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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/29/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Blue Mockingbird, Yecora, Km 261, Sonora, Mexico. I thought I would try another species of mockingbird.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) Kamala’s VP search (Walz; Raimondo a dark horse).

(2) Kamala on crypto.

(3) Trump on crypto (and NFTs).

* * *

Politics

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

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2024

Less than one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

First poll with Harris at the top of the Democrat ticket; Trump’s position deteriorates (and any advantage he gained from the assassination attempt has been wiped away. Nevertheless, he still leads, albeit within the margin of error. NOTE RCP used to have two pages of swing states; I always used the first one. Now there is only one, which I take as an indicator that Harris v. Trump polling is not all that widespread.

Vibe shift:

* * *

Biden Defenestration:

“Leaving Las Vegas” (excerpt) [Seymour Hersh]. “It’s not surprising that the long overdue unraveling of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign happened when it became impossible to keep his increasing impairment covered up. It was the big-time money backers of the Democratic Party who called off the game of see no evil, hear no evil, after Biden’s shocking performance in his June debate with Donald Trump. They balked at continuing to give millions of dollars to the party now that there was evidence that the president is not always there.” • At which point the excerpt ends, having said nothing especially incisive or new, disappointingly. Or sourced, for that matter. Here an excerpt from a Tweet:

We speculated last week that the TwentyFifth Amendment was Pelosi’s “hard way”; what Hersh, or rather his official(s?) add is that Obama held the dagger, not Pelosi, and that the (presumed) medical event described in this Daily Mail piece (“Biden was deathly pale“) was the final straw for the Inner Party. More here–

“Seymour Hersh: Obama and Kamala threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment on Biden before he dropped out” [Post Millennial]. Hate to use this source, but here we are: “‘It was clear at this point,’ the official said, per Hersch [sic,] ‘that she would get the nod’—that is, the support to run for the presidency in the November election. ‘But Obama also made it clear,’ the official said, ‘that he was not going to immediately endorse her. But the group [the Big Three: Pelosi, Schumer, Obama] had decided that her work as a prosecutor would help her deal with Trump in a debate.'” We’ll see how that goes. “The official, who has decades of experience in fundraising, told me that Obama emerged as the strongman throughout the negotiations. ‘He had an agenda and he wanted to seek it [sic] through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.'” Note that so far we are single-sourced, though I haven’t read the whole piece. It would be interesting to know what agenda Obama actually had, and what his purpose for delaying his and Michelle’s endorsement was.

* * *

“Last Tango in Washington: how sad, sidelined Joe Biden may yet have the last laugh” [Simon Tisdale, Guardian]. “In November 1992, after losing to Bill Clinton, George HW Bush found himself in a similar position, although he had only two months left in office. Like Biden, Bush was a foreign policy nerd, and the president, not Congress, directs foreign policy. So, because he thought it was the right thing to do – but basically because he could – Bush, to widespread amazement, invaded Somalia.” • Well, that’s reassuring.

* * *

The Campaign Trail:

The VP search:

Kamala (D): “Could Josh Shapiro win Kamala Harris the Electoral College?” [Nate Silver, Silver Bulletin]. About his model: “[W]e’ve found out three things, all of which cut against the hypothesis that a veep choice makes all that much difference: Home-state effects are only about one-quarter as large for the VP pick than for the presidential nominee. Home-state effects are roughly inversely proportional to the number of electoral votes in a state. In other words, a VP choice can make a small difference in a large state or a relatively large difference in a small state (say, Sarah Palin in Alaska or Biden in Delaware). I think this makes sense intuitively; in a smaller state, a politician is more likely to feel as though he’s from your proverbial backyard. And home-state effects have probably diminished over time as partisanship dominates all other considerations.” • So, probably not.

Kamala (D): “Why Kamala Harris should pick Tim Walz as her running mate” [Guardian]. “I’ll be honest: last month, I would have struggled to pick Walz out of a lineup. This month? I’m Walz-pilled. I have watched dozens of his interviews and clips. And I’m far from alone. He has an army of new fans across the liberal-left: from former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign co-chair Nina Turner, to one-time Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke, to gun-control activist David Hogg. ‘In less than 6 days, I went from not knowing who Tim Walz is,’ joked writer Travis Helwig on X, ‘to deep down believing that if he doesn’t get the VP nod I will storm the capitol.’ According to Bloomberg, the Harris campaign has narrowed down its “top tier” of potential running mates to three “white guy” candidates: Walz (hurrah!), plus the Arizona senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. Both Kelly and Shapiro have their strengths – and both represent must-win states for the Dems. Allow me, however, to make the clear case for Walz.” • Or just watch this video:

Report from the field:

The coveted Derek Guy endorsment:

Minnesota readers will of course clarify his track record and correct any sunny optimism:

Why the heck isn’t this guy at the topic of the ticket? One reason the Democrats never held anything resembling an open primary, I suppose….

Then again, there’s two-and-twenty Gina:

Still, the liberalgasm if there were two women on the ticket would be a sight to behold…

* * *

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris campaign seeks ‘reset’ with crypto companies” [Financial Times]. “Kamala Harris’s advisers have approached top crypto companies to “reset” relations between her Democratic party and a sector that has come out as an important backer of Donald Trump, her rival for the US presidency.” And: “People advising the Harris campaign on business matters said the decision to reconnect with the crypto industry had little to do with attracting new electoral contributions. They said the objective was instead to build a constructive relationship that would ultimately set a smart regulatory framework that would help the growth of the entire asset class.” BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Totes, a party needs to retain its self-respect. More: “One person said her campaign was using the change of leadership on the Democratic ticket as an opportunity to reset relations with the tech industry, which had felt targeted by the Biden administration, particularly on antitrust matters.” So, measuring Lina Khan for the drop? More: “The underlying message Harris wants to strike is that the Democrats are ‘pro-business, responsible business’, said one person close to her campaign. Harris is aiming to win back those in the tech community, many of them in her home state of California, who have turned away from the party in protest at the threat of new taxes or regulation of their industry.” • So backing crypto billionaires is the way to signal “responsible business.” If Kamala does pick Raimondo, that will be wonderfully clarifying.

Kamala (D): “Harris scrambles Trump’s crypto play” [Politico]. “Ron Conway, a venture capitalist and top Democratic donor whose firm has invested in crypto companies, posted on X this week that he has ‘known Kamala for decades, and she’s been a fighter, a leader, and an advocate for the tech ecosystem since the day we met.’ Harris is broadly expected to run on the Biden administration’s record, and speculation about her position on crypto could be a projection. But before Biden dropped out of the race, his camp appeared to be taking a more open-minded approach to crypto concerns, with senior adviser Anita Dunn meeting with industry leaders in Washington.” • “Broadly” is doing a lot of work,there.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump proposes strategic national crypto stockpile: ‘Never sell your bitcoin'” [CNBC]. “Donald Trump headlined the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville on Saturday afternoon. It’s quite the 180-turn after he very publicly dismissed bitcoin when he was in the White House. The Republican presidential nominee also held an accompanying fundraiser in Nashville, with tickets topping out at $844,600. Bitcoin 2024 conference organizers say they were briefly in talks to have Vice President Kamala Harris appear at the conference, though she ultimately declined.” • No.

