker]. This is worth reading in full. “[One pro-Trump pastor from northern Iowa] was a slight, gentle, bespectacled man, just a few years out of seminary and a little on the nerdy side. ‘Maybe this would sound strange to you, but I believe Trump has given us the gift of discernment,’ the pastor said. ‘What I mean by that is he came in, he was asking questions and pushing back on so many things that never entered our mind. And it was like somebody just punched a hole in a brick wall. And we’re, like, there’s another side to this.’ Trump, the pastor went on, ‘is very provocative and embellishes certain things. But, when you look at the core message, I think there’s a lot of truth to it, and it is that the people in charge aren’t to be trusted.’… [H]e described the first year of Trump’s term as the inception of the “truther” movement, when certain conservatives, himself among them, followed Trump’s lead and began to try to figure things out for themselves. One important issue for the pastor was America’s wars. ‘We are sending our sons and fathers to fight and die for what?’ the pastor said. ‘Somebody in a three-letter agency to take control of an oil field?’ … The pastor declined to say whether he thought that the 2020 election had been stolen, but in the debates over its legitimacy he saw a similar pattern: ‘Instead of wanting to be transparent about the voting process, it was almost, like, ‘How dare you question the way we did things?’ And you have to shut up and accept the way it was run.'” • It’s nice to see Wallace-Wells doing actually reporting, instead of succumbing to the TDS so typical of the New Yorker milieu. Again, read the whole piece.

IA: “Iowa, one week out” [Washington Examiner]. “To make sure he wins this time, Trump has created an entirely different campaign organization from 2016. Truth be told, in 2016, there wasn’t much organization at all. Trump drew big crowds but did not put together a sophisticated turnout operation that would get those supporters to the caucuses. This time, Trump has put together what neutral observers say is a really good organization, down to the precinct level. He has gotten tens of thousands of Iowans to commit to caucusing for him and has recruited many more to help them get to the caucuses locations. When asked to rank the strength of the candidates’ ground games, those neutral observers say DeSantis’s is probably the best, with Trump not too far behind. Haley, they say, is not at DeSantis’s and Trump’s level when it comes to ground operations. But the big contrast is between Trump’s 2016 get-out-the-vote organization and his effort in 2024. There’s no comparison. Put his current level of organization together with a 32.7-point lead and Trump seems strong beyond challenge.” • I don’t understand why Trump, sometimes, is totally shambolic (election theft allegations; I expect bent lawyers, but not flagrant and highly vocal stupidity) and other times silently efficient (2016 polling).

NH: Campaign surrogates (Petal):

* * *

“The Biden-Trump rematch is shaping up to be another nail-biter” [Douglas Schoen, The Hill]. “On the surface, national polling points to an incredibly close race, as Trump holds just a 2 point lead according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, well within the margin of error. … In seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Trump leads Biden, including more than 4 point leads in five of the seven, per Morning Consult tracking polls. Moreover, in four of those states — Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Biden either led or was virtually tied with Trump in October or November, only to see Trump surge ahead. What should concern Democrats is that Biden’s swing state troubles are not isolated to this one poll…. [E]ven more concerning for Democrats, is that these polls also reveal an erosion of support for the president among critical Democratic voting blocs: young, Black, and Hispanic voters. Indeed, in the seven swing states surveyed by Morning Consult, voters 18-34 years old favor Trump by 5 points (45 percent to 40 percent), a net 4 point increase in Trump’s lead with this age group since October. In that same vein, Black and Hispanic swing state voters are increasingly open to supporting Trump over Biden. Across all seven swing states, Biden had just a 4 point (45 percent to 41 percent) among Hispanics, while 24 percent of Black voters said they would support Trump.”

“How to Think about a Two-Incumbent Election” [National Review]. “The two incumbents in 2024 have dominated the invisible primary. Trump has run not as if he were another run-of-the-mill contestant, but as if he currently held office and could claim the Republican nomination by right. None of his rivals have come close to his leads in either state or national polls. His risky decision not to appear on the debate stage looks, in retrospect, like a political masterstroke. Above all, Trump’s legal troubles caused Republicans to rally to his side. The charges confirmed, in the eyes of his supporters, that the system is rigged against them. The GOP primary could be over in three weeks. sNor does Biden face a serious primary threat. …. [T]he 2020 election was more about Trump than about Biden, who was in his basement. And yet 57 percent of voters say their vote in 2024 will be more about Trump than about President Biden. That is why Biden plans to campaign at Valley Forge on Friday, where he will deliver a speech attacking Trump as a threat to democracy. That is why Biden and Democrats plan to campaign just as they have in every election since 2016: portraying Trump and the MAGA movement as extremists bent on depriving the electorate of benefits, from guaranteed health insurance to abortion rights. It’s worked before — in 2018, 2020, and 2022.”

