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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/25/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Common Nightingale, Piran, Slovenia.

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Friday: RCP poll (Trump leads), new Covid table (good news).
  2. Spotted in the wild: First scenario for Democrats not surrendering the Presidency.
  3. Pennsylvania round-up.
  4. “Daddy’s home”.
  5. Boeing losing a billion a month to avoid spending a billion over four years. Make it make sense.

* * *

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 two weeks to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

Lambert here: Tiny margins, but all red. If I were running the Kamala campaign, I’d want to see some blue. Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!.

“CNN’s Enten: Rising Support Among Independent Voters Good Sign For Trump” [RealClearPolitics]. Enten: “In September of 2024, a month ago, Kamala Harris was up five points among independents. Now, though, she’s only up by two points among a key block in the center of the electorate, down nine points from where Biden was at the end of the 2020 campaign. Of course, this is a national picture. What is going on in those key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, that ‘blue wall’ right? Joe Biden won them by five points over Donald Trump last time around. But look at where we are today. This is the type of movement Donald Trump likes to see in the center of the electorate — up by a point. Of course, that’s well within any margin of error, but again, it’s the movement, it is the trends we’re looking at. When you flip a group from being plus five Biden to now plus one Trump, that’s the type of movement Donald Trump loves to see, and it’s the type of movement that gives Democrats some agitation. You saw it nationally, and you see it in the blue wall states.” • Yep. More Enten:

If the polls, again, are undercounting Trump….

* * *

“How “Trump is a fascist” became Kamala’s closing argument” [Vox]. “Though we’re in the closing weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 2023 all over again. That’s because Vice President Kamala Harris has largely settled on a closing campaign message that sounds a lot like the idea President Joe Biden made the centerpiece of his campaign: that Donald Trump presents an existential threat to American democracy…. Harris’s recent return to a democracy message seems to be in response to the closeness of the presidential contest in battleground states. According to polling, she’s been largely unable to make more inroads with independents or continue making gains with swing-state voters after an initial burst of support after taking up her party’s nomination. There’s an ever-so-small chunk of undecided voters left in those states — so peeling away at the margins of Trump’s support could make all the difference. That’s partially why these appeals to protecting democracy are being made in front of moderate and disaffected Republican audiences…. ‘On the constitutional piece, there are a lot of people out there. I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to those folks who want to find a reason to do the right thing,’ Walz said.” • Harry Truman said: “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” But I don’t think Truman took into account the idea that a Democrat would try to turn themseles into a Republican, as with Cheney, all the endorsements of Never Trumpers, and so on. Cheney helps Kamala to create a “permission structure” for Republican voters to accept this transformation (and especially white suburban PMC women).

Kamala (D): “Hillary Clinton accuses Trump of ‘reenacting’ infamous Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden: We can’t ignore it” [FOX]. “One other thing that you’ll see next week, Kaitlan, is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. I write about this in my book,’ Clinton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday night. ‘President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So I don’t think we can ignore it.'” • Again, here’s the text of FDR’s speech at Madison Square Garden (a speech, by the way, that no liberal Democrat could or would give today). Grant that Trump is a fascist. What does Madison Square Garden have to do with anything?

Kamala (D): “The Oprah Phase and the Trump Danger” [Peggy Noonan]. From October 17: “If Ms. Harris thinks Mr. Trump is a danger to the Constitution then this is more than an election, it is a national emergency. In an emergency you put your own ideological purity and pride aside.” • Given the date, it looks like Harris doubled down on Nooners with the “Fascist!” talking point (and normally I think Nooners is pretty near pitch perfect, but not this time; the cats eat the cat food, it is true; but the dog’s won’t eat the dog food.

* * *

Kamala (D): “Behind the Curtain: Dems fear they’re blowing it” [Axios]. “[W]hat’s striking is how our private conversations with Democrats inside and outside her campaign reveal broad concern that little she does, says — or tries — seems to move the needle…. This is after Democrats spent $1 billion — nearly twice as much as Republicans — over the past three months to polish her image and soil former President Trump’s…. And this is after Trump’s cringy 40-minute onstage sway [39 minutes, at least get the Democrat talking point right] to ’80s music, his threats to target ‘enemies within, calling his opponent ‘retarded’ and ‘sh*t’…. Harris inherited a very tough hand. Establishing and executing a campaign for president starting just 3½ months before an election is unprecedented in modern politics.”

Kamala (D): “Democrats fear race may be slipping away from Harris” [The Hill]. “‘Everyone keeps saying, ‘It’s close.’ Yes, it’s close, but are things trending our way? No. And no one wants to openly admit that,’ one Democratic strategist said. ‘Could we still win? Maybe. Should anyone be even slightly optimistic right now? No.’ Another strategist was even more dour when asked about the current state of play: “If this is a vibe election, the current vibes ain’t great.”

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’s Blue-Collar Blues” [City Journal]. “[The Trump GOP’s] more populist approach to economics has removed many potential deal-breakers with working-class voters. For instance, economically vulnerable voters view federal entitlements as a vital safety net, and fears of cuts to these programs made many suspicious of Republicans. In his 2012 reelection campaign, Barack Obama (who did well with working-class voters compared with recent Democratic nominees) bludgeoned Mitt Romney over entitlements. The Republican Party under Trump has instead emphasized keeping much of that safety net intact, and there’s a kind of internal logic to its combination of tight borders, family subsidies, federal entitlements, and cheap energy as a backstop for working Americans.”

Kamala (D): “Harris Makes Her Play for Suburban Women Voters” [The Nation]. “Importantly, Harris has made no known policy concessions to win Cheney’s support. Indeed, the only big news from the town halls came when Cheney, a staunch abortion opponent, agreed with Harris that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states have gone too far with abortion bans and restrictions that harm women.” True, running the Defense Department wouldn’t count as a policy concession.” And: “[T]he town halls [with Kamala and Cheney] were mainly noteworthy because of the warmth between the two women. Cheney, who once derided Harris as a ‘radical liberal,’ now describes her as someone with a ‘sincere heart,’ ‘character,’ and ‘courage.’ Harris likewise called Cheney courageous for opposing Trump and supporting her. The vice president, who opposed the Iraq War, nevertheless aligns with Cheney on support for Ukraine and maintaining the NATO alliance, which Trump opposes. ‘If Trump were president, Vladimir Putin would be in Kyiv right now,’ Harris said in Waukesha County. The tragedy in Gaza only came up there, when an audience member shouted, ‘What about Gaza?’ and was reportedly removed from the room.” • Blob vibes. I think when you’re inside the Blob, it must feel like a warm, soothing bath….

Kamala (D): “Opinion: I’m a non-MAGA conservative. Sanctimonious liberals make me want to vote Trump” [USA Today]. “Ahead of the 2016 election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was constantly trying to play up what a brute Trump was, said you could put half of his supporters into a ‘basket of deplorables,’ because they must be as ‘sexist’ and ‘racist’ as the Republican nominee himself. (It turns out, that wasn’t a smart thing for Clinton to say.) Along those lines, Clinton also played the woman card, making a big deal about how she would be the first woman president in the United States. And she made it clear that all women had a duty to vote for her, regardless of their political views. If they didn’t vote for her, then it must be because of the men in their lives. That rhetoric was insulting to women then, and it still is today. Not to mention ineffective. Yet, that has not stopped the media and Harris supporters from echoing that sentiment now. For instance, Jess Piper, a progressive activist in Missouri, recently opined the following on social media: ‘White women: your vote is private. I don’t care what kind of sign your husband has put out in your yard, or what your pastor preaches on Sunday, you can vote your conscience. You can vote for your children and grandchildren. No one will know.'” • Just lie to your husband, no problem…

* * *

Kamala (D): This should certainly go down well with the undecided and irregular voters:

Just in time for Kamala’s big rally on Tuesday! (The thing about liberal Democrats when they try scatological snark: They’re very bad at it.) NOTE The turd is the J6 rioters, not Nancy Pelosi.

* * *

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff slapped me in the face so hard I spun around … I’m disgusted by his fake ‘perfect spouse’ persona” [Daily Mail]. “Doug Emhoff’s ex-girlfriend has spoken exclusively to DailyMail.com claiming that he slapped her in the face so hard she spun around at a 2012 celebrity event in France. The woman, a successful New York attorney, is remaining anonymous, but decided to speak out after Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, denied the claims through a spokesman….. DailyMail.com broke the story about the alleged unprovoked attack on October 2, by reporting accounts from two friends she told immediately after the incident, a third she told in 2018, and documents evidencing her relationship and trip to France with Emhoff. The bombshell allegations, which followed DailyMail.com’s revelation in August that Emhoff cheated on his first wife with his daughter’s nanny Najen Naylor, received little or no coverage from politically center-left major news outlets.” • Better evidence than other moral panics, including the current one about Trump.

* * *

Kamala (D): They send email:

Except from Open Secrets: Kamala Harris (D) Total: $906,121,880; Small Donors: $403,573,038; Percent from small donors: 44.54%. Hardly the “vast majority.”

