2:00PM Water Cooler 5/2/2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

* * *

Bird Song of the Day

American Robin, 138 Captains Dr, West Babylon, Suffolk, New York, United States. “American Robin singing on a roof before dawn. Bird gives a few call notes before flying off at the end of the recording.”

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Boeing deaths.

(2) Trump nostalgia.

(3) Encampments news.

* * *

Politics

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

* * *

Biden Administration

“Biden on campus protesters: No ‘right to cause chaos'” [Axios]. • Correct. Let’s leave that to the Executive Branch!

2024

Less than a year to go!

RCP Poll Averages, April 26:

National results are still moving Biden’s way. But all the Swing States (more here) are moving Trump’s way, although in tiny increments. It’s hard to attribute this consistency to mere chance. “All” with one exception: Pennsylvania. If Susie Wiles is such a brain genius, why isn’t she fixing this?

* * *

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Michael Cohen TikTok videos, fundraising stun legal observers: May have ‘torpedoed case against Trump'” [FOX]. “Michael Cohen, who is supposed to be a star witness in NY v. Trump, might have ‘torpedoed’ the case before taking the stand by ranting about it on TikTok while fundraising, according to legal observers…. ABC News published an article Sunday declaring Cohen’s actions ‘could be a problem, pointing out that Cohen has chimed in on former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony, has regularly ‘railed against Trump,’ has insisted the jury isn’t ‘bored’ and can profit when followers shower him with gifts. TikTok allows viewers to donate ‘gifts’ as they watch users’ livestreams…. ‘Michael Cohen through his narcissism and his ego may have just torpedoed the case against Trump,’ [Michael] Avenatti told Fox News Digital from federal prison.” “(!!!!) More: ‘The state can’t win the case without him and because of his conduct in reviewing trial testimony in violation of the court’s order, which just admitted to when speaking with ABC, the court must strike him as a witness, declare a mistrial, or both,’ Avenatti continued. ‘He had no business commenting on other witnesses’ testimony.’ Avenatti said Cohen is ‘not even supposed to be hearing or learning of that testimony before he testifies’ himself. ‘Alvin Bragg and his team have a lot of explaining to do, in my view,’ Avenatti said.” • Entertaining!

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “NY vs. Trump: A trial in search of an imaginary crime” [FOX]. “Bragg’s courtroom smear campaign against Trump continued with prosecution witness Keith Davidson, the Los Angeles lawyer for Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who purportedly had an affair with Trump. Davidson negotiated the so-called “hush money” payments for both his clients, which were completely lawful. Paying someone for their silence in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement is not a crime. Indeed, it’s a staple of thousands of settlement agreements signed every day…. Prosecutors also exploited the McDougal-Daniels imbroglio to backdoor a prominent mention in court of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that proved damaging to Trump just weeks before the 2016 election. Such evidence should never be permitted since its scant probative value is materially outweighed by the prejudicial effect on the jury. No matter. That’s exactly what Bragg wants.” • The Molineux Rule once more….

Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon) “Unredactions Reveal Early White House Involvement in Trump Documents Case” [Julie Kelly, RealClearInvestigations]. “A comparison of the redacted and unredacted material shows the Archives acted in concert with several Biden administration agencies to build the case — coordination that included the DOJ, the Biden White House, and the intelligence community. The Trump case prompted revelations that both Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence had also retained classified documents – in Biden’s case for decades, stretching back to his time in the Senate. But while the Archives’ outreach to Biden and Pence consisted of requests, the agency took a more assertive stance with Trump. ”

* * *

Trump (R): “Is Trump Nostalgia Enough?” [Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics]. “The political science literature is pretty consistent that this is the time when the electorate’s views about the election start to harden, particularly with respect to the economy. That’s not good for Biden either: When asked how they would rate conditions in the economy today, 30% said ‘good,’ while 70% said ‘poor.’ That’s better than the 18-82 split from mid-2022, but it’s still worse than in the middle of the COVID shutdown, when it was a 34-65 breakdown. And it is far worse than the 70% ‘good’ rating Trump received in late 2019. We can repeat ‘It’s a long time until Election Day,’ and that’s true in a sense. But Election Day is also fast approaching; we’re almost in May, and people start voting in September in some states. If voters still have a favorable view of Trump’s presidency in a few months and think the incumbent president is a failure, the situation will quickly turn critical for Biden and the Democratic Party.