Trump (R): “Trump Became Crypto Believer After Falling in Love With NFTs of Himself” [Bloomberg]. “”I pledge to the Bitcoin community that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris’s anti-crypto crusade, it will end,” Trump told the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Saturday, comparing crypto to the steel industry a century ago. “If Bitcoin is going to the moon,” he added, ‘I want America to be the nation that leads the way.’…. Conventional wisdom has it that this gambit is simply a classic Trumpian transactional relationship. He needs votes and money in a presidential horse race that now looks like it’ll be a photo finish, and he’s exploiting an opening created when President Joe Biden’s administration alienated the crypto crowd by pursuing a crackdown on the industry. If so, it’s working. Crypto is an ecosystem whose public face is dominated by online warriors with a lot of money to throw around, fertile ground for Trump to reap tens of millions of dollars in campaign funds — and a burgeoning army of vocal fans. His newfound role as cheerleader for the industry helped land him support from the likes of Dogecoin aficionado Elon Musk and billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss as well as venture-capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz…. Yet despite all the newfound support he is enjoying, there is something else that played an important role in Trump’s conversion to crypto believer: flattering images of himself. Simply put, he fell in love with Trump-themed nonfungible-tokens — and the supporters who bought them — and that passion has turned into a broader appreciation for the industry, according to insiders who have watched Trump’s crypto evolution. Trump’s lingering questions about valuations of digital assets haven’t slowed his NFT sales pitch, which was clear in May as he riffed off-script to a Mar-a-Lago gathering of supporters who had purchased at least 47 of the digital trading cards — pop-art renderings of the former president, including images of him dressed up like a cowboy, a superhero and other figures of fantasy. They sold for $99 a pop, but Trump wondered aloud if he could’ve gotten more.” • Whatever crypto is, it’s not like the steel industry. I see a lot of Carnegie libraries. I don’t see any Winkelvoss libraries.

Trump (R): “The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” [Eschatonblog]. “There is something almost too perfect about the demand from The Bitcoin Community for the federal government to buy up hundreds of billions of their libertarian fake money. Gimmetarianism every time.” • “Gimmetarianism” is an excellent example of snark. I bow before the master.

* * *

“Report shows 73% of crypto owners’ vote for US president to be affected by candidate’s stance” [Anadolu Agency]. “Almost three in four cryptocurrency owners say their vote for US president in November will be affected by a candidate’s crypto stance, according to a report that was released Friday. ‘For the first time in United States history, crypto has become a significant campaign issue in a presidential election,’ US-based crypto exchange and custodian bank firm Gemini said in its 2024 State of Crypto survey. It showed that more than one in five Americans, or 21%, currently own cryptocurrency, and among those who own, the vast majority, or 73%, plan to consider a candidate’s stance on cryptocurrencies when they vote for the next president. More than one-third, or 37%, said a candidate’s position on cryptocurrencies would have ‘a significant impact’ on their vote for president.” • Unless Gemini is talking its book, of course.

Fraud all the way down:

Democrats en Déshabillé

Centrist freaks:

Syndemics

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe out there!

Maskstravaganza

This one neat trick shuts down anti-maskers:

“Recyclable Adult 3D Face Masks with KN95 Protection KF94 Style” [Vida (Carla)]. • Colors, including black, but also

Elite Maleficence

“Why Covid Keeps Winning” [Gregg Gonsalves and Walker Bragman, The Nation]. Pleased to see these two authors together. The deck: “We didn’t learn a thing.” Nope. More: “But Covid revisionism is not just a right-wing phenomenon. It’s gone mainstream. The embrace of this bad hindsight has been fast and furious by some of the most respected legacy media outlets in the country. These publications have churned out piece after piece suggesting we did well in our response to the virus; we overreacted to the virus at the expense of children’s futures; we need a reckoning with lockdowns; we ought to embrace the ‘lab leak‘ origin of SARS-CoV-2 despite the preponderance of evidence supporting a zoonotic origin of the virus. They have even gotten on the Fauci-bashing bandwagon of the far right, blaming him for the collapse in trust in public health.” Fauci certainly helped. More: “All of this is ridiculous. As President Biden’s recent bout with Covid demonstrates, we are nowhere near being out of the woods with the pandemic—and that is precisely because we did not overreact to it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Compared to our G7 peers, the United States did terribly. The federal response was extremely limited, and people died and are still dying because of it. This year alone, according to the CDC, nearly 26,000 Americans have died from the virus. Our country never made the requisite investments in clean air upgrades for buildings. Despite botching our vaccination campaigns, we have refused to impose universal Covid safety rules for workplaces. Although one of the earliest recommendations from the World Health Organization was to remove financial barriers to care, our country still doesn’t have a universal healthcare system. We have even watched millions of Americans get stripped from the Medicaid rolls, while 10 states still refuse to expand Medicaid eligibility. Meanwhile less than half of states have guaranteed paid medical leave. These are important stories to tell over and over. They represent significant failures of leadership across the aisle. We cannot humanely move on from the pandemic without making basic changes to adapt to life with Covid. That we are expected to is an abdication of responsibility by elected officials, who are seemingly willing to write off the health and safety of our society’s most vulnerable as a cost of doing business.” • “Seemingly”?

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC July 22: Last Week[2] CDC July 8 (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC July 20 ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC July 20

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data July 26: National [6] CDC July 6:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens July 22: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 20:
Travelers Data
★ Positivity[9] CDC July 8: ★ Variants[10] CDC July 8:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 13: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 13:

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) Leveling off. Doesn’t need to be a permanent thing, of course. (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) Slowing

[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

Manufacturing: “United States Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ general business activity index for manufacturing in Texas fell to -17.5 in July of 2024 from -15.1 in the previous month. It extended the negative momentum in Southern manufacturing with over two consecutive years of contractionary monthly readings.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 47 Neutral (previous close: 45 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 56 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 29 at 1:45:57 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes down one on Earthquakes. “The lack of activity has downgraded this category” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 183. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Where are there people getting their news?!

Sports Desk

“You probably know the start of this Olympic story, but do you know how it finished?” [Aaron Smith, ThreadReader]. “This photo is of Eric Moussambani, aka ‘Eric the Eel’ from Equatorial Guinea, competing in the 100m Freestyle event at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, alone. Why? Eric’s heat started with 2 other competitors; one from Niger and the other from Tajikistan. Eric’s competitors however both broke, and were disqualified, leaving him to swim this event alone. Eric hadn’t completed a full length of a 50m pool before, but he dived in anyway. It seemed like he wasn’t going to make the distance. Touching a lane rope would’ve been automatic disqualification. He completed in 1:52.72, the slowest time in Olympic History, and for comparison, 47 seconds slower than I did recently, in my late 40s. Remember these times. Why was Eric there? The IOC’s wild card strategy aimed to boost sports in developing nations like Equatorial Guinea. Eric heard the call for swimmers on the radio, and since he was the only one to show up, he made the team! The only issue was, Eric couldn’t swim. So a few months out from the games, Eric started his training, partly with the assistance of fisherman in a lake. He was also given access to a 12M long hotel pool for up to 1hr, three times a week. Equatorial Guinea had no 50m pools. When Eric turned up to Sydney, and swam in a 50M pool for the first time, he couldn’t have been less prepared. The blue speedos he raced in were given to him by the South African swimming coach just prior to his race, who noticed Eric training in shorts. What happened next?” • Read the whole thing, it’s great. Be like Eric the Eel!

