By Lambert Strether of Corrente
There will be plenty more about the exciting events in the Democrat Party. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Rocky Rill Farm; Farmyard, Whitfield, Georgia, United States. A reader asked for mockingbirds; here’s six minutes-worth!
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Many new Covid charts, emergency department visits being especially disconcerting.
(3) Harris: Let the oppo begin!
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
2024
Less than four months to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
Virginia and North Carolina added to the list. NC was never going for Biden, but Virginia? Yikes!
* * * Events, dear boy, events.” —Harold MacMillan (apocryphal)
Patient readers: “Events” are moving too fast for me to rise above them with generalizations, and therefore I’m going to throw my timely gleanings into buckets with which you are already familiar. But it’s worth noting that our patient examination of events has yielded at least two results: The term “circle“*, and the idea of the “Inner Party,” which is a FlexNet (stigmatized here as the “Wretched Hive” of scum and villainy). Neither type of entity, you will have noticed, is small-d “democratic” to the slightest degree. I’m still long volatility. NOTE * We can now ask, for example, what Kamala’s circle is, and how it differs from Biden’s.
* * * Covid
“White House lifting its COVID-19 testing rule for people around Biden” [PBS]. March 4, 2024: “The White House on Monday lifted its COVID-19 testing requirement for those who plan to be in close contact with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses, bringing to an end the last coronavirus prevention protocol at the White House. The White House said the change aligns its policies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.” • Life’s little ironies, eh? You also have to wonder who many people Biden infected:
we are in a surge and you literally have Covid right now and aren’t masking or contact tracing.
You let hundreds of thousands of people die and still have never tweeted the phrase Long Covid, even though millions have it.
You don’t get to pretend you succeeded at Covid. https://t.co/m3XWZHKQO7
— Mr. Madam Adam (@MisterMadamAdam) July 20, 2024
As NC readers know, when Biden says Trump “told us to inject bleach” he’s lying.
Biden Circle
Similar narratives:
“Why Biden finally quit” [Politico]. Same narrative as below. “Early Saturday, Biden told senior aides it was “full steam ahead” for the campaign. But by later that evening, he had changed his mind following a long discussion with his two closest aides [Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon]…. [T]hey carried the campaign’s own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone, according to five people familiar with the matter…. When the campaign commissioned new battleground polling over the last week, it was the first time they had done surveys in some key states in more than two months [What? This year?], according to two people familiar with the surveys. And the numbers were grim, showing Biden not just trailing in all six critical swing states but collapsing in places like Virginia and New Mexico where Democrats had not planned on needing to spend massive resources to win.” • I’m a little amazed that Swing State polling could come as a surprise to a campaign with a competent staff. Then again. this is the staff that exposed Biden to Covid (and allowed him to expose others). Makes you wonder if Biden’s the only one with cognitive issues (see “Personal Risk Assessment” in the Covid section).
“Inside Biden’s unprecedented exit from the presidential race” [CNN]. “Biden’s final decision to leave the race was reached in the last 48 hours, a senior campaign adviser said, as he consulted family and top advisers by telephone while recovering from Covid. A source familiar with the matter said the plans to exit the race began Saturday night and were finalized Sunday. The adviser said the president ‘was not dug in’ but was studying the data coming in and became convinced he would ‘weigh down’ the ticket and be a complication to defeating Trump. Biden’s decision did not have to do with any medical issues, a senior White House official told CNN.” We are now revising the narrative to eliminate both Covid and Biden’s cognitive difficulties. “It was the polling!” And indeed, that was part of the picture, but not all of it. More: “When Biden huddled with his two closest advisers Saturday, the information they provided on polling and where top Democratic officials stood underscored that a path to victory was ‘basically nonexistent,’ according to another person familiar with the matter. There wasn’t any single poll number, wavering Democratic official or fundraiser presented in the meeting with longtime aides Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti that pushed Biden toward his decision, the person said. Instead, the information highlighted that the path back to a viable campaign had been severely damaged by declining national and swing-state poll numbers, along with party defections that were likely to rapidly accelerate. The information included polling and details gathered from outreach outside Biden’s inner circle.” • But see the concept of “buzz“; sometimes the spontaneous gets a little help.
“Inside Biden’s historic decision to drop out of the 2024 race” [NBC]. “The account of this critical weekend, and what led to Biden’s stunning announcement, came from interviews with two dozen Democrats familiar with what transpired…. In separate phone calls Sunday, Biden told his vice president, Kamala Harris, his White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, and his campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, that he would abandon his re-election bid. The fact that he had to inform them in such a manner underscored the degree to which his circle had tightened in recent days to family members and a few longtime aides and advisers — Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini. The outcome may not have surprised White House and campaign officials, but the timing did. Most found out, along with the rest of the world, when Biden published his post on X. The same was true for Democratic National Committee officials and state party chairs. Senior Biden aides scrambled to set up separate meetings to talk to staff members for the White House and the campaign, reassuring the political aides that their jobs were safe.” • The staff finds out from X. Nice!
“Biden drops out of 2024 race after disastrous debate inflamed age concerns. VP Harris gets his nod” [Associated Press]. “Harris, in a statement, praised Biden’s ‘selfless and patriotic act’ and said she intends to ‘earn and win’ her party’s nomination.” • That would certainly be a first for her.
The Inner Party
“It was not undemocratic for the Democrats to dump Joe Biden” [VOX]. “What’s unfolded in the two weeks since has been a steadily intensifying pressure campaign from various members of the press, pundits, donors, and current and former elected officials aimed at making Biden quit. Some of these entreaties were made in private — and, when Biden didn’t appear to be listening, more spilled out [note lack of agency] into public view. They argued that he couldn’t win and, eventually, he listened. There may arguably be something a bit uncomfortable about the role of Democratic power brokers and donors in pushing Biden aside after his primary win. But while they’re doing this without voters’ explicit say, they’re doing so in an attempt to (belatedly) respond to voters’ beliefs that Biden is too old to serve another term.” • I am not sure of the timing on this. First, that “(belatedly”) is doing more work than a mere adverb should ever be called upon to do; these are all party professionals, how the heck did the problem sneak by them? Second, the Democrats have now managed to place a candidate on the top of the ticket who has never won a single Presidential primary in her life; this is remarkable, but how can it possibly be characterized as “democratic”? The only time Harris faced the voters, they rejected her! In her home state! And here we are. Third, considering how the Inner Party nobbled Sanders in 2016 and 2020, I’d say they have form, and the Party cannot be fairly characterized as democratic at all. Finally, putting on my tinfoil hat, the special model that works from 30,000 feet, this entire operation has the stench of a bait and switch. How far back did the planning go?
The DNC
“Replacing Biden: What happens now?” [Semafor]. “Only Harris, whose name is on the campaign’s organizing documents, would inherit the current Biden campaign and its resources. If the delegates rejected her, the Biden-Harris war chest could be donated to the DNC or a super PAC.”
“What’s next for Democrats, delegates to replace Biden on the ticket” [Axios]. “There is no formal rule-based structure that transfers delegates from one candidate to another ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which starts Aug. 19. The Democratic National Convention’s rules committee will hold a meeting to discuss implementing a framework to select a presidential nominee in a meeting to be broadcast live on the DNC’s YouTube page from 2pm Wednesday ET, per multiple reports. While Harris is probably in the best position to become the Democratic nominee in the view of party officials and strategists, it’s not guaranteed. That’s in part because Biden did not resign from the presidency, which would have made Harris the first woman president of the U.S. and vaulted her to the top of the ticket. ‘We’re just in uncharted territory here and a lot of this stuff hasn’t been tested, certainly not in the modern era of presidential nomination,; Josh Putnam, a political consultant specializing in delegate selection rules and presidential campaigns, told Axios.”
Electeds
“Some key battleground Dems conspicuously quiet about Kamala Harris on Sunday” [Politico]. “Most of the Democratic challengers running for competitive seats across the country had glaring omissions in their statements Sunday about President Joe Biden bowing out of the race. They didn’t mention Vice President Kamala Harris. It was an eyebrow-raising contrast to the dozens of House and Senate Democratic incumbents who immediately came out in support of Harris as their party’s nominee. And it was even more noticeable in the blue states of New York and California, which hold a slew of districts where voters chose Biden in 2020 but have supported GOP candidates down the ballot since. A flood of support for Harris could still come, and few Democrats called for a contested convention or backed any other candidate. But as their safe-seat counterparts put out statements Sunday, swing-seat Democrats faced a tougher calculus. Some of them, like Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), got to yes on Harris. Others, especially challengers to Republican incumbents, stayed silent.
Their hesitation speaks to the politically murky situation as Harris coalesces support.” • Hmm.
