2:00PM Water Cooler July 4, 2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Common Loon, Redstone Lake, Ontario, Canada. “A few calls and some splashes; quiet background of good quality alarm calls.”

* * *

Readers, I hadn’t planned on a Water Cooler today, but suddenly my timeline was overwhelmed by the phrase “unburdened by what has been.” Left, right, center, all sides “unburdened by what has been.”

Here is the origin, and I might as well deal with the matter now:

(I have made it my rule never to cite to DNC or RNC “research,” but I’m breaking it this one time. I assume they’re not faking it because they don’t have to.)

• But tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

• I, as leader, will use power like a drum, and leadership like a violin. Take out any idea. Compare ideas, with the one idea left we are left you have no doubt and without a doubt we have enthusiasm!

Time to throw another shrimp on the barbie.

* * *

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 Upstater:

Upstater writes: “It’s that time of year! These are Japanese irises, rhizomes from a neighbor long since passed, but alway a reminder of friendship.”

* * *

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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.

119 comments

  1. JustTheFacts

    The only way I can understand her words would be that the descendants of slaves should look forwards to the opportunities the US affords them, rather than backwards to the horrors that were visited upon them. In other words a hopeful message? Or does this expression have some other meaning I am unaware of?

    Reply
    1. chris

      That’s clearly how Ms. Harris means it, but as a catch phrase it makes her sound stupid. It also doesn’t make any sense. What is currently will always be linked to what has been. People supporting her believe that the past burdens of our society’s failure to give people like Kamala a chance are healed by electing her to office. Similarly, her opponents who claim that what used to be makes the burden of today that much worse is also something that can’t be ignored. It’s a vapid statement that only has meaning within the memory free zone known as a typical US campaign season. See all the people praising Joe for student debt relief for another example.

      Reply
      1. CA

        “What is currently will always be linked to what has been…”

        Thank you for carefully explaining; an important explanation. We are after all, morally free to decide our course.

        Reply
    2. Cassandra

      When the Wizard used it, it meant, “Don’t hold me to my promises of accountability for war crimes, because I have war crimes of my own to pursue.”

      Reply
    3. Martin Oline

      I believe her ancestors owned slaves in Jamaica so perhaps the ‘unburdened’ part is a little more profound than that.

      Reply
      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        This is the origin of all that: Reflections of a Jamaican Father, Donald Harris, Jamaica Global Online. It’s well worth a read, and not just for Kamala:

        Looking back now I can say, with certainty and all due credit to Miss Iris, that it was this early intimate exposure to operation of the sugar industry at the local level of small-scale production with family labour and free wage-labour, coupled with my growing curiosity about how these things came to be, that led me, once I started reading about the history of Jamaica, to a closer study of the sugar industry. I came then to understand its origin as a system of global production and commerce, based on slave labour, with Jamaica as a key component of that system from its very start.

        How Kamala ended up as Kamala… Hard to see.

        Reply
        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          i also hear echoes of Pol Pot….(and i know, i know…all dems are radical commies is a sillt RW trope…still)
          Year Zero, and all.

          that said…i have related here before how she reminds me of a chick i used to roll in the hay and party with on occasion…long,long ago…(cant recall her name…one too many mint juleps?)
          her looks, diction(sic), cackle….
          so if she wants a real, useful life-course…i can more than likely provide her one that will cause much less harm to the world than the one she’s fixin to be at least a placeholder in.
          theres weeds to pull…and a back that needs rubbin…and that ol hogleg aint gon light itself, hon.

          happy fourth, Peeps…fweiw.

          Reply
            1. Amfortas the Hippie

              i know, right?

              (as Tam would say)

              but chicks like assholes, for some reason, it seems,lol…
              been my experience, at least.

              Reply
        2. Joe Well

          As someone who is not *that* much younger than Kamala, I will say…

          The opportunities to be a lefty academic were not nearly as good as they were for us as when her father was coming of age.