The Gallery

Fashion week?

Zeitgeist Watch

“Beyond authenticity” [Aeon]. The deck: “In her final unfinished work, Hannah Arendt mounted an incisive critique of the idea that we are in search of our true selves.” “If the inauthentic self is the everyday self, the one among the many, the authentic self is the self that has broken away from the herd; it is the self that exists for the self alone. To step out of the flow of everyday life is an exceptional occurrence. Common wisdom stipulates that ‘We are what we do’ or ‘We are the sum total of our actions.’ Each choice shapes the future path we find ourselves on, and occasionally we step back and can see the whole picture of ourselves, how we got to where we are. But for [Nazi philosopher Martin] Heidegger we are most fully ourselves only in those moments of exception, in that clearing of Being when we’ve left the well-worn path carved out by everyday routine altogether. The German word he uses for authenticity is Eigentlichkeit, which is defined as ‘really’ or ‘truly’. Eigen means ‘peculiar’, and ‘own’ or ‘of one’s own’. Literally, it might be translated as possessing the quality of being truly for oneself. … By arguing that thinking was a function of Being, Heidegger had tried to divorce thinking from the will in order to argue that it was one’s true inner Being that determined ultimately who they became in the world. But for Arendt, this was an abdication of personal responsibility and choice. It was a way of handing over one’s decision-making power… [F]or Arendt, the will was the means to our freedom, it was the promise that we can always be other than we are, and so to the world. The will is a space of tension inside the self where one actively feels the difference between where they are and where they would like to be. The will is the only intervention we have against the conditioning of worldly existence. Willing is the mental activity that goes on between thinking and judgment. It has the power to shape us by drawing us into conflict with ourselves. Without inner conflict, there is no forward movement. These are the basic principles of willing.” • Hmm. Not sure I excerpted this properly at all.

“Staying human” [When we are Real]. “[W]hat started as an adult male sexual fetish morphed into the construction of synthetic sex identities from manipulated body parts, and is leading to a transhumanist dystopia where reproduction is artificial, life is extended, and humans become melded with machines. This, [Bilek] shows, is not an organic development, but the deliberate outcome of an industry that requires acceptance of dissociation from our bodies as normal. ”

News of the Wired

On “intelligent design”:

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DG writes: “Weeds and an old stump encroaching on the ruins of an old DC aqueduct.” As readers know, I am a fan of stumps, particularly rotted ones.

* * *

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About Lambert Strether

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

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109 comments

  2. DJG, Reality Czar

    The Walz euphoria. He says “corndog”!

    There is the stereotype that people from the Great Lakes States are placid and stoic, except if one calls them a cheesehead or threatens to put ketchup on a hotdog.

    Yet Minnesota Nice isn’t so nice, as Amy Kobluchar, Hurler of Office Supplies, showed us.

    So I will await further discussions of Walz’s record. I suspect that, temperamentally, he may not be all that close to Kamala Harris and her style. And she’s going to have to spend a certain amount of time at Norske Nook eating the wild-rice/cranberry bread and chatting up the locals. And not taking Hillary Clinton’s advice to show them the bottle of hot sauce ever-present in her purse.

    It is a long time till Election Day.

    1. Mark Gisleson

      Walz has already survived one scandal so well hardly anyone remembers it. When he first ran for governor, Republicans gleefully revealed Walz had had a drunk driving citation while living in Nebraska.

      Backfired big time. Rural Minnesota yawned (if you don’t have a DWI it means you never go to parties or are very lucky — there are no friggin’ cabs in rural America, deal with it).

      He portrays himself a teacher and coach but Walz’s big career experience was working his way up to highest ranking sergeant in the Minnesota Guard. As you might guess, he’s somewhat unflappable and has a good sense of humor.

      Blue Dog in Congress (only way to win his CD which btw is where I live now), picked possibly the most liberal Democrat in the state as his Lieutenant Governor.

      Kamala could (and probably will) do worse.

      1. Stephanie

        Plus wasn’t he at a college in the Panhandle when he was in NE?

        The plus for Walz as VP is that he’s a state-school grad; Klobuchar went to Yale.

      2. Lee

        I saw Walz on interviewed on PBS News Hour last week. He’s an appealing guy and said some things I liked hearing. Too bad he’s gender and color disadvantaged at this moment in history. At least so far as Democrats are concerned. I think he would make mincemeat out of Vance in a debate. I’m getting me one of those barn jackets.

        As for Minnesota Nice: do acquaint yourself with John Sandford’s character, detective Lucas Davenport. He kills the bad guys with undue relish. And, as Sanford has it, there are more really, really bad guys in Minnesota than one might expect.

        As an interesting contrast, the real life Colorado homicide detective, Joe Kenda (featured on HBO), arrested nearly 400 murderers without ever firing his service weapon.

    2. Katniss Everdeen

      Whoa! Judging from Breaking Points this a.m., the Kulinski/Krystal Ball household is losin’ its shit over Tim Walz. Just a few questions about what Walz “did”:

      – universal free school meals Pizza, tacos, chocolate milk and powdered eggs for everybody!

      – carbon free electricity by 2040 How do you “do” something 16 years in the future? Has that EVER worked?

      – 12 weeks paid family leave Even for McDonald’s burger flippers? I’ll believe it when I see it.

      – 12 weeks paid sick leave Even for railroad employees? You’d have thought we’d have heard about it seein’ as they couldn’t even get 1 DAY before biden busted their strike.

      – automatic voter registration Do you have to be a citizen or just promise to always mail in your “vote”?

      – ban on PFAS (forever chemicals) Seein’ as how Minnesota is the world headquarters for 3M, I’m guessing the devil is in the details (where it always is).

      – $2.2 billion increase in k-12 school funding “We’ve” been trying to buy a education system that actually educates kids for a long time now and it becomes less and less effective as the years go by. See Baltimore…

      Too busy to do anything about “healthcare”?

      Like I said, just a few questions before I pop the champagne cork…

        1. hk

          If everyone is “above average,” there can’t be anyone who’s any good (assuming all below averages got dropped out of the sample…)

          1. Angie Neer

            Yes, that’s the joke. Understandable that you wouldn’t know the source (Garrison Keillor) if you’re under the age of 50 or don’t live in the US.

            1. Lee

              Yes! And woebegone am I since he left the airwaves. As a weekend woodworker, I would only do the quiet work such as measuring and gluing up during his broadcast.