* * *

Trump (R): “Donald Trump’s McDonald’s Shift Went Down Best With Gen Z” [Newsweek]. N = 514. “A total of 39 percent of Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) said Trump’s stunt made them like him somewhat or much more. This is significantly more than the 23 percent of Gen Z who said the shift made them like Trump less, while 38 percent said it did not impact how much they like Trump.”

Trump (R): “Donald Trump and the F-Word” [Susan Glasser, The New Yorker]. “Would you really have wanted to believe, in the lovely fall days in the twilight of Barack Obama’s Presidency… ” • Wait, what? “[T]he lovely fall days in the twilight of Barack Obama’s Presidency”? Really? Could Glasser possibly be describing her actually feelings here? Also, Clinton was right about everything. NOTE: There’s no one single reason why Glasser characterizes Trump as a fascist; just arguments from authority and vibes.

Trump (R): America, “you’ve been a little bad girl.” Really?

Let’s just hope there aren’t any devotees of Sylvia Plath out there. Or Theodore Roethke.

* * *

“USPS is delivering ballots quickly and on time” [Government Executive]. “Through the first three weeks of October, USPS delivered 97.8% of election mail pieces on time according to its delivery windows and 99.9% were delivered within seven days. That performance comes despite many parts experiencing slower mail delivery overall in 2024, though it is roughly in line with how USPS delivered ballots in 2020 and 2022. The Postal Service is delivering ballots in 1.4 days on average and within one day of its expected delivery time in 98.3% of cases. USPS this week began instituting “extraordinary measures” to ensure ballots are sent out and returned quickly, a series of steps it typically implements near elections and that it is currently required to put in place under a settlement agreement with the NAACP. They consist of extra deliveries and collections, special pickups, expanded hours at processing plants, Sunday collections and visual checks of various points for ballots. The Postal Service was already conducting daily sweeps and “all clears” at its facilities for ballots, and ensuring postmarks for any piece of mail identified as a ballot.”

* * *

AZ, NM (and AK) (map of Indian reservations): “Biden makes historic apology for ‘sin’ of U.S. role in deadly Indigenous boarding schools” [PBS]. • Why now? A question that answers itself once asked.

NC: “Harris, Trump teams scramble for votes in North Carolina’s hurricane damaged west” [Reuters]. “Though first-day voting set a record, overall turnout remains a question mark. ‘This (the hurricane) has changed everything,’ [North Carolina State Representative Lindsey Prather] said.”

PA: “Trouble for Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania?” [The Nation]. ” If the Pennsylvania Harris campaign has indeed turned over every stone in its pursuit of victory, that is news to state Representative Chris Rabb, who has represented North Philly’s vote-rich, 75 percent Black, 200th legislative district in the state House of Representatives for the last eight years. Every cycle, his district has had the highest turnout of any in the state, but so far, he tells me, the Harris campaign has made no asks of him. None. For the spring primary, he had built a squad of youth organizers, all paid $21 an hour, to talk and listen to voters in his district. But a proposal that he sent the Harris campaign over the summer to build a similar team went nowhere. Speaking to Nomiki Konst of The Hill’s Youtube show over the weekend, Rabb said he remained optimistic that Harris would win the state. But he was also frustrated. ‘Harris is using a Biden infrastructure with Obama vibes,’ Rabb observes. ‘And that’s a little nerve-wracking, because the Biden infrastructure…does not involve the hard-core grassroots organizing that was emblematic of the Obama ascendancy.’ Rabb is also critical of how much the Harris team is relying on outsiders and celebrity surrogates rather than locals to reach voters like his constituents. ‘That’s the challenge that I have with the infrastructure that Kamala Harris inherited from the Biden team. When you are sitting on half a billion dollars of campaign funds, I gotta ask, why aren’t you making investments [in local organizers]?… The most meaningful thing you can do is invest in those communities.’ I’ve heard similar stories from organizers in purple Bucks County, who say that the Harris campaign, which is staffed by outsiders, isn’t interested in collaborating with local or state races, preferring instead to organize the many out-of-state volunteers flocking in by bus each weekend to canvass.” • Door-knocking depends on who knocks at the door.

PA: “New Report: Populism Wins Pennsylvania” [Jacobin]. Jacobin sponsored a YouGov poll in PA (N = 1000). “Messaging around Trump as a threat to democracy underperformed all other Harris messages among virtually every group. While the strongest message we tested was supported by 58% of respondents, the “threat to democracy” message received just 49% support overall.” • Handy chart:

Where populism is defined as “economic populist messaging.”

PA: “Signs of the Times in Pennsylvania” [The Nation]. “Out here, Democrats are the people still committed to stand up for decency, if you’ll pardon that old genteel word. They are people who would never vote for a convicted felon, let alone boast about it. My impression is that the Trump years have toughened them in a quiet, Pennsylvania kind of way; they’ve gotten used to being hassled, yelled at. There is no longer any vagueness about where you stand, no mushy middle.”

TX: “Texas not too big for Harris” [Politico]. “‘Texas is not just a good showcase for how restrictive policies can get on abortion when you leave it to the states, but also the degree to which that kind of restrictive approach gets in front of — and does not align with — public opinion, including public opinion with a sizable share of Republicans,’ said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project and co-directs the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.” And: “Harris has made a habit of heading to states that she says illustrate the worst of policy impacts. She visited Florida last year to commemorate what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe and went to Tennessee to discuss gun safety.”

The Wizard of Kalorama™

Sirota’s right:

Realignment and Legitimacy

“If Trump wins, should Democrats turn over the keys to the White House?” [Austin Sarat, Fulcrum]. Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College. “It is not as if President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris needed Cheney’s warning to realize that allowing Trump to take power would likely mean the end of American democracy as we know it…. Is the end of democracy a price we should be prepared to pay? If not, what should the Democrats do in the face of a Trump electoral victory?…. Let me explore four options…. First, Biden can do nothing differently than he would have done for a winning Republican candidate who did not threaten to end democracy. … A second option would be for the Harris campaign to mount vigorous legal challenges to the election outcomes in states where Trump’s margin of victory is narrow and where there are plausible grounds for doing so…. A third option focuses on using the post-election period to engage in a mass mobilization campaign, like the one that occurred after Trump was elected in 2016. This one would have to be designed to resist what Trump has said he would do once he is back in the White House, but it would be geared to put in place the infrastructure to sustain protest over the long term…. The fourth option is by far the riskiest and most controversial. While the first three can be pursued within well-established constitutional norms, the fourth would, at first glance, seem to transgress those norms. Faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, some, out of desperation, might urge Biden to turn the tables on Trump and refuse to transfer power to him. In this scenario, Biden would resign, and Harris would be sworn in as president. There would be no constitutional problem if he were to take this step. Harris would then face the horrible possibility that her oath of office and promise to defend the Constitution against ‘all enemies, foreign and domestic’ might require her not to transfer power to someone who has already said he might terminate the Constitution. Doing so is the kind of nuclear option that [the political philosopher Michael Walzer] says good politicians must consider when circumstances warrant it.” • And so it begins. What I like about option four is that it gives an account of why Biden is still in office.

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 (wastewater); 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, KidDoc, 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!

Look for the Helpers

Good news:

Sequelae: Covid

“COVID-19 Causes Ciliary Dysfunction as Demonstrated by Human Intranasal Micro-Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging” (letter) [American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology]. From 2023. N = 13. ” Our results indicate that subjects with mild but symptomatic COVID-19 exhibit functional abnormalities of the respiratory mucosa, underscoring the importance of mucociliary health in viral illness and disease transmission. … Structural integrity and coordinated movement of cilia are imperative for optimal mucociliary clearance, the primary defense mechanism of the respiratory tract.” • Small sample, but a mechanism I can understand….

Social Norming

“Social Goodness: The Ontology of Social Norms” [Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews]. “The traditional philosophical question about social norms is: what is a social norm? In Social Goodness, Witt asks a different question: what is the source of social normativity? Alternatively put: what makes social norms binding on us? Witt specifically investigates what she calls social role norms. Teachers ought to teach. Students ought to do their homework. Parents ought to take care of their children. In each case, we have a norm that follows from a social role (teacher, student, parent). Witt argues for three major theses: (nonreductionism) we cannot reduce social role normativity to prudential or moral normativity; (externalism) social norms are binding independently of our attitudes toward them; (the artisanal model) social role normativity is best understood along the lines of artisanal social roles, like being a carpenter. The resulting view is comprehensive, compelling, and original.” • Hospitals shouldn’t kill you, doctors should understand the current pandemic, etc. Rather like Graeber’s every day communism, in fact.

Because they’re not on the left:

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
★ This week[1] CDC October 21 Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC October 10 ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC October 19

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data October 24: National [6] CDC September 28:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens October 21: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic October 19:

Travelers Data
★ Positivity[9] CDC October 7: ★ Variants[10] CDC October 7:

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

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) Good news!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XEC has entered the chat.

