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2:00PM Water Cooler 8/30/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Have a good Labor Day, everyone!

Bird Song of the Day

Catbirds are in the Mimidae species (!), like mockingbird and thrashers. Readers have said they like the mimicry, so hopefully MacCaulay Library has enough recordings to keep us all satisfied, at least for a time.

Black Catbird, Camino de grava entre el Corchito y Estero de Chicxulub, Progreso, Yucatán, Mexico.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. New RCP averages show race neck-and-neck, plus new Covid charts show positivity improvement.
  2. Kamala and joy.
  3. Trump needs a campaign reset.
  4. Unions and worker power.

* * *

Politics

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

* * *

2024

Less than one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

The good news for Trump is that Kamala’s post-convention “bounce” seems to have been slight. The good news for Kamala is Trump’s continued deterioration in North Carolina, plus taking a slight lead in Pennsylvania. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.

* * *

Kamala (D): How it started:

Kamala (D): How it’s going:

Wowsers. Katrina vandenHeuvel.

Kamala (D): “READ: Harris and Walz’s exclusive joint interview with CNN” [CNN]. “By contrast, the former president has none of that. And so — one, I — I — I am so proud to have served as vice president to Joe Biden. And, two, I am so proud to be running with Tim Walz for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve, which is a new way forward, and turn the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.” • One decade is 2014. Obama: 2016 – 2014 = 2; Trump 2020 – 2016 = 4; Biden: 2024 – 2020 = 4. 2 + 4 = 6, or 60% of ten. I too would love to turn the page on the last decade. Unfortunately, the Democrats have been in charge for 60% of it. And what’s with the “I — I — I”, especially on that topic? Don’t tell me Kamala grew up with a stutter too! Oh, and an eighteen minute interview, with a second interviewee present, is not at all impressive.

Kamala (D): “Donors Quietly Push Harris to Drop Tax on Ultrawealthy” [New York Times]. “The VCs for Kamala group — which includes Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn; Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures; Ron Conway, a well-known investor; and the billionaire Chris Sacca — surveyed its members about various public policy issues. Roughly 75 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “taxing unrealized capital gains will stifle innovation,” according to a document viewed by The New York Times. The survey otherwise showed support for Ms. Harris’s agenda….Some progressives have so far said they are unworried about signs that Ms. Harris is adopting more moderate rhetoric about economic issues, maintaining that she has been a key partner in crafting Mr. Biden’s agenda.” Commentary:

* * *

Trump (R): “Arlington National Cemetery worker was ‘pushed aside’ in Trump staff dispute but won’t seek charges” [Associated Press]. It was “assault,” now it’s “pushed aside.” So it goes. The details are in the story. Commentary:

Oh, I believe some things; it’s just that the process of ascertainment/discernment is far more laborious than it once was. And Bauer has the press dead to rights on WMDs, Steele, and Russian bot farms.

* * *

Trump (R): “Trump says he wants to make IVF treatments paid for by government or insurance companies if elected” [NBC News]. • This is actually clever, since it dings Walz while doing a good thing that will please suburban women. Useful in the debates, too. So, just like not taxing tips, Kamala will steal the idea in 10, 9, 8 counting….

Trump (R): “Trump tries to reset his campaign after brutal month” [Politico]. “Despite the endorsement and moments of discipline, the past weeks showed how Trump is most often guided by his own political instincts that are beyond the scope of what his advisers or allies can influence.” • Yes, it’s impossible for the campaign stuff to turn Trump into somebody he isn’t. Not that this is a strategy per se, but where I would begin is with Trump himself: Trump, love him or hate him, is somebody we feel that we know. He may be — often is — a [glassbowl]. But he’s a genuine [glassbowl]. Kamala, I would say, is different. It’s not that the public don’t know her, though it’s hard to see how this can be so, when she had three years in office as Biden’s heir apparently. It’s that Kamala herself does not know who she is. The “Indian”/”Black”/Mixed/Woman of Color vascillation is an example of this (which is why, in my view, Trump misplayed this aspect of her career by forcing it under the DEI rubric). All this would need to be translated into lietmotifs for Trump to incorporate into his riffing; the staff’s insistent tnat a teleprompter dominate him is wrong, personally and tactically.

* * *

Kennedy (I): Susie Wiles could do worse than bring whoever produced this ad from Shanahan onto the Trump campaign proper:

It codes young, “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is an extremely online trope, and TDS out-weirds “weird.”