            2. hk

              Actually, that was PSA for people who might not know. NPR ditching Keillor was one of several factors that piled up around the same time that got me to boycott NPR forever.

      2. Kristin A Brown

        Paid for by a 17-22 billion dollar state surplus at the time. I live here. Now surplus is totally gone. I have been a Dem delegate 2 election cycles and once an alternate. No more.

        1. Paradan

          Ha! 22 billion, pfft.

          Here in California we had a surplus of over 100 billion just a couple of years ago. Poof!

        2. Dessa

          Spending money to improve peoples’ lives seems like a good investment to me. I was a lapsed DFL voter and I’m back onboard because of Walz

        3. steppenwolf fetchit

          If the surplus was exchanged for public wealth and general welfare, what’s wrong with that?

      3. Amfortas the Hippie

        man, Katniss.
        for an ostensible small c conservative, you rock, gal.
        and i dig bein so surprised,lol.

        however…heart seems to be well into the Right Place Territory of the miirored bubblerealm…so, benefit of the doubt.
        if he wasnt compromised, he’d never be where he is…let alone as a housenig)))a for 2028.

    3. lyman alpha blob

      I’d never heard of Walz until (checks watch) about a minute and a half ago.

      I’m so old, I still remember when Montana farmer Jon Tester (who Walz initially reminds me of) chugged a beer to show his “regular guy” bona fides during his first US Senate race, and I will admit to being rather impressed by that, being a onetime beer chugger myself, and a member of a farming family.

      He hasn’t done a whole lot since, and I do seem to remember him being on the wrong end of a few votes that might have provided concrete material benefits to other “regular guys”. I don’t recall him being a champion of the small family farm (although I could have missed it) and my family’s farm is now no more thanks to many awful Congressional policies over the years.

      I will remain skeptical of this current flavor of the month “regular guy”.

      1. jm

        Hear, hear. At first glance Walz appears, and may well be, better than the average liberal Democrat politician. But that’s an awfully low bar. Looked him up at open secrets.org. For 2022, the top five sectors of his contributors’ self-reported employment are 1)organization unavailable, 2)not employed, 3)retired, 4)self employed retired, and 5)self-consultant, respectively. The associated money accounted for upwards of 90% of total contributions received that year. Further, 15% of his total came from out of state contributors, mostly from California. Silicon Valley anyone? Hollywood? This money smells a lot like disposable wealth, as in meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

        Not a lot I could find about where he stands on foreign policy but he spoke out quite a bit in the immediate aftermath of 10/7. A report about a gathering of support for Israel a few days later said this:

        Gov. Tim Walz, DFL, noting that many gathered at Beth El on Tuesday night have loved ones and friends living in Israel, said there was “not an inch of space” between the politicians seated in the front two rows about the next steps Israel should take to defend its people.

        “If you do not find moral clarity about what was seen Saturday morning,” Walz said, “you need to re-evaluate where you’re at.”

        “That’s not a geopolitical discussion,” he added. “That’s murder.”

        Seems Tim might be ok with genocide as long as you as you can’t see it from his house.
        As I said, meet the new boss….

        Also, please explain to me why Harris would choose anyone as a running mate who would outshine her.

        And finally, what’s with politicians (and rising to most senior NCO status is every bit a political career choice) and wearing Carhartts and the like. Every notice how these costumes, especially the boots, never ever show any wear. Yeah, he’s just a regular working guy. Yep.

        /rant

      2. Big River Bandido

        Tester also ran on repeal of the so-called “Patriot Act”, and then did nothing.

    4. JohnnySacks

      What to think? In the context of other options like Buttigieg who I assume is universally despised by the non-credentialed caste, Shapiro who has a bad Gaza problem, or the other unknown Beshear from Kentucky, if winning is the goal, why not Walz?

      Seems like the type of good opportunity the Dems never miss the opportunity to blow.

      Not as if the #2 guy on the 2020 primary ticket who won Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire, trouncing Harris miserably, would ever stand a chance in hell.

      1. tennesseewaltzer

        So the online version of the LA Times has this article headline: “Column: The unflappable Pete Buttigieg is (still) the Democrats’ best political communicator. ” Column is behind a paywall and I can’t access it, even if I wanted to.

    6. MaryLand

      Extra points for knowing about Norske Nook. Not sure if it’s still in operation but their billboard was still up last we passed it.

  3. Wukchumni

    To sail on a dream on open source P2P money
    To ride on the crest of a wild raging storm
    To work in the service of life and the living
    In search of the answers to questions unknown
    To be part of the movement and part of the growing
    Part of beginning to understand

    Aye, Crypto, the prices you’ve been to
    The things that you’ve shown us
    The hacking hostage payoff stories you tell
    Aye, Crypto, I sing to your spirit
    The candidates who will serve you
    So long and so well
    Olole iiiii, ololo ululululu
    Olole iiii, ololo uu

    Like the carnival barker who guides you
    You bring us beside you
    To light up the darkness and show us the way
    For though we are strangers in your silent world
    To live on the lam, we must learn from the scam
    To be true as the Bitcoin tide
    And free as the wind-swell
    Joyful and loving in letting it be

    Aye, Crypto, the prices you’ve been to
    The things that you’ve shown us
    The hacking hostage payoff stories you tell
    Aye, Crypto, I sing to your spirit
    The candidates who will serve you
    So long and so well

    Aye, Crypto, the prices you’ve been to
    The things that you’ve shown us
    The hacking hostage payoff stories you tell
    Aye, Crypto, I sing to your spirit
    The candidates who will serve you
    So long and so well

    Olole iiiii, ololo ululululu
    Olole iiii, ololo uu

    Olole iiiii, ololo ululululu
    Olole iiii, ololo uu

    Calypso, by John Denver

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3EE83q6tzw

    1. none

      That’s beautiful. Do you have any ideas for “Kamala Harris” with the tune of Eleanor Rigby?

      1. Wukchumni

        Thanks for the kudos d’gras~

        Can’t make Eleanor work, but how about:

        Is there anybody going to listen to my story
        All about the girl who came our way?
        She’s the kind of girl
        You don’t want so much, it makes you sorry
        Still you don’t regret a single day
        Ah, girl, girl

        When I think of all the times
        DNC tried so hard to leave her
        She will turn to we and start to cry
        And she promises the earth to me
        And I believe her
        After all this time I don’t know why
        Ah, girl, girl

        She’s the kind of girl who wolfs word salads down
        When friends are there
        You feel a fool
        When you say she’s looking good
        She acts as if it’s understood
        She’s cool, ooh, ooh, ooh
        Girl, girl, girl

        Was she told when she was young
        That Willie Brown would lead to devoting pleasure?
        Did she understand it when they said
        That a plan must have his backing
        To earn his day of leisure?
        Will she still believe it when her candidacy is dead?
        Ah, girl, girl, girl
        Ah, girl, girl

          1. Big River Bandido

            Nope, it’s based on Girl from Rubber Soul. Link is to the mono version (superior to the 1965 stereo mix!)