Trump (R): “On a day off from court, fired-up Trump hits swing states” [BBC]. “But on Wednesday at a rally outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he seemed fired up as he spoke to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters for about an hour and a half…. ‘The trial is definitely going to increase his popularity,’ said Nancy Ridge, a supporter from nearby Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, who was wearing a jacket printed with Mr Trump’s mugshot on the back and the words ‘Wanted: for president.’ ‘Especially among lower-class people who have been convicted of crimes or even falsely accused. They understand the justice system and how corrupt it can be,’ she said. ‘It’s free publicity,’ said Jerry Cleppe, another Trump fan waiting in a queue outside the event. ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, it’s attention. The trial is a good thing.’…. After his rally in Wisconsin, the former president hosted another event in Michigan.” • So, MI and WI are the priorities (this week).

Trump (R): “Trump eyes 2 battleground states as he looks to tear down Dem ‘blue wall’ again” [FOX]. “It’s the former president’s second swing through the two Great Lakes swing states in a month…. Biden has made multiple trips to Michigan and Wisconsin this year, and his campaign enjoys a formidable advantage in both states when it comes to organization and ground-game efforts.”

* * *

Biden (D): “Biden’s Electoral College Challenge” [Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic]. “President Joe Biden won a decisive Electoral College victory in 2020 by restoring old Democratic advantages in the Rust Belt while establishing new beachheads in the Sun Belt. But this year, his position in polls has weakened on both fronts. The result is that, even this far from Election Day, signs are developing that Biden could face a last-mile problem in the Electoral College. Even a modest recovery in Biden’s current support could put him in position to win states worth 255 Electoral College votes, strategists in both parties agree. His problem is that every option for capturing the final 15 Electoral College votes he would need to reach a winning majority of 270 looks significantly more difficult…. Biden’s odds may particularly diminish if he cannot hold all three of the former ‘blue wall’ states across the Rust Belt that he recaptured in 2020 after Trump had taken them four years earlier: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden is running more competitively in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin than in any other swing states. But in Michigan, Biden has struggled in most polls, whipsawed by defections among multiple groups Democrats rely on, including Arab Americans, auto workers, young people, and Black Americans. As James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist told me, if Biden can recover to win Michigan along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, ‘you are not going to lose.’ But, Carville added, if Biden can’t hold all three, ‘you are going to have to catch an inside straight to win.'” And: “Many operatives in both parties separate the six states Biden carried most narrowly into three distinct tiers. Biden has looked best in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Biden’s position has been weakest in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. Michigan falls into its own tier in between.” • The collective wisdom of Democratic strategists but still worth a read.

Biden (D): “Don’t Forget the Backlash to the ’60s” [Politico]. “Most media retrospectives of the 1960s celebrate the marchers, the protests, the peace signs along with the compulsory Buffalo Springfield lyrics (“There’s something happening here/ But what it is ain’t exactly clear”). The reality is those upheavals were an enormous in-kind contribution to the political fortunes of the right. And if history comes even close to repeating itself, then the latest episode will redound to Donald Trump’s benefit. Begin with this, unfortunately accurate, generalization: Protests of any kind, even those most justified, produce a sense of unease among the public…. When upheaval began on college campuses, largely triggered by the escalation of the Vietnam War, this sense of disapproval grew sharply, and so did the political consequences. Ronald Reagan centered much of his 1966 campaign for governor of California on attacking the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley. He pledged to ‘clean up the mess at Berkeley,’ and denounced the ‘beatniks, radicals and filthy speech advocates’ who fueled ‘anarchy and rioting.’… The backlash against the left was a key part of the 1968 presidential race. Richard Nixon famously ran a campaign on ‘law and order’ — highlighting both urban and campus unrest. One commercial featured scenes of protest, as Nixon argued that ‘in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies a resort to violence.’…. The scenes of violence in Chicago outside the Democrats’ 1968 presidential convention, meanwhile, further contributed to the notion that left-wing lawlessness had gotten out of control. It was a nightmare event for Hubert Humphrey’s beleaguered presidential campaign, one where the public overwhelmingly sided with the Chicago police, not the demonstrators. (And, of course, guess where Democrats are holding their 2024 convention: Chicago.)”