Democrats en Déshabillé

“A Party of Short Sellers: Why Democrats Need to Re-Think Hunter’s Contempt” [Jonathan Turley, The Messenger]. “If the Democratic members, as expected, unanimously oppose [Hunter Biden’s] contempt sanction, the party could fundamentally undermine its position in future investigations. The Democratic leadership has made a series of similar decisions in the last decade that have cost the party dearly by opting for immediate political benefits over long-term interests. They are acting as the political version of short sellers who have given away institutional positions, only to find later that the costs were prohibitive. That was the case when Democrats repeatedly undermined the Senate filibuster. Many of us warned Democratic senators that they would rue the day that they killed the rule. Nevertheless, in 2013, Democrats pushed through a rule change allowing most presidential nominees (but not Supreme Court nominees) to be confirmed by a simple majority vote. Then in 2017, when Republicans controlled the Senate, they extended the simple-majority rule change to justices, too — and when Democrats wanted the filibuster to block the High Court nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett during the Trump administration, it was gone. Likewise, when Democrats first sought to impeach President Donald Trump, they held only one hearing in the House Judiciary Committee and discarded the development of the type of evidentiary record used in past impeachments. I warned that the record guaranteed an easy acquittal in the Senate and undermined the process of impeachment. They ignored such warnings and quickly impeached, then lost the case in the Senate. In a second impeachment, they went even further, using what I called a ‘snap impeachment’ with no hearing of any kind. Now, after using the first snap impeachment in history, Democrats are implausibly arguing that House Republicans have failed to support impeachment efforts against President Joe Biden and objected to the lack of hearings with particular witnesses.” • I don’t play the ponies. Readers, is Turley’s “short seller” metaphor on point?

“Democrats to spend $35M targeting voters of color in House races” [NBC]. “The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told NBC News in advance of the announcement that the planned 2024 spending would surpass the $30 million spent on those groups of voters in the 2022 midterm elections and other previous cycles…. The investment and work associated with the program ‘honors our commitment to the multiethnic coalition that our fragile democracy depends on,’ Missayr Boker, DCCC deputy executive director for campaigns, said in a news release.” • Sheesh. It’s “We the people,” not “We the variously allied_{MR SUBLIMINAL Depending on funding} ethnic verticals” ffs. One reason democracy fragile is that identity politics made it fragile.

Realignment and Legitimacy

We’ve Been Thinking About America’s Trust Collapse All Wrong” [Jedediah Britton-Purdy, The Atlantic]. “Only through trust can anyone ever know much of anything. Almost all of what anyone treats as knowledge is not part of their own experience, but the upshot of a social process—reporting, teaching, research, gossip—that they have decided to trust. I don’t personally know that Antarctica exists, that my vaccine works, or how many votes were cast for each candidate in 2020, and except for Antarctica, which requires only a long journey at great expense to verify, those facts are basically impossible for me to observe. When I say I know them, I mean I trust the way they came to me. I trust those who told me, and I trust how they learned what they say they know. This point, that most knowledge is indirect and social, might have seemed a philosopher’s conceit just a few decades ago. Yes, René Descartes pointed out that our lives might be illusions woven by an evil demon, and David Hume observed that just because bread tastes good today, that’s no guarantee it won’t poison you tomorrow. (Both examples have pretty clear applications to vaccine conspiracy theories.) But so what? The sun rose every day, the trains ran on time, and Walter Cronkite came on at 6:30. That complacency was the privilege of an invisible consensus, in which most people’s trust was, so to speak, facing in the same direction. Those who believe Trump’s stolen-election fables or anti-vax theories are not refusing to trust: They are trusting some other mix of reporting, research, teaching, and gossip. The polls showing collapsing trust in ‘newspapers’ or ‘television news’ don’t really show a decline in trust; they show a fragmentation, trust displaced. But from the perspective of a democracy that relies on a common set of facts, acute fragmentation might as well be a collapse.” • There are days when I think Descartes had the right idea.

