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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/29/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, I’m in the midst of an enormous thunderstorm. Let’s hope the power doesm’t go all Third World on me! –lamnbert

Bird Song of the Day

Common Nightingalem, Tavira, Faro, Portugal. Another duet!

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In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Kamala campaign begins closing argments.
  2. The Fascist question.
  3. Pennsylvania round-up.
  4. Memories of Richard Scarry

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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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Trump Assassination Attempts (Plural)

“Is the Left Preparing for War If Trump Wins?” [Lee Smith, Tom Klingenstien]. Another review of Democrat War Games. This paragraph caught my eye: “When Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, PA, Democratic Party officials and the media not only denied any connection between the shooting and their inflammatory rhetoric but even blamed Trump himself. After all, he and his aspiring assassin were cut from the same cloth: ‘The gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy,’ wrote David Frum in, of all places [not], the Atlantic. On this view, Trump has polarized the country so profoundly that he is ultimately responsible for the attempt on his own life.” • Wowses.

Biden Administration

“How Indigenous voters swung the 2020 election” [High Country News]. • So Biden did Kamala a solid, albeit a minimalist one from the Native American perspective.

2024

Countdown!

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!.

“Harris Aides Quietly Grow More Bullish on Defeating Trump” [New York Times]. “Few Democrats dispute that the race appears extraordinarily competitive: Never in modern presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this close to Election Day. Polling averages show that all seven battleground states are within the margin of error, meaning the difference between a half-point up and a half-point down — essentially a rounding error — could win or lose the White House.” And: “For all his bravado in public, Mr. Trump is privately cranky and stressed, according to three people in contact with him, with a schedule marked by chronic lateness. Ms. Harris, aides say, is energized by her crowds.”

Past performance is no guarantee of future results:

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Kamala (D): “Harris reaches for a big moment in her closing argument for ‘turning the page’ on Trump” [Associated Press]. ” Vice President Kamala Harris will make the “closing argument” for her presidential campaign Tuesday from the same site where Donald Trumpfomented the Capitol insurrection, hoping it offers a stark visualization of the alternate futures that voters face if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office.” “Trumpfomented” is a rare copy editing error by AP, unless they intend it to be a new verb. More: “One week out from Election Day, Harris was to use her 7:30 p.m. ET address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to pledge to Americans that she will work to improve their lives while arguing that her Republican opponent is only in it for himself.” • The Ellipse was where Trump gave his speech, pre-riot; the riot itself took place, as is well known, at the Grant Memorial and the Capitol itself, two miles away. (If the famous gallows comes up as a talking point during Kamala’s speech, nobody knows who put it up, why the Park Service didn’t take it down, or even whether it was functional.)

Kamala (D): “Democrats alarmed Harris’s economic message isn’t breaking through” [The Hill]. “One major Democratic donor told The Hill that Harris hasn’t properly made the case on the economy. ‘Her economic message hasn’t broken through,’ the donor said. ‘And the economy is the issue most people care about. She narrowed the gap a little on the issue, but she’s left a lot of people wondering about her vision.’… And while Harris has narrowed Trump’s lead on the issue, a recent Reuters/Ipsos found voters still think Trump has a better approach than Harris on the economy, by a margin of 46 percent to 38 percent. The survey found that 61 percent of voters in battleground states say the economy is on the ‘wrong track.’ Robert Reich, who served as secretary of Labor under President Clinton, wrote Monday that Harris’s message needs to ‘center on anti-elitist economics.'” • Oh, yeah, in the final week of the campaign [bangs head on desk].

Kamala (D): “Harris, entering final stretch, stresses unity and paints Trump as a divider” [WaPo]. “”We are all here because we are fighting for a democracy and for the right of people to be heard and seen,” Harris said. “We are not about the ‘enemy within.’ We are all in this together, and that is what we are fighting for.'” • How are the “deplorables” not an “enemy within”? Commentary:

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris hitting every battleground state in final days, hoping to drive turnout” [CBS]. “Vice President Kamala Harris will visit every battleground state in the final week before Election Day, with a focus on female voters who she hopes will propel her to the White House. The campaign has directed several messages to female voters in recent days, reminding them that what happens in the voting booth is a secret. A Democratic ad released Monday delivers the message: “You can vote any way you want and no one will ever know.'” • Who on earth concocted a “lie to your husbands” talking point? Commentary:

You don’t have to be a religious conservative to find this questionable.

Kamala (D): “Democrats launch ads in nail salons, malls in final swing-state sprint” [CNBC]. “One week before Election Day, Democrats are spending big to target swing-state voters in nail salons, lifestyle magazines and shopping malls — all places where they might normally seek to escape the news.” • Nail salons is smart; working class milieu, even the clientele at many venues. Perhaps the ads will have a reproductive freedom subtext (as did “Does she… or doesn’t she?“, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure” back in the day).

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Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’ VP choice Tim Walz had secret fling with daughter of top Chinese Communist official during teaching stint in China” [Daily Mail]. “Jenna Wang, 59, claims the VP hopeful showered her with gifts and seduced her at his poky staff accommodation at No. 1 High School in Foshan, Guangdong Province. ‘Tim was very passionate and very romantic. I can still remember dancing with him to our favorite song, Careless Whisper,’ she told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. ‘The fact we couldn’t touch or kiss in public just made it all the more exciting and intense when we were finally alone. We were deeply in love and I wanted to marry him and start a family. When it didn’t happen, I felt very unhappy and sad. Tim’s behavior was very selfish.'” And: “Walz never again crossed paths with Wang, who emigrated to Europe several years later where she now works as teacher, translator and cultural mediator. She says the pair last exchanged a handful of friendly messages over Facebook in 2009 and talked about how their lives had panned out.” • And the Mail can’t even print the the Facebook messages? (The Mail does print a photo Wang supplied, of herself in a bathing suit at the beach, very much alone.)

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Kamala (D): “Harris mum on her past pledge for ‘Dreamers'” [Axios]. From September. “Vice President Kamala Harris is backing away from her past promise to use presidential power to unilaterally give a path to citizenship to 2 million “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. It’s part of a pattern in which Harris and her team have changed her positions or declined to say whether she still supports some of the progressive policies she ran on during her presidential campaign in 2019.” • I wonder if Latino voters noticed.

Kamala (D): “Rogan says he rejected Harris campaign’s interview conditions” [Politico]. “Podcast host Joe Rogan declined the Harris campaign’s offer to record an interview with Kamala Harris on Tuesday because he “would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour.'” • I’d bet Kamala knew she couldn’t do three hours, and so imposed unacceptable conditions.

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Trump (R): “Trump rally comedian workshopped racist Puerto Rico line at NYC comedy club the night before” [NBC]. “The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage‘ to warm up the New York City crowd — drawing immediate criticism from across the political spectrum and derailing what was supposed to be a night highlighting Trump in the final stretch of the campaign. It was not the first time Hinchcliffe had used the Puerto Rico line — he practiced it at The Stand comedy club in New York City, where he made a surprise appearance Saturday night, according to an NBC News producer and three other people who happened to be in the audience. The joke did not draw laughs, just a handful of awkward chuckles. Hinchcliffe told the audience that he would be performing at the Madison Square Garden rally the next day and said multiple times during his routine that he would get a better reaction ‘tomorrow at the rally.'” • Jon Stewart comments:

I don’t much like shock comedy, and I don’t like Hinchcliffe, though the liberal aghastitude at jokes about ovens, compared to their enthusiastic support for actual genocide, rings a bit false. I would imagine that Democrats are now whipping Stewart into line, as opposed to self-reflecting.

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Trump (R): “Hmm: Donald Trump and Mike Johnson Have a “Little Secret” Election Plan” [Vanity Fair]. “Some journalists and politicians have interpreted Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks, delivered as he thanked House Speaker Mike Johnson for appearing at the MSG event, as a possible signal that Johnson is prepared to override the electoral college… Under the 12th Amendment, the House of Representatives selects the president if no candidate reaches 270 votes in the electoral college. Each state delegation gets one vote; Republicans currently control the majority of them.” • That’s not an “over-ride.” Again, those are the rules; that’s how a tie is settled. Now, you can argue that this is an illegitimate outcome — cue the Color Revolution — but you cannot argue it’s not a Constitutional one (though wait for some lawfare dude to come up with something).

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Funny thing, these are all swing states:

MI: “Arab American voters make their choice — Harris, Trump or neither — in the election’s final days” [Associated Press]. “‘I love this country, but I’ll tell you, we have never been so disappointed in this country as we are now,’ said Nabih H. Ayad, chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League. ‘We wanted to give the Democratic Party the opportunity to do something, and they haven’t.’ ‘The one line we can’t cross,’ Ayad said, ‘is genocide.’ Nasrina Bargzie and Brenda Abdelal, who were hired by Harris’ campaign to spearhead Arab and Muslim outreach, listened intently but said little in response.” No doubt. More: “If Harris loses Michigan and the presidential election next week, it’s conversations like this one that could explain why. The Detroit area has the country’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, and Democrats fear that Harris will pay a steep political price for U.S. support for Israel, which rejects allegations that its military operations in Gaza constitute a genocide.” • Also no doubt.

PA: “Bob Casey’s Latest Ad Touts His Support for … Donald Trump?” [Delaware Valley Journal]. “On Friday, three-term incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) released a new TV ad touting his support for Republican Donald Trump’s trade policy and criticizing Democrat Joe Biden’s stance on fracking.” • Interesting.

PA: “Bob Casey Plays the Trump Card” [Wall Street Journal]. “A week from the election, we have bipartisan consensus on two points regarding Pennsylvania. The first is that the presidential contest is way too close to call. The second is that only one contender has coattails. Both candidates for Senate—Republican challenger Dave McCormick and Democratic incumbent Bob Casey—agree on who that is: Donald Trump. That Mr. McCormick would hitch his wagon to Mr. Trump is no surprise. But Mr. Casey is also wrapping his arms around the former president as a means of boosting his credibility. He’s doing this even as Kamala Harris is denouncing Mr. Trump as a ‘fascist’ and Hillary Clinton is likening his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden to a 1939 gathering sponsored by the pro-Nazi German American Bund.”