* * *

Kennedy (I):

At an event in Brooklyn, NY yesterday, I broke down recent robust polling data that shows that President Biden is the real spoiler in this election — and that I’m the only candidate who can beat President Trump.

The numbers speak for themselves ➡️ https://t.co/hKLFfOUgw4… pic.twitter.com/PYt1B2jhDE

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 2, 2024

Cheeky!

Kennedy (I): “Railroad Owned by RFK Jr.’s Megadonor Repeatedly Violated Environmental and Safety Laws” [Exposed by CMD]. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may claim he will be ‘the best environmental president in American history,’ but the Republican industrialist bankrolling the super PAC behind his longshot bid for the White House has a long history of violating environmental laws. A Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) study of the railroad business that 81-year-old megadonor Timothy Mellon owned for 45 years shows numerous violations of federal and state environmental and safety laws, including a criminal conviction of the company for covering up a 2006 oil spill. Mellon’s backing may be related to Kennedy’s recent emergence as a climate skeptic and harsh critic of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Despite being a former environmental lawyer and ‘crusader,’ he has shifted his position so radically that former allies are calling his campaign a ‘climate disaster.’ On the campaign trail, Kennedy has called the climate crisis ‘a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls, the same way the Covid crisis was,’ blaming ‘intelligence agencies,’ ‘the world economic forum,’ and ‘the billionaire boys’ club at Davos’ for efforts to control global warming. Kennedy also denounces the EPA as ‘effectively run by the oil industry, the coal industry and the pesticide industry,’ despite the fact that the fossil fuel industry and Republican state attorneys general have repeatedly sued the agency to challenge its regulations….. During this election cycle alone [Mellon] has given more than $50 million to GOP candidates and PACs, including over $20 million to the American Values 2024 super PAC that supports Kennedy’s independent run for president. This represents almost half of the PAC’s $43-million haul so far this cycle. At the same time, Mellon is financing former President Trump’s third run for the White House.”

* * *

“Why the Senate GOP is downplaying the chances of a red wave” [Politico]. “Senate Republicans are six months away from their most favorable Election Day map in a decade, with pickup opportunities in at least a half-dozen states — including sapphire-blue Maryland. Mitch McConnell isn’t predicting a red wave ahead, though. There’s a reason for that. The minority leader is clearly wary of his party overextending itself despite the advantageous conditions after the twin debacles of 2020 and 2022, when former President Donald Trump’s embrace of flawed GOP nominees contributed to surprising Democratic wins. While former Senate GOP campaign chief Rick Scott (R-Fla.) predicted the party would win up to 55 seats in the midterms, Democrats ended up gaining a seat. So even though Republicans have room to compete in eight states, McConnell said in an interview that he’s primarily focused on four for now…. ‘You take polls around Labor Day and begin to decide where you’re going to play,’ McConnell said. ‘But we know where we’re going to play for sure right now: Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland.'”

“Democrats Are Feckless and Republicans Are Chaotic. Here’s Why” [Politico]. “As the political scientists Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman argue in their new book, Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, America’s current system is shaped by a paradox: The parties appear omnipresent — on the ballot line, at the party conventions, on the debate stage — yet they’re unable to perform many of their basic functions, like enforcing ideological discipline among officeholders or building effective electoral coalitions.” One more goddamned book to read. More: “Rosenfeld: If you have a project for power and if you want to accomplish something, there is no alternative to party politics.” • Lenin would agree. And he would be right.

AZ: “Arizona Senate repeals near-total 1864 abortion ban in divisive vote” [Al Jazeera]. “The Arizona Senate has voted to repeal the state’s 1864 ban on abortion, which would otherwise have taken effect within weeks. The repeal was passed by the Senate in a 16-14 vote on Wednesday and is expected to be signed swiftly by Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. Two Republican senators crossed party lines to vote in favour of repealing the ban. The Arizona House last week passed the measure after a handful of Republicans broke party ranks and voted with Democrats to send it to the Senate. ‘We’re here to repeal a bad law,’ Senator Eva Burch, a Democrat, said from the floor. “I don’t want us honouring laws about women, written during a time when women were forbidden from voting.'”