* * *

“The ‘far-left agenda’ is exactly what most Americans wants” [Bernie Sanders, Guardian]. Fine use of anaphora. “When we talk about guaranteeing healthcare for all as a human right, we’re talking about the ability of every one of us, regardless of income, to go to a doctor when we’re sick and not go bankrupt when we come out of the hospital. We’re talking about the right to change jobs without fear of losing our healthcare. Does that really sound radical to you?” • But Kamala’s not advocating that, and if she were, she would’t deliver on it. The Democrats have form. More telling is what Sanders does not mention: Anti-trust. So long, Lina!

* * *

PA: “Pennsylvania may be a problem for Harris” [Silver Bulletin]. “If [Harris is] only tied in Pennsylvania now, during what should be one of her stronger polling periods, that implies being a slight underdog in November…. It’s possible that RFK’s dropout and endorsement of Trump is having more effect in Pennsylvania and the other Rust Belt states than elsewhere, which have older, whiter and more disaffected electorates. And as I said, it’s also possible that all of this is noise and/or that the model is overdoing the convention bounce adjustment. But while Tim Walz has had a strong rollout as Harris’s VP, I can’t help but wonder what her numbers would look like with Josh Shapiro instead.” • I still say no difference, and that Trump won Pennsylvania when Crooks tried to whack him.

Syndemics

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Transmission: H5N1

New H5N1 wastewater site:

Looks like good news, but before I did a happy dance, I’d want to lay a map of dairy herds against this map of sewer sytems.

“California, nation’s largest milk producer, discloses possible bird flu outbreaks in three dairy cow herds” [STAT]. “On Thursday, the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced it is investigating the possible introduction of H5N1 bird flu in cattle at three dairy farms in the Central Valley. If confirmed, they would be the first known cases in that state…. California, the nation’s largest milk producer, is home to roughly 1.7 million dairy cows. Nearly 90% of them live in the San Joaquin Valley, a vast stretch of fertile farmland that extends more than 250 miles from Stockton to Bakersfield. Dairy farms there tend to be big operations, separated from each other by significant distances, and for months farmers have been taking extra precautions like bleaching down cow-toting trailers to reduce cross-contamination. Workers there are usually dedicated to just one herd, unlike in Colorado and Michigan, where workers sometimes pick up shifts both at dairy farms and nearby poultry operations, creating additional biosecurity challenges. In both states, which have seen double-digit outbreaks, infections at dairy farms have spilled over to poultry sites, according to genetic analyses of the virus. But despite those measures, many have feared that with the lackluster national response to the outbreak, sooner or later H5N1 would come for California.” • Ah, bleach.

Maskstravaganza

At least they are wearing respirators (white) and not surgical masks (baggy blues):

So if the masks work as shields, why don’t they deserve a bullet point?

Science Is Popping

“Discovery of how blood clots harm brain and body in COVID-19 points to new therapy” (press release) [EurekAlert]. This is the press release for the important fibrin study in Nature we wrote about the other day. “In a study that reshapes what we know about COVID-19 and its most perplexing symptoms, scientists have discovered that the blood coagulation protein fibrin causes the unusual clotting and inflammation that have become hallmarks of the disease, while also suppressing the body’s ability to clear the virus. Importantly, the team also identified a new antibody therapy to combat all of these deleterious effects.” Key point: “[T]he study by Gladstone Institutes and collaborators overturns the prevailing theory that blood clotting is merely a consequence of inflammation in COVID-19. Through experiments in the lab and with mice, the researchers show that blood clotting is instead a primary effect, driving other problems—including toxic inflammation, impaired viral clearance, and neurological symptoms prevalent in those with COVID-19 and long COVID.”

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC August 26: Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants★ [3] CDC August 31 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 17

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data August 29: National [6] CDC August 10:

Positivity
★ National[7] Walgreens August 27: ★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:

Travelers Data
★Positivity[9] CDC August 12: ★ Variants[10] CDC August 12:

Deaths
★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 24: ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 24:

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. XDV.1 flat.

[4] (ER) Worth noting Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Again, an uptick, but the state as a whole is still down. Makes me wonder if there’s something happending at New York airports. Let’s watch carefully. (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.)

Lambert here: Since things are bad out on the West Coast, I went looking for California hospitalization data to compare with New York’s, and found this: “Due to changes in reporting requirements for hospitals, CDPH is no longer including hospitalization data on the CDPH dashboard. CDPH remains committed to monitoring the severe outcomes of COVID-19 and influenza, including the impact on hospitals. CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) will remain open to accept data, and CDC and CDPH strongly encourage all facilities to continue reporting.” Thanks, Mandy!

