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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/8/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Patient readers, today is a travel day for me, so this is an Open Thread. I realize my schedule has been overly dynamic lately, and I’m hoping it gets back to normal soon. –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Willow Warbler, Han Vejleskjulet, Lund Fjord, Region Nordjylland, Denmark.

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An amuse bouche for the coming week–

Readers will recall that I ran “Sen. Mark Warner works to gather Senate Democrats to ask Biden to exit race” a couple days ago. This appears to be a shot across Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Warner’s bow:

Now, I’m writing this a day in advance, before I hit the road, and so by the time you read this, maybe everything will have blown over. But Winslow reminds me of (drug lord) Hector Salamanca in Better Call Saul: “Consider your position carefully.” Pass the popcorn.

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From SV:

SV writes: “Been trying for years to get a pic of a butterfly on our Milkweed (syriaca). Perhaps because it bloomed a month early this year? Pictured is a Gulf Fritillary.”

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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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19 comments

  1. Wukchumni

    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you a Presidential pardon
    Along with the sunshine
    There’s gotta be a little refrain sometime
    When you take you gotta give so live and let live or let go
    Oh-whoa-whoa-whoa
    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you a Presidential pardon

    I could promise you things like Kamala coming through
    But don’t expect on her respect, if I was you
    So you better think it over
    Well, if by sweet-talkin’ word salad you could make it come true
    I would run the world right now on a silver platter
    But what would it matter

    So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
    Jail shouldn’t be so melancholy
    Come along and share the good times while we can

    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you a Presidential pardon
    Along with the sunshine
    There’s gotta be you doing some time

    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you a Presidential pardon

    I could sing you a tune and promise you the moon
    But if that’s what it takes to hold you
    I’d just as soon let you go
    But there’s one thing I want you to know
    You better look before you leap, still waters run deep
    And there won’t always be someone there to pull you out
    And you know what I’m talking about

    So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
    Jail shouldn’t be so melancholy
    Come along and share the good times while we can

    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you a Presidential pardon
    Along with the sunshine
    There’s gotta be you doing some time
    I beg your pardon
    I never promised you an ironclad Presidential pardon

    Rose Garden, by Lynn Anderson

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

    Reply ↓
  2. Roger Blakely

    RE: ‘Playing COVID roulette’: Some infected by FLiRT variants report their most unpleasant symptoms yet — COVID cases and hospitalizations rise in L.A. County — and some of those recently reinfected with the FLiRT variants are finding the latest bout the worst yet. Rong-Gong Lin II in the Los Angeles Times$ — 7/8/24

    Link to article without paywall:
    https://www.aol.com/news/playing-covid-roulette-infected-flirt-100026185.html

    Finally we are beginning to get an understanding that everybody’s experience with SARS-CoV2 is different and that you don’t know what’s going to happen.

    “The dogma is that every time you get COVID, it’s milder. But I think we need to keep our minds open to the possibility that some people have worse symptoms,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious diseases expert. Each time you get COVID, he said, is “kind of like playing COVID roulette.”

    “Since everyone’s experience with COVID is different and influenced by a number of factors, it’s difficult to quantify how many are experiencing more acute symptoms now compared with previous infections.”

    Reply ↓
    2. Jen

      Gee, it would be really spiffy if my state would update its wastewater data, which they haven’t reported on since June 24. Apparently we do not release data around holiday weekends…or college graduation weeks…or something in NH.

      Anecdata is a couple of co-workers have been “sick” over the past few weeks. Not hearing much in the community so far.

      Reply ↓
      1. petal

        Someone I come into contact with at work had it 2 weeks ago, and someone I’m on a committee with tested positive late last week. I hear so many people coughing wherever I am.

        Reply ↓
  3. antidlc

    Photos from Emhoff’s Twitter feed (July 5):
    https://x.com/SecondGentleman/status/1809271197357756697
    Douglas Emhoff
    @SecondGentleman
    Last night, @VP
    and I were proud to join @POTUS
    and @FLOTUS
    for a Fourth of July celebration at the White House. Together, we continue the fight to protect our democracy and preserve our freedoms.

    Photos show him with Joe and Jill and shaking hands at an event.

    Reply ↓
  4. Screwball

    The word of the day is denial, or as the old saying goes “de Nile is not just a river in Egypt.” The PMC class is in complete denial and disarray. The excuses are being spit out like a Gatling gun. Old Joe is just fine – what are these people doing?