  4. dbk

    “Why the heck isn’t this guy at the top of the ticket?”

    I think we know the answer to that one but he should be, that’s for sure.

    Not sure whether his governance approach (= Get [good] stuff done) would suit the presumptive nominee’s, though. I will refrain from elaborating.

    1. redleg

      As a MN resident and an ostracized from the DFL leftist, he’s been adequate as Governor. I’ve been pleased with what he’s been able to get done. He’s a former Sergeant Major (I was a new 2LT attached to his battalion way back when) which means that he has excellent people- and administrative skills that probably made him an effective social studies teacher.
      My tinfoil thought is that DNC is eager to kick him upstairs because he’s embarrassing them by getting shit done with slim majorities, i.e. making them look bad, to replace him with someone more conservative. The reality is that he might be the best option if they want a very competent person who is used to being #2 (i.e. a Sergeant Major), and as such I expect the Dems to take anyone else.

  5. curlydan

    Some anecdata for you all: I got Covid last week (2nd infection) from my wife who we suspect got it on an international trip coming back through the West Coast. She wears a mask while traveling, but we bought the KN94 masks on Amazon, so who knows what quality they were.

    For me, started with itchy throat. RATs negative when using nasal swabs. Then I swabbed the back of my throat–bingo. Asked physician’s assistant for metformin and quoted clinical trials in respected journals. She checked a med website about it but said it looked ineffective, so we settled for Paxlovid. Paid $361 after insurance but decided not to use it since last time was a rebound. Throat got a bit worse plus a wave-like pounding headache when I stood up or moved around. That eventually transitioned to a mildly tickly nose infection that’s now subsiding.

    Wife could not speak for 2 days due to throat soreness, but we both appear to be gradually recovering–not sure about long-term effects. Our kids have avoided it so far this round, mainly by avoiding us and our running 4 HEPA filters 24/7 plus a lot of exhaust fans. We had to cancel our only family vacation for the summer–grr but we were headed to the West Coast so maybe we would have gotten in there. Advice: stay safe and try to buy the best masks from the least shady sources.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Our kids have avoided it so far this round, mainly by avoiding us and our running 4 HEPA filters 24/7 plus a lot of exhaust fans. We

      That’s great. Good job!

    2. Angie Neer

      Condolences. I’m intrigued about throat-swabbing vs nasal swab. I tried doing that some time ago, and found I just couldn’t avoid a major gag reflex at the least touch, meaning I couldn’t control exactly where the sample came from. I was told it was important not touch any other part of the mouth, so I gave up.

  6. flora

    Due Dissidence guy and guest cohost interview Caleb Maupin, author of the Amazon banished book about KH. First 1hr 30 minutes of this episode. (starts at ~10 minutes in.)

    Caleb Maupin on [banished] Kamala Book & More, Russ STRIKES BACK At Acolyte Frenzy, Olympics GET WEIRD
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g0qgFqheKU

  7. Screwball

    Found this on Twitter; NY Magazine cover.

    Welcome to Kamalot

    I’m not quite as happy as those people.

    Also, tonight, you don’t want to miss this all star event;
    ‘White Dudes For Harris’ Sees Thousands Sign Up Against Trump

    FTA;

    A newly organized campaign called “White Dudes for Harris” is holding a mass video call this evening, saying that “it’s time for white men to get 100 percent engaged and make sure Kamala Harris is elected as our next President.”

    It already claims to have 75,000 participants registered for the call at 8 p.m. EST tonight, with transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and actor Mark Hamill scheduled to speak.

    All the trains must be running on time and none de-railed at the moment.

          1. ambrit

            Key line: “Can’t clean up though I know I should.”
            The Tubes also had a minor hit with a song that is very appropriate to today’s politics; “She’s A Beauty.”
            Key line: “But it will cost you a dollar first.”

          2. Martin Oline

            Oh yeah, long time since I’ve heard WPOD. I had to listen to it twice because the live version changes the lyrics of Pacific Heights to Hollywood Hills. When I lived in Moron county, Pacific Heights (neighborhood in SF) was commonly called Specific Whites, so I had to check how it is pronounced in the song. Call me disappointed because it doesn’t fit in to the discussion here about white duds.

    2. flora

      Taibbi’s latest, here’s the entire public excerpt of a longer article. / ;)

      Humans Conquer Everest of Cringe

      New York magazine releases new coconut-themed “Kamalot” issue, dispels rumors it is kidding

      Matt Taibbi
      Jul 29, 2024

      In a first in the annals of magazine design, New York fit everyone who voted for Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination on one cover:

      https://www.racket.news/p/humans-conquer-everest-of-cringe

      1. msyk

        My first reaction (after suppressing gag reflex) was seeing it as a campaign ad. Ka-Ching. And who’s the woman second from right?

    3. Carolinian

      A party that is “about nothing” finds its empty candidate. If Harris was never the border czar, as her people now say, then what has she been doing for the past four years? Scheming it looks like.

      And while we as yet have insufficient proof, the notion that Obama is the master schemer seems at least credible. After all he and Brennan probably had more to do with Russiagate than Hillary and Obama both put Biden into office and now has in turn undercut him. There’s also the Obama/Trump feud to be accounted for and both of them seem petty enough fo this to be an entirely personal fight.

      If the above is true then expect Harris to put an Obama ally in as VP. After all she has Holder doing the search.

      I’m not sure this Alll About Eve scenario is going to work out for them though. In many ways Trump’s 2016 win was a repudiation of Obama on both policy and perhaps indeed racial grounds. And the Dems now have a candidate without Obama’s political skills.

      2. kareninca

        I don’t like to think of people in the sorts of terms, but what Kamala has been doing for the past four years is lying in wait like a spider.

        A neighbor told me yesterday that she planned to vote for Kamala. I asked her to tell me a single thing that Kamala had done as VP; just one thing, and she couldn’t.

  8. JM

    Fashion week twitter embed looks to be missing part of a tag or something.

    On the intelligent design tweet, I’ve heard several people saying that the equivalent of a combination sanitation plant and pleasure resort might not be your choice if you were starting from scratch…

  9. gkarlson

    From Hirsch’s full substack post re: defenstration:

    “A key factor in the decision to force Biden out of office by invoking the 25th Amendment was a series of increasingly negative polls on the president’s standing against Trump that had been commissioned by the funders, the official said. “The downward slope was increasing.” Polling would also be important for the vice president, I was told, and it was agreed that if the polls did not continue to show her gaining traction, other options would be considered, including an open convention. I was unable to learn if Harris was aware of such considerations or whether she intends to abide by them.”

    1. Craig H.

      There is no chance Hirsch’s source is Biden, Harris, Obama, Pelosi, or a Clinton.

      If you look at his history the bulk of his sources are intelligence agents and several of his stories have been bull excrement.

      I have not read his substack. I have heard that he charges money for it. People pay for tickets to see the Who and the Rolling Stones too. Their hit records and Hersh’s big scoops were both in the previous millennium to the this one.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > If you look at his history the bulk of his sources are intelligence agents a

        This one is apparently a donor (though if a Silicon Valley donor quite possible spook adjacent.)

