By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Blue-and-white Mockingbird, Location, PN Cañón del Sumidero, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Friday Charts: RCP chart; shows Big Mo shifting toward Trump; Covid charts show nothing but good news.
- Walz fabricator vanishes.
- Trump cancellations.
- Boeing waits on SEC approval for stock and bond offering; FAA opens new safety review.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than three weeks to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
Big Mo shifts toward Trump, this week, even in WI (that is, if you ignore the entire concept of margin of error). 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!.
“Most say they are worse off than four years ago: Gallup” [The Hill]. “The Gallup poll, released Friday, found that 52 percent of Americans said they and their family are worse off today than they were four years ago. Another 39 percent said that they were better off while 9 percent said they felt the same now as they did back then. The responses varied based on the person’s party affiliation. Around 72 percent of Democrats say they were better off in 2024 than 2020, according to the survey. The numbers were much lower for independents, 35 percent, and Republicans, 7 percent. Gallup’s monthly Economic Confidence Index (ECI), which ranges from -100 to +100, was currently at -26 with 39 percent saying they were better off financially four years ago. For comparison, in 2020, around 55 percent said the economy was better — and the ECI was -4…. Approximately 46 percent of Americans say their current economic conditions are “poor,” some 29 percent described them as ‘only fair,’ while 25 percent said they were ‘good’ or ‘excellent.’ Additionally, 62 percent said the economy is ‘getting worse,’ a higher figure than 32 percent who said it is ‘getting better,’ according to the survey.” • Yikes! Somehow I don’t think more media appearances will solve this problem.
“A Mystery $30 Million Wave of Pro-Trump Bets Has Moved a Popular Prediction Market” [Wall Street Journal]. “Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in the polls. But in one popular betting market, the odds have skewed heavily in Trump’s favor, raising questions about a recent flurry of wagers and who is behind them. Over the past two weeks, the chances of a Trump victory in the November election have surged on Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market. Its bettors were giving Trump a 62% chance of winning on Thursday, while Harris’s chances were 38%. The candidates were in a dead heat at the start of October. Trump’s gains on Polymarket have cheered his supporters, and they have been followed by the odds shifting in Trump’s favor in other betting markets. Elon Musk flagged Trump’s growing lead on Polymarket to his 200 million X followers on Oct. 6, praising the concept of betting markets. ‘More accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line,’ Musk posted. But the surge might be a mirage manufactured by a group of four Polymarket accounts that have collectively pumped about $30 million of crypto into bets that Trump will win. ‘There’s strong reason to believe they are the same entity,’ said Miguel Morel, chief executive of Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain analysis firm that examined the accounts. The big bets on Trump aren’t necessarily nefarious. Some observers have suggested that they were simply placed by a large bettor convinced that Trump will win and looking for a big payday. Others, however, see the bets as an influence campaign designed to fuel social-media buzz for the former president.” • This would be reflexive?
* * * Kamala (D): “The Person Promoting a Lurid Claim About Tim Walz Vanishes, Leaving the Lie Behind” [Mother Jones]. “The ‘Black Insurrectionist’ profile began claiming last week that he’d been in touch with a former student of Walz who baselessly alleged the Minnesota governor sexually abused him years ago when he was a teacher and football coach. The @Docnetyoutube account seems to have been deleted sometime on the evening of Thursday, October 17. It’s unclear if the user deleted the account or the company did: under Elon Musk’s ownership, X no longer responds to journalists and could not be reached for comment.” I remember, back in the 2008, Larry Johnson peddling the story that he had a tape of Michelle Obama saying “whitey,” but it never materialized. But Larry Johnson persisted, as we say. @Docnetyoutube did not, lending a bit of credence to my paranoid theory that the account was a sort of honey trap, designed to get Trump to, er, trumpet the accusation. Then would come the rugpull. But Trump didn’t take the bait. And so the account — despite its big follower count — disappeared, its job done. More: “Earlier this week, a video began circulating on the platform claiming to depict Walz’s alleged victim. One of the most widely-seen tweets promoting the video was also recently deleted. It came from an X user calling himself @TheWakeninq, who uses variations of the name “QAnon76″ on other websites. But the video, as BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh noted, had obvious hallmarks of being a deepfake, with distorted facial features and a foreign-accented voice that was out of sync with the speaker’s movements. While the alleged victim is a real person who, according to his social media presence, did graduate from the school where Walz once taught and coached, other videos on his Facebook account capture someone who looks different and speaks with an American accent. According to his Facebook account, the now-adult former student—who did not immediately respond to a request for comment—has previously experienced homelessness; a Gofundme from 2021 said that he was living in Hawaii and trying to ‘get off the streets.’ The video is still up on @TheWakeninq’s Rumble page, where it has been viewed by at least 6,000 people. A local Texas Republican official named Sarah Fields, who also describes herself as a journalist, shared the video on Wednesday, claiming the student had come forward and ‘officially’ accused Walz of abuse. She claimed to have filed public record requests with Walz’s old school, before adding that ‘Reportedly, a lawsuit is soon to be filed. I will keep you all updated. I’m watching this very closely.’ ‘I was able to confirm with multiple sources within the Trump campaign that THEY believe there is truth to these allegations, and have begun their own investigation,’ she wrote.” • I follow plenty of right wing sources, but NONE of them are promoting @TheWakeninq’s video, so I’n guessing the Texas Republican can be dismissed (although the public records report might turn up other stuff, for example on the DUI). Anyhow, from the breathtaking chutzpah and “bearing false witness” standpoints, the “Black Insurrectionist” fabrication (Republican) and the “Vance had carnal relations with a couch” (Democrat) stories weigh in the balance more or less equality, although an accusation of ped0philia is obviously an order of magnitude more vicious. Anyhow, you saw it unfold here!