Republican Funhouse

“Political center revolts against fringe, as leaders rebuke Greene, protesters” [The Hill]. “In a remarkable development Tuesday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) announced he and other Democrats would step in to help Johnson defeat any motion offered by conservatives to vacate his position. ‘I think people are sick and tired of chaos and dysfunction. So I congratulate all of our friends on both sides of the aisle in the House for … actually doing their job instead of all of the sideshow,’ said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate leadership team. ‘Republicans are by and large tired of all the antics and the chaos, and they realize it’s a political liability,’ he added. Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former member of the House Republican leadership said, ‘We are seeing a very strong reaction against the political process by the fringes of both parties.’ ‘Even though he’s of the other party, we’re seeing in the reaction of the Democratic leader a leader,’ he said of Jeffries’s decision to side with Johnson against the conservative insurgents in is conference. And he praised Johnson for standing up to the critics in his conference by pushing the foreign aid package through the House, even though doing so put his job at risk. That bold decision was validated by the strong vote its different components received from House Republicans, including 101 GOP lawmakers who voted for Ukraine funding.” • What the heck is “bold” about servicing The Blob?

“GOP Right Flank Challenges Speaker Johnson (and Trump)” [RealClearPolitics]. “House Speaker Mike Johnson has a revolt on his right flank, and by extension, so does Donald Trump. The former president has certainly tightened his grasp on the Republican Party as he seeks to return to the White House. All the same, his authority is not complete…. Greene was never among those who distanced themselves from Trump after Jan. 6, and her connection with him was so strong that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly sought her counsel as a liaison to Mar-a-Lago. MTG still speaks with Trump regularly. She campaigned with him earlier this year…. The Georgia firebrand is not, however, a Trump rubber stamp. Neither is Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie or Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar. The trio plans to force a vote to remove Johnson next week…. ‘Whether it’s running for minority leader or speaker next Congress, nobody’s counting on this guy being around,’ another Republican lawmaker told RCP before adding that Johnson’s only path to salvation would be ‘Trump maneuvering to keep him around.’ ‘I don’t know why he would,’ the lawmaker continued. ‘I don’t know how Trump would justify that.’ For the speaker’s part, Johnson has said that he and Trump ‘are 100% in line’ on their policy agenda. And right now, the former president opposes the effort to shake up leadership and sees it as counterproductive to Republican electoral aims. A Trump emissary, RNC Chair Michael Whatley, delivered that message directly to the congresswoman in her office Wednesday.”

Democrats en Déshabillé

Yep:

That whole scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds statement has never been more apparent than it is in this moment.

— AshleyStevens (@The_Acumen) May 1, 2024

All factions of both parties partaking liberally of the fascist “All You Can Eat” buffet.

Realignment and Legitimacy

Northern Arizona University encampment:

Can’t make this up. At Northern Arizona University, the VP of Inclusion helped tear down the encampment tents set up by anti-genocide student protestors. 24 were arrested. Oh & the university suspended the SJP chapter. pic.twitter.com/kmlrUNRpBZ

— Alexander Aviña (@Alexander_Avina) May 1, 2024

Same as at Columbia, where the cop-wielding President is a “woman of color.” So much for identity politics, one would have thought.

UCLA encampment:

*also not most staff, such as janitors, food service workers, library workers and so on. A general strike could help correct this power imbalance… 👀

— Samuel Lutzker (@SamLutzker) May 2, 2024

Maybe a UAW 4811 strike will ignite something….

UCLA encampment:

LA, y’a’ll sure know how to hold it tf down ❤️‍🔥🫡 pic.twitter.com/0xhB0na3dw

— eyerollsandbloodlust (@eyerollsnblood) May 2, 2024

The dastardly campers are cleverly concealing their connection to Soros by purchasing multi-colored tents…

Dartmouth:

“More than 90 protesters arrested at Dartmouth College pro-Palestinian encampment” [Boston Globe]. “Hanover police said in a statement that they had been advised by the college that no tents would be allowed. Protesters put up a small grouping of four tents, and soon hundreds of people had gathered at the small encampment, singing songs and calling on the university to divest from companies that profit from war in Israel. By 8:30 p.m., about 30 state troopers and local police officers arrived on campus.” • Seven cops oer tent.