          Reply
    4. Greg Taylor

      Many southern blacks (and others adversely impacted by our justice system) would understand this phrase as a much-needed call for a biblical “clean slate.” The message likely resonates with her audience far more than John Cooper realizes. Her staff likely understands its impact and has her using it frequently.

      Reply
      1. albrt

        I saw a comment online somewhere that you can tell Harris is a Marxist because these quotes show she thinks dialectically and is not daunted by contradiction.

        Reply
  2. Socal Rhino

    I live in California. There’s a reason she was polling 1% in the California democratic primary before they yanked her.

    Reply
    1. Glen

      So the Demoncratic billionaire owners are going through that always traumatic experience of firing the hired help in the WH only to get one of the few nationally recognized hired hands that will LOOSE to Trump?

      The irony is that the primary voters would have picked a better candidate if they had been allowed to actually, you know, have primaries.

      Reply
      1. Big River Bandido

        the primary voters would have picked a better candidate if they had been allowed to actually, you know, have primaries

        .

        I don’t think so, really. There’s no depth to the Democrat bench other than the one billionaire governor who is available but too smart to mess with it this year. And considering the choice supposedly made by the primary voters in 2016 and 2020, history doesn’t support the idea that voters would have picked a better candidate.

        Reply
      1. Big River Bandido

        Willie Brown had the machine clear the field, yes. Harris was inserted into AG and Senate races by the “party”, when seats were open, and other candidates “discouraged” from running.

        Reply
  3. Wukchumni

    I* was unburdened by what has been a slip @ the Lodgepole car campground and then I crashed, sprawled on the ground and wearing sandals, got a nasty gashing of skin removed on the cheap from the underside of my big toe, stopping repetitive motion of moving one leg in front of the other and alternating while schlepping a pack up the side of a mountain.

    I’m Wukchumni and I approve this message

    Reply
      1. ambrit

        Forget Rocky and Bullwinkle. At this point I’d vote for Boris and Natasha! (We need a side by side comparison screen shot of the two pairs of evildoers.)

        Reply
  4. Watt4Bob

    “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

    Maybe our economy, “unburdened” of Student and Credit Card debt, and while we’e at it, the insane cost of empire, and rule by capital.

    Jubilee!

    Reply
  5. bobert

    I always laugh when I hear Kama-lala speaking. Not just her screw ups but anything. She could be announcing martial law and I’d have a giggle.

    Reply
      1. JBird4049

        Harris used to speak in complete sentences properly connected in verbal paragraphs in comprehensible speeches. She was never good, but she was still still semi competent. What we see here is a shambolic version of the old Kamala.

        Reply
    1. ambrit

      Just click your heels three times and sing the Ashli Babbitt Leid. An alternative is to click the heels three times, (I tell you three times,) and chant; “There is no place like Homeland. There is no place like Homeland.”
      Otherwise it all gets severely Meta fast.

      Reply
      1. Screwball

        Giggle! The Wizard of Oz – how appropriate. The guy behind the curtain and all that.

        Kamala sure ain’t Dorothy. I can’t imagine her at the helm of all this, and she may be at some point in the future.

        Then there is the Wicked Witch of the West and the flying monkeys…

        Reply
          1. Screwball

            My thought as well. Imagine casting our political pukes into the Wizard of Oz movie. The possibilities…

            Hillary still rides a broom.

            Reply
    1. Sardonia

      So Jill has the evening shift, and Hunter works the graveyard shift. Sounds about right….

      From the article: “The comment left several of the governors in the room frustrated, sources told CNN, and is one of the reasons that some of the participants have been rankled by the statement of loyalty and enthusiasm from them distributed by the Biden campaign on Thursday.”

      The fracturing is getting real.

      Reply
    2. chris

      LOL. If Trump’s people have any sense of style they’ll schedule several campaign events to start at 8:01 PM.

      Reply
        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          I either read or heard a theory that Sunak sees a major war being engineered into existence and Britain being guided into it and he said he does not want to be a wartime Prime Minister.