Kamala (D): “Biden tells Obama ‘she’s not as strong as me’ — and ex-prez agrees ‘that’s true’ at Ethel Kennedy service” [New York Post]. Off-mike incident: “‘She’s not as strong as me,’ said Biden, 81, according to the translation, which was produced by [by a professional lip reader] analyzing the on-video lip movements during the discussion. “I know … that’s true,” the popular former president agreed, adding, ‘We have time.’ ‘Yeah, we’ll get it in time,’ said Biden. Moments earlier, Obama said, ‘it’s important that we have some time together’ in a possible reference to campaigning alongside Harris. • I dunno. “Time” to do what?
Kamala (D): “Opinion: Obama reminds voters Harris is the candidate of hope and joy this election” [USA Today]. “Obama’s support for Harris signals a commitment to continuity, reassuring voters that the vice president embodies the same values of hope, progress and bipartisanship that defined his presidency.” • The columnist’s bio: “Marla Bautista is a military fellow columnist at USA TODAY Opinion.” Oh.
* * * Kamala (D): “Full interview: Vice President Kamala Harris sits down with Bret Baier in ‘Special Report’ exclusive” (video) [FOX]. Here’s a transcript. This caught my eye:
Kamala Harris (26:07): I invite everyone to go to KamalaHarris.com and you will see that I have 80 pages of policies that are quite comprehensive and should be accessible to anyone who would like to read them. And it includes what I intend to do about affordable housing, what I intend to do about small businesses, what I intend to do to-
Bret Baier (26:27):
And that’s why we invited you here.
Kamala Harris (26:28):… strengthen our economy.
On Kamala’s website there is a downloadable PDF, “A New Way Forward For The Middle Class,” which is in fact 82 pages long, so Kamala’s staff briefed her properly. (I don’t miuch like “you will see,” because I’m still holding a grudge from 2008, when every Obot said “check the website” when asked about policy. No. It’s the candidate’s job to put the policies across to voters, not simply gesture vaguely at marketing collateral. Anyhow, from page 6 (not like the New York Post Page Six, except maybe the bold-faced names:
(Weirdly, the spot color is red, and not blue. Who did that?) Who exactly does this persuade? It’s all of the piece with “100 Generals Endorse Harris!” (or a million spooks). If I wanted serious analysis done, mainstream economists are the last people I would go to. Or ratings agencies.
* * * Trump (R) (Smith/Chutkan): “Chutkan unseals much-redacted Jack Smith evidence used to build Trump’s Jan. 6 case” [The Hill]. “A judge on Friday unsealed nearly 1,900 pages of evidence [np]special counsel Jack Smith assembled in building the election interference case against former President Trump, publicly posting the highly redacted trove. Though the bulk of the documents are redacted, with many pages fully unviewable, the documents still provide a window into the breadth of Smith’s case — and of Trump’s conduct still unknown to the public.” And: “U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversees the trial proceedings, released the information against objections from Trump, suggesting his desire to shield the information due to the election amounted to its own form of interference. ‘If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute—or appear to be— election interference,’ she wrote in a Thursday night order requiring the documents’ release.” I think that’s a debater’s point. The putative evidence hasn’t been tested by the defense. This is a document dump — on a Friday, no less — and unbecoming to the Court. More: “Prosecutors argue Trump’s effort to thwart the transfer of power was almost entirely carried out as a private citizen. Trump’s attorneys are due to respond in the days following November’s presidential election.”
* * * Trump (R): “Trump cancels a streak of events with only days until election” [Axios]. “Former President Trump’s planned appearance at a National Rifle Association event next week was cancelled Thursday, the latest in a slew of scuttled public appearances and interviews by the former president in recent weeks. With only 17 days to go until Election Day, the spate of cancellations gives voters fewer chances to hear from Trump before heading to the polls in a coin toss race.” • Hmm.
Trump (R): “Trump’s closing argument: It doesn’t have to be this way” [The Hill]. “Voters rate crime as one of their top concerns. During the debate a month ago between the two presidential candidates, the ABC anchor who co-moderated the face-off memorably weighed in to fact-check Donald Trump on the subject. The former president had said that crime in the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration was “through the roof.” David Muir stepped in to correct the record, saying ‘President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.’ The GOP candidate called the FBI data ‘defrauding statements,’ meaning ‘false.’ And now it turns out Trump was right. Although the FBI stats initially showed that crime had gone down 2.1 percent in 2022, the agency has revised the data to show the number of violent misdeeds has actually increased by 80,029, or 4.5 percent. The FBI added to the tally an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies and 37,091 aggravated assaults that year. That was awkward for the Biden-Harris White House, which had taken a premature victory lap for driving crime to a ‘near 50-year low.'” • Oopsie. (I hate that “closing argument” trope. An election is not a trial or a debate. Even if the last action or statement by a candidate is dispostive for any given voter, that doesn’t imply it’s the final link in a chain of logic.)