PA: “A new Supreme Court case could change the result of the presidential election” [Vox]. Genser v. Butler County Board of Elections. “On October 23, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that many voters who cast a mailed-in ballot improperly, thus rendering their vote “void,” should be allowed to cast a ballot on Election Day that will actually be counted. Though it’s hard to pin down exactly how many voters will be impacted by this decision, it’s likely that thousands of Pennsylvanians will regain their ability to vote in the November election if the state supreme court’s decision remains in effect… On Monday, the Republican Party asked the US Supreme Court to intervene and effectively disenfranchise the thousands of voters who will be allowed to vote if the state court’s Genser decision stands.” • Important and worth reading in full, both for the math (17,000 votes might get tossed out) and the explanation of the Independent State Legislature Doctrine. Bears watching,

PA: “Breaking down the growth of GOP and decline of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, county by county” [WESA]. “As of Sept. 16, Democrats made up 44% of registered voters in the commonwealth, down from a 2009 high of 51.2%, while Republicans were at 40.2%, up from 36.9% in 2009. Unaffiliated and third-party voters have boosted their numbers even more, from 11.9% in 2009 to 15.7%…. Pennsylvania, like many states around the country, has ended up polarized: highly populated urban counties such as Philadelphia and Allegheny are overwhelmingly Democratic, while Republicans dominate in outlying and rural counties.” • Really great county data, with charts.

PA: “How Democrats’ voter-registration advantage eroded in Pennsylvania, and what it means for 2024” [NBC]. “Already registered voters changing their party has been the most consequential factor narrowing the Democratic registration edge. Over 160,000 people who were registered Democrats in 2021 are now registered Republicans.Conversely, only 58,000 Republicans shifted their registration to Democratic during the same time period. Moreover, another 83,000 people who were registered as Democrats in 2021 have switched to being unaffiliated with a major party. A little more than half of that number of previously registered Republicans — 50,000 — did the same. ”

PA: “Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania” [Politico]. • Maybe. The sourcing is heavily Democrat, including a precinct captain. What else are they going to say?

VA: “The Mark of Kaine: The Biden Administration Under Fire for Virginia Lawsuit over Non-Citizen Voter Removals” [Jonathan Turley]. “The Biden Administration sued to stop the removal of 6,303 alleged noncitizens from Virginia’s voter rolls before the election, which is expected to be close in the state. It relies on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or the ‘Motor Voter Law,’ which bars ‘systemic’ removal of voters from the rolls less than 90 days before an election.” As Jebbie did for George in Florida 2000, though well before 90 days. More: “Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered compliance with existing laws, citing Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring the removal of noncitizens whose names were added under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations. The NVRA has exceptions for removals within what the Justice Department calls the ‘quiet’ period before an election, including the removal of individuals who are ‘ineligible to vote because of a criminal conviction or mental incapacity, or for ‘correction of registration records pursuant to this chapter.” However, the state argues as a threshold matter that these are not systemic removals. The state argues that these are individual actions triggered automatically by citizens identifying themselves as noncitizens but then joining the voting rolls. It is a crime for a noncitizen to vote in the election. The state notes that the voter is notified of the problem and allowed to correct any errors to remain on the rolls. If they do not correct the problem, they are removed from the rolls. However, they can still vote on election day with a ‘provisional’ ballot to challenge any removal.” • Hmm.

WA: “Arson destroys hundreds of ballots inside a Washington state drop box” [Washington State Standard]. In Vancouver. “Vancouver is located in the 3rd Congressional District, where Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is running for reelection against Republican Joe Kent. The race is one of a handful nationwide expected to determine partisan control of the U.S. House. In 2022, Gluesenkamp Perez beat Kent by 2,629 votes.” • Of course the answer is more surveillance.

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Realignment and Legitimacy

“Panic Politics: The Press and Pundits Face Devastating Polls on the Threat to Democracy” [Jonathan Turley]. “The Post has been doggedly portraying the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as a choice between tyranny (Trump) and democracy (Harris). Yet when it commissioned a poll on threats to democracy shortly before the election, it did not quite work out. Voters in swing states believe that Trump is more likely to protect democracy than Kamala Harris, who is running on a ‘save democracy’ platform. The [Post-Schrar] poll sampled 5,016 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When asked whether Trump or Harris ‘would do a better job’ of ‘defending against threats to democracy,’ 43% picked Trump while 40% picked Harris. Notably, this was the same result when President Biden was the nominee. While over half said that threats to democracy were important to them, the voters trusted Trump (44%) more than Biden (33%) in protecting democracy. Even with the slight improvement for Harris, the result was crushing for not just many in the Harris campaign but the press and pundits who have been unrelenting in announcing the end of democracy if Harris is not elected.” • Oopsie.

“New Acquisitions: 1933 and the Definition of Fascism” [A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry]. An analysis of Trump’s rhetoric that takes it seriously, and literally. “The American system is a fair bit more resilient to this sort of takeover than the Weimar Republic or the Kingdom of Italy, but resilient is not immune – such an effort could succeed and even if it failed could do tremendous damage. Fascists, after all, rarely leave power without violence – this one didn’t leave office non-violently last time, you will recall. And please believe me when I say I do not want this to come to violence, by anyone, at any point. As I’ve said before, attempting to ‘win the stasis‘ – the Greek word for political violence – by out-violence-ing the opposition is a losing game that just tears apart the social fabric. But it is not yet 1933. It is still 1932: the train has not left the station yet.” • This is perhaps the most reasoned case for the prosecution I have been. But the author Eco’s famous checklist for fascism, and I’m scanning down it. When I think of Democrats I check off #3 (“The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake” [Ukraine and Israel policy]), #4 (“Disagreement is Treason” [Censorship Industrial Complex, the organs of state security generally]), #5 (“Fear of Difference” [“deplorables”]), #6 (“Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class” [PMC careerism]), #7 (“The Obsession with a Plot” [RussiaGate]), even #8 (“The Deceptively Strong/Weak Eternal Opponent” [“President of all the People” vs. half the people are deplorables]), #10 (“Contempt for the Weak” [eugenicist Covid policy, genocide]), and #13 “Selective Populism”, and #14 “Newspeak” (identity politics jargon). To be fair, the Democrats aren’t animated by #1 (“The Cult of Tradition”), #2 (“The Rejection of Modernism”), #9 (“Life is Permanent Warfare”), or, fortunately, #11 (“The Cult of Heroism”) or #12 “Machismo”). but I think you will agree with me when I say that the fascist smorgasbord serves up a hearty feed for both parties. I agree with Paxton on method: “What you ought to be studying is the milieu out of which they grew,” which this post does not do. So, granting the post’s premise, 9/14 vs. 14/14? A Sophie’s Choice indeed! (Note that on #10, genocide and eugenicist policiy, we are looking at what has already been done, as opposed to what might be done, in the future, a bog-standard Democrat trope.)

“Pro-Harris Super PAC Raises Concerns About Focusing on Trump and Fascism” [New York Times]. “Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly, said last week that Mr. Trump “falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” a remarkable caution from such a top-ranking official, which Ms. Harris and her team immediately echoed and amplified.” Of course, Kelly would no more lie than 51 intelligence officials would. Oh, wait…. More: “”Purely negative attacks on Trump’s character are less effective than contrast messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris’s plans to address the needs of everyday Americans,” the email read.” • Fascism is not a matter of personal character [bangs head on desk].

“Turning Pointe” [Harpers Bazaar]. “With her mane of long brown hair and ramrod-straight posture, [Mary Helen] Bowers oozed ballerina: graceful, girlish, disciplined, slightly prim—always smiling sweetly, even through her grueling workouts. ‘I mean, really, she’s kind of flawless,’ says writer and brand consultant Ray Siegel. ‘I would have a hard time coming up with a single negative thing to say about her.’ Bowers’s Instagram feed is crowded with Sugar Plum Fairy images of toe shoes, tutus, and her own four young children (including a photo of herself in graceful arabesque while at the hospital in labor with one of them). But two things Bowers rarely posts about are her husband of 17 years, Paul Dans, and politics. One would have to have been paying very close attention to notice when Dans was appointed to various posts within the Trump administration. Or when, in 2020, Trump named Bowers to the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center. And in recent years, even those who did notice didn’t make waves about it—not publicly, at least. But this summer, Ballet Beautiful clients, particularly those with left-leaning views, got quite a shock when Dans emerged as something of a celebrity in his own right as the director of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Transition Project, better known as Project 2025.” And: “Not everyone has a workout instructor whose husband is one of the architects of one of the most damaging right-wing-ideological social plans on speed dial, but lots of us have a QAnon sister-in-law or an antivax hairstylist. With a historically divisive election upon us, plenty of Americans will have to decide: When the people in your life—or even the people in their lives—have drastically different values from your own, do you turn a blind eye? Or do you turn your back?” • If the Democrat base truly believes this, it’s hard to see Kamala’s message of “unity” having much effect. Perhaps that alien landing needs to happen after all. That’ll unify us!

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

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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!

Transmission: H5N1

“A human isolate of bovine H5N1 is transmissible and lethal in animal models” [Nature]. From the Abstract: “HPAI H5N1 virus derived from dairy cattle transmits by respiratory droplets in mammals without prior adaptation and causes lethal disease in animal models.”

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Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The number of job openings fell by 418,000 to 7.443 million in September 2024 from a downwardly revised 7.861 million in August and below market expectations of 7.99 million. It is the lowest level since January 2021, indicating the labor market is cooling.”