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.

[7] (Walgreens) Fiddling and diddling.

[8] (Cleveland) Jumping.

[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 range. 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) What the heck is LB.1?

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Core PCE Price Index Annual Change” [Trading Economics]. “Tha annual increase in the core PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge to measure underlying inflation, remained at 2.6% for a third straight month in July of 2024.”

Personal Income: “United States Personal Income” [Trading Economics]. “US personal income rose by 0.3% from the previous month to $24.015 trillion in July of 2024, up from a 0.2% increase in the previous month and above market forecasts of a 0.2% rise. Compensation of employees rose by 0.3%, same as the previous month, as wages and salaries grew further (0.3% vs 0.2% in June) and supplements to wages and salaries maintained the same growth rate as June at 0.3%.”

Manufactiuring: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, rose to 46.1 in August 2024, up from 45.3 in the prior month and surpassing market estimates of 45.5. The latest reading still shows a significant decline in Chicago’s economic activity for the ninth consecutive month, although it remains comfortably above the year-to-date average of 42.9.”

Supply Chain: “The union representing dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas says they are ‘at an impasse’ with employers, and the real negotiations haven’t started yet. The deadlock is one sign of the high stakes in the dealing over a new labor contract that is taking place under threat of a strike at some of the biggest ports in the U.S.” [Wall Street Journal]. “[O]fficials at the International Longshoremen’s Association are due to meet next week in New Jersey to go over their wage demands and to set the table for a walkout that could begin Oct. 1. The ILA is pushing for a 77% increase for workers over six years, far more than the 32% increase the International Longshore and Warehouse Union won for its members at West Coast ports last year. Employers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are offering half that, according to a person familiar with the talks.”

* * *

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 60 Greed (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 54 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 30 at 1:37:12 PM ET.

Class Warfare

“Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren’t the Best Way to Get It” [New York Times]. “If the goal is to place workers on a level playing field with employers so that they can advocate their own interests effectively and share fully in the prosperity they help to create, then getting more workers into those unions is not the only way. It’s not even the best way. A more effective strategy is to ensure a tight labor market by constraining who employers can hire — in particular, by making it harder to offshore production to other countries or bring workers from other countries into the United States. Employers fight against such constraint tooth and nail because it forces them to improve the quality of the jobs they offer, to retain workers and draw people off the sidelines to fill open positions, and to invest in boosting productivity. A recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis illustrates this effect. Firms lamenting labor shortages and hiring challenges for routine manual tasks tend to invest more and achieve larger productivity gains. Senator JD Vance has articulated the point well, warning that support for the free movement of labor across national borders ‘decimates the bargaining power of workers’ by offering employers less expensive alternatives, while constraining access to inexpensive labor is ‘a tech-forward argument. If you can’t constantly do the same things with cheaper and cheaper labor, your economy is forced to innovate.’ Nor is America’s existing union model, codified by the Depression-era National Labor Relations Act, the only form a vibrant labor movement might take. In most of Europe, for instance, unions operate at the industry level rather than having to fight for recognition company by company.”

News of the Wired

“The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes” [EIEIO.games]. “On June 26th 2024, I launched a website called One Million Checkboxes (OMCB). It had one million global checkboxes on it – checking (or unchecking) a box changed it for everyone on the site, instantly. My expectations for the site were very low and very wrong. I thought hundreds of players would check thousands of boxes – instead, 500,000 players checked over 650,000,000 boxes in the two weeks that I kept the site online.” • I can’t really excerpt the story. But the kids are alright.

“The Bug in the Computer Bug Story” [JSTOR]. Everybody knows the story, so picking up: “The real bug in this narrative, as Shapiro points out, is that ‘bug’ in this sense actually goes back to the late nineteenth century. The Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary’s fourth definition of the noun ‘bug’ reads ‘a defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like.’ The OED cites the March 11, 1889, Pall Mall Gazette as a source: ‘Mr [Thomas] Edison… had been up the two previous nights discovering a ‘bug’ in his phonograph—an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect had secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.’ And then there’s also a letter, written by Edison in 1878, in which he refers to “‘Bugs’ as such little faults and difficulties are called.” By the publication of the 1934 Webster’s New International Dictionary, the third definition for the noun bug was: “a defect in an apparatus or its operation.’ Computer people adopted a term in use for more than half a century and brought it into the digital world. ”

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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 AF:

AF writes: “Black Swallowtail caterpillar munching on parsley.”