* * * “Kamala Harris continues to underperform in critical states” [The Hill]. “Pick any average from the multitude of polling views — two-way, multicandidate, battleground states, and even individual battleground states — and Harris is running consistently below where Joe Biden was in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. So it’s no surprise Democrats are growing nervous…. Democrats have only two hopes. One is that today’s polls are more accurately gauging the electorate, and that Harris is therefore at least close to where she needs to be. The other is that by suddenly coming out of hiding to take friendly interviews, she can convince an electorate that seems unconvinced. Neither should be a source of comfort for Democrats. But hope is not a strategy. That’s why Harris’s campaign managers are changing theirs. They know she is losing now, and absent significant improvement, she will lose in November.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
Hmm:
Thank you for finally being honest that this dispute is personal for you. In all sincerity, your idealism, and that's where I think you're coming from, is laudable. You genuinely want a better world, and you sincerely think my ideas make things worse. I respect that, even if I… https://t.co/ODQfRIcKAx pic.twitter.com/0MTgjA73qq
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) October 18, 2024
Stoller’s essay is worth a clickthrough. See at least the material on Kamala.
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!
Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions
“The flu shot is different this year, thanks to COVID” [NPR]. “This year’s flu shot will be missing a strain of influenza it’s protected against for more than a decade. That’s because there have been no confirmed flu cases caused by the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage since spring 2020. And the Food and Drug Administration decided this year that the strain now poses little to no threat to human health. Scientists have concluded that widespread physical distancing and masking practiced during the early days of COVID-19 appear to have pushed B/Yamagata into oblivion.” • No, not “thanks to Covid,” you morons. Thanks to non-pharmaceutical interventions!
Elite Maleficence
“Column: Can Stanford tell the difference between scientific fact and fiction? Its pandemic conference raises doubts” [Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times]. One pearl of many: “During the opening panel, moderator Wilk Wilkinson, a blogger on the concept of ‘personal accountability,’ offered the astonishing criticism that public health leaders ‘focused very narrowly on deaths from COVID, and often it came at the expense of other social values’ such as ‘being able to visit people, … or putting children in school as they normally would go to school, or attend funerals.'” • Like Jesus said: Infect thy neighbor as thyself.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC October 5 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC October 12 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC October 12 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data October 17: | ★ National [6] CDC September 28: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens October 14: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic October 5: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC September 30: | ★ Variants[10] CDC September 30: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC October 12: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC October 12: |
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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) Still some hot spots, but I can’t draw circles around entire regions this week. Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XEC has entered the chat.
[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). I see the “everything in greenish pastels” crowd has gotten to this chart.
[7] (Walgreens) Big drop continues!
[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up, though lagged.
[10] (Travelers: Variants).
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
“United States Housing Starts” [Trading Economics]. “Housing starts in the United States eased by 0.5% from the previous month to an annualized rate of 1.354 million units in September of 2024, in line with market expectations, trimming the downwardly revised 7.8% increase in August.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing’s Multi-Billion Dollar Offering Waiting on SEC Nod” [Bloomberg]. “The company’s shelf registration on Tuesday, a filing to pre-register the securities, had not been deemed effective by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the document. While that clearance is typically automatic for companies as big as Boeing, regulatory issues surrounding its disclosures about aircraft safety may prevent it from getting speedy approval, securities lawyers said. Without the SEC’s green light, Boeing cannot launch its hotly-anticipated sale that stands to shore up depleted funds and help it maintain a credit rating that is now hovering just above junk. The SEC can take 5 to 10 business days to let a company know if its registration will need a more formal review, the lawyers said. The review, in turn, could take days or weeks depending on the depth of the inquiry.”
Manufacturing: “Don’t bow down to striking workers, Ryanair boss urges Boeing” [Telegraph]. “[Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary] said: “They have to see out this strike and if that means all of our deliveries get delayed by a couple of months, frankly we would support that.” And: “The Ryanair chief said: ‘The timing of the existing contract running out was unfortunate given the state that Boeing is in, and that’s being exploited by the unions. Even if they do offer more, the unions won’t agree to a deal at the moment.’ He also claimed that the IAM had also been ‘incompetent’ in negotiating a 25pc settlement that it agreed to put to workers, only for it to be rejected in a formal vote.” The union leadership, yes indeed. More: “Boeing also faces a tough political background to the dispute. Mr O’Leary said: ‘It’s very difficult to resolve that strike when there’s a presidential election in three weeks’ time. The political situation is difficult over there.'”
Manufacturing: “The FAA is opening a new review of safety at Boeing” [Associated Press]. “The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it will open a three-month review of Boeing’s compliance with safety regulations… The auditor said FAA has failed to ensure that Boeing and its suppliers make parts that meet engineering and design requirements and to investigate claims that Boeing puts improper pressure on employees who are authorized to conduct safety inspections. The FAA has closed only 14 of 34 reports of undue pressure, with the others remaining open for more than a year on average, according to the report.” • It’s a shame those reports are still open. Good hitmen are so hard to find these days!
Manufacturing: “NASA further delays first operational Starliner flight” [Space News]. “NASA will use SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for its two crew rotation missions to the International Space Station in 2025 as it continues to evaluate if it will require Boeing to perform another test flight of its Starliner spacecraft…. ‘The timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established,’ NASA said in its statement about the 2025 missions. ‘NASA is keeping options on the table for how best to achieve system certification, including windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025.'” • Oh.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 74 Greed (previous close: 71 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 74 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 18 at 1:18:07 PM ET.
Gallery
The poor kid doesn’t have matching socks:
Family Group https://t.co/RLozVFNx9L pic.twitter.com/ye7BlyTDV5
— L. S. Lowry (@lowryartist) October 18, 2024
The painting is dated 1958, but I don’t know if it represents England in that time, or Lowry’s memory.