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“Boeing Stock Drops as Share Sale Raises $21 Billion” [Barron’s]. “Boeing is getting the cash, but it paid a lot to make it happen. The plane maker said Tuesday its underwritten offering of 112.5 million shares of common stock was priced at $143 a share, a 5.1% discount to its closing price Monday. It’s also a larger offering than the 90 million shares Boeing previously announced on Monday. It’s a steep discount, but it isn’t easy to place the equivalent of almost 20% of the existing shares outstanding. Before the offering, Boeing had roughly 620 million shares outstanding, according to FactSet. The discount comes on top of recent stock weakness…. The cash raised will help reduce Boeing’s significant debt load.”

Manufacturing: “2 major airline CEOs have issued a clear message to Boeing in the past week: Do better” [Business Insider]. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan: “”The heart of an airline is the flight schedule, and the flight schedule depends on getting your aircraft on time.” American Airlines chief Robert Isom: “For Boeing — it’s just, I look forward to the day when they’re not just a distraction.” • Ouch!

Manufacturing: “Boeing overcharged Air Force nearly 8,000% for soap dispensers, watchdog alleges” [Reuters]. “The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General said on Tuesday the Air Force overpaid nearly $1 million for a dozen spare parts, including $149,072 for an undisclosed number of lavatory soap dispensers from the U.S. planemaker and defense contractor…. Boeing said on Tuesday it was reviewing the report, adding that it “appears to be based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet military specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17.” • A million? Did anybody check under the couch cushions? Maybe it’s there.

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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.

Permaculture

This is the UK. What would be an equivalent candidate for restoration in the United States?

Gallery

One more damn book to read (I wish!):

Book Nook

“Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature” [The Yale Review]. “In my grandparents’ second-floor guest room, formerly my mother’s childhood room, one bookcase had a row of children’s books slumped to the side, offering a chronological core sample of my grandmother’s attempts to busy not only her own kids, but all the grandkids who’d stayed there before me. There were the original Oz books, a copy of Ferdinand the Bull, Monro Leaf’s inexplicably compelling yet mildly fascistic Manners Can Be Fun, some 1950s and 1960s Little Golden Books purchased at the Hinky Dinky supermarket down the street, and, among many others I’ve now long forgotten, the big blue, green, and red shiny square of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. The largish (even just plain large if you were smallish when holding it) book offered a visual index of the everyday puzzle pieces of life in humble, colored-in line drawings. Each page was a fresh, funny composition of some new angle on the world, making the book a sort of quotidian picture-map containing everything imaginable and unimaginable a kid might be curious about: where and how people lived, slept, ate, played, and worked. The thing is, “people” weren’t anywhere to be seen in Best Word Book Ever. Instead, the whole world was populated by animals: rabbits, bears, pigs, cats, foxes, dogs, raccoons, lions, mice, and more. Somehow, though, that made the book’s view of life feel more real and more welcoming.” • The original cover sketch for Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, which was first published in 1974:

Zeitgeist Watch

“PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident” [BBC]. “They uncovered the hidden complex – which they have called Valeriana – using Lidar, a type of laser survey that maps structures buried under vegetation.” • “The green and twisted vines stretch far away.”

Class Warfare

“9-year-old boy among those accusing ‘Diddy’ of sexual abuse, Houston attorney Tony Buzbee confirms” [Houston Chronicle]. • Horrible, but I’m waiting for just one mover-and-shaker to get named, and I don’t mean from the entertainment industry, either.

News of the Wired

“The Secret Electrostatic World of Insects” [Wired]. “Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a honeybee. In many ways, your world is small. Your four delicate wings, each less than a centimeter long, transport your half-gram body through looming landscapes full of giant animals and plants. In other ways, your world is expansive, even grand. Your five eyes see colors and patterns that humans can’t, and your multisensory antennae detect odors from distant flowers. For years, biologists have wondered whether bees have another grand sense that we lack. The static electricity they accumulate by flying—similar to the charge generated when you shuffle across carpet in thick socks—could be potent enough for them to sense and influence surrounding objects through the air. Aquatic animals such as eels, sharks, and dolphins are known to sense electricity in water, which is an excellent conductor of charge. By contrast, air is a poor conductor. But it may relay enough to influence living things and their evolution. In 2013, Daniel Robert, a sensory ecologist at the University of Bristol in England, broke ground in this discipline when his lab discovered that bees can detect and discriminate among electric fields radiating from flowers. Since then, more experiments have documented that spiders, ticks, and other bugs can perform a similar trick.” • What a premise for a science fiction novel!

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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: Wukchumni:

Wukchumni writes: “Fall colors on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.”

* * *

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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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147 comments

  1. FreeMarketApologist

    Re: “…Walz had secret fling with daughter of top Chinese Communist official…”:

    Well, at least they didn’t fully replicate the story of Madama Butterfly.

    Reply ↓
    2. Screwball

      These flings….Wasn’t it last week or so someone came out of the past and accused Trump of something like groping them? Like from 31 years ago and just 2 weeks before the election. Some questioned this (I think Lambert even commented something about how did they miss this one) which didn’t go over well in some circles. How dare you not believe this women.

      I’m guessing the very same people who were screaming at people who didn’t believe this women will be the exact opposite on Walz. I remember the me too movement, and it seemed like that went away when one of the women accused Joe Biden. I think her name was Tara Reade.

      It is truly amazing to watch people twist their brains into pretzels defending their tribe. Which, IMO, is one of the reasons nothing will ever change.

      Reply ↓
      1. ChrisRUEcon

        > Wasn’t it last week or so someone came out of the past and accused Trump of something like groping them?

        Yep, so two can play at that game.

        Reply ↓
      2. Mark Gisleson

        Old skool October and I’m loving it. This kind of stuff takes my brain in way too many different directions but I think my favorite off the top of my head take on this is: China.

        If the party in question is and always has been a Chinese intelligence asset with Walz as the honeypot victim, you do have to wonder about the timing.

        I’m thinking that whatever China’s thinking involves retooling their industries to serve new markets in more helpful ways. Instead of making junk for us, they could be making useful items for less developed nations. Doing good instead of making landfill fill.

        Me being hopey-changey again. I’d love to think BRICS will give their people purpose, that the jobs will be real and not BS jobs like Americans have. Big stretch in logic but I have other theories if you don’t like this one.

        Reply ↓
        1. Christopher Fay

          From what I heard this week is that China exports low single digits, 5%?, of its industrial capacity to the U. S. The country is involved with building out transportation systems in Southeast Asia, 1,000 schools in Iraq, and other “China-trap” infrastructure across the world.

          The U. S. offerings are military bases, Blackrock, and the useless FU-35.

          Reply ↓
      4. Swamp Yankee

        @Screwball: do you not see a distinction between a consensual love affair that ended unhappily — though with later contact by the two lovers — as with Walz and Wang, and non-consensual groping, as is alleged by the model, Stacey Williams, with respect to Trump (and with Epstein’s alleged connivance)? I’d say the presence or absence of consent is a critical difference.

        I think you have a better case with Reade and Biden.

        Lambert also wondered last week why the allegation from Ms. Williams has only been raised in 2024, as you note. Beyond the fact that being groped against one’s will is an unpleasant and traumatic personal experience, and survivors of such groping are often understandably reluctant to discuss it, we do have further information regarding the longstanding, though private, nature of these accusations, from The Guardian, 10/23/24:

        Williams spoke about the allegations to at least two friends who spoke to the Guardian. One friend, who asked not to be named, said Williams told her about the alleged incident in 2005 or 2006 during a conversation in which Williams mentioned knowing Epstein, and how he had introduced her to Trump. The friend specifically remembers Williams telling her that she had been groped by Trump. Epstein was not a household name at the time, but the friend would later recall the anecdote when the Epstein scandal erupted.

        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/donald-trump-accuser-stacey-williams-jeffrey-epstein

        The story notes she again confided to a friend regarding her experience in 2015.

        I understand that many in the commentariat have taken the position that the Democrats are not left enough, and therefore must be “altruistically punished” by voting for the hard Right; it’s not a position I agree with, but some of you do, and that’s certainly your prerogative.

        However, the desire to presumptively construe every piece of evidence in Trump’s favor by some here is not warranted by the facts in this instance. The accusations by Ms. Williams had been privately made prior to 2024; they had prior existence stretching back nearly two decades.

        Finally, I don’t see how Ms. Williams’ allegations coming out right before the election is relevant one way or another to their accuracy. Ms. Williams certainly has every right to let the public know that she was groped by one of the two choices for chief magistrate. The same First Amendment which protects Trump’s right to attack imaginary Marxists protects Ms. Williams right to describe her experience to the American public.

        Reply ↓
        2. Anthony Noel

          Except the fact that unnamed “friends” said that they were told at some point in the early 2000’s that she was groped is not in anyway shape or form evidence. It’s just noise.

          Reply ↓
          1. Swamp Yankee

            How is it not evidence that the accusation is long-standing, albeit private, which was Lambert’s and Screwball’s objection above and last week (and they can please correct me they feel I am misstating their objections)?

            It is also evidence qua evidence. We have two accounts, one from Williams, alleging Trump groped her; one from Trump denying it. Both of these are pieces of at the very least of historical evidence; future historians (I am an historian by training, so that is how I think about evidence) will have to weigh her accusation and his denial; we will use both of their words as historical evidence. We may find this evidence inconclusive (I would say we can’t conclude anything dispositively from the evidence before us here), but it nevertheless remains evidence, not “noise.”

            Reply ↓
            1. Anthony Noel

              Except there is NO evidence that it’s long standing, which is my point. A random article claiming unnamed sources were told this decades ago is not evidence it’s assertation, unsourced and unverifiable.

              Reply ↓
          1. Swamp Yankee

            @CA — I agree with that part of the reasoning; we should stop supporting genocide and forever wars. That’s why I have no substantive disagreement with a Stein or a West voter.