        What I wish I had was a second account of Biden’s Air Force One flight. Since that story seemed to trigger a lot….

      2. jm

        To be fair to Hersh, most of his scoops involved the military. And most, if not all, his sources were from the military not the intelligence community.

        To be fair to you, this guy Hirsch you mentioned may well be spook adjacent and full of poop.

        1. jm

          This is one of those comments where I wish there was a delete option. Went for a cheap laugh and fell flat. Apologies.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > A key factor in the decision to force Biden out of office by invoking the 25th Amendment

      Again, the Inner Party is willing to use the 25th Amendment as a threat to get Biden out. If the threat is fake, that’s a disgrace. If it’s real, that’s worse, because if he’s not competent to campaign, how is he competent to govern?

      At this point, you have to ask who has the nuclear codes — Kamala?* — and (as with this new Supreme Court thing) whether he’s reading from a script somebody put in front of him. I remember one insider being quoted to the effect that they had to ride Biden until it has time for the glue factory. Well, they did, it is, and here we are.

      NOTE They wouldn’t. But you know they would…

      2. The Rev Kev

        If the Republicans had called for the use of the 25th Amendment to get Biden out of office, that would have been outrageous and a national disgrace. But when the Democrat Inner party threatens to do so, well, ‘it’s OK when we do it.’

      3. Robert Gray

        > Again, the Inner Party is willing to use the 25th Amendment as a threat to get Biden out.
        > If the threat is fake, that’s a disgrace. If it’s real, that’s worse, because if he’s not competent
        > to campaign, how is he competent to govern?

        I’ve just had a look at the 25th Amendment, Section 4. As you note, any action has to be initiated by the Inner Party — here manifested as the puppets called ‘Vice President’ and ‘Cabinet’; in other words, in theory at least, the president’s own hand-picked people. It could thus be called the ‘et tu, Brute?’ section.

        But Section 4 is curiously incomplete. The Inner Party declares their concerns to the leaders of Congress and the Vice President immediately takes over as Acting. If/when the President says ‘No, I’m all right, really’, then the IP has to repeat their declaration and the Congress votes, requiring in both chambers a 2/3 majority upholding the IP.

        Why would the Republicans go along with this?

        But even if both House and Senate accept the IP coup by 2/3 majorities, keeping the President out, the Vice President still remains Acting.

        And, there is nothing in the text addressing the situation where, say, a week or a month or whatever after the 2/3 Congressional vote, the President comes back again and declares ‘No, I’m all right, really.’ Does the whole circus of IP counter-declaration, Congressional vote, etc. get repeated? In the absence of language in Section 4, why not? Over and over? At some point presumably the Supreme Court would have to weigh in. (But, again, with no language in the Section, what could they do?)

        In the present circumstances this may all be moot since (a) everybody knows that dementia doesn’t get better and (b) Brandon’s time is running out anyway. But the glaring objection remains: if he is mentally incompetent to stand for another term, how can he serve out the final 1/8 of this one?

  10. Carolinian

    “We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

    I think this is an explosive admission if true, but how do you prove it? In other words they are saying she was willing to depose Biden for Dem electoral purposes (and her own ambition) but not for good of the country purposes since he is still president. It wold be the ultimate corrupt bargain in a Harris career that seems ethically shaky indeed.

    Of course if your idea of campaign promotion is to photoshop Kammy into a Captain America outfit (latest edition a box office flop) then such concerns won’t matter much to generation TikTok. Could be though the Harris boosters are gtting way ahead of themselves.

  12. haywood

    This site remains the only decent source of news for me on the whole dang internet. Especially since I quit twitter.

    Keep up the great work. I’ll throw some cash to y’all when I can swing it.

    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      Same bro.

      I’m literally light years ahead of my Marxist economic comrades but I can’t quite speak the in group language yet!

      Although I’m learning!

    3. Randall Flagg

      > Especially since I quit twitter.
      A quitter of Twitter eh?
      I sense you’re not alone.

      2. RA

        quitter of Twitter — I like it.
        Now perhaps X ex.

        Since there are no tweets anymore, I think they now should be referred to as X-cretions.

  13. CA

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/us/politics/biden-supreme-court-austin-texas.html

    July 29, 2024

    Biden Calls for Major Changes to Supreme Court
    The president has proposed overhauling a court that has become increasingly politicized. The effort requires congressional approval, which would be a long shot with a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate.
    By Katie Rogers

    [ Not long ago, a group of prominent Democrats academics were arguing that a proposal by Franklin Roosevelt to add to the number of Justices on the Supreme Court was entirely undemocratic. This however is now, and Democrats need to be all excited about making major changes to the Court. ]

    1. earthling

      It would be so lovely if this corrupt hack were to, as his swan song, leave one genuine improvement to our government. But I’m pretty sure that’s not on his list of to-dos. Perhaps some big donor wants to buy a vowel or has a pet judge all lined up to be a nominee.

      1. Big River Bandido

        Even if such a proposal could pass this Congress:

        1) Biden’s choices to fill those seats would be worthless,
        2) He’d never get them confirmed, and
        3) Republicans would further pack the Court in the wake of his failures.

  14. DG Bear

    “This, [Bilek] shows, is not an organic development, but the deliberate outcome of an industry that requires acceptance of dissociation from our bodies as normal.”

    I believe there are 12,000 gender identities and I may go through 10 of them during a normal day. Jennifer Bilek may be correct that the trans movement is a top down phenomena driven by male billionaires and voracious medical providers. I do not know.

    I do believe it is taking a minority of the community, and further dividing the group. This allows the majority to pick a subset to focus on driven their frustration of a lonely, precarious life. Trans is the new target.

    So I do not know if Bilek is correct. I do know this is just another example of a small subject being picked and blown to enormous dimensions in order to fragment society. I think of society this way: When the Abenaki people are hungry, so is the chief/leader. Without society we are in the state of disassociation. We are easily manipulated.

    The counter revolution has succeeded. Any alternative must be destroyed.

  15. Jonathan Holland Becnel

    I was gonna post this on the r/Stupidpol subreddit but apparently my account isn’t old enough. I’m a part of this mainly online group, Classunity.org, and I’m trying to form locals and stuff IRL so this post was meant to drum up support for a class based third party that can respond to Jimmys basic questions:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j3jtuYMssNA

    Here’s Jackson Hinkle of the American Communist Party giving an interview on the ACPs rollout with Jimmy Dore. Boy, is the first half fucking GREAT. He gives a very good and broad overview of Capitalism and Communism and the how the money goes to all the rich people like Gates. Why is Gates allowed to buy up all the farmland? Great question, Comrade Hinkle! And China is lifting everyone out of Poverty. All Great. It honestly makes me wanna join the ACP! His spiel about Rapid Industrialization through all sectors is spot on!