* * *

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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

  2. William Beyer

    Regarding, Wowsers. Katrina vandenHeuvel.

    Jeffrey St. Clair had a nice zinger at Counterpunch:

    + I don’t follow fashion protocols that closely, but is it even permissible to wear white while you do a genocide?

    Reply ↓
  3. Pat

    Is Sixties nostalgia really a political winner?
    I know I am showing my age here but that Harris poster reminds of the Flower Power/Summer of Love looks of my childhood. And not for nothing “San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair” has not endured as well as “Something’s happening here…”
    Even worse I had a sudden image of Harris exiting the Partridge Family bus.

    Don’t even get me started on “Vote for Joy”. Was this conceived by the same brain trust that gave us “I’m your abuela”?

    Reply ↓
      1. ChrisFromGA

        I still say Trump should buy the rights to that commercial. Reruns can be big money.

        Or modify it a bit, have Kamala giggling in the background as the girl picks the daisy.

        Reply ↓
        1. Pat

          That might be fun. Only because it would be interesting to watch team anyone but Trump tie themselves in knots calling him on the hypocrisy while trying to wrap themselves in twenty layers of duct tape to ignore its accuracy.
          Too bad they are both terrible on wars and war mongering even if Trump wants one less.

          Reply ↓
    2. griffen

      Hoo boy. Vote for something, as long as it can’t be Trump again! Harris can certainly beat him in this election year; but can she really be capable to fool the broad populace that initiatives to drill, one example, Harris had once campaigned against in previous efforts ( state, national ) and now she is supportive instead?

      Tongue in cheek I suggest…of course people will accept it. She changed her mind(!). Drill baby drill, and more money for our wars. \sarc

      Reply ↓
      1. Buzz Meeks

        Being a life long Democrat idealist and a unrepentant New Dealer and seeing how Democratic party machines used to vote dead people, I am thinking of a twist and writing in Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president this year. For the record, have not considerd myself a democrat since the Clintons.

        Reply ↓
    3. Stephen V

      Sorry to be a Killjoy, but I was there, I inhaled and being “weird” was a good thing! So what’s up with the Flower Power psy-op?

      Reply ↓
  4. flora

    re: “Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren’t the Best Way to Get It” [New York Times]. “If the goal is to place workers on a level playing field with employers so that they can advocate their own interests effectively and share fully in the prosperity they help to create, then getting more workers into those unions is not the only way. It’s not even the best way. …”

    riiight. Thanks, NYT. Reminds me of this FDR response to the GOP about Social Security. utube. 1+ minute. / ;)

    FDR on Social Security

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKijm15ZCA

    (I miss the old New Deal Dem party. sigh….)

    Reply ↓
    1. aleph_0

      Incredible video. What a spectacular argument. Thanks. As true today as it was then.

      As for the NY Times article, I can’t find the screenshot, but was immediately reminded of the Onion headline (misremembered): Guy Who Hates Your Cause Has Advice About Your Tactics.

      Reply ↓
    2. Ranger Rick

      Unions as we envisage them in the US at the moment are sort of the republican version. The workers elect a representative; the representative does the negotiating. The result gets put to a vote. The actual agreement with the compromises included is presented as a sort of fait accompli to union members: you chose this but did not negotiate this. This is especially true for junior members, which both unions and their companies love to pick on with multiple-tier systems designed to split the workforce into haves and have-nots. In delegating away their negotiating power, workers also delegated away their strike-calling power. In so doing, a union employee ends up having just as much power as a non-union employee.

      The New York Times thinks there’s a better way? I’d love to see one that doesn’t end up with the workers getting taken advantage of given the massive power imbalance inherent in the employer/employee relationship. Claiming workers will be replaced by robots and machine learning — sorry, ‘innovation’ — when it’s possible to do so (and that this is a good thing for labor) is not going to endear them to labor activists. They keep bumping up against UBI without intending to.

      Reply ↓
  8. CA

    Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, speaking today before a global security conference in Prague, is telling the audience that Europe needs to become “more nuclear.” How could such a mad thinker become an EC president? Of course, von der Leyen went along unasked to China with French President Macron to be sure that Macron was not about to be conciliatory to Xi Jinping.

    Reply ↓
    1. jsn

      She is the portrait of articulate rationalism compared to whom the same “electors” are putting up to run Our Democracy.

      Reply ↓

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