Runways, first on my timeline:
Chicago O’Hare International Airport has 8 runways, more than any other civilian airport in the world. #Aircraft #Aviation pic.twitter.com/wnD1MU8S5E
— Aviation Facts (@AirplaneCentral) October 17, 2024
Events on runways, later on my timeline:
At approx. 3 this afternoon, @AmericanAir Flight 47 was on Taxiway Bravo, heading to its gate at T5 when it ingested a cargo container into its #2 (right) engine destroying the can and severely damaging the aircraft. There are no reported injuries #ChicagoScanner #avgeek #AA47 pic.twitter.com/bMahnpu7S8
— Windy City Wheelman (@WindyCityDriver) October 17, 2024
Algo doing its job, I guess!
“Own and control the next Bandcamp” [Subvert]. From the FAQ: “Bandcamp’s back-to-back acquisitions—first by Epic Games in 2022, then by Songtradr in 2023—have its community feeling betrayed and concerned about the platform they once relied on. Bandcamp’s trajectory illustrates a depressing reality of the contemporary internet: platforms position themselves as artist-friendly alternatives, only to seemingly abandon their core values and community. It’s time for a new model – one we collectively own and control. A cooperative, or co-op, is a business owned and democratically controlled by its members. Subvert is owned by its membership base of artists, labels, supporters, and workers.” • Should launch in 2025. Interesting fundraising model: A physical newspaper.
Wukchumi writes: “Mineral King fall colors.” Indeed!
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>>>Chicago O’Hare International Airport has 8 runways,
which is one reason why if one has a reasonable alternative, do not use O’Hare as a transfer point (domestic or int’l as your point of entry into the US). The sprawl of the airport works against a regular person who just wants to fly from A to C via B. (long taxiway trips, long intra-terminal, inter-terminal, intra-customs trips)
in my opinion. your mileage may vary.
Yeah, I still have memories of landing with 1/2 our to make my connecting flight, which was about as far away from the terminal I arrived in as it could be and still be in the airport. And I was in one of the last rows on the plane. Good thing I did a lot of running in those days because that was one hell of a sprint.
I’ve gone through Midway ever since. Once you get used to the pilots slamming on the brakes after landing because of the short runway it’s not bad.
Did a bit of reading and found that Midway was actually Chicago’s original airport. There was an area full of farms and orchards called Orchard Place that in WW2 was taken over as an airfield serving a Douglas manufacturing plant for C-54 military transports. In the mid-40s the airfield was called Orchard Place but as they developed it in to the modern airport, they rename it after a WW2 Navy hero-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Hare_International_Airport#History
That bit of history still lives in how this airport’s code is still ORD.
Once a backwater. Around 40 years ago I took my kids to Midway which then was not much used by airlines. There were just a few people in the corridors, someone mopping floors. We went outside to walk around the hangers, looking at private aircraft and having a great time. No one noticed.
number one rated airport in the U.S.A.! surprise surprise, its in flyover country, its the minneapolis/st.paul “INTERNATIONAL” Airport.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2024/09/18/ranked-the-best-airports-in-the-us-and-canada-according-to-jd-power/
“The winner of the Mega Airports category is Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, which scored 671 thanks to its efficient layout and passenger-friendly design. “One of the more effective ‘feels’ that an airport can provide is to give the impression that the airport is a mall with airplanes parked outside,” says Taylor. “MSP does a very good job at this, and they even call the main shopping/dining area ‘The Airport Mall.’””
I wondered that too. I watched that clip a few times. I’m not sure they are happy with each other.
Have the men in dark suits and carrying briefcases not yet arrived?
“the “Black Insurrectionist” fabrication (Republican) and the “Vance had carnal relations with a couch” (Democrat) stories weigh in the balance more or less equality” except that Vance the couch fucker was prima facie a joke.
> prima facie a joke
That’s simply false. That meme instantly covered the Blue very online community, and Walz repeated it. In fact, it’s still being repeated. Quite the reverse of prima facie.
This won’t help KH’s campaign. Jimmy Dore, utube, ~13+ minutes.
Kamala Targeted Black Mothers For Prison!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf__sxZy0vs
The preening, self congratulating, frequent fliers to Europe that telepathically dismiss Trump supporters as Magats and lowlifes, are all about us where we live.
Their fear is palpable. They, or their children, might actually lose their GSE sinecures and actually have to work for a living and go compete with the working class diversity they claim to love, but assuredly live far away from.
The real conundrum for our circle of friends is what public venue to to be in on election eve to hear the wailing and lamentations of these people when Trump wins.
The bullies accusation applied to Stoller is interesting; he does tend to point out what horrible people monopolists and their supporters on the antitrust bar are, and occasionally says so.
I agree with this; they are horrible people. But understandably, calling out bedwetters and corporate lackeys for what they are, might upset them.
I have added orts and scraps. I had to leave much too much on the cutting room floor, but time presses and I must push on and finish a post.
For your consideration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuhe1CpHRxY
Best…H
Thanks Hank – extreeeemely groovy.