Clyburn endorses Harris:
My statement on President Biden. pic.twitter.com/xEq1tsQhAl
— Jim Clyburn (@ClyburnSC06) July 21, 2024
Donors
“How the Bet on an 81-Year-Old Joe Biden Turned Into an Epic Miscalculation” [Wall Street Journal]. A long catalog of incidents. This is the first one: “President Biden had just finished trying to persuade a group of congressional Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill when Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, took the microphone. In 30 minutes of remarks on Capitol Hill, Biden had spoken disjointedly and failed to make a concrete ask of lawmakers, according to Democrats in the room. After he left, a visibly frustrated Pelosi told the group she would articulate what Biden had been trying to say, one lawmaker said. ‘It was the first time I remember people pretty jarred by what they had seen,’ recalled Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who would go on to mount an unsuccessful primary challenge against the president. That was October 2021. That month was the last time Biden met with the House Democratic caucus on the Hill regarding legislation.” • I remember posting about Biden being helped down an extremely short flight of steos by a staffer, and then being pointed in the right direction in the Iowa primary, 2019. I have no patience with the “We were lied to!” crowd. Anybody who says that wasn’t doing due diligence, and it won’t be the first time NC readers knew more than squillionaire donors. One donor: “One longtime donor recalled that on the last three occasions he saw the president, Biden had repeatedly lost his train of thought and interrupted his sentence with ‘whatever.’ The donor didn’t think much of it at the time. ‘I was probably rationalizing,’ he said. ‘Subconsciously, you’re like—OK, I don’t think I can deal with this reality. What choice do I have? Nobody else is running.'” Of course, another takeaway is that a reasonably heuristic for dealing with any Democrat operative is that they’re lying, but then you knew that. Why in the name of all that is holy didn’t the donrs?
The Spooks
Lambert here: The spooks are silent. Kamala was on the Senate Intelligence Committee. What does that tell you?
The Press
“Editorial: Biden’s decision not to seek nomination was courageous” [Los Angeles Times]. “In announcing Sunday that he is abandoning his candidacy for reelection, President Biden admirably put his party and the country above his personal interests. That he was responding to an increasing chorus from within the party doesn’t make his decision any less statesmanlike. His willingness to step aside, and the respectful calls for him to do so from other Democrats, amount to a striking contrast to the Republican Party, which has a cult-like focus on the supposed indispensability of Donald Trump.” •
CrapMaterial like this is all over my Twitter feed like kudzu. Everybody who stuck a shiv in Biden’s back is now professing admiration for him in the most fulsome terms. They all turned on a dime! Together! First, if indeed it was “time to take away the car keys” from Biden, it’s not clear that his decision was “courageous” at all, because we can’t be sure of his mental capacity. Second, note the contrast between Democrats and Republicans: Biden’sdefenestration by Democratscourageous decision was entirely a case of the Inner Party putting pressure on his circle by leaks in the press; totally top down. By contrast, say what you like about Trump, but his ascendancy in the Republican party was bottom up, i.e. small-d democratic. Republican voters weren’t having Jeb!, or Haley, or any RINO, and they kept banging on their party apparatus until it did (in their terms) the right thing.“With Biden stepping aside, Democrats must now embrace an open process” [WaPo]. “An open process for picking Mr. Biden’s replacement as Democratic nominee, as well as that person’s running mate, risks becoming messy. It could draw attention to Democratic quarrels over issues that divide Democrats such as Mr. Biden’s policy in the Middle East. The Democratic convention was already shaping up to be contentious before Mr. Biden’s exit, with the possibility of large protests outside the venue. Yet Mr. Biden’s decision creates an opportunity for a reset, not only for his party but also for U.S. politics generally, through a competitive nomination process among future national leaders. Barack Obama was a stronger candidate in 2008, and maybe even a better president, because Hillary Clinton competed so fiercely with him during a marathon primary season. Though this sort of vetting process isn’t replicable, there is time for Democrats to scrutinize the contenders for top of the ticket. The logistics of a compressed nominating contest would not necessarily be hard. France just held snap elections without a hitch. All the delegates and superdelegates are already selected and set to convene in Chicago. Democrats would not even have to schedule primaries: Debates among the top contenders would do.”
* * * Harris (D): From the archives:
Am I the only one who remembers the time Kamala Harris’s father upbraided her in public? pic.twitter.com/JuBY6a263v
— Alice (@AliceFromQueens) July 22, 2024
I certainly do. And so it begins–
Harris (D): “Scandal behind the cackle! As Kamala’s former lover – who’s 31 YEARS her senior – demands Biden make her president NOW… all the sordid secrets America’s ‘Momala’ hopes you’ve forgotten” [Daily Mail]. I wouldn’t expect this to be slow in crossing The Pond. “In 1994, Harris was a 29-year-old rising star in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office when she struck up a relationship with Brown – the 60-year-old speaker of the state Assembly and one of the most powerful men in California…. In a 2019 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle, [Brown] wrote: ‘Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?’ conceding that he ‘certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco,’ but that he also assisted other prominent California Democrats.” Weak oppo. The key point (from WikiPedia (!)): “In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown, who was then dating Harris, appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.” It’s one thing to have a girlfiend; it’s quite another to arrange for her to be take a State salary. And apparently, Willie Brown is still at it: “Speaking outside John’s Grill, where he holds court with the city’s political elite, just moments after President Joe Biden’s surprise announcement that he’d immediately suspended his campaign, Brown put forward a bold idea. “Not only should Joe stand aside as a candidate, he said, but Biden should also resign as President, allowing Harris to take up the role. ‘[Harris’s] chances go up if [Biden] would at this moment say not only am I no longer the candidate, I’m no longer the president — she is,’ Brown said. Sounding more like a doting teacher than a past lover, he heaped praise on Harris, telling The San Francisco Chronicle: ‘In all the jobs she’s had… she’s always been outstanding.’ It’s a sharp change of tune from Brown, who advised Harris in 2020 to turn down Biden’s invitation to be his running mate, telling her the second seat was a ‘dead end’. Brown’s about-face is in line with a general shift in the Democratic party – as left-wing [sic] political operators and a sympathetic media rush to rehabilitate Harris’s image in the hopes that she can take on and beat former President Donald Trump.”
* * * “Expect some GOP legal challenges to taking Biden off the ballot. But they’re longshots.” [Politico]. “Don’t believe the hype: Republicans are unlikely to gain traction in legal efforts to prevent Democrats from taking President Joe Biden off the ballot. No state will have printed ballots prior to the Democratic National Convention, and the nominee chosen by the party at or in the run up to the convention was always slated to be the person who appears on the ballot in each state.” • Of course, this is American, so anybody can be sued about anything.
* * * IL: “Biden’s decision changes the calculus for 2028 hopefuls” [Politico]. “[Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois] has been working behind the scenes for years preparing for a future presidential run. His political team is made up of veterans from two past political campaigns for governor, including the seasoned campaign manager Anne Caprara. The question is whether running for president risks Pritzker, who co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008, being seen as pushing out a woman — and a woman of color — in what would be a historic candidacy. Unlike other potential presidential candidates, Pritzker is a billionaire who can self-fund a campaign and wouldn’t need Biden’s campaign funds to move forward. He can write a check and build infrastructure in every state and get on TV tomorrow, according to Illinois campaign veterans who were granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive subject.” • And best of all, he didn’t date Willie Brown! That we know of, at least.
MI: “Gov. Whitmer endorses Kamala Harris for president, says she’s not leaving Michigan” [Detroit News]. “Asked Monday morning if she was interested in being vice president, Whitmer said: ‘I am not leaving Michigan. I am proud to be the governor of Michigan. I have been consistent. I know everyone is always suspicious and asking this question over and over again … I am not going anywhere.’ Whitmer announced her support for Harris a day after Democratic President Joe Biden revealed that he was dropping his reelection bid, 107 days before the general election on Nov. 5. Whitmer, whom many Democrats see as a potential future candidate for president, had been a co-chairwoman of Biden’s campaign and had repeatedly touted her belief in the 81-year-old Biden as others called for him to get out of the race.” • Eight years of Kamala means the blight of the Democrat bench continues. If the Democrats can win the House or the Senate, ideally both, with Biden off the top of the ticket, it might suit a lot of ambitious electeds if Kamala didn’t make it.