          So he called for this snap election in order to lose it. Actually, he seems to have thrown it to Labor like it was a flaming bobcat on meth.

          In a year or so, we will see if that theory makes sense.

          Reply
          1. Ben Panga

            “I either read or heard a theory that Sunak sees a major war being engineered into existence and Britain being guided into it and he said he does not want to be a wartime Prime Minister”

            I believe this originated with hard right wing politician Andrew Bridgen. He’s not a voice I have much trust in at all, but I noted it away as an interesting data point. Somehow, Sunak’s early campaign announcement of future National Service seems to fit with this story.

            Original Bridgen interview:
            https://x.com/robinmonotti/status/1793568491456668057

            Reply
        2. Ben Panga

          Exit polls in UK are (usually!) accurate.

          Labour 410 seats (out of 650 total)
          Conservative 131
          Liberal democrats 61
          Reform (farage) 13
          Green 2

          Noteworthy: the Labour share of the vote is actually lower than in 2017 when they lost the election under Corbyn, due to reduced Tory votes and the system being weird and unrepresentative.

          Reply
          1. Dermot O Connor

            Given the circumstances, to poll lower than Corbyn in 2017 is an utter indictment of Starmer and his bucket of scabs.

            Labour will be lucky to get 130 seats in 2029, given their direction of travel.

            Reform coming second in seat after seat, they’ll be able to position themselves as the opposition, as well as hoover up Tory defectors and by-elections. They’re coming second in many Labour seats also, which will push Starmer’s junta even further to the right to chase them.

            Gross.

            Reply
    3. Ben Panga

      This nugget buried in the article. How not to read the room….

      “Biden also made a joke to the governors that didn’t go over well: “I’m fine — I don’t know about my brain, though.”

      Reply
    4. Verifyfirst

      Having the debate at 9 pm was just one of the mistakes Biden’s people made, given what they seem to have known about his “good hours”. The other big one was the mike muting. Trump sounds a lot more articulate when he is cut off after 2 minutes. No audience was weird too. Scared much?

      So what time is the September 10 debate set for?

      Reply
  6. ambrit

    Would I be amiss in mentioning that Kamala speaking on politics is an example of Brownian Motion?

    Reply
    1. JBird4049

      Not at all!

      I just have to say that making a decent speech is not that fricking hard. A competent, workmanlike, intelligible one idiots and fools do it all the time and this has included me. Kamala Harris has a staff and the resources of the Oval Office, she could have an excellent team to teach and guide her, but noooooo, she just will not do it.

      Reply
      1. ambrit

        Fair enough. I guess I’m family blogged then. (A common occurrence, metaphorically speaking.)
        How would one portray Kamala in the long running, anodyne newspaper cartoon feature “The Family Circus?” That would be family blogging fun.

        Reply
        1. Sardonia

          “How would one portray Kamala in the long running, anodyne newspaper cartoon feature “The Family Circus?”

          Perhaps, a la ‘Pulp Fiction’ she would be the Gimp living under the floorboards.

          Reply
  7. Ignacio

    Lambert, I believe that the current political situation in the US and much of the West can be qualified as overly dynamic.

    Reply
    1. ambrit

      Your country went through a few decades of Franco. Thus, your older population cohort can give we Americans some pointers on how to “weather the storm” when it happens over here.
      Stay safe and as cool as you can. [Looking it up, I see that Madrid is having weather very similar to what we here in the North American Deep South are having. The main difference might be the humidity. Today, we have high humidity. Madrid? Isn’t it semi-desert there? {I’ve never been there. Forgive my ignorance.}]

      Reply
      1. Ignacio

        Humidity in Madrid is low. Heat like in the desert. The Guadalquivir valley and specifically Seville is more humid and qualifies as Mordor.

        Reply
        1. ambrit

          As the Devil remarked to the Politico when welcoming said public servant to the Infernal Region; “But no, it is a dry heat.”
          Be safe always.