“A ‘Coordinated Campaign'” [City Journal]. “The Court granted certiorari to hear an appeal of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden), which prohibited federal health and other officials from communicating with social media platforms about removing posts that the government identifies as false or misleading. The appellate court found evidence of ‘a coordinated campaign’ of unprecedented ‘magnitude orchestrated by federal officials’ to suppress disfavored, generally conservative, points of view on social media.” Obviously wrong, and the Censorship Industrial Complex should be dismantled. But read on: “Two of the private plaintiffs, infectious-disease epidemiologists Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, were among the suit’s alleged victims. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff coauthored the Great Barrington Declaration, which expressed concern about the damaging physical- and mental-health impacts of Covid lockdowns and proposed the alternative approach of ‘focused protection’ of vulnerable groups. In court, the two scientists provided convincing evidence that Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health conspired to organize, as Collins advocated in an email to Fauci, ‘a quick and devastating published take down’ of the GBD and its authors, and that other NIH personnel directly contacted social media companies, resulting in the censorship of the GBD and its authors.” • Bhattacharya (Stanford), of course, is a health care economist. Kilduff (Harvard) is a biostatistian. Neither are epidemiologists, but what of that? The fact that Fauci and Collins couldn’t take down the GBD goons without resorting to censorship really frosts me, but eugenicists like Bhattacharya and Kilduff posing as beleaguered truthtellers makes me want to vomit. They went viral, they made bank, they got everything they wanted on policy — Biden’s “Let ‘er rip” was worse than GBD, because even the conscience-appeasing figleaf of “focused protection” disappeared — and still they’re whinging!

#COVID19

“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

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!

* * *

Maskstravaganza

Layers of protection:

Seriously!! The spray is parsley. N95s and boosters are the entree. I use iota carrageenan spray bc of the study IN ADDITION TO but not IN PLACE OF other mitigations.

— Nora Phillips (@Noraistired) January 7, 2024

I’m all for sprays. But not without masking!

“The rise of the Stanley tumbler: How a 110-year-old brand achieved viral success” [Retail Dive]. “The brand had long been marketed to workmen and outdoorsmen. But with the help of a group of influencers, the company unlocked the power of women selling to women.” • For example:

this whole stanley thing is really starting to feel like a cult bc why would you need all that for a tumbler? pic.twitter.com/m3X1PPxytL

— tofu⁷ 🍜 ia📚 (@milktealattae) January 4, 2024

Why could not the same approach and design have been used for respirators (to avoid the Darth Vader look, for starters). The opportunity is still there!

Transmission

“Behavioral factors and SARS-CoV-2 transmission heterogeneity within a household cohort in Costa Rica” [Nature]. From July, still germane. From the Abstract: “We conducted a household transmission study of SARS-CoV-2 in Costa Rica, with SARS-CoV-2 index cases selected from a larger prospective cohort study and their household contacts were enrolled. A total of 719 household contacts of 304 household index cases were enrolled from November 21, 2020, through July 31, 2021.” From the Discussion: “A highlight of our study is that it provides real-world evidence that preventive measures within the household, such as sleeping arrangements and reducing contacts outside the bedroom, as well as household members and infected individuals wearing masks, was significantly associated with reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission within the household. Interestingly, our finding suggested that masks wearing by the index case is effective as “source control”. A recent household study conducted during the Omicron wave in four jurisdictions in the United States similarly found that attack rates were significantly lower among index cases who isolated or wore a mask1. Our study emphasizes the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions in reducing infection risk and disease burden in the household setting, especially when vaccines are not widely available or ineffective in preventing transmission.” • Plenty of anecdote to support this, along with ventilation and filtration, but it’s still good to have a study.

Sequelae

This is really not good:

Do cognitive deficits persist after COVID-19 and, if so, what is their biological basis?