Brown encampment:

It turns out that if you don't call in anti-terror cops to beat, detain, and arrest your students, you can actually avoid escalating violence and chaos, and becoming headline news across the globe, and actually have a productive discussion with demonstrators on your campus. https://t.co/hVKyQ39FCy

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 2, 2024

This is the time-honored tactic of university administrators: Divert the student energy into a committee (and then, of course, sabotage the committee).

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

* * *

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!

* * *

Airborne Transmission: Covid

“Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The Contrast between Indoors and Outdoors” [Fluids]. From the Discussion: “Two issues in particular, the interaction between thermal plumes and ceilings and the entrainment of room air into exhalation plumes, appear to have been largely overlooked in the literature. Both are not a problem outdoors. Yet indoors, they present a major challenge because rooms are by definition confined and generally have ceilings. This means that indoors: (i) boluses of respiratory aerosols (high-concentration clouds) will tend to form at the ceiling and travel horizontally before descending through the breathing zone of the room occupants; and (ii) as the concentration of respiratory aerosols builds up in the room space, so the near-field exposure risk associated with exhalation plumes will tend to increase. Both these phenomena mean that the risk of transmission is much greater indoors compared with outdoors. They also highlight the inadequacy of the simplistic ‘near-field’–‘far-field’ analysis framework. In reality, in most indoor environments, the near-field and far-field exposure risks are inextricably linked—something that is not the case outdoors. Because exhalation plumes entrain air from the surrounding room space, a feedback loop exists between the far-field and near-field. ” And the conclusion: “By comparing aerosol behaviour inside and outside buildings, we have been able to show that profound differences exist between the two environments and that this is likely to be the main reason why SARS-CoV-2 transmission is so much higher indoors than outdoors. In particular, we have identified that a feedback loop exists between the near-field and the far-field inside buildings, which is completely absent outdoors. This feedback loop is facilitated by the action of the exhalation and thermal plumes associated with occupants in room spaces. These plumes drive much of the air circulation within rooms and can rapidly disperse respiratory aerosol particles throughout a space.” • This why masking should be universal throughout hospital facilities (although one would think CDC would know better than anyone that hot air rises).

Transmission: H5N1

Michigan takes the lead:

Michigan: Determination of Extraordinary Emergency
HPAI Risk Reduction

New restrictions for Michigan dairy and poultry farmers announced.

1/2https://t.co/VYGRnd8vZ9 pic.twitter.com/Wb0zlSbX7j

— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) May 2, 2024

Good for them!

Sequelae: Covid

Hair loss? Really?

Post-acute infection hair loss hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention. We heard about post-COVID telogen effluvium in 2020/2021, and then it seemed to disappear, so people guessed this meant it went away.
Nope. Ask any hair stylist that will talk. Im some cases, it’s chronic. https://t.co/6EBiXkCihF

— Kathryn (@kadamssl) May 1, 2024

Have any readers heard of this?

Elite Maleficence

CDC kills off hospital data:

Hmmmm, @CDCDirector Mandy Cohen is strangely silent about the termination of required reporting of COVID hospital admissions/beds. The @CDCgov / epidemiologists used this key data for guiding pandemic planning. ➡️CDC has now killed that today. Who will be killed tomorrow? Dunno. https://t.co/28ZGgGihvH

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) May 2, 2024

Since obviously only hospitals who feel they are performing well will report, the data is now useless. I’m going to have to rethink my tables again. Remember that the public health establishment thinks only hospitalizations and deaths are important, and both seem to be going dark.

WHO is a maskless and ill-ventilated talking shop:

“[improving] indoor air quality through better ventilation, filtration or UV disinfection..should be high on the agenda of..the pandemic agreement, to be unveiled at next month's World Health Assembly. But it remains silent on these essential public health protections.” 💯 https://t.co/SfBF8rBCMp pic.twitter.com/jgOGylul2N

— Maarten De Cock (@mdc_martinus) May 2, 2024

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Cases
★ National[1] Biobot April 29:	Regional[2] Biobot April 29:
Variants[3] CDC April 27	Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC March 23
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data May 1:	National [6] CDC April 20:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens April 22:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic April 20:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC April 8:	Variants[10] CDC April 8:
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) KP.2 has entered the chat, at least in the model. 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. And no mention of KP.2

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

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US was unchanged from the prior week at 208,000 on the period ending April 27th, remaining at the lowest level in two months, and firmly below market expectations of 212,000. It was the fourth consecutive stronger-than-expected result, pointing to continued tightness in the US labor market and adding leeway for the Federal Reserve to delay interest rate cuts should inflation remain stubbornly above the central bank’s target. ”

Manufacturing: “United States Factory Orders” [Trading Economics]. “New orders for US manufactured goods rose by 1.6% from the previous month to $584.5 billion in March of 2024, following a 1.2% increase in February, in line with expectations.”