[4] (ED) Down.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). I see the “everything in greenish pastels” crowd has gotten to this chart.

[7] (Walgreens) A pause.

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC

[11] Deaths low, positivity down.

[12] Deaths low, ED down.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Durable Goods Orders” [Trading Economics]. “New orders for manufactured durable goods in the US decreased by 2.2 billion or 0.8 percent to $284.8 billion in September 2024, following a revised 0.8 percent decline in August and compared with market expectations of a 1 percent fall.”

* * *

Manufacturing: “Boeing union members on strike return to picket lines after latest offer voted down” [KIRO]. “Aviation analyst Scott Hamilton doesn’t expect the pension to come back during negotiations. ‘I would be shocked if Boeing blinked on that one,” Hamilton said to KIRO Newsradio Thursday. “If they give it to the IAM and the engineers union … the other unions would want it back.’… Boeing did secure loans recently. But they would not help the company if the strike lingers on for a long period of time, Hamilton stated. ‘Even with liquidity of $55 billion sooner or later, you’re going to burn through that at the rate of, you know, a billion and a half a month or whatever,’ Hamilton said. “Quite frankly, if this were to go on indefinitely, Boeing could be at risk of going bankrupt. And nobody wants that.'” And: “‘Over the life of the contract, the labor costs would increase about $1.3 billion — and that’s a four-year contract. They’re losing a billion dollars a month in cash, let alone lost sales,’ Hamilton said.” • So give the workers what they want! Is that so hard?

Manufacturing: “As Machinists strike extends, Boeing is running out of runway” [Dominic Gates, Seattle Times]. “Before then, Boeing’s own financial distress would intensify and its already-stressed supply chain could sustain long-term damage. ‘This rejection adds further uncertainty, costs, and recovery delays as the strike approaches day 40,’ Bank of America analyst Ron Epstein wrote in a note to investors Thursday. ‘We anticipate further concessions of wages will be required for a deal to pass.’ But the issue is pensions, not wages. “Boeing’s financial position, outlined in its quarterly earnings report on the day of the vote, is tottering on the verge of a credit downgrade that would increase the cost of borrowing. The company bled $2 billion net in cash during the quarter and its debt rose to $57.7 billion with just $10.5 billion of cash in hand. Chief Financial Officer Brian West said 2025 will also see a net cash outflow. However, Boeing has moved to shore up its finances and survive this cash crunch. The company earlier this month arranged $10 billion in additional credit and a potential sale of stock and stock-related bonds up to a further $25 billion if needed. That funding is enough to cover the cash outflow and the debt maturities falling due, and to provide a cushion of capital needed if the strike is prolonged. Boeing will tap that if needed to stave off a credit downgrade…. Still, Boeing would much prefer to do that stock and bond sale after the strike is finished. Investors would pay more for the stock if they can see some movement toward stability.” And: “A basic Grade 4 mechanic working second shift with two years seniority has base pay currently of $26.50 an hour. The latest offer would bump that up in the first year to $29.68.” ‘These are highly complex, technical, skillful jobs. Why do you pay them just a little bit more than McDonald’s?’ Hamilton asked. While South Carolina is still building 787s, there’ll be no other Boeing planes built until a settlement is reached. However Boeing wants to package it, the only way forward seems to be an improved offer to the Machinists.” • But–

Manufacturing: “Boeing union to striking workers: ‘Bullying’ each other over strike votes is ‘vile'” [Quartz]. “Rachel Sarzynski, a team lead on Boeing’s 777, told the Times that “some people are desperate” and just want to get back to work and get paid again. Union members have received $250 per week from the strike fund after the walkouts entered its third week — a major pay cut for many employees. Sarzynski added that Boeing’s latest offer has ‘absolutely divided people.’ The IAM on Thursday evening seemed to acknowledged that divide, reminding its members that no one ‘deserves to be bullied or disrespected’ because of how they voted on the deal. ‘Bullying’ fellow members, the union added, is ‘unacceptable and vile.’ ‘Each one of us made a choice, using our voice, deciding what was right for our families. That power to choose, the right to choose, is at the core of everything we stand for,’ the IAM said in a statement. ‘Respect. Fairness. A future that we decide, not one handed down to us from corporate boardrooms.'” • Looks like that

Manufacturing: “Why pensions are a hot button issue in the Boeing machinists strike” [KUOW]. “Labor markets are competitive, and I think that if you had a company that was willing to do so, you’d find a lot of employees who are attracted to that model, and they say, ‘Company A has a pension. I’ll go there because I really want that.’ I think a company leader might just do it, and if they do so, they’re going to be taking the good employees from Company B and others, and companies may have to follow suit…. there’s a realization among many of those employees in the union that there is some benefit to having a pension plan, and that a lot of the union members probably want it. It’s just difficult. The biggest issue is that while there are pension guarantees outside of the companies themselves– for example, if a company goes bankrupt, there is a pension guarantee company that, in many cases, will take care of the pensions– the idea is that if the company is still in business, they are the ones guaranteeing the pension. And the idea is, if you look at the pension world in general, especially, let’s say state and local and community plans and counties and teachers, etc., many of those plans, most of those plans, are underfunded, and it’s on the hook of the younger generation of employees to fund those pensions. So, it’s a difficult situation. That’s why companies have gone away from it. They don’t want to have to guarantee pensions, and they don’t want to have to administer it. It’s expensive. You have to have an investment staff at a company that manages a pension. Whereas, with a 401(k) or a defined contribution plan, you can ‘outsource it.'”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 62 Greed (previous close: 63 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 74 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 25 at 1:00:32 PM ET.

The Current Cinema

Buster Keaton is dry, very dry:

News of the Wired

“Finding a better song to sing” [Richard Murphy, Funding the Future]. ” it is my plan over the next year to give up almost all aspects of my work except for that on social media, including this blog.” • He’s giving up his Chair in Accounting Practice at Sheffield University to blog. Greater love hath no man….

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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 SG:

SG writes: “Not sure if this is what you mean by ‘old fashioned color technology’ but perhaps this qualifies. My old neighbor gave me the Roseville pitcher decorated with an abstract landscape and a chain of bows in relief. The zinnias came from another kind neighbor.”

* * *

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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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150 comments

  1. Anon

    Big news of the day is that the LA Times and WaPo are proceeding with no endorsements. Theories abound as to why. Neither wants to deal with the loss of subscriptions with a Trump endorsement nor would WaPo want extra fuel on the fire if Harris were to win and keep Lina Khan around for antitrust. Here’s Susan Rice’s take on it:

    Susan Rice

    2. Carolinian

      Just reading this on ZH with the insider assertion that Bezos killed the Post endorsement. Horse head under the sheets on his yacht? Or did the consigliere pay a visit and say “nice little government assisted business you have there….a shame if anything should happen to it.”

      Of course it’s possible he merely thinks Harris would be a bad president.

    4. Big River Bandido

      if Harris were to win and keep Lina Khan around for antitrust

      I don’t understand this. Harris has been under intense pressure from Reid Hoffman and other of her key donors to ditch Lina Khan. Harris has word saladed her way through any question about Khan’s future, suggesting that, as always, Harris will follow her donors’ instructions.

    5. Lambert Strether Post author

      > LA Times

      Greenwald, but see the community note:

      > WaPo

      Not a lot of sympathy for the whinging from me here. Pravda on the Potomac is state-sponsored media. Did they never notice?

      1. lyman alpha blob

        So the added context says there’s “no evidence” the decision was about Gaza. Except that the owner of the paper’s daughter explicitly said so. But I guess it only reaches the level of “evidence” when the given reason is one these people want to hear.

        I was similarly dismissed by some TDS sufferers the other day when I gave the same reason for why nothing they could say would convince me to vote for Harris. These people have form!

        And of course we know that if it were Trump presiding over proxy wars with Russia and Iran with US bombs shredding children by the thousands, it would be “Hitler is starting WW3 just like we warned you about” nonstop. But it’s OK when Democrats do it.

  3. aj

    RE: Grant that Trump is a fascist. What does Madison Square Garden have to do with anything?

    It really is transparent nonsense to anyone who has more than 2 brain cells. It’s almost guilt by association, however the association here is a physical location that is known for plenty of other things besides a Nazi rally 85 years ago. I often refer to this as the “Hitler liked dogs” fallacy (or “Hilter was an artist” works too). The logic being that Hitler liked dogs, therefore anyone who likes dogs is a modern-day Hitler.

        1. MFB

          Actually a lot of people have argued that FDR was a fascist. After all, he criticised big business, boosted the military and set up big spy and secret police services while using state sponsorship to boost his profile.

          Maybe this “Madison Square Garden” thing is actually the Democrats trying to exorcise the embarrassment of once having had a decent person as a Democratic party President?

    1. Carolinian

      Giant trucks are roaming my neighborhood picking up debris. And my impression of the mtn country these days would be more horse farms than farm farms. My grandparents’ farm turned into houses.