            I don’t agree with the second part of the corrollary that _some_ have expressed here, that, the Democrats having failed to be a left party, must be “altruistically punished”.

            A similar view was expressed by Lambert on the 28th, in his comment on his post on the possibility of a color revolution in the United States should Trump be re-elected. At 4:54 a.m. on the 29th, Lambert commented, in response to another commenter Trevor on the subject of whether or not the Democrats believed their own rhetoric (the initial statement is Lambert quoting Trevor; I also omitted the Youtube link).

            > The simplest answer here is that they obviously don’t believe their own rhetoric.

            I hope not, but I think that’s wishful thinking.

            However, if you are correct, that may, in fact, prove as destructive to the Democrat Party as actual defeat (a desideratum, in my view*). You don’t get to crawl out on a ledge with “Fascist!!!” and then backtrack as if you never said what you said.

            [Youtube link omitted]

            NOTE Payback for Sanders.

            https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/democrat_war_games_could_they_try_for_a_color_revolution_after_a_trump_victory.html#comment-4122564

            And that is certainly, especially on his own blog, Lambert’s prerogative. It is, not however, a position I — or for that matter, Sanders — agree with.

            But reasonable people or good will can and will disagree during an election.

            Reply ↓
        1. Swamp Yankee

          I’m not sure what you’re referring to; according to the Daily Mail story linked above, Walz was 25 in 1989, and Wang was 24, and she was a teacher, not a student.

          Reply ↓
  2. Ignacio

    On bird songs and COVID lockdown. Here in Madrid the lockdown lasted for about 3 months, may be more, during the spring of 2020. One of the things i won’t ever forget were the blackbirds (Turdus merula) singing with almost not competing sounds and being amplified by the tall buildings surrounding the parks here at home.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ignacio

      This is a description of the singing by the Spanish Society of Ornithology:

      Song

      Affluted and melodic, it is very pleasant and melancholic. It consists of a long succession of short and varied stanzas, with a typical high-pitched ending. This is one of the earliest birds to start singing, sometimes as early as late winter. It has a particular alarm call, composed of a succession of high-pitched notes, emitted in an accelerated and rising tone. When it gets up in fright, it makes a very characteristic cackling sound.

      Translated with DeepL.com

      Reply ↓
  3. lyman alpha blob

    RE: lying to husbands about voting

    It’s bad, and it’s nationwide. Got a postcard in the mail in Maine yesterday addressed to my better half. It mentioned that nobody had to know what happened in the voting both, came in that fake “authentic” handwritten style, was signed by a likely pseudo-person, and was postmarked from Minnesota(!).

    Looks like the Democrat party is focusing on sincerity for the stretch run, and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

    Musical interlude from some manly men

    **waves to the woke spooks**

    Reply ↓
    1. RookieEMT

      I know it’s going to be close but I’m calling it, Trump is going to win and might outright win the popular vote too.

      The Democrats shot themselves in both feet and can’t recover. For people already skeptical, their desperate last hour theatrics are backfiring.

      Michelle Obama’s scolding sealed the deal. It’s the, ‘You owe us your vote no matter what we do’ attitude that I’ve witnessed since the Bernie campaigns. Never voting for a Democrat the rest of my life.

      Reply ↓
      1. ChrisFromGA

        Predictions are hard, especially about the future (Yogi Berra?)

        What I don’t see from the Harris camp (objectively) is any positive vision for the future or a case for why she deserves the job. I do see her landing punches with “Trump is an awful person” and negative campaigning does work, to an extent, but the fact she cannot break 50% in any national poll I’ve seen outside of a few outliers (early in the love-fest stage when Joe got defenestrated) seems to be a big warning sign.

        My prediction is that Blinken’s pathetic failure in getting any sort of cease-fire deal past the finish line after 11 tries ends up hurting her more than the pundits think, and she loses Michigan. You can extrapolate that out as you like.

        I’m hoping Stein pulls at least 5% of the popular vote.

        Reply ↓
        2. Big River Bandido

          I discovered yesterday that Jill Stein is not on the Iowa ballot. Not sure if that means she never got the signatures, or (more likely) the Democrats lawfared her out. I could still vote RFK, Jr., as he made it on the ballot. But that vote would muddy a bit the message that I want to send, which is that the Democrats need to be put down.

          Might be that I just hold my nose and vote Republican. First time ever for me, if I do.

          Reply ↓
          1. Pat

            I feel your pain, Bandido. I’m still deciding whether to write in Stein or vote Trump, as the Democrats were so successful at keeping third parties off the ballot. We got Trump, Harris or write in here in NY.

            Reply ↓
          2. Lunker Walleye

            I communicated with Jill Stein’s campaign rep in Iowa City — probably back in May. I asked for a petition form and when I received it, it appeared that the envelope had been tampered with. I reported that to the Iowa City person. Since Jill was on the ballot in 2016, I assumed there would be enough petitioners for her to be on it this election year. But I checked back before the August deadline and there were something like 95 petitioners on record.

            Reply ↓
          3. ambrit

            If neither top candidate is not to one’s liking, we could adopt Mr. Pie’s strategy, (from across the pond,) and draw a “Big Spaffing Cock” across that portion of the ballot.
            When I tried to find that video on YouTube, it returned me two videos about Roman Catholic inner political contests and a Nicholas Cage movie.
            The Internet Dragons have a wicked sense of humour!

            Reply ↓
        3. XXYY

          What I don’t see from the Harris camp (objectively) is any positive vision for the future or a case for why she deserves the job. I do see her landing punches with “Trump is an awful person”…

          This is the exact same strategy adopted by Clinton in 2016. Famously, some reporter asked Clinton why she thinks she should be elected president, and she drew a blank. Later, it was reported that her campaign had a big strategy meeting where they tried to come up with the official answer for this question. Obviously the real answer by Hillary herself would have been “because it’s my turn.” Nothing very compelling for voters here.

          I think a lot more women than would like to admit it would answer “because a female president is obviously going to do a better job than all these nasty men.” I think we have had enough female candidates in office at this point that we can see that gender per se doesn’t make much difference, and the personal history of the candidate is what’s important. I’m guessing this is a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of women, who still secretly cling to the feminist ideal that women are better as political officeholders because they are just better. Maybe I’m wrong.

          In any case, in any jurisdiction with privately financed campaigns, the powerful filtering process that lets individuals get within striking distance of political office has far more effect on the makeup of officeholders then anything else.

          Reply ↓
        4. Jason Boxman

          What is interesting is I never hear about the Libertarian Party, but it always seems to be on the ballot.

          Libertarian candidate emerges as wild card in key swing states

          Oliver will be on the ballot next Tuesday in all seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, any number of which could hold the key to the White House as the battle between Vice President Harris and former President Trump comes down to the wire.

          Interesting:

          Oliver’s pitch has focused on freedom and an antiestablishment ethos. When President Biden struggled in the running against Trump, Oliver, who is an openly gay millennial, focused on being a generational change to the incumbent, while also taking digs at Trump’s legal plight.

          Also against genocide:

          Besides economic differences, Oliver’s other biggest distinction from Harris and Trump — his opposition to Israel’s role in the war in Gaza — could further tee him up to have influence in states with substantial Arab American and Muslim populations, like Michigan.

          So it’s only Harris that’s in favor of genocide, with Trump possibly not caring either way, given his stanch support for Israel in his first term.

          Got it!

          Reply ↓
      2. aleph_0

        I’m convinced there’s a good chance that Trump wins the popular vote but loses the EC, which would instantly cue the Benny Hill theme for both Rs and Ds.

        Reply ↓
    2. Louis Fyne

      Ad campaign clearly from a person/team who does not have a healthy marriage or long-term relationship.
      IMO, if one lies about little things, one lies about the big things and vice-versa.

      Long-time donkey-elephant power couple James Carville and Mary Matalin are still married!

      Reply ↓
    3. IM Doc

      My wife got one of those cards too – instead of deceiving me in the ballot booth – she came and showed it to me as a laugh.

      My wife is a Chinese immigrant. She worked hard for her citizenship here. She and I have the most honest relationship I have ever had in this world. I got the privilege of marrying her.

      Imagine my shock yesterday evening – when she showed me the video in this tweet –

      https://x.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1851017039076606348

      This was all over her Chinese American we chat network yesterday – the comments were scorching.

      I have no explanation other than Whoopi has lost her marbles. Like so many of them have.

      They have not only lost their marbles – they have completely lost the ability to hear themselves and how nuts they sound.

      My wife has never cast a vote for a GOP President as long as she has been a voter. I last cast a GOP Presidential vote in 1984 for Reagan. Among her 40000 or so friends in that Chinese immigrant WeChat women’s group – the last poll was 88% Trump – where it had been in the 90% range for Hillary just 8 short years ago.

      Please note – that massive of a shift takes hard work – and the Dems have certainly put in the hard work. It has taken them years – but they have finally arrived in complete pretzel format – indiscriminately angering all kinds of voters in pursuit of their strange woke goals. Encouraging spouses to lie to one another – and suggesting deportation for the immigrants married to the white boys. My God – I cannot even wrap my brain around the insanity of it all. Can they not hear how horribly racist they sound?

      But JD Vance is weird?

      As my Marine great uncle from WWII used to say all the time when met with things in life that made no sense – WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!

      Our votes are not really for Trump – they are to put the stake through the heart of this monster before it consumes us all. When so many of your fellow citizens are deluded like this, the recovery is going to be harrowing – but the sooner the dislocation comes, the better it will be for us all and our children.

      Reply ↓
      1. lyman alpha blob

        That’s quite the video from Whoopi. So evidently Trump is going to deport JD Vance’s wife.

        Greenwald pointed out last night that Trump’s MS Garden rally had black, Jewish and Indian speakers among others, and Trump might receive a record percentage of Hispanic votes this year. Meanwhile the Democrat party are assisting the Zionist entity in blowing brown people to smithereens and disappearing them all from Gaza, but it’s supposedly the Republicans who are the racists.