Supply Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Logistics Manager’s Index in the US increased to 58.3 in March 2024, from 56.5 in February, marking the fastest expansion since September 2022. This indicates that the overall logistics industry is experiencing healthy growth, albeit at the lower end. The growth is attributed to long-planned inventory expansions and improved efficiency in warehousing and transportation.”

* * *

Manufacturing: “Whistleblower Josh Dean of Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems has died” [Seattle Times]. “Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died Tuesday morning after a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection. Known as Josh, Dean lived in Wichita, Kan., where Spirit is based. He was 45, had been in good health and was noted for having a healthy lifestyle. He died after two weeks in critical condition, his aunt Carol Parsons said…. Parsons said Dean became ill and went to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing just over two weeks ago. He was intubated and developed pneumonia and then a serious bacterial infection, MRSA…. Dean was represented by a law firm in South Carolina that also represented Boeing whistleblower John ‘Mitch’ Barnett.” More detail–

Manufacturing: “Boeing supplier whistleblower Joshua Dean dead at 45” [FOX 59]. “Dean had been hospitalized with Influenza B and MRSA, and developed pneumonia, according to a Facebook post from his mother. His condition quickly deteriorated and he was transferred to a hospital in Oklahoma City. There, he was put on an ECMO machine, which pumps blood outside the body and circulates oxygenated blood, taking over the function of the heart and lungs and allowing other organs to heal. He was also undergoing dialysis. It was soon discovered after a CT scan that Dean suffered a stroke. Prior to his hospitalization, Dean was said to be ‘in good health and was noted for having a healthy lifestyle,’ according to The Seattle Times, which first reported his death.” • Eeesh. Can’t Boeing stick to killing people wholesale? Does it have to go retail? Kidding!

Manufacturing: “Whistleblower Laws That Protect Lawbreakers” [Maureen Tkacik, American Prospect]. This article, excellent as usual, is really two articles, one on the topic in the headline, one buried. Here is the buried part: (1) “Appearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, [Sam] Salehpour described an unsettling evening when his brand new tire began to flatten on the drive home. When he pulled over at a body shop, a mechanic discovered a nail. Just so you know, the mechanic told him, you didn’t run over this nail; it’s not an accident.” (2) “Later that afternoon, I got a text message from one of Barnett’s old Boeing co-workers who’d been fired from the Charleston plant for reporting a safety risk created by shoddy manufacturing. An FAA investigation had vindicated most of the whistleblower’s allegations, only after they’d withdrawn their AIR 21 complaint out of fear Boeing would force them to pay legal fees. Inside the whistleblower’s text was a photo of a wheel missing two lug nuts; the car had been mysteriously wobbling, so they’d pulled over to check. It had been years since they’d left the company, but they could not shake the sense that someone, somewhere was still trying to exact revenge on them for speaking out. “If anything happens,” they told me, not for the first time, “I’m not suicidal.'” (3) “”John’s boss always told him he was going to push him till he broke, and that’s what they did,” says Turkewitz, whose therapist has been helping him come to peace with the fact that Barnett likely did kill himself, and that his initial denial was in part influenced by guilt for having forced his client to relive six and a half years of daily micro- and macro aggressions in a grueling deposition.” • Anybody other than me having some cognitive dissonance over (1) and (2) vs. (3)? And now we have another death, this one from “a fast moving infection,” not crude sabotage, but maybe they’re more sophisticated up in Seattle? Not that I’m foily, but as I wrote, of Barnett’s death: ” Things I want to know: Why was the gun in Barnett’s hand? Why did the police dust the car for finger prints? What did the note read? Where is Barnett’s computer?” These questions seem reasonable to me, and have never been answered. So I don’t know why the opinion of Turkewitz’s therapist — Jennifer Melfi? — is relevant, here.