          Reply
          1. Ignacio

            You too! And please celebrate the 4th of July. Do not forget that there is a past that merits celebration no matter how the politicians try to reshape history to their own interests.

            Reply
        2. Amfortas the Hippie

          aye. humidity matters!
          currently around 20%…finally!!!…here at the wilderness bar.
          but not for long.
          cold front bringin rain from the north…and Beryl’s still indeterminant path.
          i dig it greatly when i can hang out in the shade of the bar of an afternoon and chill with yall when its like this.
          run the big sprinkler, mounted on one of the telephone poles that are the uprights…and its like A/C.
          get in the pool when im waterin somewheres else…same thing…water evaporates in minutes…and then the hot wind.
          i love this time of year, so long as the well is working.
          big lizard on a rock.

          Reply
        3. Henry Moon Pie

          The details on France today sounded a lot like the runup to ’36 in Spain. Maybe barricade-building lessons for the residents of French cities would be in order, but I don’t think the French lefties have the toughness either of the French Resistance or the Spanish CNT.

          Reply
  8. Steve H.

    > unburdened by what has been.

    The Great Unconformity: On heading to a future with a deleted past. [Sarah Kendzior]

    >> We are heading into a future without a past.

    >> “Why there’s nothing instead of something. Or how. How nothing replaced something.”

    >> The archives of Comedy Central followed, including the shows that had informed my generation about the Iraq War and Bush administration corruption: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. They were gone, and their real-time documentation of war crimes was gone too.

    >> They are deleting the American experience, snapping the strands that have held Americans together regardless of geography or age or race or political predilection.

    Very in-line with ‘The Politics of Exhaustion’ from Aurelian.

    and, again

    Taleb: Rationally progressive means embracing progress by accepting a certain rate of change deemed optimal. Too high a rate of change cancels the gains from previous mutations; while too slow a change leads to misfitness.

    Reply
    1. Steve H.

      After chatting with Janet, and adding to this mornings post:

      Somewhere along to way, Rule_2 (“Go die“) turned into “They’re trying to kill us.” From negligence to intent.

      Likewise, we’ve gone from Link Rot to deliberate erasure. Sarah Kendzior: >> The archives of Comedy Central followed, including the shows that had informed my generation about the Iraq War and Bush administration corruption: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. They were gone, and their real-time documentation of war crimes was gone too.

      Reply
    2. Amfortas the Hippie

      yeah, Aurelian’s latest about exhaustion(echoes Douthat and especially Barzun’s work on Decadence) is well worth yer time.

      as for the rest…disappearing history….well, the internet/digitisation made it easy…been predicted from early on that this would be fragile and easily manipulated/deleted.
      one of the main reasons i tried so hard(when i had a book budget) to build a physical library, with physical books.
      sadly, few of them are acid free paper, etc.
      but i tried…including learning how to make paper and ink from what i can obtain nearby…for the eventual (secular) monastic order that builds a scriptorum out here.
      strategic thinking,lol.
      (i wrote the recipes down…theyre in the library, and elsewhere)

      Reply
        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          see Tom Pfotzer, around here.

          meanwhile, i wrestled a giant snake over an egg and won.
          so theres that…

          Reply
  9. Michael Fiorillo

    While I know we’re totally screwed, schadenfreude remains one of the few pleasures left to us, so I gotta say there’s deep soul satisfaction in seeing all the @McResistance heads explode, especially since it’s the cumulative result of their deluded/denialist/vain/morally superior and hypocritical behavior.

    They truly don’t know what to do: maintain their omertà about D dysfunction and misdeeds, and continue headlong toward the Party’s demise, or possibly delay that demise by riskily admitting they’ve/we’ve been gaslit and dumping Uncle Joe. Russell Dobular at the Due Dissidence podcast likened rank-and-file #McResistance D’s to dumb money retail traders on Wall St, confused but holding on to a doomed company, with the smart money (electeds and high-level operatives) strategizing on how to get Biden out and what to do afterward.

    Not only are we not a serious country, we’re a cringingly embarrassing country… but then again, that’s in part what empires in decline look like.