PA: “Pennsylvania Democrats give mixed response to idea of Harris as nominee” [Washington Examiner]. “Pennsylvania is arguably the most important swing state in the country. But while gushing endorsements for Harris came from the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Pennsylvania party leaders sang a different tune…. Sen. John Fetterman, a fearless supporter of the current president, said he was unimpressed with the members of his own party who pushed Biden out, who then praised him extravagantly only after he withdrew. ‘Spare me the soaring accolades from people with their fingerprints on the blades in our President’s back,’ he said…. One longtime Democratic voter, a union Democrat who has never voted Republican, said he felt, ‘Harris wasn’t up for the job, I hope it will be someone else, I don’t like how they pushed Joe out.’ … .While elected Democrats, including Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, spent the day sending out full support for Harris, Democrats here in Pennsylvania worry about her appeal in the state, especially in Western Pennsylvania where hydraulic fracking has been an economic game changer—something Harris adamantly opposes…. On the politics of the Keystone State, political science professor Jeff Brauer said Pennsylvania remains essential to a presidential victory of either party. ‘Biden has always had close ties to Pennsylvania, especially with his hometown of Scranton and First Lady Jill Biden considering herself a Philadelphian,’ he said, adding, ‘without Biden on the ticket, the chances for Democrats in this all-critical state certainly diminish.’ Brauer said if Harris is chosen, this state is in flux for Democrats, more so than it was before the debate and the assassination attempt on Trump here, ‘Many in Pennsylvania, which is generally a moderate state, will find her to be too liberal,’ he said. Which means undoubtedly, her vice-presidential pick then will become very important electorally, and he points to Shapiro as an excellent selection in this regard.” • See The New Arab, “Who is Josh Shapiro, the ‘pro-Israel’ frontrunner tipped to be Kamala Harris’ running mate?” and Spotlight PA, “Shapiro orders state employees to avoid ‘scandalous’ conduct amid Gaza protests, raising free speech concerns.” However, with Shapiro, the Democrats may trade a better chance in PA for worse chances in MI and MN. And they need all three.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“‘I’m not voting’: Why should Donald Trump, Kamala Harris or anyone else make a difference to my finances? I’ll never be able to retire and I’m always broke.” [MarketWatch]. Question: “Dear Quentin, I don’t care. I think they are all the same. My life has been a struggle for the last 10 years and it has made no difference who is president of this country: Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or whoever ends up taking over the Democratic ticket for president. What does it matter to someone like me? I’ll never be able to retire. A brief summary: I am in my 50s and still renting. I cannot afford to buy a house and I never have any money at the end of the month. I earn $67,000 a year, a decent salary by most standards, but it doesn’t go far. I dread getting older as I will need to keep working. America is divided between red and blue, but I’m tired of all the game playing and point scoring. Just sharing my thoughts about why I’m not voting. You read that correctly: I won’t be going to the polling booth in November. –Fed Up in Virginia (and Fed Up with D.C.). Lengthy answer, concluding: “Dear Virginian…. It’s not good to feel you will never be able to afford to retire. But remember: Social Security was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, go to the ballot box on Nov. 5, and let your voice be heard.”
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: Covid
“Age-specific nasal epithelial responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection” [Nature]. From the Discussion: “In summary, we have shown that SARS-CoV-2 shows age-specific tropism in nasal epithelial cells, targeting goblet cells in children and secretory cells in older adults. Paediatric cells exhibit a strong antiviral response, resulting in limited viral replication. Older adult cells undergo shedding and more epithelial damage. Altered repair pathways and an increase in basaloid-like 2 cells associated with fibrosis markers contribute to greater viral spread in older adults. These findings provide insights into age-related COVID-19 pathogenesis and demonstrate how impaired repair processes enhance SARS-CoV-2 infection in older individuals.”
Personal RIsk Assessment
Personal risk assessment… is other people:
Lambert here: Looks like the holiday travel dumped accelerant on the pre-existing surge; see especially the growth in wastewater “hot spots.” Stay safe out there!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Wastewater | ||
| ★ This week[1] CDC July 15: | Last Week[2] CDC July 8 (until next week): | |
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| Variants★ [3] CDC July 20 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC July 13 | |
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| Hospitalization | ||
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data July 19: | ★ National [6] CDC June 29: | |
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| Positivity | ||
| ★ National[7] Walgreens July 22: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 13: | |
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| Travelers Data | ||
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC July 1: | ★ Variants[10] CDC July 1: | |
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| Deaths | ||
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 6: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 6: | |
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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] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular.
[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Keeps up steady increase. (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.
[7] (Walgreens) An optimist would see a peak.
[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
Tech: “The serious science of trolling LLMs” [lcamtuf’s thing]. “We were talking about trolling large language models — that is, the practice of fiddling with the prompt to get the machine to say something outrageous or nonsensical, and then publicly displaying the result to earn retweets and likes… [B]ecause the models’ internals are inscrutable, the proxy measurement we rely on is the extent to which the models appear human-like. An LLM stuck in the uncanny valley is bound to scare the customers away. Responding to this incentive, vendors engage in sleight-of-hand. The models are made to appear more human by forcing them to feign emotions, profusely apologize for mistakes, or even respond with scripted jokes that mask the LLMs’ inability to write anything resembling humor…. The vendors’ hope is that with time, we will reach full human-LLM parity; and until then, it’s OK to fudge it a bit. From this perspective, the viral examples that make it patently clear that the models don’t reason like humans are not just PR annoyances; they are a threat to product strategy. Far from being a waste of time, internet trolling is becoming a legitimate scientific pursuit. When a model aces a human benchmark, it’s hard to know how much of this can be credited to reasoning and how much of it boils down to recall from the training data set. It’s when it fails at a simple task that we know what the limitations are — and trolls are the torch-bearers of this new englightenment.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing is offering a stark and expensive example of how supply-chain shortfalls can trigger cascading problems across a company’s operations” “[Logistics Report, Wall Street Journal]. “Parts shortages and other issues have left the jet maker facing a major storage issue, with about 200 fully or mostly finished airplanes sitting in airfields, outside plants and—in one location—an employee parking lot. The WSJ’s Sharon Terlep reports that supplier shortages have saddled the company with planes short of parts such as seats and emergency doors. But a handful of 777 freighters in Everett, Wash., are awaiting engines because manufacturer GE Aerospace has struggled with shortfalls from its own suppliers. Boeing had delivered only two freighters this year through May. But the engines have started rolling in, and Boeing delivered five of the planes in June. The bigger problem is with passenger jets including some single-aisle 737 MAXs that are now several years old.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 53 Neutral (previous close: 49 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 22 at 12:14:59 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Floods. “It has been dry in many parts of the US” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 184. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?!
Poetry Nook
“Homage to John Donne” [Michael Smith, Crying in the Wilderness]. “Spirit we are but yet embodied too….”
The Gallery
Add an element of horror to the brushwork, and I’m reminded of Francis Bacon!
Tennis Game by the Sea https://t.co/1e0tzvLMk4 pic.twitter.com/KoeyJj1r8R
— Edouard Vuillard (@edouardvuillard) June 15, 2024
Zeitgeist Watch
What happens to Western Civilization if nobody can read?
For lit classes, I require PAPER TEXTS. I email students ahead of the semester and explain this so they are not horrified on day 1. They can opt out and use e-texts if they come to me with a reason (disability etc)–but they have to provide a reason. (I never say no)
— Alden Jones (@aldenejones) July 20, 2024
This is a long thread; click through for a complete image (especially if you are a teacher).
Class Warfare
“No One Expects Young Men To Do Anything and They Are Responding By Doing Nothing” [Rob Henderson’s Newsletter]. Hmm:
If you come from poverty and chaos, you are up against 3 enemies:
1. Dysfunction and deprivation
2. Yourself, as a result of what that environment does to you
3. The upper class, who wants to keep you mired in it.
The people with the most money and education—the class most responsible for shaping politics and culture and customs—ensure that their children are raised in stable homes.
But actively undermine the norm for everyone else.
The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. And they also believe it’s okay to walk away at a moment’s notice from a cohabiting relationship.
Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.
“Actively undermining norms” reminds me of what our ruling class has done to public health.
News of the Wired
I am not yet completely wired.
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LA Times: Coronavirus in California keeps rising: Wastewater levels worse than last summer
https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/coronavirus-in-california-keeps-rising-wastewater-levels-worse-than-last-summer/article_d2bddbd0-0edc-584c-8024-a4333635810c.html
This makes sense to me considering how much more effort I have had to put into staying healthy this year versus last year.
How amazing this isn’t a story. You’d think Covid coverage would fall into the “New You Can Use” category, but apparently not.
Fetterman has endorsed Harris. From Twitter about 2 hrs ago.
Fetterman Tweet
That’s horrible typography; it’s like three levels of degradation from the trade dress of Obama’s first campaign (which carried over to the White House). Which is pretty much the story of the modern Democrat Party, if you think about it:
“Let’s”?
Eff me. I sure hope President Trump let’s us win. It’s no wonder Harris’ public statements always seem so meandering. She has no one who can write. They likely use spell check and grammerly and call it a day.
That made my eye twitch.
the usage is correct, contraction of let us. It is not correct in your example because there is no contraction of lets us.
It’s wishy washy and doesn’t project confidence or strength. This is a Clark Kent/Superman and which way they part their hair issue or when Bernie Sanders would stand with his hands covering his balls. Obama and Bill have a stance where they aren’t worried about a game of Reauchambeaux breaking out.
returned from a cousins’ vacation in Mexico. to put on my Thomas Friedman Travelogue ™ hat, this thought crossed my mind….
despite all its past and current structural problems, Mexicans (at least those I came across, MX is a big country) have turned crabapples into champagne. Or deserve an Oscar for best acting in the “Potemkin Village” category.