Our NEW pre-print under review in @NaturePortfolio https://t.co/4JPGfeaSiB

We report one-year cognitive, serum biomarker, and neuroimaging findings in 351 patients

A thread 1/n pic.twitter.com/W8MXV3qkVt

— Greta Karen Wood (@gkwood3) January 9, 2024

Also has implications for executive functioning; I’ve been thinking of redubbing the PMC the “leadership class,” and the leadership class should clearly be tested for brain damage, if this study holds up.

* * *

Case Data

From BioBot wastewater data, January 9:

Lambert here #1: Still going up. As a totally “gut feel” tapewatcher, I would expect this peak to meet or exceed the two previous Biden peaks; after all, we haven’t really begun the next bout of holiday travel, or the next rounds of superspreading events celebrations. Plus students haven’t come from from school, and then returned. So a higher peak seems pretty much “baked in.” And that’s before we get to new variants, like JN.1. The real thing to watch is the slope of the curve. If it starts to go vertical, and if it keeps on doing so, then hold onto your hats.

Lambert here #2: Called it. Impressively, the Biden administration has now blown through all previous records, with the single exception of the Omicron, the top of the leaderboard, a record also set by itself. Congratulations to the Biden team! I know a lot of people think the peak will come in the next two weeks or so; I’d like to hear at least some anecdotal evidence of that beyond the models (because recall JN.1, whose peak this is, is extremely infectious).

Lambert here #3: Slight decrease in slope, due to the Northeast and the West (unless it’s a data issue). Personally, I wouldn’t call a peak, based entirely on the anecdotes I’m scrolling through, which are not encouraging, particularly with regard to the schools. (To be fair, the MWRA chart shows a slight drop, too.) Very unscientific, I agree! Let’s wait and see. Note that I don’t accept the PMC “homework” model, whose most famous exponent is Sociopath of the Day Bob Wachter, where you adjust your behavior according to the (horrible, gappy, lagged) data about infection levels (ignoring “risk of ruin”). Just stick with your protocol day in and day out. K.I.S.S. However, tracking these trends, besides having intrinsic interest, is pragmatically useful for major decisions, like travel, cruises (surely not, readers), relocation, family events, communication with recalcitrant HCWs, etc.

Regional data:

Regional bifurcation continues. The slope of the curve in the Northeast got less steep, which is good news (although, as ever, Biobot data is subject to backward revision).

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, January 6:

Lambert here: JN.1 now dominates. That was fast.

CDC: “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.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, December 30:

Lambert: Return to upward movement. Only a week’s lag, so this may be our best current nationwide, current indicator.

NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for both_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much}. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections. And of course, we’re not even getting into the quality of the wastewater sites that we have as a proxy for Covid infection overall.

Hospitalization

NOT UPDATED Bellwether New York City, data as of January 8:

Lambert here: I like the slope of that curve even less, and we’re approaching previous peak levels (granted, not 2020 or 2022, but respectable).

NOT UPDATED Here’s a different CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, but with a date, at least. December 30:

Moving ahead briskly!

Lambert here: “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†”. So where the heck is the update, CDC?

Positivity

From Walgreens, January 8:

0.5%. Up. (It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.)

From Cleveland Clinic, January 6:

Lambert here: Percentage and absolute numbers down.

NOT UPDATED From CDC, traveler’s data, December 18:

Down, albeit in the rear view mirror. And here are the variants for travelers, December 18:

Note the chart has been revised to reflect that JN.1 is BA.2.86.1 (the numbers “roll over”).

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Here is the New York Times, based on CDC data, December 30:

Stats Watch

Supply Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index Current” [Trading Economics]. “Logistics Managers Index Current in the United States increased to 50.60 points in December from 49.40 points in November of 2023.”

Business Optimism: “United States NFIB Business Optimism Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index in the US went up to 91.9 in December 2023, the highest in five months, compared to 90.6 in November and beating forecasts of 90.7. Twenty-three percent of small business owners reported that inflation was their single most important problem in operating their business, up one point from last month, and replacing labor quality as the top concern. Small business owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months increased six points…”

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Manufacturing: “Workers at a Boeing Supplier Raised Issues About Defects. The Company Didn’t Listen.” [Jacobin]. “Less than a month before a catastrophic aircraft failure prompted the grounding of more than 150 of Boeing’s commercial aircraft, documents were filed in federal court alleging that former employees at the company’s subcontractor repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records. One of the employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which reportedly manufactured the door plug that blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Oregon, allegedly told company officials about an ‘excessive amount of defects,’ according to the federal complaint and corresponding internal corporate documents reviewed by us. According to the court documents, the employee told a colleague that ‘he believed it was just a matter of time until a major defect escaped to a customer.’ The allegations come from a federal securities lawsuit accusing Spirit of deliberately covering up systematic quality-control problems, encouraging workers to undercount defects, and retaliating against those who raised safety concerns. Read the full complaint here.” • Because of course.