        1. Carolinian

          They are deep bed open top trucks with a claw crane and operator high up on the back. At least two private companies are doing this going by the logos. The city has one crew and smaller truck using the same setup but looks like they will be cleaning up the city owned parks.

          Halloween around here is a big deal so perhaps we are getting early attention because many from elsewhere come here to trick or treat. Undoubtedly the process–over in a few days in my neighborhood–will take a very long time for the entire county.

  5. Samuel Conner

    > So give the workers what they want! Is that so hard?

    I think that a generous defined benefit pension plan is a very difficult concession for any present day US corporation management to make. (I acknowledge that Boeing had this previously).

    The thing to do, IMO, if it were possible, would be for the union to take Boeing private (perhaps this would be possible in a bankruptcy proceeding — who would want to buy the assets if there are no workers to operate them?) and reorganize it as a worker-owned cooperative. Then the worker-owners could make their own decisions about how to divide company resources between product development, manufacturing quality, present wages, and future pensions.

    1. Felix_47

      What a good idea! And since so much is financed by the government political factors might make the whole thing work.

  6. Lee

    Tis the season:

    Inside The ‘Creepy’ Procedure That Taps Into Young Blood (12 minute audio) Science Friday

    Emma Gometz, SciFri’s digital producer of engagement, talks to Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray, a neurology professor at Stanford University who has used parabiosis (which he once described as “creepy”) to help reveal how components of our blood affect our cognition as we age. They discuss parabiosis, vampires, and how far the field has to go before humans can benefit.

    Is it just me or does the good doctor sound an awful lot like the wonderfully creepy Peter Lorre?

  7. JTMcPhee

    Boeing: I’d say “Nationalize it!” But there’s no FDR Brain Trust to make it happen, and a whole tranche of effing financialists and windup lawyers and consultants that facilitate the “outward flow of capital” from the senescent corpus of one the last “great” American corporations.

    On the other hand, maybe a practice run at nationalization or at least rationalization might be a worthy exercise, to be applied elsewhere in the Churn.

    I bet the Russians even have some thoughts on how such things might “profitably” (in the purely beneficent sense) be accomplished.

    1. aj

      As an observer with a full bucket of popcorn, the Dems refusing to transfer power would be the icing on the cake of this kafkaesque election cycle. I would be able to say “I told you so” to so many people.

      1. NN Cassandra

        But who will lead the revolution from the barricades? Obama? Hillary? Nancy? Democrats pumped the base for sure, but I don’t see the aristocrats at the top, nor the apparatchiks right below them, to want to bring down the system. Life is just too comfortable for them, with Trump or without him. So PMC proles like Sarat are on their own here and it doesn’t look like he accounts for this in his scenario.

        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          If the Democrats actually tried Option Four in the event of a Trump victory, it would be Trump voters manning barricades to lead a revolution from. And it would be a revolution, even if not a good one, against a bad anti-Democracy action and actors.

          So I hope the Democrats can limit themselves to options One through Three.

    2. AG

      Actually I am counting on it. Just to piss off Trump voters who might make the mistake throwing a few chairs in the wrong place and thus provide Dems with pretext for all kinds of shit. Like shutting down various YT shows or Substackers and what not. To cleans the “air”. Boil it slow. And by 2028 you have no indie media to speak of.

      1. Michaelmas

        And by 2028 you have no indie media to speak of.

        It’s an international internet in an increasingly multipolar world.

        Granted, by 2028 AI will have automated mass surveillance in ways we haven’t got our minds around yet. But how will they do what you’re proposing and shut down somebody’s output ostensibly coming out of South Africa, say, or Hungary? Even the Great Firewall of China isn’t that good and samizdat was enough to eat away at the USSR.

        1. AG

          You won´t believe it but I AM an optimist.

          However, how many people from Germany are reading this?
          Are reading NC?

          The thing with samizdat – (apart from how influential it really was) – people KNEW something was off. Today people believe everything is fine. They feel no NEED for samizdat.

          I was censored even on indie platforms for linking to Martyanov´s videos who is one of the best sources on military questions available be it online or print scholarship. But he was considered to be misinformation by whatever idiotic criteria (apart that the entire concept of “xyz-infomation” is illegal and belongs to the garbage.)

          People are not aware that their search engines are broken.
          That the public media system is broken.
          That´s the problem.

          I mean especially those who ARE that media.

    3. Enter Laughing

      Just for clarity, here is the complete Truth Social post that launched this whole “Trump’s going to terminate the Constitution” panic:

      “So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

      Donald J. Trump
      Dec. 03, 2022, 12:44 PM

      It seems to me that he’s talking about temporarily terminating the rules within the Constitution regarding elections so that a new, presumably fair, election could be held.

      Is that too charitable a reading?

      1. steppenwolf fetchit

        A “temporary” termination like that is just cover for a desired permanent termination.

        Supporters of Option Four would also call it “temporary”, no doubt.

        1. Lambert Strether Post author

          Good point, but is it really too much to ask that we get the quote right, and separate the quote from our interpretation of it? Well, yes, this is the stupidest timeline, but still….

  9. Samuel Conner

    > Hardly the “vast majority.”

    Bad copy editing. The wording should have been “contributions” rather than “money”; then the text would have arguably been accurate on the interpretation of “contribution” as “act of contributing money by an individual donor”. Given the roughly 50% split between large and small sized contributions, there must be many more small-$ doors than large-$ donors. (Which is something, I think. Perhaps the D party learned something from Sanders, after all (and, naturally, the something that it may have learned related to $$, not to policy).

    2. jhallc

      I noticed that the Harris/Walz fundraising email starts with a $47 dollar donation amount. What happened to the $27 option? Inflation I guess. Thanks Joe!

      1. The Rev Kev

        Tell them that you are a great supporter of Harris/Walz. That you will donate to their campaign $600 for the cause. But then tell them that is the $600 that Biden owes you so go to him for it.

  10. lyman alpha blob

    RE: “USPS is delivering ballots quickly and on time”

    My sweet Aunt Fanny it is. Yesterday I spoke to a customer who always pays immediately. They sent a check to us on Sep 12 that never arrived and agreed to cut a new one. Today the Sep 12 check arrived 6 weeks later and after the customer had put a stop payment on it. This is far from the first time this has happened in recent years. Big waste of everybody’s time.

    Talked to an acquaintance the other day who had just voted. I asked if he mailed it in and related my work problems with receiving mail in a timely manner. He said he voted in person and that his daughter who worked at the post office advised him not to mail it lest it get lost.

    1. scott s.

      Was supposed to get my ballot (City&County of Honolulu) last week. Read that we were to call County Clerk last Wed if not received. Did and they said, “what do you expect, we have to mail out 500k ballots?”. Was told to wait until today (Fri) or vote in person. IMO the solution is get rid of all mail-in except for opt-in absentee. As it is there are 500k ballots floating around out there ripe for fraud.

      This is essentially the system used in the US prior to the 1890 adoption of the “Australian ballot” except the state, not the parties prints the ballot and in the 1800s you had to deposit the ballot in person on election day. That led to the fraudulent election of Harrison over Cleveland and the decision to limit distribution of ballots and impose secret voting. (After Harrison’s single turn, Cleveland under the new voting system was returned to office in 1892).

  11. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Importantly, Harris has made no known policy concessions to win Cheney’s support.

    And why should she have to now the that entire Democrat party are essentially Reagan Republicans after a 30 year lurch to the right?!?!?? The Democrats are fine with plowing money to the military industrial complex, fighting multiple wars, screwing over labor, ensuring our medical system continues to reap massive profits off the misery of citizens, allowing Roe v Wade to be overturned (states have gone too far huh? – I know crocodile tears when I see them) etc etc etc. What’s a Republican not to like?

    1. ChrisRUEcon

      > And why should she have to now the that entire Democrat party are essentially Reagan Republicans after a 30 year lurch to the right?!?!?? The Democrats are fine with plowing money to the military industrial complex, fighting multiple wars, screwing over labor, ensuring our medical system continues to reap massive profits off the misery of citizens, allowing Roe v Wade to be overturned …

      #Exactly

      > What’s a Republican not to like?

      … except priors have proven that given the choice between an actual Republican politician and a Democrat politician behaving as a Republican, GOP voters will overwhelmingly choose the actual Republican politician.

    2. Samuel Conner

      (Reagan Republican speaking): “I didn’t join the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party joined me!”

    3. John k

      Reagan famously got out of ME and told israel forcefully to stop something, and they did. Today’s dems are bush2 reps, starting wars in and out of ME, supporting genocide etc. they’re way further right than Reagan… he raised taxes 4 times. Reagan is too far left to win the dem nom for pres.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Reagan was just like that other great commie, Richard Nixon. Neither of them would be allowed near the gears of power these days. Too leftist in their beliefs.