    But, holy fuckballs does Hinkle struggle to answer basic economic questions from Jimmy in the second half. Like Jimmy asking if the government is gonna come for your money and redistribute it. Jimmy says how he’s from an older generation of Americans who view Communism as being run by the Government and dictate how to do everything. He asks about Americans being able to start small businesses, would they still be able to do that under Communism? Watch at the 18:34. Jackson says that he can’t really answer that question because the Policy of the ACP has to be determined by the rest of the ACP via democratic centralism. He says Haz is the Chairman. So my question is why didn’t they anticipate this question? 😂 like fuck bro you’re trying to rebirth communism in America but haven’t figured out these basic economic questions that normie Americans are gonna ask you? You have to be able to respond to the bullshit talking points of the establishment! He says he can’t get into the specifics of policy like that. Come on man you’re a Communist! What would that look like in Mom and Pops backyard?! Easy! Hinkle says the ACP stands for Debt Forgiveness which tbh is my #1 policy preference rn. I hope Hinkle is versed in the latest Michael Hudson! I would phrase it as a “Jubilee.” And then Hinkle goes on about Nationalizing key industries like Oil and Healthcare. He talks about rapid industrialization. Jimmy then asks about Chinese Communist billionaires like Jack Ma. Hinkle says Ma is a crook but there are other millionaires.

    “As much wealth as possible for as many people as possible.”

    – Jackson Hinkle

    Jimmy then asks about Freedom. Isn’t China Authoritarian?
    This is where Hinkle should talk about Freedom from Debt and tie that in to American Religious traditions in the New Testament. Hinkle instead talks about Americans freedom to be Jeff Epstein.
    Jimmy asks Hinkle if he supports the bill of rights?
    Hinkle says he does. Jimmy says he’s still not convinced. He asks Hinkle why call yourselves Communists? Why not call yourself a Workers Party?

    Jimmy asks Hinkle if he’s going to start running people for political office?
    Hinkle says no, he’s working on building a base first and ACP is still new so he’s gotta build out the local orgs. Says he’s gonna have more info in the next 6-12 months.

    I think this is where Class Unity could help fill the gap. We have a great Economic Understanding of our conditions now, so why not try to help teach the ACP?

    Our message of Class Politics and the rejection of Idpol would have real resonance with Jimmys audience. Hinkle should’ve said HELL NO we aren’t gonna take away ordinary peoples money and right to start a small business. As a matter of fact, the ACP is gonna bring about a small business revolution when we regulate the Amazons and Exxons.

    I feel like Class Unity would kick ass at answering these basic economic questions and offering up an alternative system that benefits all.

    What do y’all think?

    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      Well, I think that’s great, Jonathan! And I hope Jimmy sees this post and gets in touch with you!

      Solidarity ✊

  16. .Tom

    With all the Biden drama behind us and the Trump shooting obfuscation settled in this is a Trump v Harris show and I no longer care. Wake me up on election day I may or may not feel the urge to register a protest vote.

    1. Dessa

      From the “When we are real” link:

      The introduction, new to the book, provides important historical context. It traces the rapid descent from the optimism of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 to the nightmare current situation where society is being transformed “to obliterate the sex boundary toward a tech takeover of human reproduction, and eventually humanity itself.”

      If this history starts with OWS, I doubt it’s all that well researched, which should be no surprise from such an obvious polemic. The modern visibility of trans people (who have been noted in various shapes and forms, including with body modification using available tech, throughout history and across many cultures) is simply rooted in the rise of queer solidarity that coincided with the ability of previously disparate people to commune online. This accelerated with the rise of modern social media. That’s really all there is to it.

  17. Wukchumni

    99 bottled up cliches on the wall
    99 bottled up cliches on the wall
    …take one down speak it around
    98 bottled up cliches on the wall
    98 bottled up cliches on the wall

  18. CA

    Kamala Harris could have asked physicians to determine whether President Biden could continue in office, but then what was needed was for Harris to ask for an open convention. She had no right to force the president to withdraw as a nominee so that she would become the presidential candidate.

    Also, I find it intolerably undemocratic for Harris to be supporting a reorganization of the Supreme Court just because the current Court is displeasing to her possible presidential future.

    Are we in the midst of a sort of coup? I really wonder at the self-serving arrogance.

    1. nippersdad

      I think you are giving Kamala Harris far too much agency in the determination of whether or not Biden is still capable of carrying out his official duties. That decision was made for her, and she was a dutiful employee. Similarly, AFAICT, literally every judge that gets through confirmation comes from the Federalist Society. Whether they are nominated by R’s or D’s, they all come from the same pot.

      That Biden suddenly finds that the judges he helped to confirm, or push through, are politically untenable means nothing. He is three months away from oblivion, and nothing he attempts to do will have the slightest effect. Nothing can happen until after the election, and the partisan make-up of the Senate will not change sufficiently for any changes to be made. His buddy Clarence Thomas can rest easy, this is just window dressing.

    2. The Rev Kev

      ‘Are we in the midst of a sort of coup?’

      Exactly. Biden was removed from power by a coup done by the Democrats themselves and rank & file members were not allowed any say about this but are now expected to line up behind Biden’s successor – Kamala. It was a bloodless coup but a coup nonetheless. Real banana republic style politics. From The Duran 10 days ago-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1-GWnJAzg (29:55 mins)

  19. Pat

    Just saw that Nikki Haley has reportedly said that Kamala Harris is going to win and to mark her words. Gosh. If I didn’t already want Harris to crash and burn that would have pushed me there.

    I will say that Walz is interesting. If he gets the slot, it will be totally because of weakness in Minnesota and neighbors. If reports were true and Obama is on the Kelly bandwagon, I think it will be him.

    1. Nax

      Halperin has claimed a couple of times that Kelly encountered a vetting problem, whilst remaining coy as to what that problem was.

      For what it’s worth, which may not be much.

  20. Louis Fyne

    I call “shenanigans” on that FT “net-favorability” polling….

    here are links to yougov’s net favor. numbers for Trump and Harris…both at -9 percentage points—yes, Harris has improved. from awful to merely as bad as Trump.

    I have no idea where the infographics got its information as its citation in the box is so f**** vague.

    https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/trackers/kamala-harris-favorability
    https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/trackers/donald-trump-favorability

  22. Rob Urie

    Re: Beyond authenticity, two points:

    Martin Heidegger is described as a ‘Nazi philosopher’ when he was more precisely a philosopher who was an ideologically committed Nazi. His most important book, Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) was published in 1926 and has nothing to do with Nazism.

    Heidegger presented Being and Time to his former professor, Edmund Husserl, a non-practicing Jew, whose project of phenomenology was the basis of most of Heidegger’s important work. Efforts by Americans in the present to link it to Nazism strain credulity. Writer Pierre Bourdeiu wrote an entire book about Heidegger (Political Ontology) without appearing to have ever read a word of the man’s work.

    The implied taxonomy that the author uses posits ‘the will’ as static, existing outside of time (otherwise, what is it?), while ‘being’ is dynamic, existing in time. However, Heidegger’s argument, emerging from his phenomenology, is that nothing exists outside of time. This conceit forms the basis of his critique of metaphysics.