While America with all its past/current structural problems, has turned champagne into vinegar.
Then the Biden news dropped. Yup, Mexico is punching above its weight-class in the happiness Olympics.
That’s not the story you hear when you talk to educated members of the Mexican diaspora. I know one woman (very PMC-left) who’s convinced that AMLO has fooled the Mexican public and that’s easy to do because most of them cannot read.
I opted not to push back and ask “how come all the previous elections were fine, but this one was a problem?”
“AMLO has fooled the Mexican public, and that’s easy to do because most of them cannot read.”
According to the World Bank, Mexico’s adult literacy rate in 2020 was 95.25%… AMLO has long had over a 65% approval rating:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/approval-tracker-mexicos-president-amlo
Do we perhaps need to find another word than “left” to describe PMC progressive types who actually hate the real left, the dirty left that wants to democratize the workplace and the take control of the means of production? I’ve gotten “cultural Marxism” lately as well from erstwhile PMC progressives who don’t like trans people. I understand the academic/elite English/Philosophy Major origins of this way of thinking but, really? Marx? Come now.
> Do we perhaps need to find another word than “left” to describe PMC progressive types who actually hate the real left
“Liberal” will do. They’re just another flaver of liberal.
A ‘new’ flavor of liberal?
Do we perhaps need to find another word than “left” to describe PMC progressive types who actually hate the real left
I actually think “left” (as opposed to left) is quite a good description.
I have trouble with the PMC progressives term. I guess this is used as contrast to PMC conservatives but which are the differences between them? From the point of view of the populace i mean.
Flavour and aesthetics, but that seems to count for a lot with some. (Also quite a few ideological policy preferences, to be fair, but those have no intrinsic connection to either label; they just became attached or detached circumstantially.)
“Mexicans…have turned crabapples into champagne.”
This is an important observation, but please if possible offer a simple explanation as to how or why Mexicans you met have evidently become increasingly satisfied.
People were happy, polite and friendly, without any hint of “Stepford Wives”—and even those I were just observing and not interacting with;
The local town was not rich by western standards but not certainly destitute either—-and had lots of non-tourism related construction underway;
I flew into a new airport that was just as good as any in East Asia;
went over a high-speed rail line that went from referendum to initial operation in 5 years, compare to California’s HSR;
locals were glued to their smartphones just like a flock of college kids in Times Square;
there wasn’t a zeitgeist of stagnation in the air.
disclaimers: >100 million Mexicans, it’s a big country, everyone could’ve been putting on a show just for me cuz I’m really Thomas Friedman, lol. and by “champagne” I don’t mean everything is perfect down there….just relative values.
PS, Mexico/Latin America really needs ring roads. Must be something about imminent domain laws down there or they go out of their way to protect the local interests from the negative effects of an interstellar bypass.
I think that once Mexico unshackles itself from the heritage of European-American dependency via dealing more with China, we’ll see an even bigger positive difference.
The Chinese certainly can’t treat Mexico worse than the Europeans or North Americans.
“Mexico/Latin America really needs ring roads…”
The problem has been and is remarkably low domestic investment in country after country through Latin America (Panama is the exception). Less than half the share of GDP of Chinese investment from 1980 to the present.
I appreciate the response.
well the Yucatan shows the positive power of public investment…
Even if the new airport and rail line is literally owned by the Mexican military (bundle of sticks, *cough, cough*); even if the new train line goes through undeveloped jungle.
in my opinion.
And I don’t know the specifics behind the financing of the new airport (Felipe Carrillo Puerto Airport), but there was Chinese airport equipment all over the place (jet ways, etc.)….you could tell by the company logos made with Chinese characters, lol.
Felipe Carrillo Puerto Airport is a green airport, remarkable sorely needed infrastructure.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qucX
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, Brazil and Mexico, 1977-2023
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qudi
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, Brazil and Mexico, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
My perception of Mexico is that despite all its problems, it has at least in many aspects retained strong family and community bonds that are so important for overall happiness. A few people I know who have travelled a lot in Mexico echo what you’ve said – in general, people there are generous and at least superficially seen content, both in comparison to el norte and other latin American countries. Of course, its very hard to quantify something like contentment or happiness. Officially, Bhutan is one of the happiest nations on earth, but on my one visit every single local I met complained constantly about their lot. Its rare to meet a Scandinavian who won’t feel the need to impress upon you how miserable they are. While most Filipinos are remarkably upbeat. Cultural norms vary….
It should also be pointed out that we perceive Mexico as very poor because of its proximity to the US – but in most respects its an upper middle income country and is significantly wealthier than most Central American countries and not far behind the better off South American countries.
As for China, Mexico is less than happy with China trade right now – like nearly all ambitious developing countries they see themselves as collateral damage in China’s determination to export its way out of domestic problems. Just yesterday AMLO’s Finance appointee had some unusually strong comments on the issue.
Alden Jones: An intriguing thread on teaching reading. Reading books for pleasure used to be considered fairly normal. Evidently, it is no longer so. If we take some of the hypotheses of the “No One Expects Young Men to Do Anything” article, though, one may surmise that students are getting a message that reading doesn’t matter. Reading won’t help to make them an adult. Reading won’t help them have a moral compass and an emotional range that extends beyond a Taylor Swift song. Reading isn’t valued–and they likely aren’t valued either.
I also am thinking about the societywide problem of anorexia: lifting a definition >>
“1590s, “morbid want of appetite,” Modern Latin, from Greek anorexia, from an- “without” (see an- (1)) + orexis “appetite, desire”
Lack of pleasure. Anecdotally, I was in the Undisclosed National Capital. On Sunday night, I watched the differences in the way young women from Northern Europe ate and how Italian women eat. Northern European women–they can’t finish even a small plate of spaghetti carbonara. The anorexia and sexism are that much ingrained. The lack of pleasure is that much the norm.
Meanwhile, the (skinny) Italian women were ordering whatever they fancied. Buon appetito, as we say to start a meal.
PS: Read Alden Jones’s very last twiXt. Yep, he’s right about that, too.
aye.
in lubbock, i noticed just a whole lot of the young women(my youngest’s age cohort, 18-22, maybe) were literally rail thin. my son didnt know who Kate Moss was,lol…but i asked him about it.
he says that anorexia is a big deal among the girls he knows.
conversely, eldest’s cohort(he’s fixin to be 23 in january…so 22-25) are either “thunderthighs”, as we used to say(ie: a lil more plump than Ruebenesque) or just about perfectly proportioned to these dirty old man eyes.
what changed in 4 years?
tiktok comes to mind…youngests cohort is way more “in their fones” than eldest’s.
even miss swift has at least a little bit of meat on her(ive studied the matter…ahem)
idk who the it-girls are for youngest’s bunch…
i hear them, but i never see them.
eldest’s is also more on the red dirt country/americana side of things…youngests bunch all listen to rap and hip-hop…with which i am unfamiliar after, say, NWA.
Students at my college have an optional $300 per semester added to their fees to cover (e-)book costs for all classes. The deal was worked out between the Barnes&Noble campus bookstore, the publishers, and campus administrators. I’m guessing these are common on most campuses today. Nearly all students pay the fee rather than purchase the physical books and on-line testing fees on their own. Prior to this, a significant fraction of students never owned or borrowed the books for the classes they took. For several years, I used $10 “open” stat books but some students still wouldn’t buy them.
Students expect to complete assignments on-line with optional attendance and video lectures. Facilitating this without undue effort often means using materials from one of the few large publishers with on-line learning management system plug-ins for assignments and testing.
Most materials used in college classes have copyrights that wouldn’t permit Alden Jones approach. I’m surprised Alden’s department supports the copy costs.
I have added orts and scraps; there’s plenty more, but this is the best I can do for now, and I must hustle along to a post on Trump, who has been driven off the front pages entirely!
P.S. I couldn’t get to the fact that the transition, if transition it be, to Harris really does seem to be rushed and haphazard, that the X announcement seems extremely informal, that to my knowledge Biden has not appeared in public, and his brother Frank made an odd remark about spending “the time we have left” with him. None of that fits the official narrative, of course.
Has there been an audio or video statement from Biden since he dropped?
I haven’t seen one. What did happen was that http://joebiden.com was immediately redirected to Act Blue, which seems a little…. crass. I’ll do the screen dumps on that tomorrow…
Do also a screencap of Whitehouse dot gov….nada re. Sunday’s news.
Or is there really a campaign law subsection re. campaign announcements on the official POTUS website?
> Do also a screencap of Whitehouse dot gov
I did, nothing, but I don’t think you campaign news on the White House site per the Hatch Act.