  12. AG

    re: Buster Keaton

    Orson Welles (paraphrasing from memory but the essence is correct): “When you look at Chaplin in a long shot. Yes there he is funny. But in a close up he is tragic. With Keaton it´s the other way around: There you have tragedy in the wide shot. But when you look closely, when he is near to the camera, he is funny as hell. That´s why for me Keaton is the real king of comedy.”

    p.s. great info on the election (as always)
    👍

    1. Not Again

      Kamala raised over a billion dollars. She’ll spend a quarter of that on internet ads but won’t send an envelope of “walking around money” to inner city ward leaders?

      She’s gonna lose.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Probably because they are not DC consultants. And they don’t want any competition for that money. Same happened with Hillary back in 2016 when local Democrats sent their funding to Hillary’s Brooklyn HQ – were forced to in fact – who then kept that money which starved local Democrats of being able to do anything meaningful on the local front.

        1. ChrisRUEcon

          Yep!

          The infamous #RobbieMook/#EricSchmidt Algo’ Operation.

          People on the ground in the Midwest were complaining about lack of resources and negative sentiment, but we’re being told to “trust the algo’ data coming out of Brooklyn”… LOL

          Wash, Rinse, Repeat

  15. JustAnotherVolunteer

    Phil Lesh has died.

    Did he doubt or did he try?
    Answers a-plenty in the by and by
    Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
    One man gathers what another man spills

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      >Phil Lesh has died.

      My hero. I’m sure somebody can come up with a better cut, but there’s a lot to be said for the one-drummer 1972 unit, and this one features Lesh more than usual:

  16. IM Doc

    I have had a very busy morning today. I am just stunned by the level of anxiety, stress, insomnia and mental health issues that are unspooling before my eyes. The blue among us are literally beginning to melt down. With each poll that comes out showing Trump ahead, they are just having mental freakouts. The only thing I have ever seen in my life that comes close to this is the very very few patients I have seen and dealt with who are detransitioning from cults. I have some experience with both Scientologists, and the Tony Alamo group.

    I am urging all these patients to really turn off the TV and quit Twitter for now. And the very best they can – stay away from the screaming shows – especially Fox and the insane asylum that is now known as MSNBC..Go vote – and then go take a nice long walk through nature – listen to birds – watch animals. And know you have done what you can do.

    This has also prompted me to send an email to my family members – all of us are on all sides of the political spectrum. That no matter what happens – we will all still respect one another and talk to one another after this is over. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving! and getting big hugs from everyone. These two clowns are not worth my lifetime relationships and my future and the future of my family.

    Take care of yourselves…..

    1. i just don't like the gravy

      Well said Doc.

      Keep your friends close and your wacko family members closer (so that in case they pop a blood vessel you can rush them to the ER).

    2. Louis Fyne

      My Tiktok feed has bipolar disorder cuz I take watch both sides.

      And let me tell you….MAGA-Nation is rocking to “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC like it’s Christmas Eve.

      It’s wild

    3. skippy

      HA IM Doc … Said long ago the elites would break the Bernays knob by fighting over it as the unwashed, in contempt, jerked around for self interest and ideologies crated out of whole cloth to advance their notion of the Natural Order …

        1. skippy

          Simply like a big volume/frequency/amplitude dial – knob which is used to condition populations to elite desires. All the rest is back filled by old NC topics on the matter, per se full immersion 365/24/7 PR/Marketing via electric devices and endless fear[tm] pandering in this election.

          Hence that absolutely garish or comedy level advertising which attempts to create ridged divisions in the electorate of good vs evil with no middle ground. I mean “As of 2023, there are a mere 735 billionaires in the U.S. The millionaires are more plentiful—almost 22 million.” has to have a huge effect on society and more so as money is a vote. That money is largely spent on Marketing/PR to achieve a desired outcome with little regard to near and long term effects on the population e.g. the anguish like DTS et al. Hope that helped.

          In other news I am seeing someone 20 yrs younger lol …

  18. DJG, Reality Czar

    Biden and sin of the Indian boarding schools. This admission brings up some interesting issues.

    I am not sure that it applies as much in Arizona and New Mexico. People who live there, please advise. At the Heard Museum in Phoenix, I saw a rather ambiguous exhibit on the Indian schools in Phoenix and what they were like. (Denial?)

    I happen to know that the savvy Zuni, who know a thing or two about reality, pulled their kids out of the BIA system years and years ago. (The Hopi, too?)

    The most eloquent testimonies about the horrors of the Indian schools that I know of come from Ojibwe writers. Now it may be that the Ojibwe (Anishinaabeg) just happen to have produced some wonderful writers: Louise Erdrich, Heid E. Erdrich, Anton Treuer, David Treuer, among many others.

    I have been doing research on things Ojibwe for some time, and I discovered several moving articles.

    Here’s one that I just turned up:

    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/03/stories-of-life-in-indian-boarding-schools

    The Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatami are a significant presence in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. Coincidence?

    2. albrt

      I live in Phoenix. I suspect things were slightly better here than in dakotas (including east dakota aka Minnesota) for a few reasons – long history of less deadly relations with farming tribes, settled later, elite settlers like the Heards who were west-o-philes with an interest in native american culture. But the Indian Schools were still really bad, and were expressly designed to erase native american culture.

  19. Jason Boxman

    ‘If Trump were president, Vladimir Putin would be in Kyiv right now,’ Harris said in Waukesha County

    Who f**king cares. I mean, full stop. Seriously. Who cares. Does anyone outside liberal Democrat PMC land and neocon land (one in the same today) care who controls Ukraine?

    No.

    2. Dermot O Connor

      And that’s a tacit admission by ‘liberal’ Harris that tens of thousands of people who are now dead, and the tens of thousands who are to follow them, would still be alive. Not to mention the destroyed infrastructure, the polluted land, the wounded. Hope it was worth the cookies.

      Psychos.

    3. midtownwageslave

      “If Trump were president, Vladimir Putin would be mixing crack cocaine with asbestos and selling it to children in Detroit right now’ Harris said in Waukesha County, probably.

      Manufactured crises are an extremely annoying facet of Amerikan politics. Real, manufactured, or both? Harmful whatever the case maybe.

    4. CA

      ” ‘ Vladimir Putin would be in Kyiv right now,’ Harris said in Waukesha County…”

      For the Vice President to make such a statement, strikes me as dangerously irresponsible. This seems an utterly mad assertion for a top ranking official to make during an international crisis. Just explain “your” plans to resolve the crisis.

      Possibly I am hopelessly confused, but then please explain why.

  20. Chris Cosmos

    Out here, Democrats are the people still committed to stand up for decency

    This from the Nation Magazine. This is precisely the problem with the left–they believe, without defining “decency” that they are decent and the rest of us are not. Yes, I was once an occasional reader of the magazine back in the day–but I find it, today, too deeply toxic to read. I’ve met decent people in all walks of life, all political persuasions and many nationalities (including Iranians, Russians, Chinese) people. This turns the word “decency” into some kind of mythological or religious notion of what it means. For some it is decent to change the sex of a child at age twelve, for others it’s evil. For some, supporting the Ukranian in their war against Russia, for me it is deeply immoral if you look at the facts and the history of the region.

    Why Democrats are so proud of their moral status when they fail to clearly define their moral philosophy. This has been a problem for me though I was always on the left in past decades, it always nagged at me that there was no metaphysical or moral philosophical argument in favor of their party except to mimic the old right which states I’m right and you’re wrong. Just doesn’t work and that’s why Dems are at such a distance from anything we might call reality.

    1. Ben Panga

      One might add that continuing to sponsor and (at a minimum) provide cover for very obvious ethnic cleansing/genocide is far from decent.

    2. hk

      The trouble with “morality” is that it is simultaneously in the eye of the beholder and yet justifies any “lesser immorality.” I keep forgetting if it was Dostoevsky or Solzhenytsin, but I can’t forget the observation that most vile atrocities require absolute conviction in one’s own morality. For all the bad wrap that moral relativism gets, not getting too high on one’s own righteousness is not a bad thing (granted, moral relativism is usually used to dismiss others’ sense of rightness, not self reflection…)

    3. Phenix

      For some it is decent to change the sex of a child at age twelve, for others it’s evil.

      Members of cults give their children over to cult leaders to be used as their leaders see fit up to and including sexual assault.

    4. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Why Democrats are so proud of their moral status when they fail to clearly define their moral philosophy.

      I don’t think one develops a moral philosophy in order to preen (though the reverse may be true, in which case there is surely a Democat who was done it…).

  21. Expat2uruguay

    Oh no! Alexander Mercouris is sick and it sounds like SARS-CoV-2. I hope he believes in Long Covid and the importance of not exerting himself.