Manufacturing: “Boeing’s deliberately defective fleet of flying sky-wreckage” [Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic]. Summary of the field of play. This is intereting “The thing is, Swampy* wasn’t just protecting the lives of the passengers in those defective aircraft – he was also protecting Boeing employees. Under Sec 38 of the US Criminal Code, it’s a 15-year felony to make any ‘materially false writing, entry, certification, document, record, data plate, label, or electronic communication concerning any aircraft or space vehicle part.’ (When Swampy told a meeting that he took this seriously because ‘the paperwork is just as important as the aircraft’ the room erupted in laughter.)” • Holding off a felony charge seems like a good motive for murder, to me. NOTE * “Swampy” = John Barnett’s nickname, which Tkacik has adopted, and Doctorow seems to have adopted from Tkacik…..

Manufacturing: “Another Boeing Whistleblower Turns Up Dead” [FITS News]. The deck: “They’re dropping like 737s….” I can’t get into this; if some kind reader can, please send it along, because these are locals who don’t mess around. I thought the first comment was interesting: “If we were living in an episode of The Blacklist, someone inside the law firm would be responsible for the deaths. They’d be the common denominator that has the appearance of advocating for the whistleblower. They’d be part of an international operation, probably based in Russia, and only a Boeing senior official and another from an institutional shareholder would know about it.” • Perhaps a trifle baroque….

Tech: “A Lawsuit Argues Meta Is Required by Law to Let You Control Your Own Feed” [Wired]. “The suit was filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of researcher Ethan Zuckerman, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst. It attempts to take a federal law that has generally shielded social networks and use it as a tool forcing transparency…. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is best known for allowing social media companies to evade legal liability for content on their platforms. Zuckerman’s suit argues that one of its subsections gives users the right to control how they access the internet, and the tools they use to do so.

“Section 230 (c) (2) (b) is quite explicit about libraries, parents, and others having the ability to control obscene or other unwanted content on the internet.” • Interesting!

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 36 Fear (previous close: 40 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 2 at 1:37:46 PM ET.

Class Warfare

“Police Unions: What to Know and Why They Don’t Belong in the Labor Movement” [Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue]. “Police unions have always been outliers among organized labor, and there are many reasons why the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union has long refused to allow cops (and prison guards) into its organization. For one thing, no other union members hold the legal ability to straight-up kill another human being while on the job…. [Author Kristian Williams] argues that the shared workplace identity that makes up the “thin blue line” mentality for cops transcends other identity markers, and shows how they view themselves as police first, and everything else second. As such, police unions tend to keep their distance from the rest of the labor movement (unless they’re cracking its members’ skulls)…. The cognitive dissonance that comes with knowing that members of my union are being beaten bloody and viciously arrested by members of another union that falls under that same AFL-CIO umbrella is sickening, as is the knowledge that we will have to fight our own leadership to force a change. But I know that there are a great many of us who are up for the challenge, and this battle is far from over.”

News of the Wired

“Key Consciousness Connections Uncovered” [Neuroscience News]. “The study involved high-resolution scans that enabled the researchers to visualize brain connections at submillimeter spatial resolution. This technical advance allowed them to identify previously unseen pathways connecting the brainstem, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and cerebral cortex. Together, these pathways form a ‘default ascending arousal network’ that sustains wakefulness in the resting, conscious human brain. The concept of a ‘default’ network is based on the idea that specific networks within the brain are most functionally active when the brain is in a resting state of consciousness. In contrast, other networks are more active when the brain is performing goal-directed tasks…. The authors are currently conducting clinical trials to stimulate the default ascending arousal network in patients with coma after traumatic brain injury, with the goal of reactivating the network and restoring consciousness.” • Fine, but when can we use this default network for advertising, or better yet, rent it?

* * *

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 Carla:

Carla writes: “These cactus blooms last for only a day. For many years, the plant bloomed only once a year. The last few years it has bloomed more often. Always a treat!” This lovely photo screams Midwest to me, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps because my mother’s friends put blue China plates in the window? Or is it the shape of the driveway, sidewalks, and lawn outside?

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!