    Reply
    1. ambrit

      Thought experiment: what if America is now a Financial Empire. Regular run of the mill political empires have crises and struggle steadily downward. It’s a process. Financial empires on the other hand often collapse quickly when stresses become too great.
      I’m wondering which fate America will suffer.

      Reply
      1. JTMcPhee

        How come the Separate Entity called the “City of London” just keeps rolling it up and rolling along? Or are there cracks in the walls there,?too?

        Reply
    2. RookieEMT

      I really, really don’t want Biden to make it to election day because I don’t want to watch tens of millions of Americans shamelessly wakeup and vote for a man with late stage dementia and authorize him to handle hundreds of nuclear bombs.

      I also don’t want him to win said election then die in office as they will try to compare him to FDR.

      Reply
      1. JBird4049

        authorize him to handle hundreds thousands of nuclear bombs.

        A slight and unfortunate correction. We are long past the First Cold when capital cities like Moscow could be and sometimes were targeted by over a dozen nuclear weapons, but it still is a horrifyingly world destroying number.

        Reply
    3. Amfortas the Hippie

      “embarrassing” is the word of the month.

      that people are shocked that i use it is even more embarrassing.

      Reply
    4. Skip Intro

      A beautiful part of the spectacle which seems to be utterly invisible within the bubble is the obvious, unabashed politics-first theme of the drama. The dems are busy openly fretting about what to do because Biden is not (cognitively) fit to run for president. Why are they not more concerned that Biden is not currently fit to serve as president? Is the race more important than the job? Is the presidency itself an irrelevant sham?

      Reply
      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        nah, silly…thats caitlinoz’ take….so its suspect, at best…if not outright heresy…’
        believe harder.

        …said he who has just wrestled and 8 foot snake over an egg, and won,lol

        Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      Never knew any of that about Galloway’s history and he really took that smug kid down. Thanks for that video.

      Reply
      1. skippy

        How many actually do their due diligence on people or groups – these days – when the Bernays sauce is thicker than the thing its on about – underneath it. These kids and the families they come from for the most part are all just one big environmental mishmash of Meritocracy via money and social networks = socially inbreeds.

        All it takes is key word or phrases a to elicit a group response when presented and how it could effect them, down the road, for not having the same group thought/s. Just simple Bernays units[tm].

        What Galloway reminds them is of history lived, aspects that fly in the face of the currant people trying to “OWN” what being Jewish – is – past and present and the deeds of Jews in history that are contra to what the Z people are selling[tm].

        My own Grandfather would be appalled by all this as a trauma surgeon that cut his teeth in the Air Force during WWII as a Jewish man. So much so, that he took me in my early teens to a place in the desert near Chandler Air Force base to observe pass over, step grand father IMO. Two dwarf Jews that survived the Nazis and moved to the U.S. and living in a trailer next to a big rock where then farmed Turkeys. Totally biblical, Husband was a Rabbi, that was his way of showing his love for me.

        Whilst Zionism might have older roots it seems like everything else to have been corrupted by Neoliberalism.

        Reply
    2. Geo

      Great speech. Thanks for sharing.

      I wonder if Galloway ever met Biden while marching with Mandela in South Africa? :)

      Seriously though, these people weaponizing “racism” against people like Galloway (or Corbin, Bernie, etc) have done so much to erase the power those labels held and have turned them into a badge of honor. and in turn have enabled real racism (and sexism, anti-semetic, etc) to flourish because there is no shame being labelled such things in public anymore.

      “What kind of people would applaud that?” is a perfect response to the audience reaction to that dork’s question.

      Reply
      1. thoughtful person

        Great response by Galloway. Good point Geo, about the, I think it is a Rovian strategy, of the guilty hurling accusations of the crime they’ve committed at those who might hold them accountable.