    Not a video, but his post about his symptoms: http://youtube.com/post/UgkxSSaXsz3eH4MYLPMQax2ffxd6mnMmwrPa

    I know many people here like him and he has a personal relationship with Yves, so I hope someone can check in on him and see if he needs any advice? 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

  22. Expat2uruguay

    Look for the helpers. Well, Alexander Mercouris is is one of those helpers and he needs our help now.
    We all know how exhaustive his daily reporting is and how dedicated he is to producing those videos every single day. Well, he’s sick and it sounds like SARS-COV-2. Decide for yourself: This is the second time in a week that he hasn’t made a video and he describes his symptoms in this post:

    Does he understand the danger that he is in of developing long covid? Does he know how important it is to not over exert himself? He is so dedicated and so driven I’m worried that he may damage his long-term health in this critical moment!! 🙏🏼 🙏🏼

    I commented on that post, and I wish I would have done a better job of it. Anyway, I just wanted to let people know what has happened and to draw attention to the possibility of the diminishment one of our select group of information purveyors. Buen saludo a todos!!

  23. XXYY

    Axios: The bottom line: We can’t ignore the reality that no matter what Harris says or does, this country has never elected a woman president and only once elected a Black president. It’s never elected a Black woman. Toss in broad concerns about immigration and inflation, and it’s a lot to overcome, her advisers say.

    It continues to be weird that both Obama and Harris are declared to be “black” in these kinds of histories, even though they had one white parent and one non-white one. Both could just as easily and with equal plausibility call themselves “white.”

    Not mentioned as being something to “overcome” for Harris is the fact that she didn’t receive a single popular vote before being installed as a presidential candidate. Usually primary elections provide a kind of plausibility test for a presidential contender. A candidate who got more popular votes than anyone else in their party has some claim on people’s votes in the main event, either “many other people like them” or “he/she stands a good chance of winning”. A candidate with no such assurance seems fundamentally defective and perhaps not deserving of support for that reason. Why was she installed in this shadowy way in some smoke-filled room?

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      I remember reading that at least some of the Leading Democrats wanted to have some kind of “vote” at an “open convention”. I think Obama was one of those.

      Supposedly Biden did everything he could to make sure that Harris was pre-selected to replace him on the ballot. If Biden had the largest hand in it, then perhaps getting Harris into that slot was a last vengeful hate-sh!t Biden was able to take on the Democratic Party’s face on his way out the door.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > It continues to be weird that both Obama and Harris are declared to be “black” in these kinds of histories, even though they had one white parent and one non-white one. Both could just as easily and with equal plausibility call themselves “white.”

      It’s like the whole party has a bad case of undiagnosed imposter* syndrome, and represses all knowledge it.

      NOTE * Not to imply that there are no Democrats who are not actual imposters.

    3. gk

      > Both could just as easily and with equal plausibility call themselves “white.”

      Not under the US “one-drop” rule.

      1. Felix_47

        It is confusing but the key is whether people recognize you as Black as far as getting a government contract. People who look white have managed to get federal contracts as a minority. There are a lot of legal cases on this issue since the dollars involved are not trivial. I guess Kamala is recognized in the political arena as Black and not Indian.

  24. Expat2uruguay

    Look for the helpers. Well, Alexander Mercouris is is one of those helpers and he needs our help now.
    We all know how exhaustive his daily reporting is and how dedicated he is to producing those videos every single day. Well, he’s sick and it sounds like SARS-COV-2. Decide for yourself: This is the second time in a week that he hasn’t made a video and he describes his symptoms in this post:

    Does he understand the danger that he is in of developing long covid? Does he know how important it is to not over exert himself? He is so dedicated and so driven I’m worried that he may damage his long-term health in this critical moment!! 🙏🏼 🙏🏼

    I commented on that post, and I wish I would have done a better job of it. Anyway, I just wanted to let people know what has happened and to draw attention to the possibility of the diminishment one of our select group of information purveyors.
    Buen saludo a todos!!

  25. XXYY

    Clinton also played the woman card, making a big deal about how she would be the first woman president in the United States. And she made it clear that all women had a duty to vote for her, regardless of their political views. If they didn’t vote for her, then it must be because of the men in their lives. That rhetoric was insulting to women then, and it still is today. Not to mention ineffective. Yet, that has not stopped the media and Harris supporters from echoing that sentiment now.

    The fact that this is also insulting to men seems to constantly escape this kind of analysis. The unspoken implication is that men are all vicious brutes who keep their helpless wives and girlfriends tied up in the basement, following them whenever they leave the house to make sure they carry out instructions. Portraying women as hapless robots in thrall to brutal men seems like it should offend everyone in hearing distance.

    Maybe this is an unconscious class analysis by the PMC: Only college-educated women have agency in their relationships.

  26. steppenwolf fetchit

    About what Biden-Harris “should” do if Trump is elected . . .

    I don’t like Option 4. Peaceful transfer of power from the prior Elected to the current Elected is part of the system of Democracy as we Know It. If Biden-Harris got away with the cute trick described in Option Four, that would be successfully ending Democracy as we Know It under the pretext of Saving Democracy as we Know It. If it was Wrong for Trump to try it ( and fail), why would it be right for Them to try it ( and succeed)? And if they tried it and initially succeeded legalistically speaking, would the Trumpists be wrong for regarding that as a Fort Sumter Event?

    I like options 1-3, though, as long as their long-view goal is preserving some small shred of the Administrative State still in existence as a stub to build back out from.

    1. herman_sampson

      I would like to know who would administer the oath; the consequences would seem to range from violent ostracism to charges of treason.
      What would the Supreme Court do?
      If both houses were majority Republican I would expect impeachments forthwith.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > If it was Wrong for Trump to try it ( and fail), why would it be right for Them to try it ( and succeed)?

      Yes, because everything is OK if you’re a Democrat.

  27. urdsama

    “Harris inherited a very tough hand. Establishing and executing a campaign for president starting just 3½ months before an election is unprecedented in modern politics.”

    This is the excuse they will use if she loses. Not that she was a horrible candidate. Not that she couldn’t provide a coherent answer without a script. Not that she had over 1 billion dollars in funding but appears to have wasted it. Not that she got given a pass (and full throated support ) by most of the MSM that most likely alienated many voters.

    This is what happens when your successes are mostly due to luck and not skill. In less than two weeks we get to see who is luckier.

    1. hk

      Also, it was the Ds themselves that made this inevitable by rigging the primaries to foist a Biden on the nation, until the scam blew up….

    2. ChrisRUEcon

      > This is the excuse they will use if she loses.

      … we should be so lucky!

      Instead, we’ll probably get #RussiaGate reboot and “Option #4”

  28. steppenwolf fetchit

    About Boeing, the Machinists, and the strike . . . I begin to wonder whether the workers are deciding that if they can’t get what they want, they can at least get revenge. They can make Boeing’s victory Pyrrhic.

  29. Big River Bandido

    PA: “Trouble for Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania?” [The Nation].

    organizers in…Bucks County…say that the Harris campaign, which is staffed by outsiders, isn’t interested in collaborating with local or state races, preferring instead to organize the many out-of-state volunteers flocking in by bus each weekend to canvass.” • Door-knocking depends on who knocks at the door.

    Lambert, I wanted to comment on your take. Reading this critique (in The Nation, no less) of the modern Democrats’ organization and the mechanicals of their campaigns, I was reminded of a political epithet from the 1980s that we don’t hear much anymore: astroturf. Everything this party and the campaign appears to be banking on…is phony. And this is not new. I’m reminded of the orange hats in Howard Dean’s 2004 Iowa campaign that actually sabotaged his ground operation because they identified an out-of-town volunteer with no connection to the area. I recall a passage from Shattered that described how volunteers would drop off voter canvassing contact reports that never got entered into databases. I’m reminded of how Clinton operatives in that campaign ignored signs that while their door knocking operation was correctly identifying infrequent voters, they were actually repelling them and inspiring them to vote Republican. I’m also reminded of the Iowa Caucus 2020 app, designed by DNC operatives with DNC money, probably with the primary intent of discrediting the Iowa Democrat Party and kneecapping the Sanders campaign all at once.

    I read all these comments about “ad spends”, and “doors knocked on” and “technological solutions” and “apps”, and I can see the people running the Democrat GOTV operation haven’t a clue what voters are actually thinking. They are completely out of touch, and about to get the shock of their professional lives. The Democrats are dominated by technocrats and data scientists . They are so used to things that are “automated” that they equate “ad spend” with “earning votes”. These people are absolutely clueless as to how bad their data is, and have no sense to tell them when it might not add up, because they have zero connection to real people.

    It is human nature to be skeptical of strangers, especially when they’re trying to sell you something. The Upper Midwest was heavily settled in the 19th century by immigrants from Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, farmers who mostly spoke Platt (Lowland German). Traveling salesmen came through and thought they were being really sophisticated by speaking in standard (“High”) German. The farmers knew instantly that they were outsiders and would refuse to deal with them.

    The Democrats have run a 50-year experiment to “professionalize” their politics, which to them means “automate” it. All the trends this article highlights point to the failure of these efforts. As Tip O’Neill said, “all politics is local”, and the only effective political organizing is that done locally, by and of the people who actually live in that constituency. Any other kind of GOTV “organizing” is just another astroturf campaign that will be incapable of perceiving the real people on the other side of the door. I am baffled to see so many people, so obviously incompetent at politics, in such high political positions, acting such perfect fools.