        Reply ↓
      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > TRUST WOMEN

        Especially when they lie to you about their vote, as the party that putatitvely represents them encourages them to do?

        (To be clear, nobody can look inside a marriage from the outside and be sure what’s going on. But for the Democrats to encourage one spouse* to lie to the other, wowsers.)

        NOTE * I use the non-gendered term in case the Democrats have a separate mailing targeted at non-traditional relationships.

        Reply ↓
    7. John Wright

      I know someone in Massachusetts who sent out 100 letters TO OHIO to encourage voters to support Senator Sherrod Brown.

      After reading Wikipedia , Brown seems worthy of support as his positions are good, in my view, in many ways.

      However, I doubt if an encouraging letter from an out of state voter will change many minds.

      It did provide more revenue to the USPS, which I see as a positive.

      Reply ↓
      1. Big River Bandido

        Again, this has become typical for the Democrats. Heaven forfend we allow our voters to organize themselves and canvass their own neighbors. Why would we do that when we can spend a billion dollars and hire paid “professionals” from 500 miles away to canvass and do it “right”?

        Reply ↓
    8. John Anthony La Pietra

      My postcard story is a little different. The handwriting looks genuine (variations in how a given letter appears that I think wouldn’t be there for computer-printed “cursive”) — and if someone were going to print that, they probably wouldn’t bother to slap on an address label with the URL of the Michigan Voter Information Center. But there are other, um, interesting elements to the story.

      “[This postcard] was closer to regular size, 3-1/2″ x 5-1/2”. It was originally blank except for preprinted “Forever” postage, a 2021 copyright to the USPS, and the image of a male mallard duck. This one came from San Francisco (ZIP code region 940, compared to our local 490 region) — and I presume the bar code below matches that. There’s a standard size 30-to-a-page address label saying, “Please visit mvic.sos.state.mi.us (which is the correct URL for the Michigan Voter Information Center) to find your registration clerk and polling location.” Other than that, the message (and the address on the other side of the card, complete with the ZIP+4 number) are handwritten in blue ink — though I’ll withhold the first name of the handwriter (and I don’t have her last name).

      The main message:

      “As a volunteer, I urge you to register and vote Democratic. Dems will protect your voting and reproductive rights [and] economic fairness.”

      But what stands out to me most is that the card was addressed to “Ann Lapietra”.

      I guess the computer list the volunteer was given didn’t show our family name in its normal two parts. But that’s no biggie — we’re used to seeing our name in various forms.

      The big deal is that Ann La Pietra was my mother . . . and she’s been dead for over 15 years, and never lived at the address the card was sent to.

      (It is the address of the house where my family and I now live — and the address of my campaign “headquarters”, such as that is.)

      I noticed a few other things, too. For one, if Mom were still alive, she would be 91 — so, while she did support reproductive rights, they probably wouldn’t be hers. And for another, Michigan doesn’t have voter registration by party, so Mom couldn’t have registered Democratic since before our family moved to Michigan back in 1978.

      Oh, yes, and she was active in peace groups wherever we lived — I still have some of her T-shirts, and I wear them in her honor from time to time. So I doubt she’d be very happy with today’s Democratic Party.
      If I had a return address so I could write back to that volunteer, I’d say something like this.

      Whoever you are, I thank you for your concern about my mother — someone you never had the honor to meet — and I respect your enthusiasm. But you were badly misinformed about her and her situation. And the best impact I can see coming out of this is that you look into what else, out of all that party’s been telling you, was misinformation too — and you find a better party to give your loyalty.

      * [=======] * [=======] * [=======] *

      This story (posted with one about another postcard) is on my Facebook profile. I’d have linked to the post, but the URL comes out ridiculously long — so I’ll just paste in the post’s text and link to the profile. I think the commentariat can find the post.

      https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013354926651

      Reply ↓
  4. Roquentin

    I’m a little in awe of how bad the marketing of Harris/Walz has been during this campaign. Their ads have been resoundingly tone deaf. My stance from the day Biden dropped out is that she should have stayed as far away from identity politics and culture war issues as possible and marketed herself as the “make everything go back to normal” candidate. The Dems just can’t help themselves though, and it’s as if they don’t know how to do politics any other way.

    Like why harp on the gender stuff so much? Everyone already knows Harris is a woman, she doesn’t need to posture in that direction. Just act rational and professional and contrast that with the vulgar clown show that is Trump. Really bizarre that they didn’t take that angle.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I’m a little in awe of how bad the marketing of Harris/Walz has been during this campaign. Their ads have been resoundingly tone deaf.

      I’ve heard the comment made that Trump self-censors very badly; and that he expresses the Republican id. But the Democrat hive mind seems to do the same thing, but collectively.

      Reply ↓
    2. Mark Gisleson

      It’s corporatist groupthink. They purge their top ranks of dissenting voices so when they come up with something really stupid, no one in the room dares speak otherwise (assuming there’s anyone left in the room capable of breaking with groupthink).

      Walz is Governor of Minnesota. Bill Hillsman is a Minnesotan who has a deep understanding of advertising. When I drove Markos Moulitsas around Minneapolis for a day decades ago, his last stop was to hook up with Bill Hillsman. Serious people seek him out. The Democratic party does not.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bugs

        My sense is that the Kamala handlers don’t want anything to do with Walz except as a token of flyover (I detest that term, btw). Of course he likely has some good ideas and a network that could help them, he didn’t get elected governor of a state with a big urban / rural divide without building a coalition, after all. But those “folks” are all hicks, don’t ya know. They laugh behind his back and make him apologize for gaffes. Beyonce and Springsteen would never be seen near the people whose votes he earned. I was always happy to read that when Prince collaborated with people, he had them come out to the cold expanses of Minnesota…

        Reply ↓
        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          ” Flyover” is a term representing the point of view of people who “fly over” us. Perhaps we should adopt the term “flownover”. We are the people who get “flown over” , out here in Flownover Country.

          Reply ↓
      2. Big River Bandido

        Markos Moulitsas is a serious person?

        His blog’s 2016 purge of Sanders supporters undermines this claim.

        Reply ↓
        1. Glen

          I think joined dkos in early 2005 so I was reading and posting way back when W was President, but just pretty much gave up on the place during Obama’s first term. I think I came to the conclusion that if FDR had “saved capitalism” then Obama had “saved the crooks” which was not very well received over there.

          Reply ↓
    3. kareninca

      “Just act rational and professional”

      But Harris isn’t rational and professional. Take a look at the clips of her cackling with glee at the Commonwealth club as she describes how she’s jailing the parents of truant kids by sending her toughest and meanest cops. She’s a sadist.

      Reply ↓
      1. Roquentin

        I’m a little late with this response, but just the same I don’t think Kamala Harris is a sadist, at all. I think she’s just a very devoted social climber who will always side with the powerful to get ahead. There’s a difference, and obviously this strategy has served her well because she’s managed to be a serious contender for the presidency which is no small thing.

        And I should also say “rational and professional relative to Trump.” It’s a low bar to clear and it’s sad how badly the Dems are fumbling the bag on this one.

        Reply ↓
  5. Cassandra

    I imagine the genocide protesters will be delighted to hear Harris’s thoughts about their “right to be heard and seen.” I’m sure she will get right on expunging their wrongful arrest records.

    Reply ↓
  6. lyman alpha blob

    Speaking of fascism (the real kind, not the phony version the Democrats accuse everyone but themselves of adhering to), I forgot to mention yesterday that October 28 is Oxi Day in Greece, in remembrance of Metaxas telling Mussolini to pound sand back in 1940.

    When I was in Crete in the 90s, we heard stories of the Cretan resistance which was largely old men, women and children since all adult males were off fighting. They would attack Axis paratroopers with pitchforks as they tried to land. Later that summer in an excavation of Minoan ruins, we uncovered the skeleton of a WWII Italian soldier with dog tags still around the neck. I’m sure some of the older locals had to have known the remains were there, and apparently those stories were quite true.

    Reply ↓
      1. John Anthony La Pietra

        Well, I must admit I’ve always thought fascism was a “there can only be one” kind of phenomenon. (Like a sort of self-made royalty? . . .)

        Reply ↓
  7. polar donkey

    Just went to early vote in Shelby County Tennessee (Memphis). Took about 30 minutes. Early voting in Shelby County is down 30% from this point in 2020. Shelby and Davidson (Nashville) are two big democratic counties in Tennessee. My sister voted Saturday in rural middle Tennessee. She said took an hour. There might be a Democrat in that county.

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  8. polar donkey

    Tennessee has 99 counties. So far, Davidson and Shelby in bottom 10 for turnout. Shelby is 32% and Davidson is 30%.

    Reply ↓
  9. caucus99percenter

    As a toddler, I grew up with and loved Richard Scarry’s The Animals’ Merry Christmas. Good to see editions of it are still in print.

    Reply ↓
    1. petal

      I was raised on Richard Scarry. He was my favourite. Had a few of his books. The characters came to feel like friends. Read them all the time. He was one of the authors I was most excited about reading to my future children but I didn’t get to have them.

      Reply ↓
    2. ArcadiaMommy

      My sisters and I read these books and my boys loved them to pieces. They would screech with laughter at the silly scenes and they read by age four.

      Reply ↓
    3. chris

      If you’d like to enjoy a fun take on similar ideas as an adult, try the comic, “Beneath the trees where nobody sees.” It’s essentially Dexter in Busy Town.

      Reply ↓
  10. Mikel

    “New Acquisitions: 1933 and the Definition of Fascism” [A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry].

    They’re so screwed in the head, they aren’t even taking into account Trump is kicking 80 in the ass…

    Reply ↓
      1. Revenant

        That the honourable candidate is a tad long in the tooth and is coming up on four score years upon this orb and would not have much time or energy for a triumph of the will. Or summat.