About the Lowry painting: My Mom and Dad often mentioned how poor the country of England was for decades after the War. (You could always hear that capital “W” when they said it.) Mom mentioned the city blocks of Luftwaffe supplied Urban Renewal projects that were boarded up to keep the little-uns from falling in and getting hurt, or killed. Many of those basements were stagnant pools of corruption and other political ‘virtues.’ Economically, London was devastated for years after the War ended. Dad had to go and apprentice himself to a Dutch concern when he graduated “high school” which usually happened at sixteen, as a draftsman because the local firms were still in disarray at the beginning of the 1950s. One reason they moved to the “New World” back around 1960 was because, as Mom explained, the out of town jobs offered much better wages. (You cannot get much more “out of town” than the other side of the world.)
The child having mismatched socks sounds typical of the period from what I have heard from Mom, Dad, and others from back there. One habit I picked up from Dad was an almost obsessive impulse to save everything of any conceivable possible use and to ‘make do’ with what is at hand. It is a truism that America suffered through the Great Depression and was lifted out of it by the economic stimulus of the Second World War (World War 1, Part the Second.) England never had that luxury. Not only did it suffer through the Great Depression, but it also “won” the War, and lost the Peace.
Remember that painting. It represents what a fallen Empire looks like internally. It will happen here in America soon enough. Prepare now.
I was reading how in the early 1950s, there were sections of London that were still rubble care of the Luftwaffe Renovation Company. And there was still rationing for years after the war and it did not end until 1954 when meat was the last item taken off the ration books. It must have been a miserable time and the average body weight of the British actually decreased in this time period-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Post-Second_World_War_1945%E2%80%931954
I some ways it was like the war never ended.
Buy from and donate to your local thrift shop. We have furnished our home with mostly given away free or garage sale items and wear used outterwear clothing.
Much better quality than can be bought new, even at Nordstroms. ex. $4 for a shirt that sellsnew , with tax, for $140.
Such fun pulling household items out of a dumpster along the road and dropping them off at the store, then seeing them later priced reasonably, then gone the following week with some happy person reusing them in their home.
I happened to buy a sociology book from the 1960s which had a Lowry painting on the cover; he was justly celebrated back then as one of the great working-class artists (out of a very large number, actually) and I wondered why one saw so little of Lowry and so much of lesser talents.
Then I listened to the Manic Street Preachers’ “Thirty Year War”:
So you hide all Lowry’s paintings for thirty years or more,
‘Cos he turned down a knighthood and you now must settle the score,
And the endless parade of Old Etonian scum
Line the front benches — so what is to be done?
I ask you again, What Is To Be Done?
Changing their what? Underwear.
I feel like a word is missing here or I just can’t read today.
principles
“And if you don’t like them, we have others” (paraphrase).
I took “theirs” to mean “their strategy” (in contrast to hope). But I wouldn’t be such a Grouch as to argue with the alternative explanation offered and accepted.
The Lowry painting date “1958” is probably the year it was made given his bio data – 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976. Paintings by this artist inspired the rock song “Pictures of Matchstick Men” – Status Quo (1968), covered later by Camper Van Beethoven (1989).
30 million pieces of sliver on Trump, utilizing Crypto…
Will the nonsense ever cease?
GameStop only with politics. “I like the stonk”
Evidently, no, as the nonsense is on a roll.
In the comments section of polymarket (which is sort of the cesspool you might imagine), there are now Kamala and DJT bots that people are having fun with. E.g.,
I hadn’t thought of it before, but now you make me wonder if the “insurrectionist” tweets were actually intended as direct retaliation for the “couch” meme. That would be in character for each of the parties: Democrats taunt, Republicans draw blood. I’m inclined to agree with you that the score has been evened.
Watching the Gaffigan speech at the Al Smith Dinner I wasn’t expecting a Kamala Harris pretaped video. [22:43 mark] Must see for fans of SNL, pretty cringe for everyone else.
The jokes actually were mildly flattering to Catholicism—-but delivered via a 30 y.o. one-hit-wonder fictional character who overstayed her welcome by 1998. No one was yearning to know the fate of Mary Katherine Gallagher post-9/11.
If one did not know who Molly Shannon’s character was—I would not blame them for being revoltingly offended. in my opinion.
I was thinking it was a Hail Mary attempt at limiting Harris’ screentime in her own video by having her play ‘straight man.’
The closing lines from her were offensive to me on a visceral level as she delivered them in the exact cadence of a minister delivering the benediction. Trying to remember any politician ever using that cadence. Call and response, yes, but not the rhythms of a benediction.
SORRY! Just checked and I gave everybody a frootloops link by mistake. Not a rickroll attempt, here’s the correct link.
I watched it earlier and Gaffigan, who I thought had a strong case of the TDS, was actually pretty funny. It wasn’t pre-TDS Colbert at the correspondents’ dinner level funny, but he did get in a bunch of “jokes” about the attendees being a bunch of crooks and liars.
Seeing them all yukking it up, Democrats and Republicans, Jews and Catholics, rich people and rich people, in the presence of the man who is supposedly such a “threat to our democracy” just confirmed what George Carlin said years ago – “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
Many years ago I read a book of Kurt Vonnegut essays . One of the essays was titled ” In a manner which must shame God himself”.
It has been decades since I read it, so I can only paraphrase one of the subpoints Vonnegut made in that multi-subject essay. He was talking about a party he had been at where he saw lots of literati and culterati and even some politicos and richies. He mentioned names like Barbara Walters and John Kenneth Galbraith and others and said that when among themselves , they viewed being “Democratic or Republican as being a hilarious accident which no one was expected to explain.”