Manufacturing: “Is my plane a 737 MAX?” [737 MAX Checker]. Enter the flight number (see the disclaimer. This is only a good start).

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 73 Greed (previous close: 74 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 77 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 9 at 1:53:34 PM ET.

The Gallery

Where’s the woman?

Woman Reading with Peaches, 1923 https://t.co/RvUHLNscaK pic.twitter.com/JYwG1wIcRB

— Henri Matisse (@artistmatisse) January 9, 2024

Class Warfare

“Why and Where the Working Class Turned Right” [Harold Meyer, The American Prospect]. “Those local unions had their own hunting, bowling, and baseball clubs; their newsletters provided information on new state hunting regulations; their union halls were often the sites of weddings and other celebrations. (Newman’s interviews and research of local union archives has turned up the stuff of more possible movies on the worlds of pre- and post–Deer Hunter steel towns.) This steelmaking and union-centered world shaped the politics of a couple of generations of nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania voters. They and their peers saw, and in most cases, imbibed the union’s stance on economic issues and political concerns more generally. Those viewpoints were sometimes echoed from the pulpits of the local Catholic church; they were the common parlance of working-class neighborhoods at a time when most of those towns consisted chiefly of working-class neighborhoods. The smelters and the local unions are long gone today from those mill towns; those neighborhoods are both smaller, older, and lack most other community organizations as well—with the crucial exception of gun clubs (most of which have to affiliate with the NRA to qualify for consumer and other benefits). The discourse surrounding today’s steelworkers and former steelworkers still in Western Pennsylvania now comes from right-wing, nonlocal media (both mass and social) and from those gun clubs. To be a Democrat in the few remaining mills today is to be an exception. On several occasions, Newman spent days documenting the bumper stickers in the employees’ parking lots of three unionized Southwest Pennsylvania steel mills. Thirty-four percent of the bumper stickers were those of gun clubs, 27 percent were from and/or for the Republican Party and its candidates, 13 percent were from motorcycle clubs, 12 percent from the union, and a bare 1 percent from and/or for the Democratic Party and its candidates.”

News of the Wired

“Where have all the websites gone?” [From Jason]. “We miss curation # We used to know how to do this. Not long ago, we were good at separating the signal from noise. Granted, there’s a lot more noise these days, but most of it comes from and is encouraged by the silos we dwell in. Somewhere between the late 2000’s aggregator sites and the contemporary For You Page, we lost our ability to curate the web. Worse still, we’ve outsourced our discovery to corporate algorithms. Most of us did it in exchange for an endless content feed. By most, I mean upwards of 90% who don’t make content on a platform as understood by the 90/9/1 rule. And that’s okay! Or, at least, it makes total sense to me. Who wouldn’t want a steady stream of dopamine shots? The rest of us, posters, amplifiers, and aggregators, traded our discovery autonomy for a chance at fame and fortune. Not all, but enough to change the social web landscape. But that gold at the end of the rainbow isn’t for us. “Creator funds” pull from a fixed pot. It’s a line item in a budget that doesn’t change, whether one hundred or one million hands dip inside it. Executives in polished cement floor offices, who you’ll never meet, choose their winners and losers. And I’m guessing it’s not a meritocracy-based system. They pick their tokens, round up their shills, and stuff Apple Watch ads between them.” • Some of us still know how to curate!

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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 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: “As you may recall from when you lived in California, we don’t see a lot of Fall colors in trees, so when leaves go gold, and are spotlit by the sun, it grabs my attention. I wonder if they’ve ever tried hanging those birdhouses in the tree. We get a lot of strong Santa Ana winds (strong winds blowing from desert to coast) in Orange County though, so probably not a good idea, even if you COULD fit them all in.” A lot going on here!

• Kind readers, I think I’m OK on plants for awhile, though it never hurts to have more!

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