        Reply
    3. Saffa

      As an Afrikaans-born South African still (maybe permanently) heart broken after losing faith in “the gods and goodness” of “my people” because of the betrayal I felt as a kid learning about the terrible monstrousity that lurked below the surface of my childhood.. And still pretty much an outsider that never really managed to find my way back to some kind of cultural home… (sadly most of my peers from school, especially the men, are still racist, though fortunately curtailed in their capacity to wreak havoc) — I drink up the life giving words by anyone, especially ‘whities’ who speak of their resistance in the past, and it continues to give me hope for the future. It helps to renew my conviction that my relative cultural alienation is a small price to pay for the wholeness of my soul. Thank you for sharing. *apologies if sounding overdramatic

      Reply
      1. KD

        As the cosmic Crossing Guard, she gives the universal gesture for “stop” to the imagined motorist seeking progress (“what we can be”) and then “unhindered” deploys the universal gesture for directing the flow of school children back into what is denoted as the darkness of the past, using gesture to essentially invert or negate the literal script. Structurally, it resembles elements of the ritual conduct of a Black Mass, if we look at the speech in its totality as a performative gesture. Is she clever enough to come up with this on her own? Is this some kind of Masonic ritual they taught her at Davos? While Norbert the Narc is a goofy clown, Harris is closer to an evil clown of the neoliberal imagination.

        Reply
  10. Bugs

    Listen. I’ve been commenting here for a while and Lord knows I’m not a fan of any Democrats or Republicans. But I have a vote in the beautiful state of Wisconsin and if it’s Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket… I’m just saying, if it’s her…against Trump? I think I’ll vote for her.

    In my little hamlet in Normandy, it’s the RN vs a Macronist on Sunday. It’s pretty obvious that I’ll put a blank paper in the envelope. Neither deserves my vote.

    Different contests, different stakes.

    Reply
    1. Acacia

      Harris is just another lying, thieving, grifting, conniving, incompetent, corrupt Democrat hack.

      The only real solution is the natural solution — death — and it can’t happen soon enough.

      No votes for them from me.

      Cut off their oxygen. Let the cards fall where they may, millions of TDS-addled brains entering meltdown, whatever.

      Reply
  11. Ben Panga

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/conspiracy-of-silence-to-protect-joe-biden.html

    The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden

    (Observations from a journalist that’s been around Biden all year)

    “…Up close, the president does not look quite plausible. It’s not that he’s old. We all know what old looks like. Bernie Sanders is old. Mitch McConnell is old. Most of the ruling class is old. The president was something stranger, something not of this earth.

    This was true even in 2020. His face had then an uncanny valley quality that injectable aficionados call “low trust” — if only by millimeters, his cosmetically altered proportions knocked his overall facial harmony into the realm of the improbable. His thin skin, long a figurative problem and now a literal one, was pulled tightly over cheeks that seemed to vary month to month in volume. Under artificial light and in the sunshine, he took on an unnatural gleam. He looked, well, inflated. His eyes were half-shut or open very wide. They appeared darker than they once had, his pupils dilated. He did not blink at regular intervals…..”

    Reply
    1. The Rev Kev

      ‘We all know what old looks like. Bernie Sanders is old. Mitch McConnell is old. Most of the ruling class is old.’

      And that is the problem right there. That there is what amounts to a gerontocracy. And all of them are fighting fiercely to keep their places.

      Reply
    2. Acacia

      Interesting. Lots of worry in DC, though I wonder if “conspiracy” is really the best trope for this.

      We’re seeing the effects of gaslighting and denial on a mass scale — and the media has played a willing role in this —, but there may be a better concept to express this situation.

      Reply
    3. Carolinian

      Good stuff and a serious article, not a jape. And yet at the end the author reveals why she is not a good reporter even if a good writer.

      “I always thought — and I wrote — that he was a decent man. If ambition was his only sin, and it seemed to be, he had committed no sin at all by the standards of most politicians”

      Of course if you step outside the personality interaction level and look at the things Biden has done he’s a monster. Our tunnel vision press are the real reason he was able to get away with it. Outside their particular beat they know nothing.