    It looks to me that the author is bringing to Heidegger’s comments on Nietzsche an ontology that Heidegger specifically rejected. It isn’t practically possible to understand Heidegger’s later work without understanding the premises of his earlier work.

    1. communistmole

      In the 1941 edition, the dedication is missing (of course, it was the publisher, according to Heidegger).
      To say that Sein und Zeit has nothing to do with National Socialism because it was published in 1927 is a weak argument (as if Nazism did not exist before 1933), and since the publication of the Schwarze Hefte, the idea that Heidegger’s philosophy and his Nazism were two different things has finally become obsolete.

      p.s. There are other critics of Heidegger who undoubtedly have read him, for example Theodor W. Adorno, Klaus Heinrich, Günther Anders, Karl Löwith, or Donatella Di Cesare

      1. Rob Urie

        If the publication date of Sein und Zeit were all there is to the argument, I might agree with your point.

        I’ve not seen anyone accuse Edmund Husserl, Heidegger’s professor, who followed Hegel with the project of phenomenology, of being a theorist of Nazism.

        If you’ve read Sein und Zeit, and more particularly History of the Concept of Time, then you know that these are extensions of phenomenology. of Husserl’s work.

        And Heidegger’s critique of Husserl regards his reliance on Plato’s ontology rather than Aristotle’s. He makes this argument clearly in History of the Concept of Time.

        The work currently being done to ‘expose’ Heidegger, from which I assume you borrowed the idea of the deleted dedication (to Husserl), appears to miss that Heidegger explained himself reasonably straightforwardly in his 1966 Der Spiegel interview that was published after his death in 1976 (link below).

        https://www.ditext.com/heidegger/interview.html

        Finally, even though efforts began anew about a year ago in a few philosophy departments in the US to bury Heidegger’s work, they don’t appear to be informed by the history of such efforts, For instance, philosopher Jacques Derrida, who was amongst the most visible Heidegger revivalists (link below), described his take on / critique of Heidegger’s work as ‘materialist.’

        http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/20.%20Derrida%20-%20The%20Ends%20of%20Man.pdf

        The current effort in the US to create a ‘Marxist’ ontology to compete with Heidegger begs the question: why? To be clear, I fully support the effort. I also believe that I already accomplished this in my book Zen Economics. But this was done after decades spent acquainting myself with the issues.

        Unlike most philosophers, I actually did science professionally for over two decades. What this means is that I used the scientific method applied to math and statistics to test hypotheses and to develop predictive models.

        In my own case, Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s ontology has been spot on. What is called materialism in the US is a particularly ideological version of idealism. I was hoping that the Marxists challenging Heidegger’s work understood this point, but it seems to have never occurred to them.

  23. ChatET

    If Walz is picked as VP, it would be a redo of 2016, with Hillary picking Sanders for VP instead of that Tim guy.

  24. Ben Panga

    I remember watching Eric the Eel’s mighty swim on live tv at the time. I was cheering and shouting all through and then cried at the end when he made it. Amazing ride!

    Sport isn’t (only) about winning. I love seeing these moments.

    And Eric’s post Olympics story is heart-warming.

    Be like Eric!

    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Deboer gets this right:

      If this is a racist and sexist nation, nominate with that in mind. One of the bizarre elements of progressive rhetoric right now is this combination of beliefs:

      We have to defeat Donald Trump at all costs

      This country is filled with racism and sexism

      We have a moral duty to nominate a Black woman for the presidency

      Doesn’t make a ton of sense, right? “At all costs” means that you put everything else aside, including the importance of representation in identity terms.

      The same thing happened beginning in ’09 over and over again at DailyKos. “He can’t do that (say, prosecute the bankers or include a public option) because he’s not a privileged white man.” Well, maybe after eight years of Bush and Cheney wrecking the china shop, we needed to elect someone who didn’t/couldn’t make excuses.

  26. steppenwolf fetchit

    So Kamala is pro-crypto in a “responsible way”?

    Crypto and AI will eat up so much electricity that coal, gas and oil will have to be ramped all the way back up just to supply any electricity to the rest of us.

    “Responsible” crypto and “responsible” AI is a different slogan than Drill Baby Drill Energy Dominance but it will lead to the same levels of carbon skyflooding increase.

    One major difference between Kamala and Trump is thereby gone.

  27. spud

    please please pick Gina Raimondo, she can do to america, what she did to R.I. she is a prefect clintonite, and i like walz and his predecessor dayton. they helped bring minnesota back.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      But if Clinton already did it to America, what more can Gina Raimondo do?

      1. spud

        someone has to finish the job, their is still some life there, not much of a pulse. but if you can run interference like obama did for bill clintons disastrous polices, there still might be profit to be made.

        never let your enemy stop digging a hole. she will be a fine pick.

  28. willow

    538 has Harris’ disapproval rating climbing and now (just) higher than Trump. Disapproval seems to matter more. In 2016 Clinton’s disapproval rating ended up being higher than Trump’s even though she had a better approval rating.

    1. Daryl

      Considering that she hasn’t done…anything… is it merely a function of people becoming familiar with her? Doesn’t really bode well.

      1. Acacia

        Maybe that’s just it.

        Aside from shirking her duty as Border Czar, what has Harris done in the past four years?

    2. Useless Eater

      For Harris, things in general probably can’t ever get any better than they were last week

    3. Late Introvert

      I can just imagine the feeling of Wily E. Coyote in the Kamala HQ these days. All they had was this massive steal with no plans for the aftermath.

  29. The Rev Kev

    ‘Misha 😷🇵🇸 Not a girl
    @MishaCopyninja
    Yup. Telling people you mask because you can’t afford sick days can be very effective.
    I’m self employed so I usually go like:
    “Last infection I spent weeks off work, it was so expensive…”‘

    Funny how that works. Mah rights does not work. My body, my choice does not work. But say that it is about money and all sides say, oh yeah of course.

  30. kareninca

    I went through my childhood and teen years thinking that almost all other human beings were as stupid as dirt. Then, when in college, I decided that some of them were really good at things that I was bad at, so maybe I was wrong, and there were a sizable number of smart people. I couldn’t, however, reconcile this with other things about them. And later still, I decided that it was a morally suspect dimension to divide people up by. But now that I look at masking behavior, I’ve gone back to my childhood assessment. Unfortunately these morons are likely to kill me off, too.

    1. Daniil Adamov

      We’re all stupid at some things, some of the time. Unfortunately, some stupidities are much costlier than others, both to ourselves and to those around us.

    2. Samuel Conner

      A helpful framing I have encountered is that humans are “rational beings” in the sense that they have a rational faculty, but our rationality is not the driver of our behavior; rather, we use our rationality to justify what we have already decided to do on other grounds.

      I don’t think of CV-ignorers as “stupid” so much as “deeply self-deceived (but also grievously poorly informed by authorities that ought to do better) about what is in their objectively best interest.” People believe what helps to justify what they want to do.

      I think this framing works with climate-change denialism, too.

Comments are closed.