    1. flora

      Great comment. I know the DNC actively undermined local Dem candidates for the US House and our state gov office – who were seen as likely to win in this GOP state, but were not part of the DNC approved neolib outlook.

      Also,
      In the 1990s both parties jettisoned the old seniority system for important committee assignments. It shifted from number of years of re-election seniority in Congress to a pay-to-play committee system in Congress. If you wanted a particular committee assignment you had to pony up X dollar amount to be considered. Now, instead of long service with a loyal voting base you could be pushed aside in favor of someone with big-buck campaign contributions.

      Suddenly, it was important to keep out Dem candidates that might upset outside funders, the big donors. The DNC has been active at kneecapping good state Dem candidates who aren’t on board with the DNC’s direction. / my 2 cents

      1. flora

        Long explanation of the current state of play. This all began in the 1990’s in both parties.

        Paying-to-Play: How Members of Congress
        Purchase Their Seat At the Table

        https://www.wpsanet.org/papers/docs/Jenkins%20-%20Paying%20to%20Play.pdf

        This came after the era of Everett Dirksen, Howell Heflin, Sam Irving, Tip O’Neill, and others. The new young cohort of 1990’s electeds didn’t want to wait for seniority. Pay-to-play was a way to shortcut the process of getting an important committee assignment and raise a ton of money. What’s not to like? / ;)

        Now we have this election. All the big Dem money went to Harris so Harris it is, for better or worse.

        1. flora

          adding: does getting all that money mean Harris will be better able to represent her constituents’ interests?

          1. Big River Bandido

            Thank you, flora. This article was posted in either Water Cooler or Links sometime in the last week or so. Note that it completely buys into the idea that spending automatically converts voters. According to this writer, the entire reason Democrats are losing is because they put the bulk of their ad money into one particular firm. I’m sure the fact that said firm is closely tied to Biden has nothing to do with the complaint in this article. /s But this is a perfect example of how “out there” they truly are.

          2. hk

            This is an interesting thing. For the longest time, the received wisdom about money in elections among poli scu types was that the more money you spend, you lose. The reason is that money doesn’t work that well and having to spend money is the last recourse of a weak candidate without much to sell. (The argument was about Congress, but the logic is applicable to the presidential as well, although, by necessity, presidential candidates were “weaker” than the Congressional, since they had to deal with far more voters with whom they didn’t have time to build a relationship.) There’s a lot that logically follows from this, except none of those paths got followed up on: very few people in politics nowadays bothers to actually build a relationship with voters, do they just throw money. This, in turn, gave rise to the belief that money just “works” and explains “everything.” (Why I find the alleged “reformers” who think that getting rid of money would solve everything insufferable.)

            A funny thing is thst, in his own way, successful candidates still rely mainly on building a “relationship” of some kind with their voters. The unsuccessful ones still just throw money. The difference is that the skilled politicians, those who can actually build a relationship, are far rarer now. We just have too many incompetents who got nothing but bags of money and tired catchphrases.

    2. hk

      Yes, especially that part about accents. I’ve heard similar stories everywhere, and why outsiders who think they are being clever playing the “culture” card actually screw up because they pick the wrong “subculture” because, to them, all Germans sound the same, so to speak. Well, it ain’t about the “clever” outsiders….

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      Thank you very much for this cogent and vividly detailed bill of particulars. This especially caught my eye:

      The Democrats have run a 50-year experiment to “professionalize” their politics, which to them means “automate” it.

      Automation scales, precisely because it is dehumanized*. And you can charge rent for it. To me “honest graft” is far preferable.

      NOTE * This also applies to an Obot (say) reading a script (next door to an algorithm; “the campaign as call center.”

      1. aletheia33

        i am suddenly so grateful, tonight, just to witness that someone (lambert/a journalist) has said this.

        what about concrete material benefits is so hard to understand.

    4. John Anthony La Pietra

      If these are the professionals . . . well, let’s just say this is more evidence that they’re not getting their money’s worth. A personal story . . . a Tale of Two Postcards.

      https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0SXaGSeJEERePDTUZMpds49f9cswtyL6qJC4eikg9NzRexBxQ3pbM2sAjwLzuQVF1l&id=100013354926651&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVcQEUbPzcQVrig3g8EPQBaoWGJsBkOwPC1MyDDJ60fjRJ2hpUS4z5JMcKmXBZWmt6Cxjrl0SqcWShun1Gbc2MWIaN2m9PPZ0aQim4hiOCo-PbDmC5WBwZCei9ioIzxaIU&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

  32. The Rev Kev

    “Finding a better song to sing”

    Instantly recognized that line’s source and yes, it fits here. For what it is worth, I can recommend the film it came from – “Educating Rita” staring Michal Caine and Julie Walters – as the author of the play that it was based on also wrote the script for the film.

    1. Acacia

      Seen on Twtler:

      So Kamala is going to come out on stage and dance with Beyoncé in Houston while Israel attacks Iran? Perfection.

      1. Ben Panga

        Harris trying to give a serious statement on the situation would probably end up in a much worse look.

        “I was brought up in the middle class….[several minutes of word salad] …and those groceries are your groceries…..[more salad]……”

  34. Expat2uruguay

    Here’s another way to do elections, as it will be done on Sunday in Uruguay, which is judged the best democracy in Latin America and 14th in the world by The Economist Group, https://www.uruguayxxi.gub.uy/en/news/article/uruguay-is-the-fullest-democracy-in-south-america-and-ranks-14th-in-the-world/

    Voting is compulsory, it’s illegal to sell alcohol within 24 hours of the close of the polls, there are more than 10 political parties and votes are hand counted in public, but instead of marking the ballot the voter uses a pre-printed list that they have selected from those available. More details about the lists and the fines here https://www.guruguay.com/uruguay-elections/

    how are all the votes hand counted and witnessed in a legally binding way? When each polling place closes, each ballot is inspected and counted by hand in the presence of representatives from each of the competing parties, then all of the votes are sealed in an envelope and sent to the electoral Court for the final and legally binding count which is also witnessed by Representatives from the competing parties.

    Voting is done on one day, it is done in person, in private, and identification is required. People are assigned to a geographically local polling place and they stand in line for hours if necessary. It’s a place where everyone sees their neighbors and maybe people from their childhood while they enjoy each other’s company on this day of the common and solemn obligation. It’s a very friendly affair and it’s easy to see how problems with extreme partisanship are prevented and avoided with this atmosphere serving as the backbone of the election.

    Democracy is something we’re very proud of here in Uruguay, as you can imagine!

    1. The Rev Kev

      Same here. But I don’t envy him when he has to do the election day coverage. It’s gunna be a s*** show.

  39. hk

    Taibbi’s post on, among others, a deranged Op-Ed piece by :Levitsky and Ziblatt in NYT (I’m not sure how much of it is paywalled, sorry!)

    https://www.racket.news/p/uh-oh-new-york-times-washington-post

    The interesting bit is on “Option Five” raised by Levitsky and Ziblatt, which consists of “an uprising of business, religious, and civic groups serving as the firewall that can “forcefully repudiate” the threat.” What this reminded me immediately was the alleged Business Plot of 1933, against that other proto-fascist from NYC, FDR (which, btw, is not necessarily untrue–FDR did have some pretty scary ideas, which, thankfully did not wind up affecting too many people besides Japanese Americans.) Still, the Business Plot, whatever excuses it had, was a dangerous notion and if it amounted to anything more than just crazy talk (“cocktail putsch” is what LaGuardia called it, I think), would have been as evil as it gets. It’s depressing that ideas like this are being dredged up again, now, supposedly as a tool to “save” democracy….

    1. Acacia

      the alleged Business Plot of 1933 …

      …which, btw, was the subject of David O. Russell’s latest film, Amsterdam (2022).

  40. Alice X

    So, I don’t know how I came onto this interview by Larry Johnson with Alastair Crooke posted yesterday (maybe a browser notification) but Crooke once again demonstrates his deep understanding of the world and how it works. Would that the geniuses in our leadership had such insight. It is before the Israeli attack but is still very well worth the time. I’ve watched it in its entirety.

    Israel Prepare to Attack Iran: What Comes Next? | Alastair Crooke Interview

  41. ChrisRUEcon

    #AllThingsTrump

    Switching it up tonight!

    It’s Trumps election to lose given his momentum, but numpties like Tucker going viral with the “Daddy’s coming home and you’ve been a bad little girl” is exactly the kind of nonsense that could result in a hell “hath no fury” twist in the final week or so …

    1. ChrisRUEcon

      #WhiteWomen

      … will decide the 2024 election.