So have they been, for the past dozen years, part of the plurality that shuns identifying with either Republicans or Democrats in favor of allegiance to neither?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
And if so, is that because they wanted to stay above that partisan fray (all the better to control it, my dear)? Or because they didn’t want the extra expense of trying to buy off more than two groups — and the extra effort and risk of suppressing groups they couldn’t buy off?
I disagree on Flu type B not being out and about – the NPR reference in the old world would be called deceptive and strongly implies type B is no longer an issue. If I am an old soul living in a new world then the new term bandied about is Malinformation (Malinformation is a controversial term for information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate). One of my elementary school attending daughters missed a week (Tuesday through Friday, diagnosed on Monday afternoon as had to leave school for vomiting) of school with Flu Type B in September of this year, 2024. After three days she seemed fine, yet the orders were to miss a week of school, and it was confirmed Type B. My wife and I were commenting on how it was unusual to have the Flu in September. More interesting was I had my yearly physical and did get the Flu shot and Type B was not in it, so at least that part is factually correct. One thing I can say about the Flu from my personal experience, if you get it — it sometimes takes weeks and months to feel 100% again. Have had the Flu 3 times in my life and I remember being really miserable. In fairness the article states “That’s because there have been no confirmed flu cases caused by the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage since spring 2020.” I do not know if Influenza B/Yamagata is a specific type of Type B Flu so it if it is only a about a particular sub strain… a quick search shows there are two different B strains…. “Currently, there are two influenza B lineages circulating; in the latest WHO recommendations, it is suggested that a second B strain could be added to give a quadrivalent vaccine. ”
In summary NPR fails again on facts that can help a person to understand the world.
When it comes to Word of the Year winners, I have this gut feeling like “baseless” should have made it by now. But apparently not. It’s used by the mainstream media regularly to talk about any claim that the Serious People in DC and NYC want us to believe is false. And in a few weeks I expect to see its frequency soar in US news stories (and remember when those would just mention an opposition claim–or not–without pre-editorializing that it was “baseless”?). So let’s hear it for Baseless in 2025 as our word of the year!
Lefty, as I recall, “baseless” was all over the msm venues in 2015. It was the first time I recollect such a blatant tell for the preferred narrative. There were the Benghazi hearings, followed by rumblings about rigged primaries that needed to be squashed, followed by DNC email leaks, vault 7 on wikileaks, the Imran Awan scandal, lots of RussiaRussia and Skripals… the “baseless accusations” and “conspiracy theories” just went on and on.
And now I see that Sergei Skripal is in the news again. Guess we don’t have enough RussiaRussia to get us through the upcoming elections. Paging Luke Harding, cleanup in aisle 7…
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/14/salisbury-novichok-poisonings-inquiry-sergei-skripal-vladmir-putin
Lovely photo, Wuk!
It is just the latest reminder that my inner image of how beautiful the Southwest/West is are from the fall in the places I have known. Oh, there are a few images of the emerging wildflowers of the spring, but clearly it is the colors of the fall that hold my soul.
Yeah, that’s a great picture that. Congrats.
I have not seen any of the Al Smith dinner. Yet it appears that it is another incidence of playing to a small audience and thinking you are getting a standing O at Madison Square Garden.
I know Harris is a weak candidate. I know that the Democrats have reduced their ‘game’ to one thing and one thing only – Orange Man Bad. (And no, her 80+ page policy statement doesn’t change that, if it did she would actually be running on it.) But, and this is a very big but, the utter incompetence that has been on display so often from the Democratic Party is gobsmacking. Sure I refer to the incompetent Hillary Rodham Clinton and I mean it, but honestly this is levels above the stupid mistakes made by Clinton and her Campaign.
The worst part of this for me is that I cannot come up with a truly satisfying explanation for the train wreck that is the Harris/Walz campaign and the Democratic actions of this Presidential election season. Not even the somewhat schadenfreude heavy explanation of massive cognitive disruptions due to multiple Covid infections and vaccine boosters really works. I doubt that even future historians who wish to examine this will have enough concurrent material to really work it out. (Too much possible shredding and the nebulous nature of digital data do not lend themselves to the process.)
We really do live in ‘interesting times’.
Do the Democrats see bad events of such utter badness happening in the near future that they want Trump to be the President when they happen? Are they secretly trying to throw the election to Trump? Could that be an explanation?
Unless one thinks the market will go up forever, I wonder why anyone would want the job.
Bubble, pin.
I actually think I understand why Trump wants it. There was no guarantee the lawfare would stop any other way.
But otherwise…
Possibly. The bonus would be the end of Harris’s political career. I just don’t understand the need to jettison Biden if that was what they wanted.
Imo no. If Harris wins it’s a lot of dems that benefit, and a lot that will lose if trump wins. They desperately want to win. And deep, too, bc just maybe he might drain that swamp this time.
The disastrous decisions, beginning with Clintons jumping up to support Harris when Obama wanted an open convention to find someone, anyone, better. But donors were happy with that, just like they were in 2020 when they made her the best funded candidate, and learned nothing when she didn’t win a single delegate bc nobody liked her. And if donors learned nothing dems learned nothing bc they’ve sold their souls to the donors. Maybe the problem is tech donors know tech but nothing of politics, which is knowing people.
There is no Bill Clinton in the room to intercede and time to explain why their tactical moves are stupid.
There is also an element capturing Obama without acknowledging how Hillary’s weaknesses factored in. Biden at least is a transactional politician, so he vaguely understood making minimal positive noises, but these centrists are ideologues convinced of the brilliance of chasing elite Republicans in areas that won’t flip a seat.