Of course, if Kamala becomes President….
If there are any unbiased historians in the future, they are going to be asking—WTF??!?? how was everyone so easily bamboozled. lol
It would be funny if Biden, during his next proof of life, goes off script and rescinds his “decision. Please making it happen, Flying Spaghetti Monster!
What all these are reminding me (which, despite my insistence otherwise) are the North Koreans crying after Kim Il Sung died (and the ridiculous myths in their propaganda–Kim Il Sung turning sand into rice, etc., which, it should be noted, was in fact actually “believed” by many North Koreans.). South Koreans had a lot of cynical things to say about this, but a lot of things have happened to put things in perspective for me, of which the Russiagate of yesteryear and the mass hypnosis (and very sincere one) about Biden are the two most recent in US context.
The bottom line is that if there is a strong tribal identity, and the core tenet of that identify is that you believe X, however absurd, is true, you sincerely do believe it, even if you have to bargain a lot to reconcile your faith with the reality that you need to subscribe to. So you do believe wine really is the blood of Christ, even if you have to find a very creative way to sideskirt the fact that, chemically speaking, it’s not. Further, the process is reinforced, in the Schmittian sense, if the identify is defined against a set of enemies: Trump, Russia, etc, for the US “Liberals.” (and if X and Y are believed to be your enemies, might as well believe that X and Y are in cahoots with each other, too.
I guess this is where I drop a quip about FSM: what’s FSM against? If it’s against the Romans, or the International Imperialist cohorts, or the Russians and Deplorables, maybe it’d be taken seriously by the appropriate people. But FSM isn’t against anyone, so no cigar.
Nota bene that Jesus actually said ‘this is my blood ‘ and that anyone who believes that he is God the Son would ascribe to him omnipotence. Which has nothing to do with chemistry or Korea.
There appears to continue to be routine activity reported at the “briefing room” page of the WH site.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
The physician’s letter of 7/22 may be of interest. CV symptoms nearly resolved.
As a primary care provider for greater than 30 years, as a medical witness for the defense in over 70 trials, and as a member of an IRB for decades, I have read lots and lots of doctor communications. There is an ebb and flow, and rhythm to the medical-medical communication. This is carried over to letters and documents to lay people. There is an import to what is stated, how it is stated, the order in which it is stated and what not is stated. This different language starts in medical school and continues until you die. It is like riding a bike. When you put your words down for others, it is done in a very unique format.
I will put it this way – this physician letter from today does not follow those rules. There is important substance there, but what I am saying is that is not how it would appear out in the wild. Like everything else in this saga, it is just “different”. Had a student handed this to me as their write-up on a patient – it would have been handed back bleeding red.
It isn’t medical. It’s political.
New Taibbi/Kirn discussion, presumably not paywalled–Is Biden alive?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqOFFhUikw0
It’s about yesterdays odd announcement and the implications…haven’t yet watched.
A wonderful antidote for listening to NPR today while commuting. All the topics and facts that NPR left out. I expect everything we remember from the 2020 Democratic primary race will be called disinformation and wrong-think.
Tin foil hat hypothesis of the day…..
Irrespective of Joe’s current condition, if/when polls that show Kamala falling hopelessly behind Trump, we’re going to the the next magic bunny pulled out of the hat—-Joe will resign and make Kamala president on the hopes that incumbency will give Kamala a bump in the polls.
Tin foil hat off.
Either that or Covid, misrepresented as pneumonia, will carry him off, so that he may graciously and courageously die in office. Resigning would be too wimpy.
Given how crazy the afternoon is going I’d like to borrow your tinfoil hat.
This is stupid. She’s not electable. She’s a proven piss poor candidate on the national stage and I’m not sure she’s a good leader.
This is what happens when we think our president is just the “deserving” person in the room… like all the sons and daughters of kings and queens. Someone just shoot me.
my twitfeed is chock full of kamala mashups and speech snippets…
yeah…surely a lot of context free trolling and all(like Bernie and Trum all redfaced in support of the evil ruskies)
but still…she really talks and behaves thataway.
i still reckon she’s be a fun date out here at the wilderness bar(note to self: hide the vicodin)…but as “leader of the free world(tm)”?
…and i still keep thinking about Camus…and Sisyphus as Happy.
currently crushing 80# of grapes in the winepress.
taking forever.
the prickly pear tunas will likely hafta wait till manana.
> currently crushing 80# of grapes in the winepress.
Impressive. Send pictures, if you like.
email me yer text #,lol…promise i wont abuse it.
i just cant figger out how to get pics from fone to laptop(i use an android, because it was much cheaper at the time)
or…i hereby authorise tom pfotzer to send such pics in to you, Good Lambert.
i do take a lot of pics…and even snake vids…of my farm adventures.
part of my thoroughly neoliberal(when in rome…) marketing strategy with womyn….look at all the fruits and veg i grow!…look at the pretty baby birds!…
look at that mountain in my back yard…
eating figs right off the damned tree atm.
halfway pressed, so far…and only a gallon and a half.
4 hours.
ive got several hundred pounds more on the vines…been feeding them to the chickens…beating the fence with my stick as i walk by.
this is gonna take days to fill up the 5 gal carboy.
…and i fashioned a pressurecock from old pill bottles and part of a heavy straw and some silicone caulk…learn soon if it works.
gorilla duck tape to seal it to the carboy neck after pitching the yeast(old montrachet champaigne yeast…ill hafta revive it with sugar water)
using my old Lehmann’s Brothers “apple press”…only prolly 2 hours till i reach the end of its capabilities…2 more untreated woodblocks on hand to add to the stack…since the ratchet head only goes down as far as the top of the fruit cage.
thinkin about maybe saving the mash as a filter for the chipotle’d prickly pears manana…to help filter out the microscopic spines that the fire treatment missed.
Amfortas, you might want to look into a steam juice extractor. I don’t know if such would be in your budget, but it makes juicing much easier and a fellow with your ingenuity might be able to kludge one up.
Google Android File Transfer Mac or PC, it is a small app you download to your computer. Plug your phone into your computer and the app comes up automatically. Depending on the Android version some sort of window will come up on your phone asking to allow access to it (for file transfer or charging etc). It is a little fidgety on one of my phones but not so on the other (the one I never use, natch). You then get a app window on your computer with all the phone’s contents. The folders act the same as on your computer but you can’t open the files directly. Drag and drop them to your computer and they will act normally there. Photos are in the DCIM (digital camera images) folder. You can also put files on the phone that the it can use like pdfs or web links.
thanks, hon…i think…saving for when im sober,lol…tech gives me hives.
im all analog
;-)
If you can text the photos from your phone to someone else’s phone then you should also be able to text the photos from your phone to an email address, including your own.
Two loads or three? I used to make wine because it was a hobby of my fathers. When I lived in Kali you could buy verietal grapes in the East Bay but a quick calculation showed it would cost about $3 a bottle. I scrounged for my grapes and plums instead. I stopped making wine after the bottled water supply guy stole all my glass carboys when I wasn’t home (I owed them money, tree fell on the house and I was moving). That was just silly and vindictive because all of the bottles they supplied were made of plastic.
picked all these in an afternoon a week ago..ziploced and stuck in barfridge.
those on the vine are darker, more ripe and sweet as hell.
should make a good mix.
added the greener ones that grow in the shade over there in the Panyard(bust of cernunnos) by the house greenhouse.
and the prickly pear tunas…i rolled them around on the fire night before last to burn as much spine as i could…ima still gonna filter that juice.
tastes like a watermelon jolly rancher.
i once was pretty decent at beer brewing…with the malt kits…too hot for barley, here…although i hear rumors that theyre growing some strange variety in fredricksburg, to my south, and in the winter….for all the brewpubs.
but i dont like wine, generally…so cannae tell if what i make is good or not.
it all tastes pretty awful to me,lol.
making it for the eventual womyn who beat a path to my bar.
and because i have hundreds of pounds of grapes.
Thanks for the info. It seems about the time mine was getting good enough to drink I had already drank it. A great hobby to show off to people though. I don’t care for wine anymore but it sounds like you have a plan, Good luck!
Or, alternately, she’s the perfect person to set up to not be elected in a contest with DJT. To paraphrase (IIRC) Bob Dole, “someone has to lose to DJT; it might as well be her”.
She wasn’t selected by JRB in 2020 on the basis of “qualified to govern after I am done”; it was about ticking off boxes on a list of gender and ethnicity traits, presumably to promote turnout for him in the primary and on general election day.