        Reply ↓
    2. Jeff V

      I did appreciate that the ACOUP blogger did take the time to explain why he thought Trump was a fascist – everyone else of that view seems to think it is self-evident.

      Comments are turned off on that post, ostensibly to avoid a history blog being derailed by political wrangling – of course, the easiest way to avoid political wrangling is not to have posts about “why I think (candidate) is a (bad thing)”. Had comments been available, I’d probably have made one along the lines of “this sort of article is not what I signed up for on Patreon and I request that you don’t do any more of them”.

      The ACOUP guy also has very “mainstream” views about things like Putin and Ukraine. I find it hard to understand how when it comes to things that happened centuries ago he can carefully analyse conflicting sources, identify bias, accept opinions and interpretations may differ, and come to tentative conclusions that he’s happy to reconsider if more evidence comes to light – whilst also assuming the MSM reporting of current events is made entirely in good faith, is broadly accurate and anyone who disagrees with it is either a liar or an idiot (or both).

      Reply ↓
  11. Ignacio

    Hedge restoration. This made me curious to find if there is anybody making the same in Spain. I found a foundation rooted in Spain but with members in both Americas which is basically involved on promoting hedges in agricultural spaces and educating on the same. They have associates in the US.
    FIRE Members that one can email by country.

    Reply ↓
    1. PlutoniumKun

      In England there are traditional hedge laying patterns (depending on where you cut the tree and how you bound it up during laying) and specific tools called billhooks for doing the work (at one billhooks bilhooks were banned in Ireland as they were used when travelling families decided to go to war). I used to do volunteer conservation work around Birmingham and London – it was fun to try to work out what the local pattern used to be and recreate it when ‘laying’ hedges.

      In Ireland, well laid hedges were called ‘Protestant hedges’ as it was always claimed Protestants preferred neatness – their catholic neighbours preferred ditches and to let the Hawthorne grow naturally. You can still clearly see this pattern in many parts of the north of Ireland.

      Hedge laying is getting an unexpected lift in Ireland recently due to the unexpected outcome of the growth of solar farms and a court case. For reasons too convoluted to explain, solar farm developers now opt to replant and reinforce the traditional hedgerow pattern on new solar farms in order to avoid falling under the EIA Directive, so they are happy to pay for what now amounts to thousands of metres of new hedges to go along with the new panels.

      Reply ↓
        1. Revenant

          Here is a site for Lambert that it has never occurred to me to send him! The Beaford Arts Centre Archive, specifically of the rural documentary photographs of Roger Deakin (before he became Ridley Scott’s Director of Photography on Bladerunner) and then James Ravilious.

          James Ravilious’s famous candid picture of hedge laying here, catching Stephen Squire having a tea break.

          https://beafordarchive.org/archive-image/hedgers-lunch-break-stephen-squire-2/#image

          More lovely hedge laying scenes here, all involving our magnificent neighbour and grazier, Stephen, now sadly living with cancer but still actively farming.

          https://beafordarchive.org/?s=Stephen+Squire

          What you see is what we Devonians call a hedge (it’s clearly what god intended) but deprived folk from elsewhere would call a hedgebank. There’s a good four feet or more of mud dug out, to form a ditch with the thick mud bank built up along it and the hedge planted on top and laid to make a stock-proof enclosure.

          Devon has thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of miles of these. Our farm has at least ten miles of them (quick estimate) over 315 acres. Many enclosures in Devon date from the bronze age: the open field system of mediaeval fame was rare.

          Sadly these days the hedges are mainly flailed back by tractor. Environmental schemes pay for them to be cut every three years but laying is far better for creating varied habitat. Hedge laying is very popular with retired people but they won’t travel for their hobby – the Devon Hedge Laying Society is desperate for hedges to lay in the retirement hotspots around Dartmoor but can’t get its members to travel fifteen miles up to me. :-(

          This countryside of small fields and woods and hedgebanks amid rolling hills is unique to Devon and parts of Cornwall (not the Atlantic lashed west hiding behind granite walls) and Somerset (not the great marshes of the levels) and Dorset (not the chalk downs in the East) and to our sister country over the water in Brittany and particularly Normandy. The type name for this landscape is “bocage” after the countryside of the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy, where D-day landed. It is a great irony of military planning that the British and American forces were uniquely suited to the two halves of the Cotentin, the lightly armoured British foot soldiers to traversing the familar bocage on one side and the US tanks and lorries to the chalk downs on the other – so they were assigned to the opposite landing spots and zones and the Germans made mincemeat of the US forces unable to charge through the hedgebanks and race for Paris and the British lack adequate lorries or armour to capitalise on the open land in front of them.

          To come full circle, the annual hedge inspection and upkeep on Jersey, the British Channel island off the Cotentin, is called the vrancage (Norman french cognate of branch). Woe betide a Jerruer who does not keep what PK calls a Protestant hedge!

          Reply ↓
      2. Revenant

        Hi PK,

        what is the reason for the solar parks and hedges, some sort of biodiversity net gain requirement? A hedge is nice and low, blocks the view that people object to and casts no shade on the panels so you can see why they love them!

        My father in law the botanist despairs of what tidy Protestant farmers have done to the grasslands and wildflower meadows and bogs of the North. In “defence” of the untidy Catholics, they were pushed off the best land by the Prods onto bog and moor and mountain so you can see why there was no incentive to invest in labour intensive hedge laying for a few sorry sheep….

        Most importantly, have you watched Kneecap yet?! It’s not too late to get yourself to Vicars Street in Dublin and see them all this week live, wild, mental and intense!

        Reply ↓
        1. Dermot O Connor

          If you want a real horror show, google the Lough Neagh algal blooms. Largest freshwater body in the ‘British’ Isles, it’s a goner. Not even the Republic’s cack-handed incompetents have messed anything up that badly. Saw one vid of the shore bright green, you could easily be seriously injured or die if you fell in.

          Reply ↓
          1. Revenant

            Indeed. They tell me about it. Although it is equally unhealthy when it is clear, the clarity in the troughs of the algal cycle is because the ecosystem is dead.

            They fear Lough Erne is going the same way. We swam in the loughs in summer but they have banned the family from swims in many of them. All the fault of farmers and slurry and fertiliser run-off causing eutrophication because of the great dairy boom, keeping cows indoors 24/7 like milk machines and cutting empty fields for silage three times a year.

            Reply ↓
      3. Ignacio

        Do these hedges (and the directive) provide only for “greening” the environment or is it also planned to shield from strong winds? In Ireland stronger than in most of Spain.

        Reply ↓
        1. Revenant

          Yes, the hedgebank provides substantial shelter and shade for livestock. The hedge top is typically eight feet or more.

          Usually there are trees in the hedge at least every 30m, often much closer (especially if a laid hedge has been allowed to grow out).

          Shelter from the Atlantic wind is also very important in Cornwall for crops. They have very small fields with drystone walls and with hedges, for early potatoes and tender vegetables (asparagus) and for bulbs (daffodils) and other cut flowers.

          Reply ↓
    2. Bugs

      In France it’s done in Basque country, there’s a Basque word but I forget it. I’m sure a quick search will help lol. I was very enthusiastic about trying it out but nobody will help me up here in Normandy and as you can see, it’s a lot of grueling work. In the north of the country, there’s different and I would say inferior hedge tradition of the haie taillée – basically let it go nuts for a long period and then cut it down to 1m, pushing small cut branches under and using the larger diameter wood for building and heat. Leaves for mulch and fodder, etc. There are new rules to preserve them, I think I mentioned that here before… it’s led to us having a much larger variety of birds, insects and even mushrooms around the land. Happy about that…

      Reply ↓
      1. Revenant

        I forgot to mention, a well laid hedge will go 10-15 years between lays. Whereas hedges need mechanical cutting every three or so if they are not to get too leggy and lose their habitat value. Plus unlaid hedges requite barbed wire fencing on the inside if them to retain stock, at c. £10/m. It made great sense each winter to lay a portion of the farm hedges, working around the whole farm and then starting again. But labour is expensive, barbed wire cheap, tractors a sunk cost.

        Reply ↓
    3. Revenant

      Here is a site for Lambert that it has never occurred to me to send him! The Beaford Arts Centre Archive, specifically of the rural documentary photographs of Roger Deakin (before he became Ridley Scott’s Director of Photography on Bladerunner) and then James Ravilious.

      James Ravilious’s famous candid picture of hedge laying here, catching Stephen Squire having a tea break.

      https://beafordarchive.org/archive-image/hedgers-lunch-break-stephen-squire-2/#image

      More lovely hedge laying scenes here, all involving our magnificent neighbour and grazier, Stephen, now sadly living with cancer but still actively farming.

      https://beafordarchive.org/?s=Stephen+Squire

      What you see is what we Devonians call a hedge (it’s clearly what god intended) but deprived folk from elsewhere would call a hedgebank. There’s a good four feet or more of mud dug out, to form a ditch with the thick mud bank built up along it and the hedge planted on top and laid to make a stock-proof enclosure.

      Devon has thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of miles of these. Our farm has at least ten miles of them (quick estimate) over 315 acres. Many enclosures in Devon date from the bronze age: the open field system of mediaeval fame was rare.

      Sadly these days the hedges are mainly flailed back by tractor. Environmental schemes pay for them to be cut every three years but laying is far better for creating varied habitat. Hedge laying is very popular with retired people but they won’t travel for their hobby – the Devon Hedge Laying Society is desperate for hedges to lay in the retirement hotspots around Dartmoor but can’t get its members to travel fifteen miles up to me. :-(

      This countryside of small fields and woods and hedgebanks amid rolling hills is unique to Devon and parts of Cornwall (not the Atlantic lashed west hiding behind granite walls) and Somerset (not the great marshes of the levels) and Dorset (not the chalk downs in the East) and to our sister country over the water in Brittany and particularly Normandy. The type name for this landscape is “bocage” after the countryside of the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy, where D-day landed. It is a great irony of military planning that the British and American forces were uniquely suited to the two halves of the Cotentin, the lightly armoured British foot soldiers to traversing the familar bocage on one side and the US tanks and lorries to the chalk downs on the other – so they were assigned to the opposite landing spots and zones and the Germans made mincemeat of the US forces unable to charge through the hedgebanks and race for Paris and the British lacked the transport and armour to take advantage of the open way before them.