Bill Clinton is probably too busy as he is hanging around the local high school.
the irony is that Harris’s campaign website is very, very good…and it looks like the voter-outreach operations people (aka the ones fueling the boilers of the RMS Titanic) are really on their game.
imo.
Is that really irony though? Unless the suggestion is that that Harris campaign material is impressive in any way other than gaslighting.
Or is it in the Greek tragedy sense, where The Comma-la has no idea how ridiculous she appears to the audience?
RE: Trump (R): “Trump’s closing argument: It doesn’t have to be this way” [The Hill].
More often than not it seems.
I think people with TDS must be getting a big Dopamine hit every time Orange Hitler’s name comes up.
I have witnessed three episodes in the last week ( Only one directed at me for voting 3rd party) and there’s suddenly a lot of energy behind the rants.
It’s as though they are taking a big hit of bad speed, there’s a scent of something very nasty about these episodes.
“Justifiable” anger is both profoundly unhealthy and very attractive to many Humans.
Tell ’em that you are still trying to decide between Kang and Kodos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8hDsIoEFYw (3:58 mins)
And family blog them if they can’t take a joke.
I’m in a sea of blue maga. I’m happy to reveal my Jill stein vote and explain it but the attempts at vote shaming are incessant. TDS is mindshared across almost all of the neighborhood.
No, my vote for 3d party did not cause trump’s 2016 victory. That was caused by the people who voted for trump.
And I get zero traction on war/genocide or climate crisis.
Game theory suggests that it might be hopeless but I can’t stop trying.
Maybe tell them that you are wiling to vote for any party that will actually deliver tangible, material benefits to ordinary Americans. Not promises for, not “access” to but ones up front here and now. Since you are in a blue area, ask them why tens of billions are flowing to Israel and the Ukraine but places like East Palestine, Maui and South Carolina are fobbed off with pocket change at best. The only reason that Trump does not capitalize on that argument is that Republicans would do the same as well.
Be prepared to hear that you’re voting just as David Duke wants you to vote. Since he apparently endorsed Stein this past week???
I would really like this election to be over. I’m tired of all the stupid.
Having been previously unfriended by some Democrats, evidently because I failed to repeat all the now-mandatory “Trump is Hitler” shibboleths, I have become more cautious.
But I have one friend, a Team Blue supporter, who has remained very sober and level-headed through this whole sh*tstorm. For the whole election season, we have talked off and on about the polls and general state of play, what’s happening with the EC, swing states, etc., and I found that by approaching it in this way (i.e., just as numbers not “values”), there hasn’t been any conflict between us.
Last week, though, he suddenly sounded very annoyed about the state of play, and dismissed the whole topic of polls as something no longer worthy of discussion.
Of course, the polling has proven unsatisfactory, and for months we were hearing the race is “too close to call”, etc., but I also can’t help but wonder if now that the Harris campaign seems to be cartwheeling towards a crash, that my Team Blue friend has seen this unwelcome development, and simply cut loose.
I’m beginning to think trump might win pop vote.
#Concur
Dems aren’t going to run it up in “blue states” like they did in 2016. If Harris loses, she’ll lose on both counts.
That entire stoller back and forth shows what a joke he’s become. His housing positions really caught my eye about how far he’s fallen
Politics in Queensland … The Greens are evolving and abandoning the identity rubbish – https://greens.org.au/qld/plan
I’d vote for those guys! Nice to see such a solid, gutsy platform.
Saturday is the provincial election in British Columbia, and our main choices are the incumbent neoliberalized faux social democrats and a revived conservative party which has become a refuge for racist anti-vax dimwits. So I voted at the advance poll last week for the more timid version of the Greens available here. I’m hoping for a lucky split in the seat count so that they end up with the balance of power in a minority legislature.
“Pack up the kids, honey! We’re moving to Queensland!”
Nice platform!
The people who actually rule in Queensland, though, tend to be the most deranged politicians in Australia, and that’s saying something.
::chortle::
… siempre hay esperanza!
@Sub-Boreal/ChrisRUEcon
Yes its nice to see an organic evolution within a political party learning economics and governance for a better society for all, now and future. I have had some contact with some of their econ and policy people over around 6 mos and suggested NC and Hudson et al as views they might consider.
The anguish from the LNP sorts is a sight to behold – not one of us stuff – identifying Greens candidates on LED billboards on major roads via ethnic back grounds overseas …
Skippy,
The State Election in Queensland (is that next week? Sorry, I am in NSW) will be VERY interesting.
Hopefully the trend towards third party candidates and the record low vote shares by the Duopoly in the last Federal Election will continue. That will only be healthy, although I must say, the Teals are pretty crap.
Federal Labour is obviously getting nervous. Even the ABC are taunting them now.
One of the main problems with a 2 party duopoly is that new policies cannot be rationally considered. The arguments in the media about ending negative gearing come to mind.
Of course, even highly paid media types in Sydney cannot afford houses there anymore. That might be why they are becoming more critical.
TGIF! #Trump
> I hate that “closing argument” trope. An election is not a trial or a debate.
Well … to be fair … neither is it a horse race … nor a team sport. Yet, here we are.
What we have is politics as sport, until such a time as something can wrest a true democratic future from the claws of the two-headed beast that is the current duopoly.