In 193 C.E. the Praetorian Guard in Rome assassinated the emperor and literally auctioned off the purple to the highest bidder. The more things change …
I suspect it’s more than Biden: the Dem Party is getting discredited collectively. Just weeks ago, I could imagine Dems carefully dumping Biden working–IF all the moving parts (including Biden himself) cooperate (although, I guess, at that time, there was no publicly known reason to dump Biden.). Then the debate happened, followed by all these shenanigans, where the entire Democratic Party and its allies/proxies/lackeys in news media has been revealed to be engaging in a ludicrous conspiracy to gaslight the American people contemptuously. If you are already Democratic Party cultist, and admittedly there are millions of them, then maybe you’ll buy the bridge. But one has to think that there are millions among formerly not particularly partisan potential voters who are at least surprised at ehat’s taking place. Maybe they don’t care too much about this democracy thing, maybe this only confirms their jaded worldview. But I’d imagine that a party that loses such credibility beyond its cult like followers can survive for long as an institution.
Assuming our electoral options are determined by oligarchic factions, it takes $2 Billion to mount a successful campaign as cited by Adam Tooze in an article in today’s links, I have been of late pondering the question as to which interests are mobilized for and against each of the two wings of the duopoly. Both Tooze’s article, Chartbook 300 Vance, Trump and the shifting coalitions behind Republican economic policy, and one previously linked, Matt Stoller’s Can J.D. Vance’s Populist Crusade Succeed?, have been very helpful in that regard. Much thanks for that.
As to what difference this election’s results will make to me, my kids, and grandkids, I haven’t the foggiest, and will therefore join either that largest plurality of the electorate, the party of non-voters, or the smallest plurality, third party voters.
just reading Tooze…and this:”As Stoller points out, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are in their basic alignment actually not so much Trump-Vance Republicans as Clinton-era New Democrats. They would like a Democratic party focused on innovation and tech-led national economic growth. Their calculation is tactical. Backing Trump now will inflict a stinging defeat on the left-wing of the Democratic party, who they credit with controlling the Biden administration. This will in the long-run bend the trajectory of American politics back towards the center ground that they see as fundamentally at the core of American identity and America’s special destiny.”
…contains that word again: The Left.
lol.
The Left Controls Biden?
since i am the only actual lefty in my county…that i am aware of(and i dont hide it…i’d love to find more actual lefties…especially prettyish middle aged wimmens)…i beg to differ.
that infrastructure thing and the chips thing look like ordinary clintonist corpse-fluffing, to me…with a thin patina of fdr painted on.
Lina Khan is the only thing biden has done that i can get behind with any enthusiasm(and i have a lot of enthusiasm for Khan…might put her on the wall of the bar extension, when i have walls).
and gag me with a spoon regarding the whole special destiny, thing.
jeez.
Hah! I’m so old I knew Ben Horowitz’s dad when he was a fellow unpatriotic dirty rotten commie rat and working with the anti-Vietnam war movement and the Black Panthers.
funny how that happens…they get mugged by reality(sic)…and forget where they came from.
Maybe they’ll find themselves one day under the right rock, the one they crawled out from under, so many years ago. For sure, a metamorphic rock, one that’s changed as often as they have.
I’m a lefty!
35F vermont and gay, what about you?
I’m just hoping that Harris’ staff have wiped Hillary’s number off all the office speed dials, and, when the phone rings with an incoming from Chappaqua, regularly say ‘So sorry ma’am, Kamala’s not in the office at the moment, but I’ll let her know you called’, then don’t.
I could vote for Harris if it means the ‘Clinton Legacy’ will be vaporized, and kneecapping Obama’s.
> I could vote for Harris if it means the ‘Clinton Legacy’ will be vaporized,
That’s why they were first out of the box endorsing her…
I could conceivably even vote for Kamala (gasp!) if she shows significant improvement on Palestine (which, given Joe’s horrible position and Trump’s certainty to be even worse and likewise RFK Jr., wouldn’t be that difficult). Okay, I’ll go back to dreaming now.
Who knew that Biden was so in touch with millenials? He broke up with the American people by text mesage and has ghosted them ever since.
SSU: That made me laugh!
Excellent!!
Lambert:
Donors live in another world entirely. Few are actually savvy but most pass as such because they’re fed all the best gossip by their handlers. They can tell you in great detail who’ll vote for which bill but may not have a clue what the bill actually does.
I don’t know about rightwing donors but it seems their fat cats tend to hire someone to make sure the money’s well spent. Those people on the D side tend to sheepdog funding towards NGOs and other crony-driven boondoggles. If I’d been asleep since the Reagan years I’m not sure I’d be able to tell which party was which.
From Jul 18:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2024/07/18/whoopi-goldberg-comments-president-biden-covid/74459820007/
‘The View’ co-host Whoopi Goldberg defends President Joe Biden amid his third COVID diagnosis
Has she pooped her pants too?
Sub-editing service:
COVID
White House lifting its COVID-19 testing rule for people around Biden” [PBS]. March 4, 2004
Should be 2024!
The Press
“Editorial: Biden’s decision not to seek nomination was courageous” [Los Angeles Times]. Courageous spelled right the first time but later becomes ccurageous through some Ffeudian slip. :-)
Thanks, both fixed. I was in a rush.
The observation floating around Twitter that this will be the first presidential election since 1976 without a Bush, a Clinton or a Biden on the ballot really has me mesmerized. (I discount the nightmare scenario of Hillary putting in for VP.) As a committed Green Party voter who hasn’t pulled the lever for a Dem presidential candidate since 1992 I don’t have a dog in this race, but I am pleased with the shake-up — and with the info today that Harris will NOT be on hand to preside over the Senate when Netanyahu addresses Congress later this week. Good choice on her part, hope many others skip that travesty.
…and don’t ya wish you could take back that vote in ’92? I sure do.
Ha! We voted for Perot in ’92. Never looked back. Too busy running away from that “giant sucking sound.” Which is probably just what the Elites wanted.
I bow to all who walked away forever at that point. I lapsed a few times for what are now clearly naive and ridiculous reasons. I am only sober since 2012.
Write in for me this year since Cuomo’s ballot tightening with oversight help kept the Green Party off the ballot here.
“If the Democrats can win the House or the Senate, ideally both, with Biden off the top of the ticket, it might suit a lot of ambitious electeds if Kamala didn’t make it.”
I think this is the correct take. For reasons beyond what can or cannot be done with Biden’s accumulated campaign funds, the Democrats are stuck with Harris even if the Inner Party has reservations about her candidacy, and even if those reservations prove to be well founded.
In order to benefit from an “open” contest, a more viable candidate has to be willing to put their hat in the ring. It’s early days, but so far only Joe Manchin has expressed interest. To borrow a phrase from @dicknixon, Manchin continues to be the answer to a question no one is asking.
Others who are considering a 2028 run may be thinking that if someone is going to lose to Trump, better it be Kamala than them.
John Milton, Paradise Lost , and all that. / ;)
“What happens to Western Civilization if nobody can read?”
Gen X and Millenials won’t ever be able to retire?
Who knows….
They all seem to be faux Gregg Shorthand experts, often not writing out full words, living la vida acronym.
I wonder if that’s part of the problem?
re. the rob k henderson thang:
this:
” “Conflicts over money do not usually erupt simply because the man cannot find a job or because he doesn’t earn as much as someone with better skills or more education. Money usually becomes an issue because he seems unwilling to keep at a job for any length of time, usually because of issues related to respect. Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss.”
It used to be high-status to hold a job and take care of your family. Not so much anymore.”
i can personally attest to this right here…even tho ive been out of the workforce for goin on 20 years.
i was always more outspoken and forthright….and extremely hard-headed…than my peers in this regard.
i have never been fired…but ive fired every boss i ever had,lol.
…always after attempting to talk to them about their BS that was aggravating me at the time.
cockiness usually ensued…notably especially from my female bosses…and i’d just leave and go across the street or down the road and land another…and very much similar…gig.
this was almost all in “food service”…the mom and pop kind, since i loathed corporate kitchens…so low pay, no bennies, often not even a consideration that employees had to have a place to park when the busses quit running before we close…
add in the expected subservience that always eventually obtained….and nah…not worth even the $13/hr i was making when i left austin, circa 1994.
(which, for me at the time, was a pretty good payrate)
ergo, when ive had employees…even the day labor and/or high school kid kind…i go over and above to show my gratitude…lunch is on me, dammit…i pay well, and on time.
and ill even throw in beer.
this attitude is both an artifact of my granddads, as well as from my experience…i resolved to be a good boss, when afforded the opportunity.
only a handful have taken advantage of this…or tried to.
my advice to would be bosses: do not ever forget where you came from…and “there but for the grace of god go i”
Why isn’t COVID cognitive decline a national security issue?
> Why isn’t COVID cognitive decline a national security issue?
You can bet that Russia and China are looking into this very carefully.
Are they? Since China went all in on infection the concern trolling stopped. I haven’t ever heard anything about Russia’s policy on COVID. I haven’t seen any buzz anywhere that either is taking this seriously. Western media is garbage but not on Twitter either.
Since China went all in on infection the concern trolling stopped.