      In 2016 and 2020, Trump exit polled at 52% and 55% respectively. Thus far, polling shows he’s not getting those numbers, but then again … “polls”. The good news for Trump is that Harris and the Dems leaning further into “Fascism” at the end here doesn’t strike me as a message that is going to resonate with non-college educated white women in “blue wall” states. The bad news is that younger women will be more averse to the overturning of Roe v Wade. Trump needs to “act Presidential” in the final run up and avoid the kind of extremes that Dems can use to turn up the fear.

      cf “Why working-class White women could be so decisive this fall” (via CNN)

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > The bad news is that younger women will be more averse to the overturning of Roe v Wade.

        This whole line of argument makes me crazy. After decades at being completely ineffective on Roe*, fundraising off it, and then losing it, the Democrats ought to have been punished harshly. Instead, they’ve turned it into a rallying cry.

        NOTE * This may be an early example of the PMC relying solely on expert opinion (the judges) instead of going out and persuading the pesky voters. It’s also an example of outsourcing policy, the defense of policy, to NGOs (Planned Parenthood), instead of making the party the defender of the rights of the people.

        1. Cassandra

          Lambert, remember when Candidate Obama said one of the first things he wanted to do as president was sign the Freedom of Choice Act? And then President Obama said:

          Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s — that’s where I’m going to focus.

          And he did indeed focus on things that Team Blue and Team Red could agree on: protecting “too big to fail” banks, health insurance company profits, droning West Asia…

          And now he wonders why the left is so embittered. Faugh.

        2. ChrisRUEcon

          >> The bad news is that younger women will be more averse to the overturning of Roe v Wade.

          >This whole line of argument makes me crazy. After decades at being completely ineffective on Roe*, fundraising off it, and then losing it, the Democrats ought to have been punished harshly. Instead, they’ve turned it into a rallying cry.

          You make an excellent point which I’ve been revisiting in conversations recently! Democrat voters do not punish Democrat politicians like GOP voters punish GOP politicians. Look at the Tea Party movement! Look at the Trump movement! There is no similar movement among Democrat voters, with the possible exception of Hillary’s PUMAs, who sought to punish Obama for daring to beat Hillary by voting for JohnMcCain – and failed! Interestingly enough though, the PUMAs were largely … white women … :)

          1. ChrisRUEcon

            >This whole line of argument makes me crazy.

            … and it should, because it’s a function of the goldfish-brained-ness that the Liberal establishment Media Industrial Complex (henceforth “LeMIC” – spoken with a French accent – LOL) is able to inculcate into its victims most ardent followers. As always, we preach to the choir here, and like Cassandra above, many of us have that snippet from Obama’s 100 Days speech ready for rapid recall because it constitutes an important detail that Democrats would like everyone to forget.

  42. kareninca

    My 83 y.o. friend who is in rehab facility is on Eliquis. It is a blood thinner that he was put on after afib in the hospital. He’s been feeling some joint pain, so he asked his $600/month-extra concierge doctor what he should take for the pain. His doctor recommended Celebrex. That seemed strange to me since Celebrex is an NSAID and you are not supposed to take NSAIDs if you are on Eliquis. I put the two into the drugs.com online interaction site, and it said that there was a Major risk of interaction for the two (gastric bleeding). I don’t think he is getting his $600/month worth.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I reading over your comment, I am wondering why their doctor could not have done the same thing. For $7,200 a year it would be the least that they could do. Perhaps a portal could be set up so that drugs and dosages could be exported to either a program or website – with any identity of the patient removed – and then any bad interaction could come up as a red flag. It wouldn’t be that hard to do.

      1. Acacia

        In Japan, there is a very simple system for this (maybe elsewhere, too?). The pharmacy gives you a little booklet full of blank pages, and every time you get a Rx filled, they print out a sticker with all the deets and stick it into the booklet. You take it to the pharmacy, to clinics, etc. In this way, any doctor, nurse, or pharmacist can just flip through and see what you’re taking.

        Of course, they still have to know about interactions, and I have no idea what happens if a pharmacist spots a red flag that a doctor didn’t. This is the country in which people struggle to say “no”… would they actually phone the doctor’s office?

      2. IM Doc

        The problem with the electronic medical record is that EVERY SINGLE TIME you order any new medication in the system at least 3 warnings light up one after the other. You have to click through them which is a very arduous task especially so many times a day.

        Before long, you simply ignore them all just to get through your day, not unlike the terms of service pages we all click through for software and apps. This feature is the very definition of nagware to be ignored.

        Old doctors like me have a handle on which drug interactions are bad. Younger ones who have grown up having the computers tell them what is bad with no thought process at all do not.

        Yet another way the EMRs are killing us all.

        1. kareninca

          I still don’t think he should be on Seroquel (see below).
          I use the drugs.com interaction tool reasonably often and I don’t often see “major”; I wonder if they show more warnings to doctors than to the public.
          My friend has had a lot of gastric/ulcer problems in the past, so I think I’m right, not his doctor. Fortunately I have no medical degree or training so I can say anything I see fit.

          The most amazing thing was that he had diarrhea for weeks after he was put on antibiotics for his foot infection (due to stepping on staples), but no-one suggested probiotics until I did. And they worked. And his doctor noted that his bloodwork showed low nourishment levels, and he told my friend to “eat more.” No mention of a daily vitamin or protein shakes (which at my advice he is now on)(no he is not diabetic and so the junk in them is okay; he also got his doctor to okay them).

      3. kareninca

        Of course his doctor could have done the same thing. Of course it is the very least the doctor could do.

        My friend also mentioned yesterday to his concierge doctor that he was having intermittent brief hallucinations. His doctor immediately prescribed Seroquel. I told my friend (who is otherwise totally with it and lucid and highly intelligent and over educated) that his hallucinations were due to disrupted sleep and being away from home in rehab (for reconditioning after a hospital stay for an infection) and therefore situational and just to be ignored and that taking Seroquel (which is an anti-psychotic) would turn him into a total zombie and destroy the small amount of progress he has been making in PT. Which is obviously the case.

        So shoot me for telling someone to ignore his worthless doctor, lol. I will be telling my friend to get in contact with his old psychiatrist, but I know he won’t; it is too hard to do such things from rehab.

  43. Pat

    I’ve been self medicating the mental disruption this election has caused a little differently than IM Doc. Living in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world with possibly the highest rate of TDS means the getting back to nature options are are minefields. So I have chosen to seek and embrace the “Brazil” view of our world. IOW what would Terry Gilliam see.
    For instance option four, seriously there is no legal justification. But of course it is an option, it is a twist on a tried and often failed US strategy when people don’t vote for the Western oligarchy approved candidate. Reject the election and attempt to install an appropriate interim President. Just call Kamala Maduro. It may not have worked as planned in Venezuela…or Brazil…but it has to work sometime. The question will really be how much of the bureaucracy and the military would follow it. Considering their record on reading the room, I think the odds of that are not as good as they believe. But it really does speak to even the elites considering the US a banana republic. (Also will really undermine what is left of our sanctimonious arguments about Democracy for other countries but put that aside.) The real absurdity begins when you start to imagine the many ways the people and states that voted for Trump can screw things up for the geniuses that might do this, much of which would involve no direct confrontation.
    I would posit there is another option five running around. Trump is demented, you know. If he is elected, we will finally get to see article 25 used. Which is also very “Brazil”.

  45. Eclair

    “Harris inherited a very tough hand. Establishing and executing a campaign for president starting just 3½ months before an election is unprecedented in modern politics.”

    Sorry, but we should fire the entire Democratic Party ‘leadership.’ They have as their primary task, the grooming, training, presentation of qualified candidates for national leadership positions. They failed miserably. By holding on to Biden, when much of the electorate could see that he was mentally failing for months ahead of the primaries, and then, pulling Harris out of the hat at literarily the last minute, they failed. Miserably.

    So now, they are weeping crocodile tears over a vacuous candidate, who has been silent over a government sponsored genocide for the last year, and has never received a vote from the electorate. I weep.

    I am going now to spread oat straw over the newly planted garlic beds. No vampires around here!

    1. Big River Bandido

      I dunno. Looking at the state of things all year long, there’s hardly been a single moment where I felt like the Democrats had the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell. Even in early August with the “vibes” polling, I was not sold. Too many fundamentals that are all wrong for the re-election of an incumbent party — right track/wrong track, inflation, joblessness, homelessness. Throw in the vaccine mandate, censorship, and the “own goals” of disrespecting blue-collar voters, Muslim voters, and male voters… I suspect the Party Elders looked at the state of things after Biden’s July meltdown and said “we’re not gonna win anyway, might as well let Kamala have it.”

      The heavies in the party (not many of them, and in reality there’s only one) no doubt passed on the “opportunity” this year, instead keeping their powder dry for a run in ’28.

      1. Eclair

        Geez, Bandido, your take is depressing! You even think there’s gonna be a ’28 election the way things are going?

        On my way to pick up the oat straw, and my eleven year old Amish helper, I drove through the center (general store, church, cemetery, library and volunteer fire station) of our little hamlet. The house with the big Trump banners now has an Israeli flag flying over their front door.

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