      It’s Biden’s “sins” that are the problem. Most presidents are figureheads anyway. He is one of our worst.

      Reply
      1. Acacia

        Yeah, I gagged on that passage as well. The journo, Olivia Nuzzi, helps make it clear how we’ve arrived at this point. She sounds like a fan, not a reporter, going on about her personal connection to the Bidens, etc. This is the press doing their job? Still, the article is worth a read.

        Meanwhile, I see that even since yesterday Joe has dropped in the prediction markets, e.g.:

        https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-2024?tid=1720139585234

        Yesterday, Kamala was at 14% and Joe 12%. Today, she’s inched up to 20%, with Joe dropping to 9%. Also, looks like another USD 2 million in bets have piled in.

        Reply
        1. Ben Panga

          I think the market for dem nominee is a better guage as the Pres election market includes calculations/guesses on how each would do versus Trump.

          A few hours ago Biden was on 41%, Harris on 34%

          As of right now: Biden 34%, Harris 47% which is by far the lowest I’ve seen Biden.

          Still unsure how much value these markets are for prediction purposes.

          Reply
  12. reify99

    What interests me is the way she divides time with her gestures. If she were truly skilled and trying to be covert she would reverse the sides so that the past would be to the viewers left and the future to the right. ( Per Neuro-Linguistic Programming, -blast from the past, this is how a normally organized right handed person divides present and past spatially. As evidenced with eye movements when processing.)

    Then, having done it skillfully, it would be interesting to see what she did next.
    What subsequent issues would she mark in her speech as over and done with and therefore to be discarded and not further considered?

    But alas, this was not skillful.

    From Wikipedia, sigh, But does give the gist:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frogs_into_Princes

    Reply
  13. Wukchumni

    12 score and 8 years ago, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one party to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, what can be, unburdened by what has been, means a clean start for Kamala, and thankfully expectations are on the way down low, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    Reply
  14. Wukchumni

    I realize in Lambert-time on WC its only a few months since the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, but if we could turn the clock back 20 years-was that when we started wearing the black Stetson?

    Reply
  15. Amfortas the Hippie

    for all you fans of Amfortas’ continuing adventures…
    i literally just stole an egg from the mouth of an 8foot texas rat snake(we call them Jormangandr)…bitch started to wrap herself around my arm ere she let go/i pulled out(they’re constrictors)
    didnt even know she was there, i just grabbed the half-seen egg….
    and there she was!
    im rather keyed up, atm,lol.
    biggest one ive ever met.(the span in that chicken house is 10 foot…she was shy of that…stretched out, tryin to find a hole)

    Reply
    1. petal

      Pictures or it didn’t happen, Amfortas! Kidding!
      Holy smokes it’s stuff like that that make me glad to live in northern NE.

      Reply
  16. Lunker Walleye

    Covid:
    Friends driving home to WI from San Diego County were to stop here in Flyover for dinner tonight after spending a few days on the road. Our male friend had a “bad cold” last week and female friend phoned this morning sounding like she had a terrible cold. She said they were in NE and she felt terrible and they would not be coming for dinner but would call later. Late in the day she texted from an ER in NE and said she had a confirmed case of Covid and a possible “brain bleed”. Very worrying. Stay safe out there!

    Reply
  17. Ram

    Going by election trends in UK , France , USA I fear of incumbent know someone bad coming down road and they are handing over power to opponents to deal with it. If Germany also calls snap election with Olaf as head whole thing will neatly fall in place.

    Reply
    1. tegnost

      know someone bad coming down road

      someone, or something?

      I had the same thought in the form of they botched it so bad they don’t want to clean up the mess,
      that I can believe…
      If you did mean some one, there is no single individual who can stand up to the institutional powers that got us into this ridiculous state.
      No one. .

      Reply
      1. Ram

        I am inclined to major war or global sovereign debt crisis. Every where tensions are rising geopolitical, economy, brewing pandemic, forgotten pandemic, climate..great reset doesn’t sound far fetched anymore

        Reply

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