[ This is completely false; false and malicious. ]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1p1nX
January 15, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for China, United States, India, Japan and Germany, 2017-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1quzw
January 15, 2018
Life Expectancy at Birth for European Union, United States and China, 2017-2022
you are a jewel, CA.
Russia’s covid policy was probably second only to the United States’ in terms of failure, maybe on par with the UK and some other notably poorly performing countries. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of Russians unnecessarily killed by deliberate state negligence, but still in numbers fairly short of the Trump/Biden double act. That’s made even more astonishing given the USSR’s proud history of public health achievement.
(Incidentally, when I’ve brought this up here before, it’s sometimes met with apologia in the form of Democrat/NAFO style ethnic stereotyping “well, Russians just don’t like being told what to do!” which is pretty funny given Russia’s history of solidaristic communal achievement under duress, which I somehow doubt happened under “you do you” social conditions)
Putin himself seems to take it pretty seriously. Not sure how many infections he’s had though. I seem to recall that at a BRICS-adjacent WEFlike economic conference a month or two back, Covid controls were pretty strict, similar to the (in)famous ‘Davos Safe’ protocols of Jan 2023 (not sure about this year?), but I can’t recall whether Putin was in attendance.
I’ve come across almost no references to Covid with the war in Ukraine. The conditions among the military on both sides are a perfect storm for all respiratory diseases, especially in winter although maybe all those anti biological warfare filters in armoured vehicles are being put to alternative uses. I assume someone within the military establishment in Moscow is keeping track of figures even if they aren’t actively doing anything.
As for Russia in general, I’ve not seen any evidence of particular Covid concern. Maybe Russians are just made of sterner stuff. But it does seem likely its taking a toll behind the scenes.
As for China, masking is still quite common as it was before Covid, but formal Covid measures have been almost entirely abandoned. My closest Chinese friend lost her grandfather to it. Near as I can tell, the whole episode ifs being written out of history as just an unfortunate blip. The one key thing in China though is that air quality has risen significantly due to strong measures pre and post Covid so any Covid impacts may be balanced up by a general improvement in overall respiratory conditions, which used to be a very big killer of the elderly.
Digressing slightly, but I’ve become a bit obsessed with the impact of the disease on pro sports, looking at these three principle impacts:
1) injury susceptibility
2) athlete fatigue
3) athlete performance
(I’m setting aside long-term athlete health)
We have enough evidence from the first two years, the pre-vaccine era, when we were being open about the problem, to see that the disease was clearly having an impact on all three of those things. Research continues to emerge at a trickle, but usually from older data.
There’s been a notable surge above baseline in skeletal muscle injuries in several disciplines across several countries, including most notably soccer, but also tennis, GAA, AFL off the top of my head. This is typically handwaved with “the game’s got faster” or teams thinking there’s something specifically wrong with their medical department.
Research has shown a correlation between SARS infection and subsequent SM injury in athletes, and there are two plausible mechanisms for this increased risk (endothelial dysfunction and direct attack of the muscle by the virus), so it is overwhelmingly the most likely cause.
Anecdotally, we had many athletes reporting their fatigue after infection circa 2021. Kevin de Bruyne was a notable example in the football sphere. Messi too. The point being, the disease that caused this fatigue hasn’t gone anywhere, even if athletes do eventually recover (and they might not always). Anecdotally (and confirmationacknowledging that I am obviously subject to and observation bias), I listen to a few football podcasts, and player fatigue is coming up as a theme in analaysis of matches at a far greater rate than it has in the past 5, 10, 15 years, typically blamed on “more games” (which doesn’t realllly stand up to much scrutiny, although that might change with the expanded Champions League). That’s when the podcasters themselves aren’t forgetting the names of famous players, ordinary words, or losing their train of thought mid-sentence, lol.
All of which is to say! Problems facing pro athletes presumably match pretty closely with those facing militaries. Declan Rice the other day said that no player would ever say “I’m feeling tired” to a coach, despite his own conspicuously knackered performances through the Euros. Presumably similar dynamics apply in the military, assuming disqualifying conditions don’t come up in medical tests (or, if you’re desperate like Ukraine, you recruit despite these conditions).
The military thinking ultimately might be that if all armies submit to the problem, then the mutual handicaps will cancel each other out and level the, er, fighting field.
If professional sport is thinking about the problem at all, they might be thinking the same thing. But that’s pretty funny when you consider that the central mythology of sports science for the last ~30 years has been using the scientific method to eke out every last competitive advantage from athletes.
It’s heartening to note some olympic teams and some on Le Tour taking disease prevention seriously the past couple of weeks, but this is presumably to allow them to compete in career-defining events in the short term, and not necessarily with a view towards long term consequences.
(Sorry for the lack of links here, I’m on the road and typing on my phone)
Also no links, but I will add anecdotal observation that fatigue is mentioned more and more in figure skating as well. It has always been a factor that comes up in commentary on long programs early in the season, but the last couple of years, Worlds has seen it come up more and more.
That is interesting – there was a lot of discussion about this during the Tour de France (although it obviously didn’t affect Pogacar). I’ve certainly noticed a big rise in injuries among footballers, although I don’t know if anyone has detailed statistics over time. It certainly makes sense from what we know of covid that it could be associated with muscle injuries.
I think a big problem with being able to assess these issues with professional athletes is that so many pro teams or national teams like to keep data closely under control. When you see a surge of a certain type of injury, it could be as much due to changing fashion in training or… erm… supplementation.
I think if solid statistics do come out, it would come from militaries – they are a much better control group for data over time. I recall reading a few years ago that the South Korean army put a lot of money into studying respiratory illnesses because they found that due to the climate in Korea, a big proportion of their army was out of action with colds and flus at any one time in early winter. But for obvious reasons, this data isn’t always made public.
I recall the official policy in Russia was somewhere between Finland and Sweden with a lot of restrictions and testing at the beginning. The excess mortality rate was yet higher than in either of those. Albeit not even nearly as high as it was in the roaring nineties…
While the resident NC Russians are much better to comment, I’d say Russians in general are more prone (as individuals) to take risks than resist on being told to – not using safety belt is not “sticking it to the man” but laughing at the danger. That said, there was a plan in Russia for “covid-vaccination passports”, but it was shelved due to an enormous opposition by the population.
That’s pretty much it. Not that many people took it all that seriously, except partly in 2020. Curiously, many of those who opposed anti-COVID measures most strongly were otherwise pro-government or opposed to it for not being anti-Western enough; many of those who supported it were otherwise anti-government and pro-Western (thus, typically aligned with Western PMC opinion). That made for some curious temporary political realignments. The SMO wiped them all out as far as I can tell.
We don’t like being told what to do, though. Dostoyevsky wrote a fair amount and I think fairly about Russian contrarianism and antinomianism (IMHO largely a product of the heavily disruptive Petrine state; at least, it doesn’t seem to show up nearly as much before). The Soviet years and the 90s only enhanced that cultural tendency, in addition to atomising society by the time they were done.
A lot of our “solidaristic communal achievement under duress” had to be organised through heavy state coercion of the sort the modern Russian state is neither willing nor seemingly able to deploy. WW2 did inspire a lot of genuine voluntary solidarity, but it would never have been won through that alone. And that was an obviously existential fight against a tangible foreign enemy, not an invisible virus that, if even real (and many did not think it was), will probably not kill you (especially if you think you’re young and/or healthy).
On a sidenote, there was arguably a very similar logic to voting for Yeltsin in the early 90s, after the liberal reformers made it clear that some will not survive their reforms. “Yeah, but I’ll probably do okay”. That was common enough, and not just among sworn liberals.
Stupid question – just recovering from COVID bout #2 (first was August 2022) and plotting our way forward towards better health and resistance. I’m 69, wife is 64, we swim laps three times a week and have the usual collection of age-related ailments (type II diabetic, wife has Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, various arthritic parts) so we want to future proof ourselves as best possible. Suggestions? Links? All welcome.
avoid americans, at all costs…obviously.
Check into the FLCCC Alliance website. FLCCC is a collective of medicos who have pragmatic outlooks on the Coronavirus. ‘Alt’ when ‘alt’ means something good. A good primer on the subject.
See: https://covid19criticalcare.com/
By far the best precaution you can take is to wear a well fitted N95 respirator indoors when sharing air with strangers. 3M Aura is the best bet, but these can be too large for people with smaller heads. You can self test for fit with a pressure test but ideally you should get properly fit tested with a respirator on (searching “respirator fit test in my area” might yield results) and you will get a much clearer picture of how a given respirator fits. They can be re-used but should be replaced after about 8 hours of wear.
Devices like HEPA air purifiers or Corsi-Rosenthal boxes installed in a room at home/work will greatly reduce the amount of virus in the air you share with an infected person, but they’re not a magic bullet; short-range (face-to-face) transmission between unmasked individuals is possible when they are used.