      To come full circle, the annual hedge inspection and upkeep on Jersey, the British Channel island off the Cotentin, is called the vrancage (Norman french cognate of branch). Woe betide a Jerruer who does not keep what PK calls a Protestant hedge!

      Reply ↓
  12. Bettylou

    Stats Watch
    “The number of job openings fell by 418,000 to 7.443 million in September 2024 from a downwardly revised 7.861 million in August and below market expectations of 7.99 million. It is the lowest level since January 2021.”

    How can Harris claim the economy is going great with those numbers?

    Around here, at least every other storefront has a For Lease or For Rent sign on it.
    How stupid do the elite think we voters are? Smart people hoard their cash under the mattress, in C.D.s or in tangible things. Prices are slowly dropping and the longer you wait the better to spend it.

    https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/10/27/americas-glorious-economy-should-help-kamala-harris

    Reply ↓
  13. Lunker Walleye

    Grateful for the link to the hand painted color book by the Dutch artist and the adorable illustration with animals in traffic. They gave me a lift after struggling for access to my Go Diddly email account which has been going on too long!

    Reply ↓
  14. Lee

    Permaculture

    This is the UK. What would be an equivalent candidate for restoration in the United States?

    Restoring hedges as “wildlife corridors”. For what, small birds and rodents? Perhaps if the Brits reintroduced some of their extirpated terrestrial megafauna I would be a bit more impressed. As it is, their largest remaining wild carnivore is a badger. Not that I have anything against hedges, small birds or rodents, and badgers are utterly charming. I’ve always prudently and with due deference given them right of way when our paths have crossed. I once saw and was rooting for a badger holding off four wolves for a good long while til at last they all leapt as one and quartered the feisty fellow. How’s that for equivalency?

    Reply ↓
  16. sardonia

    So, on Kammy’s little “You don’t have to tell your husbands who you voted for” advice – I guess this means that if she loses, her excuse will be – “It’s worse than I thought! All these wives aren’t just handmaid’s, they all have Stockholm Syndrome!”

    She’ll spend a week curled up in a blanket, watching “The Stepford Wives” over and over.

    Reply ↓
  17. John k

    Polls accuracy this time…
    Rather than trying to guess whether msm polls are as biased this time as in past 2 cycles, I just look at Emerson, perhaps least biased in 2020, about 1% tilted to Biden, and which has been indicating trump might sweep the swings excl MN.
    However, msm is as frothily for Harris as they were for Biden in 2020, trump = hitler this will be our last election level tds, such that imo it might have infected their pollsters again. Bloomberg almost seems to limit polling to registered dems. My recollection is it wasn’t as bad in 2016 bc she was obviously going to win.
    Happily voted stein today…. How wonderful if everybody did.

    Reply ↓
  18. Louis Fyne

    Richard Scarry was/is great! (IMO, many) Children’s books today have ugly fonts, ugly illustrations, and are too abstract for little kids. https://www.nytimes.com/column/childrens-books

    Kids’ diet was heavy on Eric Carle and Scarry books (minus some anachronisms from the editions printed when I was a kid) plus lots of 40+ year-old kid books that the in-laws held onto.

    I guess that the Richard Scarry style is considered outdated as nothing like Scarry’s work is on the “New Releases” shelf for kids. But if I wanted to read to a 2 year-old about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, boy, do I have choices!

    If you are a new parent wondering about which books to get….older is better (both for the kids learning and your wallet, lol) ymmv.

    Reply ↓
  20. Wukchumni

    The first storm of the year for a good part of the west would be great for starting prepared prescribed fires and then let them go for a few days and have Mother Nature do all they heavy lifting of putting them out.

    It would be considerably cheaper than responding to wildfires by smothering them with money, as is our penchant.

    Reply ↓
  21. aj

    RE: Fascism

    Just another pejorative that has negative connotations, but zero actual meaning. Most political or economic ideologies have a body of work or some text that espouse their tenets. Communism has the Communist Manifesto and Capital. Democracy has the Declaration of Indepenedance and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man. You can also find modern-day proponents of these philosophies. I can easily find someone who will claim to be a Communist, Socialist, Neo-Liberal, etc.

    In contrast to the above, fascism has no real text or body of work created by those from within the movement. There are plenty of works written by those claiming this or that is fascist, but always from the outside looking in, never from within the movement itself. There are also no modern-day adherents to any philosophy calling itself fascist. We label others as “fascist” if we think they are too authoritarian or too populist, etc, but no one actually places that label on themselves.

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia

      Well, there is the well-known “La dottrina del fascismo” (1932) by Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, and various essays that were gathered in Fascism : An Anthology (ed. Nathanael Greene).

      Few would identify with the positions in any of the primary texts today (Mussolini himself evidently disavowed “La dottrina del fascismo” by 1940), or perhaps fascism = corporatism is too inconveniently close to what we’re living under now.

      Reply ↓
      1. MFB

        Also I believe there’s a thing called “My Struggle” which offers a few pointers.

        One reason why there is so little enthusiasm in the West for identifying what fascism is all about, is that so many of the countries beloved by the West were and are fascist, or at least with fascist leanings.

        Reply ↓
  22. hk

    WRT Enten’s observation about 2022 polls being off, the key question to ask is how the turnout patterns differed from what was expected, not whether the results met the expectation. I was not in touch with the polling people in 2022, nor did I have raw data at that time, but rough overview of what people noted after the election suggest that two things were what they found in 2022: 1) turnout among the college educated whites was high, while that for non-college educated in general was low (although neither was necessarily too different from 2018, a historic high turnout midterm); 2) turnout among the young of all races was down, even in comparison to 2018. I would guess that, based on the lesson of 2016 and 2020 elections (but apparently, not 2018(!) the pollsters were expecting a lot higher turnout among the non-college whites. (the actual turnout in both 2018 and 2022 was about 70% for college educated whites and 50% for non-college educated whites. I’m getting the turnout numbers from a Brookings paper: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-voter-turnout-data-from-2022-shows-some-surprises-including-lower-turnout-for-youth-women-and-black-americans-in-some-states/)

    One would expect a higher turnout among the non college educated voters in a presidential election than a midterm. This is generally the case to begin with, but especially given the appeal of Trump and the apparent broad dislike of the Biden-Harris administration among this demographic. I’ll wager that under estimation of turnout among this cohort was generally the reason behind why the polls were off in 2016 and 2020. I have no idea how they are dealing with this problem now, though…

    Reply ↓
    1. hk

      Some numbers to consider (I’m taking these out of the latest NYT/Siena polls, which has excellent crosstabs, although they are nightmarish to make sense thereof.)

      Their sample includes about 40% of the electorate would be made up of college grads and 60% non college grads. This seems reasonable.

      Their poll has 48% for Harris, 48% for Trump, more or less. 30% of the Trump voters and 20% of Harris come from HS subset (I’m skipping steps since I’m being a bit lazy). So that comes to 60-40 split, more or less for HS grad demographic. For bachelor’s degree holders, the split is 28% of Harri’s and 21% of Trumps. So that’s 57.1% vs. 42.9%, more or less for this demographic.

      In 2020, 43% of their sample went for Biden and 39% for Trump (14% did not vote). So 52.4% for Biden, which seems about right (52.3% was the share of just Dem/GOP votes for Biden). 18% of the Biden coalition came from HS voters and 27% of Trumps, implying 42.4 vs. 57.6 breakdown among this demographic. For bachelor’s degree holders, 59.2 vs. 40.8 breakdown.

      So, it seems like Harris has slipped about 2% evenly vs Biden in 2020 for both college and non-college demographics? (Using bachelor’s and HS grad populations as stand ins, b/c I’m being a bit lazy this afternoon). I’m a bit skeptical about this. You’d expect the changes to vary a bit uneven: I’d have figured that Harris would be at least fairly even with Biden for college grads but lost ground more with HS grads. This conveniently implies that an unexpectedly large non-college turnout, especially of the whites, would lead to unexpected results. NYT/Siena polls, conveniently, discounts the potential impact of uneven turnout “errors” across voter types.

      Reply ↓
  24. The Rev Kev

    “9-year-old boy among those accusing ‘Diddy’ of sexual abuse, Houston attorney Tony Buzbee confirms” [Houston Chronicle]. • Horrible, but I’m waiting for just one mover-and-shaker to get named, and I don’t mean from the entertainment industry, either.

    Come, come, come. We are still waiting for Epstein’s records to come out and how many years has it been since he was silenced? In addition, having the Obamas attend Diddy’s parties makes the whole thing radioactive.

    Reply ↓
    1. begob

      Soft White Underbelly posted an interview a couple of weeks ago with a woman claiming she attended a Diddy orgy – ‘freak off’ – and for once the Youtube comments are informative. Seems she previously made the allegations, and is now getting wider attention – but then … what’s it all worth? Sift and weigh, sift and weigh.

      Reply ↓
    1. Jason Boxman

      Jumped the gun a bit, posted from mobile, but they do repeat the bleach talking point twice, which we know was taken out of context as what Trump says often is.

      No mention at all of COVID deaths, for which Biden is the clear winner. A few interviewed voters state that the Pandemic continues and are noted as being masked, so that’s good.

      Reply ↓
  27. Not Again

    I wonder if Latino voters noticed.