    He only has a bout of neuropathy, nothing to see here, move along.

    Why did a Parkinson’s doctor go to the White House on several occasions?

    They just passed a bill on Parkinson’s, why wouldn’t a doctor help them with the bill – take off your tin foil hat.

    Did you happen to notice anything about him at the debate?
    He has a stutter – and how many times did Trump lie?

    Never mind.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t watched a clip in the last month (and now they are filming everything) where he looked and sounded like he had his full range of abilities. Not pretty, and I don’t know how long they can continue to hide and get away with it. But who knows.

    On the other hand, I’m kind of embarrassed about it, but I’m getting a big kick out of watching this epic meltdown by these people. Kind of, but not much. As many have already said; those who are responsible for this mess, those who helped cover it up, and those who continue to ignore it – can now wallow in the mess they helped create.

    Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        Putsch yourself in his shoes…

        I heard the timing was all wrong and Warner will try again on 7/20…

        Reply ↓
      2. Felix_47

        What Biden meant was that he beat Medicare for all down. You will recall in the campaign to stop Sanders right before the South Carolina primary Biden said, “If a Medicare for all bill crosses my desk I will veto it.” The reason is that in South Carolina there are a lot of military and government facilities and the workers there all get government health coverage. There are a large number of military retirees as well and they and their spouses get Tricare. This group is racially mixed but most Blacks fall into it. The remaining blacks are on Medicaid. So the Black population is pretty well covered. As a result they have little need for a M4A or nationalized health care system because they are not paying. The legislators can enjoy the large donations of the pharma and corporate medicine and insurance industries. The private industry in South Carolina is more dependent on health insurance and it is this group that suffers with outrageous deductables and premiums. The private employers do not hire as many Blacks and those they do hire get low wages meaning they get Medicaid. So speaking about national health care in South Carolina is not going to swing guys like Clyburn and his supporters who just do not care since their constituents do not see it as an issue. They do care about the PAC donations.

        Reply ↓
  6. Pat

    I have decided that all those 3…5…7 dollar donations they have been begging for are being spent on troll armies to comment on any popular article, tweet, post supporting Biden stepping or being forced to step down. It is fun to notice how long it takes for the hoards to arrive and overwhelm everything.

    Reply ↓
  7. antidlc

    https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/elder-abuse-is-refusing-to-give-the

    “Elder Abuse” is Refusing to Give the President a Neurological Exam — and Instead PUSHING Him to “Soldier On”
    It’s Definitely a Unique Strategy: Defeat Trump by Letting Biden Have a Stroke (or worse)

    I haven’t listened to the whole thing and I don’t agree with a lot of the great things Moore has to say about Biden, but Moore makes the case (as Lambert has) that pushing Biden to keep going is “elder abuse”.

    Reply ↓
    1. Verifyfirst

      Nice to see Michael Moore out and about, he had a rough bout with Covid if I recall. But seriously, I’m sure Biden has had neurological and other exams on the regular, no? They’re just not going to tell us about them. Maybe they don’t even tell him.

      But four months until the election, I don’t see how they keep his obvious issues hidden unless he stops going out in public. And there is still a second debate scheduled for September.

      Maybe the second gentleman could infect him again, he could have an “unexpected and rare” bad reaction to Covid and bow out? Though I don’t actually care–it’s clear he would not survive a four year term, and I’m not supporting Kamala in any role.

      Reply ↓
  8. LawnDart

    Yes, please pass the popcorn:

    Biden tells Congress he won’t quit

    The US president has asked his fellow Democrat lawmakers to rally behind him in order to beat Donald Trump

    https://www.rt.com/news/600658-biden-congress-letter-elections/

    My TDS/Blue-no-matter-Who folks are gobbling-up the dogfood: “just a bad-night… he was travelling too much.” I don’t really argue– not bad people and I recognize that their views are just as much psychological as informational, so I play the long-game of slow subversion, conversion. Without exception, they finally accept that Ukraine is losing the war and that Russia isn’t exactly hurting too badly.

    But getting back to domestic politics, all of these folks seem to share authoritarian world-views, a belief in almost infallible “leaders,” the Team Blue strong-man or strong-woman– a “liberal” version of the righter right-wing… just my observation.

    Reply ↓

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