You should swim outdoors if you don’t already, if that’s not possible maybe try to buy a CO2 monitor to get a reading of CO2 levels of your local pool. Higher indoor CO2 levels correlate to increased risk of transmission (but this can be confounded by gas heaters, fireplaces etc). Ideally you want less than 650ppm for reduced risk. 900 ppm or higher and you can expect to get sick if your immunity has run out and there’s someone else sick in the room with you. You can also try and ask your gym/pool to try and improve ventilation but they might not be receptive.
Other things like supplements, sprays, home remedies have marginal evidence to support them but if you can afford them, might as well. I occasionally use a NO nasal spray, a carrageenan one, and recently an anti-histamine one (azalastine) as recent evidence has shown that SARS-CoV-2 can bind to histamine receptors (not all antihistamines are appropriate for this hypothesis, but azalastine is one of them). I use a vit D3+K2 and Zinc supplement. I use these in hope rather than expectation, and not in lieu of the more substantive protections I mention above. I don’t bother with Ivermectin, which I strongly suspect is a waste of time and predominantly a grift for smaller pharmaceutical suppliers who profiteer off true believers (the supplements, at least, have notionally broader health benefits beyond reducing covid risk/severity). Some disagree, though!
Hope this helps. I tried to simplify it but I can’t help myself with divagations and parentheses. Unfortunately looking out for your health in an “every man for himself” context is tediously complicated, and can be hard to keep up with.
“An open process for picking Mr. Biden’s replacement as Democratic nominee, as well as that person’s running mate, risks becoming messy. It could draw attention to Democratic quarrels over issues that divide Democrats such as Mr. Biden’s policy in the Middle East.”
Mr. Biden’s policy in the Middle East. Aka, the genocide in Gaza.
I want to state yet again that in a race where neither candidate is liked by the majority, approval ratings shows how many or few at least think well about a candidate. And that is very important because while the division of the “a pox on both their houses” voters may appear to be crucial, the support from those that like a candidate sets the floor from where to start.
In October last year, Biden’s approval ratings started slipping from “bad” to historically low. He has this year had the lowest approval of any president running for re-election. His head to head polling against Trump also went from a Biden lead to the disastrous numbers we see today. And that started in October. It’s the genocide. People don’t like genocides.
Hillary must be rewarded for being first to endorse, stuffing imo Pelosi/obama wish for open convention.
So… sec state? Think of the experience! Or… secdef? She’s got that trigger finger…. Maybe chief of staff, where the real power lies? Could be puppet master….
Vice President/Puppetmaster, a la Cheney?
I see today on CNN that Harris’s people think the way to campaign is to have her play up the “career prosecutor vs felon” angle. If the electorate were composed exclusively of NPR totebag people, this might actually make sense, but it strikes me as a likely dud where it matters.
>I see today on CNN that Harris’s people think the way to campaign is to have her play up the “career prosecutor vs felon” angle. If the electorate were composed exclusively of NPR totebag people, this might actually make sense, but it strikes me as a likely dud where it matters.
Funny you should say that because on the NPR show 1A this morning, that was exactly how one of the stenographers,(oops, excuse me, reporters), on the show put it. If IIRC Mr. Strether put it once and paraphrasing, the fax machines must have been blasting out the talking points.
Did anyone mention Tulsi Gabbard’s takedown of Harris’s career as a prosecutor almost five years ago on CNN?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4fjA0K2EeE
(I didn’t think so.)
so the mirrored pocket bubbleuniverse has not, after all, been breached….
good to know.
ive been callin the biggest landslide in american history since That Picture.
nobody will bet against me.
meanwhile…80# of grapes= 2 gallons and a lagniappe…of grapejuice.
lots of hard green grapes in this batch.
i didnt sort, because folks said they wanted them for jellymakin…and never picked them up….too busy myself to deliver/chase them,lol.
But they don’t seem to be taking to the streets much. Having said that, I should be the lone guy on the corner holding up the sign, “ Israel out of Palestine! among other slogans.
I’ll join you on that corner!
Also a good time to build some barricades! We are all Palestinians now.
Taibbi’s substack (and livestream) has some ominous stories.
https://www.racket.news/p/is-joe-biden-alive-livestream-5-pm
The title of the post does not exaggerate much: Kirn spent a good deal of time speculating whether Biden is in fact alive (they are fairly sure that the tweet(s) did not actually come from Biden himself). They wonder why the events seem to be unfolding “too smoothly” (that is, how ready Dem party insiders seemed to transition to Harris candidacy.) They also seem confident that the whole thing is a set up and that Dems will probably pop someone unexpected (and close to Obama) later.
It gets a bit too conspiratorial to my instincts, but I do have more than usual trust in Taibbi’s journalistic instincts and, even if they aren’t aware of the actual events, it seems fairly likely that something very fishy is going on in the Democratic Party.
The question that I keep coming back to is, if the votes are actually counted honestly on November 5th/6th, will a majority of American voters put up with this sort of obvious and, quite frankly, offensive (to their/our intelligence) gaslighting? Then again, these are the people who thought that the great Ukrainian counteroffensive wasn’t going to be a slaughter (of the Ukrainians) on day 1, so I don’t know if they are just that stupid/deluded or are trying to something too clever (with the assumption that their audiences are that dumb.)
Followed by a new Simplicius post. Still more conspiratorial (as expected), but gosh, it is true that there are a lot of oddities and obious machinations taking place. Seven Days in July? So much for “Our Democracy ™”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/extraordinary-events-taking-place
A wee thin edge of fiction here, trying to outpace reality. What if a group of Generals marched into the White House and demanded proof of life? If denied, do the guns come out?
Consider this a prophylactic against the really stupidest timeline.
They’re right that the whole thing is immensely creepy. I wonder if we’ll ever get the whole story on this, or if it will just be lost in the maelstrom we’re all plunging into.
I’ll listen to the Taibbi tomorrow but the Simplicius doesn’t make a lot of sense. And he’s’ supposed to be serious wheras Taibbi and Kirn are often just goofing around.
Removing Biden, however it may be done, isn’t very suspicious when he is obviously on the verge of collapse anyway. If he were hale and hearty it would be different. In any case he is still president so we will know his condition soon enough.
As for the FBI supposedly conspiring with a 20 year old nursing home employee to kill Trump…uh, sure.
True enough. But it is looking more and more like a case of leave the door open, and somebody will walk through it in a country with as many guns and mental illness as ours.
I tend to discount Simplicius somewhat, since he tends to go off to the deep end especiallt when talking aboit US politics. What struck me, really, was that Taibbi/Kirn and Sinplicius were roughly making the same big picture argument, that there are clearly sinister forces in play behind the scenes and we have no idea who’s really in charge
I think they went a little too far, but the comment made by Kirn about not accepting a change to his father’s will in the last year of his father’s life. That Biden went into COVID isolation and then released this letter is odd, made all the stranger by subsequent tweet endorsing Harris. And no one in the press seems to care.
Thanks for the mocking bird serenade with its many variations.
CNN says that Harris has secured enough delegates for the nomination:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/22/politics/kamala-harris-delegates-democratic-presidential-nomination?Date=20240723&Profile=cnn,cnnpolitics&utm_content=1721700209&utm_medium=social&utm_source=threads
And only one weekday into this whole situation… remarkable, almost like it was coordinated.
Don’t think Harris’ ‘felon vs prosecutor’ theme is going to work too well. It just reinforces the underlying mood driving Trump’s support.
Vuillard/Bacon.
Saw “The Screaming Pope” posted on Twitter yesterday and identified with the sentiment. The purple and gold color scheme seems to emphasize the feeling of spiritual angst. There is some similarity in intense brushwork between the Vuillard and Bacon’s work.
Weird thing about the polls with Harris is that there seems to be more certainty in the split between Harris/Trump than Biden/Trump. Even though Harris does better than Biden, Trump’s % also improves keeping the gap roughly the same. Suggesting a negative reaction to Harris as a choice. Will be interesting to see which segments the movement comes from. I suspect Harris loses ground with male voters while failing to make up enough ground with female voters (Harris lacks natural dominance).
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
“The Sun and the Sunday Times backed Labour at this month’s general election after News UK received private assurances that a Starmer-led government would not pursue Leveson 2, or introduce restrictions on press freedom, i understands.” (The I)
Starmer’s quid pro quo – guarantees to Murdoch that his dirty empire will continue untroubled.
More analysis from The Canary
Wow. Biden was supposed to met Netanyahu Tuesday, now its set for Thursday. Netanyahu’s trip to US was only supposed to be 3 days Mon to Wed. Feels like all sh1t is about to break loose.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-expected-meet-netanyahu-thursday-white-house-us-official-says-2024-07-23/
Ansar Allah government of Yemen officially declares war on Israel:
https://www.ansarollah.com.ye/archives/695390