I would qualify Trump’s closing argument as a function of what he does best: reading the room. Trump knows he’s won the “dug in troops” battle, and that if he is to prevail beyond
the efforts of blob machinationsa reasonable doubt, then the job left to be done is to move the not-dug-in. Trump’s done this before – in 2016!! Remember his “what do you have to lose” question to African American voters? (via nbcnews.com)I think this is a broader appeal to those who are still undecided, and likely on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. I am reminded of Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is”. If voter apathy is a result of feeling that “some things will never change”, Trump is saying “ah, but don’t you believe them” – it doesn’t have to be this way.
#Harris
A slow yet steady decline in the RCP with the potential of Trump leading just around/above the battleground M(s)OE with two weeks of polling left. Two more weeks of celebrity endorsements, Walz cosplaying and empty website marketing (gawd wot a mess) aren’t going to move the needle much for Harris. The same failed suburban GOP voter outreach strategy from 2016 is going to fail again in 2024. The Dems will have blown another billion or so dollars, but that is WAI (working as intended) for the election consultancy industrial complex.
#Harris
“Opinion: Obama reminds voters Harris is the candidate of hope and joy this election”
LOL
Tone deaf to the death …
Deeper excerpt:
See? He doesn’t get that many people see that 2008 hope as ultimately betrayed. Dems can’t bring themselves to admit that their 2016 loss was also an indictment of Obama. The intervening mid-term losses alone should give pause to this kind of hagiography.
Obama will go down in history as the worst president ever.
This may be dawning on him.
I really mean ever, like in history
I think you may be underestimating how bad the Biden presidency is. And I say that as someone who knows how much the Obama administration set the board for Joe.
It’s close! But I’ll concur with Pat above that Biden took it to another level. His Ukraine adventurism – something to that Obama rejected IIRC – and rabid fealty to Zionist expansionism have now exposed not just America, but the entire Western ally confraternity as warmongering hypocrites. In an ironic sense, it’s better for the rest of the world to know now … finally. But the horrible death and destruction so callously and inhumanely permitted in Ukraine and Gaza will go down in history as America’s worst foreign policy positions.
It was that and the fast tracking of the destruction of public health and the ongoing destruction of civil rights that sealed the deal for me. Oh and continuing the destruction of the Post Office that Trump fast tracked.
The thing about Biden was that he never met a bad idea he didn’t like. Previous bad Presidents would put the brakes on certain policies which slowed some bad ideas that our bipartisan corporate and MIC bootlickers have been advancing for decades, but apparently Biden’s corvette has no brakes.
Oh yes! How could I forget?!!
On the domestic front, he rubber stamped killing off most data collection, and ended free tests till the most recent surge. He surrounded himself with misanthropes like Jha, and will hold the dubious distinction of having had more people die of COVID under his watch than Trump’s even though he had a vaccine and Trump didn’t. Biden has left the US without a nasal vaccine now almost a year after China developed and distributed one. In his rotting brain, he really does believe that he ended COVID.
And yes, “no brakes Joe” is yet another nickname with which he can get saddled.
#JO3yN0rD5tR3aM
#Correction
Biden has left the US without a nasal vaccine now almost two years year after China developed and distributed one.
And estimated 500,000 young men on the Ukrainian side and maybe 300,000 on the Russian side depending on which media lies you believe but the number is not low.. I served during Falluja and that was what the Russians and Ukrainians were doing in umpteen towns. Our casualty rate was not even close. Biden and Blinken engineered WW2 level Eastern front casualties. And now Biden is bailing out, bailing out of a project he dishonestly started and from which his family benefitted. Since WW2 few men, if any, have the amount of blood shed for no good reason on their hands that Joe and his eager acolyte do.
> Since WW2 few men, if any, have the amount of blood shed for no good reason on their hands that Joe and his eager acolyte do.
Heartily concur.
I argue George W. Bush should be regarded as the worst US President. He put a lot of balls in motion that the following Presidents kicked down the road.
8 trillion spent in Afghanistan/Iraq. Maybe one million foreign citizens died as a result. Loss of civil liberties, censorship amped up.
Bush was an activist president who did great harm despite having access to his father’s advice.
Obama was an empty suit /con man president who didn’t want to upset the rich and powerful.
Obama did not involve the USA in a big way in Syria as HRC wanted to, for which I am grateful.
Alleged foreign policy expert Joe Biden does appear to be taking some of the heat off Bush with his administration.
Why has a country that produced a Jefferson, Adams, Franklin with a population of one hundredth of its current size produced the recent crop of leadership?
Lots of contenders! No runaway winners here! :)
But you make a good case for Biden yourself:
“Alleged foreign policy expert Joe Biden does appear to be taking some of the heat off Bush with his administration.”
Biden amped everything up! He may not have a direct war on his hands like Bush did, but one can argue that Biden having to be told that he couldn’t get nukes for Ukraine via the UK represents a precipice to which no Bush war ever brought the US and the world.
“The joy is gone” :
> The joy is gone.
To the tune of BB King’s “the thrill is gone.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgXSomPE_FY
I am sure that Trump cancelled the NRA event because of this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13958023/New-NRA-boss-cat-killer-douglas-hamlin.html. And that was clearly the correct decision. Don’t read the article if you will be upset by something horrible.
#YikesWTF
For a number of years after this incident, it was called “the cat frat”, and no one wanted to admit they were members. They also, unsurprisingly, had trouble recruiting even though their house was in a very desirable location. I’m sure people eventually forgot… like me, until I read this story.
Qs is why uniparty is allowing second trump (outsider) term ?. I think. World is going get taste of Naomi’s shock doctrine and Trump will be the fall guy