    I don’t think so. Everything is good Election Day. Clear sailing ahead.
    2024 is gonna make 2016 look like Russia never helped.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/26/arizona-latino-voters-harris-trump-00184233

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/17/kamala-harris-latino-men-swing-states-00184270

    https://www.abc15.com/news/national-politics/election-2024/renewed-focus-on-swaying-arizonas-hispanic-voters-as-election-day-approaches

    https://www.deseret.com/politics/2024/10/16/kamala-harris-latino-voters/

    Reply ↓
    2. IM Doc

      Not sure if he was trying to upstage her again, but Biden just had a speech where he called Trump supporters human garbage.

      Never ever in my wildest dreams did I ever see the day coming that the sitting President would call half his people “human garbage”. It really is something to behold.

      I really do dread what is headed our way.

      Reply ↓
      1. Screwball

        I just watched that. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

        I couldn’t agree more. This isn’t going to be pretty not matter who wins.

        Reply ↓
      2. The Rev Kev

        Didn’t work for Hillary when she called his supporters deplorables back in 2016. I guess that he his still resentful how he was pushed to the side and wants to sabotage Harris which is why her campaign has been keeping him at arm’s length.

        Reply ↓
  29. chris

    The early voting results and other trends discussed on Breaking Points today make it seem like Kamala is our next president, and the vote count might not even be close. More like 50% Kamala to 45% Trump. I’m not sure if that’s correct, but I have the general sense that she will win. I also have the general sense that the minute she thinks she has won we’ll see something close to martial law imposed to preempt any riots or demonstrations by people supporting her opponent.

    My plan for Tuesday November 5 has not changed. I’m hiding in bed until it’s safe go come out!

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith

      This is the opposite of what a superdelegate who gets the internal polling data has been saying:

      The 27th:

      Other than a very slight uptick for the Kamala numbers, [the superdelegate] remains very glum.

      There is now apparently massive infighting in multiple factions of the Dem Party. He is hoping they win just for this reason alone, “it is going to get really ugly if we lose.” They have written off the Senate.

      There are 2 things at play that are known unknowns – no poll will ever be able to know – and so at this point they are worthless.

      1) How many of the just unheralded massive early GOP vote is actually moved forward from the traditional show up on Election Day crowd – and how many of them are brand new. There is some evidence that a good number of them are actually new voters – but they just do not really know. How many of the massive numbers the GOP has registered are actually showing up – and that appears to be quite a lot more than expected –

      2) The Dems seem to not be showing up…..are they waiting until this week or Election Day? – Or are we having a very severe Dem turnout problem – still too early to tell.

      Yesterday:

      I am beginning to really worry about my superdelegate neighbor – saw him today after a run –

      He is now reporting to me that Trump is ahead in the internal polls in NH and VA and tied in NM – The rumor is Trump will soon be doing a rally in Albuquerque.

      Reply ↓
      2. chris

        Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

        The one good thing about elections is sooner or later we get actual data and an actual answer. I hope that we can live with whatever else we get from whomever is elected.

        Reply ↓
      3. Lefty Godot

        I would not be surprised to see Trump take NH. In my travels through there the Trump signs outnumber the Harris signs by quite a bit. And the state used to be reliably Republican, before Massachusetts tax exiles began infiltrating the Nashua vicinity.

        Reply ↓
  30. Culp Creek Curmudgeon

    About that enemy within. Didn’t two people attempt to assassinate Trump? If that’s not enemies within I don’t know what is

    Reply ↓
  31. Craig H.

    Buzbee will do here precisely what Boies did with Epstein. Extract king’s-ransom-size-hush-money for his clients who will keep the big names out of it. Well maybe not king’s ransom. Maybe just prince’s ransom.

    The public will get the same level of disclosure. Near none.

    Boies got another 290 million out of J. P. Morgan last year.

    Reply ↓
  32. JustTheFacts

    It’s unfortunate for the Dreamers that the Dems did nothing to regularize their situation, and instead opened the borders to everyone, illegally. Dreamers have US culture, having been brought up here, and did not violate the law willfully when they came since they were tiny children. Yet their shot at integration is probably now in jeopardy. Quite a different story for illegal migrants who knew they were violating the law.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jason Boxman

      What about illegal employers, that are violating the law, but laundering it out through outsourcing and staffing firms. If there were no jobs, no one would come.

      Such a mystery why this isn’t tackled at the source.

      Reply ↓
  33. Ben Panga

    Pres. Biden tonight:

    “Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community…just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage?…The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

    Yep, that’ll help!

    Reply ↓
    1. Randall Flagg

      And Trump, with rest of the Republicans are the divisive ones with their rhetoric… Sweet Jesus. Can’t wait to see how Harris distances herself from that as she is preaching unity.

      Reply ↓
  34. Jason Boxman

    (If the famous gallows comes up as a talking point during Kamala’s speech, nobody knows who put it up, why the Park Service didn’t take it down, or even whether it was functional.)

    And they, the intelligence services, have all the geolocation data up the wazoo. So if no one knows, still, who erected this, that is truly curious indeed, is it not?

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Like that pipe bomb found during the January 6th riots. All that high tech and camera footage but they just can’t work out who put it there. Such a mystery. No wonder nobody ever talks about it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Jason Boxman

        Ha ha. Or the fact that no one had any weapons in the “assault” on the capitol. Like, if there were, that’s all we’d hear about for the past 4 whatever years. But liberal Democrats believe whatever they’re told to believe, and they believe hard, never ask why.

        Reply ↓
        1. Pat

          And we’ll never know why there was minimal DC police presence and the DC National Guard unit took longer to get to the Capitol than units from the neighboring states. Nor why all the chatter was ignored (DC Police and National Guard) or not received (Capitol Police command)…

          Reply ↓
  35. Louiedog14

    It’s late and there’s an election to fret over, but music is often a topic here.

    Here’s a piece by Kristin Hersh about Sinead O’Connor in the Guardian. It ends up being more about the weird, wonderful, scary insides of a very original musician’s mind then anything else (Hersh’s mostly). I think some of you will appreciate it.Kristin meets Sinead

    I was a bit in love with Kristin back in the day. Her band Throwing Muses first album remains a favorite still. Here’s a cut: Rabbit’s Dying

    Reply ↓
    1. johnnyme

      All of their albums are great but their first one is something really unique and special. I’ve been listening to that one for almost 40 years now and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.

      A friend of mine got to see them play their first show in Minneapolis at the 7th Street Entry (a small, 250 person, standing-room-only stage that used to be the coatroom of the legendary First Avenue nightclub) and he said it was the most intensely mesmerizing show he’d ever seen.

      Many, many years later, I got to see her spin-off band, 50 Foot Wave, play in The Entry. They were on fire that night and were kind enough to stick around after the show to sign autographs.

      Reply ↓
  37. Jason Boxman

    I think the only thing that this campaign has brought to the fore is that all American agree that it’ll be great when it is finally over.

    I was able to successfully vote today in NC, without anyone bothering me about my P100 respirator, despite the NC mask “ban” law that foolishly means I’d have to remove it upon request. (Imagine doing that during a chemical weapons attack, or wildfire smoke?)

    In my mostly not populated rural area, there wasn’t much of a line, but all the 10 or so voting stations (eVoting, of course) were filled. I had to sign agreeing that I won’t vote again, and obviously it is a felony to do so.

    Our touch screens have you insert a “ballot” you get with an ID or barcode on it, then you click through screens and select a candidate for each election. You can skip, but it nags you. I wonder if this will increase people voting for randoms when they don’t care? This might hurt write-in candidates, when someone just wants to move on, and kicks the non-write-in candidate when only 1 is on the screen. I’m not sure, but the names might have been randomized, didn’t seem alphabetical? Don’t quote me on this though.

    Upon completion, you get back your “ballot” with a list of names in English for each race, and a bunch of barcodes that are obviously unreadable. Anyone that’s been in software engineering or adjacently in IT knows that this doesn’t guarantee that your selections match what is listed in English on your ballot. “stuff” happens.

    I fed my ballot into a “reader” that must tabulate the votes for later transmission somehow to a elections office. I think I put it in facing the right way, up or down, but I wonder if it warns you if you did it wrong? Again, I guess I’ll never know. I’d hope at least that part is fool proof.

    So I guess I’ll never know for sure. That’s American “democracy” for you.

    Heh. My last presidential, I voted for Sanders in the primary. Walked a few miles to the polling place in Somerville. That dude is such a clown now, apologizing for genocide. Way past his sell by date. What a true disgrace.

    2024: Well, I’m okay with genocide, but at least I beat fascism in America! (says not me)

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  38. Jason Boxman

    Musk won’t go away on Twitter. When I couldn’t sleep last night, I was thinking, when has this ever been possible for an oligarch before? I just saw a tweet he sent that had 28m viewers.

    28 million.

    And he owns the platform.

    When in human history has someone had that kind of reach, that they can say whatever comes into their head and reach 28 million people? That’s honestly insane. Maybe when the president of the United States speaks and is televised.

    That’s a mind bending level of possible influence on the Overton window for a billionaire, and he’s just posting crazy nonsense stuff. Some of it is just unhinged. And he’s got a following of people that think he’s a real genius.

    He’s also pimping their Grok service telling people to submit medical imaging for AI evaluation. That ain’t gonna end well. And who trusts Musk with their medical privacy? LOL.

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  39. steppenwolf fetchit

    From the InternationalNews subreddit is something titled . . . ” Israel Genocide Tracker account reportedly causing panic among Israeli soldiers “. It is subtitled . . . ” an anonymous account on X is reportedly causing panic among Israeli soldiers”. Apparently it is a slow-rolling project to as-much-as-possible thoroughly dox every Israeli soldier who bragged about doing bad things on social media or phone videos.

    If this report is true, and if the work being done is itself accurate, it may encourage better behavior on the part of Israeli soldiers.

    Here is the link.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/InternationalNews/comments/1gf8epq/israel_genocide_tracker_account_reportedly/

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