By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Common Nightingale, Les Demoiselles Coiffées de Bédoin, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France. Duet!
In Case You Might Miss…
- Trump garbage truck stunt.
- Section Three has risen from the grave.
- Boeing stock remains stable, pensions are the sticking point.
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
The Constitutional Order (Insurrection)
“Sweeping Section Three under the Rug: A Comment on Trump v. Anderson” (forthcoming) [William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, Harvard Law Review]. A restatement (?) of “The Sweep and Force of Section Three; lots of coverage at NC; see here). From the Abstract: ” It did not reject the Colorado Supreme Court’s conclusion that Trump is disqualified from future office, under the standards of Section Three. It did not hold that the events culminating in the January 6 attack on the capitol fell short of the constitutional standard for an “insurrection.” It did not reject the Colorado Supreme Court’s conclusion that Trump had “engaged in” that insurrection. It did not question the Colorado courts’ factual findings concerning Trump’s conduct and intent. And–perhaps contrary to initial appearances, and contrary to the critique of the justices concurring in the judgment only–the Court did not hold that Section Three is legally inoperative without enforcement legislation by Congress. Nothing in the case contradicts the conclusions we reached in our prior scholarship, The Sweep and Force of Section Three, on any of these points. The upshot is that Donald Trump remains constitutionally disqualified from the presidency and may not lawfully serve in that office or any other unless Congress removes the disqualification by two-thirds majorities of both houses. Nothing in Trump v. Anderson changes that legal reality. If Donald Trump was constitutionally ineligible to the presidency on March 3, 2024, the day before the Court’s decision, he remained constitutionally ineligible on March 5, the day after its decision. And he remains ineligible today. A variety of potential avenues to enforce that disqualification remain. Sweeping Section Three under the rug thus may merely have postponed the day of ultimate constitutional reckoning.” “A variety”? Let me skim the PDF… Well, here’s one (page 41). “[W]hat about an action for damages or a criminal prosecution in state court against an unconstitutional pretender to federal office?” • By Alvin Bragg, perhaps? Perhaps a lawyer in the readership can give this a more thorough and competent reading than I can (though holy Lord, what’s all this speculation about the internal workings of the court doing in the body of a law review article?) To me, however, this looks like laying the groundwork for lawfare in the Transition Period. And just in time, too!
The Transition
Lambert here: I don’t expect either party to make nice.
“The 76 dangerous days between the election and the inauguration” [Brian Michael Jenkins, The Hill]. Jenkins is a senior adviser to the president of RAND. “Since 2020, there has been a surge in violent threats against public officials at all levels, violent protests by far-left and far-right extremists, a nationwide rise in domestic terrorist incidents, the armed occupation of a state capitol, a mob assault on the nation’s Capitol, a plot to kidnap a governor, two attempted assassinations of former President Trump, intelligence indicating an Iranian plot to assassinate the former president and a plot by an Islamic State-inspired individual to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day.” The plot to kidnap Whitmer was spook-infested, and five of the fourteen defendants were cleared. I assume that it should go in the “Why is this different from all the others?” bucket. Nevertheless, its certainly odd that the RAND dude included it.
“Harris says she will be ‘sadly ready’ if Trump prematurely claims victory Tuesday” [The Hill]. “Harris has previously said there are teams in place in the event that Trump challenges the result. Trump has only committed to accepting the election results if he deems them ‘free and fair.’ ABC interviewed Harris six days before Election Day while she was on a three-state swing through North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. While polls have tightened, and some have shifted toward Trump in recent days, Bruce asked Harris if she feels she needs Republicans to vote for her to win. ‘Here’s how I think about it. I really want to bring our country together. We’ve had about a decade of this Trump era that has been all about … dividing people and having Americans point fingers at each other, and I think people are exhausted,’ Harris said.” • Right, which is why Marc Elias is now on the payroll (not that Trump doesn’t have form).
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!.
* * * “Garbage.” The video at :40. Leaving it here:
Trump (R): “Donald Trump climbs into garbage truck in stunt to call out Biden, Harris” [Global News]. “Speaking to press who had gathered at the photo op, Trump asked, ‘How do you like my garbage truck?’ adding that it was ‘in honour of Kamala (Harris) and Joe Biden.’ He proceeded to say the president ‘should be ashamed of himself.'” • I don’t love Trump. But looking purely at the technical aspects, the man is very, very good at what he does (and seems to have regained the éclat he lost after the two assassination attempts). The best part: He’s still wearing his tie! (And I love the way the Hi-Viz orange vest subtly denatures and inverts the “Orange Man Bad” trope.)
Trump (R): “Billionaire Trump Awkwardly Dresses Up as a Garbage Truck Driver” [Rolling Stone]. • Oh come on:
It’s certainly more effective than biting babies. pic.twitter.com/mrt4HoKmvr
— The Real Liekitisn’t (not Parody) (@liekitisnot) October 31, 2024
Trump (R): “How Trump Kept Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Gaffe From Getting Thrown Out” [RealClearPolitics]. • Puff piece saying it was all Trump’s idea. But it might actually have been; I find it hard to imagine Susie Wiles coming up with it. Stunts are a big part of kayfabe, after all.
Trump (R): “Biden may have handed Trump a big assist with his ‘garbage’ gaffe” [CNN]. It was a Kinsley Gaffe, at least in what remains of Biden’s mind. More: “No one can say how this latest twist in a turbulent campaign will affect the final result. But in the vicious heat of the last week of the deadlocked presidential campaign, when even a few imprecise words can wreak significant political consequences, it may not matter what Biden really meant. Perception is everything. Just when Harris’ team wanted to keep the attention on Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, which played into her contrast message on Tuesday night, the president handed Harris a political mess. She’s now almost certain to be asked whether she also regards Trump’s backers as ‘garbage.’ Her answer will only prolong the story. The former president is also likely to seize on the gaffe to argue that Democrats view working Americans in the heartland with contempt. A Trump fundraising email Tuesday evening read: ‘FIRST Hillary called you a DEPLORABLE! THEN they called you a FASCIST! And moments ago Kamala’s boss Biden called you GARBAGE!'” • Where’s the lie?
* * * Trump (R): “Judge declines to block Elon Musk $1 million voter giveaway” [Reuters]. ” A Pennsylvania state judge said on Thursday he would not immediately move forward with a lawsuit that seeks to stop Elon Musk’s $1 million voter giveaway ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. At a hearing in Pennsylvania, Judge Angelo Foglietta said he would place the lawsuit on hold while a federal court considers whether to take up the case. Musk’s bid to move the case frees him to continue the giveaway, because the matter likely won’t be resolved until after Tuesday’s election. The billionaire entrepreneur, who is spending heavily to back Republican Donald Trump, had been ordered to attend the hearing but did not appear.” • The Trump campaign has one loose cannon. It doesn’t need two.
Trump (R): “Trump Doubles Down After Elon’s Shocking ‘Tank the Economy’ Confession” [The New Republic]. “In an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Trump lauded Musk as a ‘very exceptional guy’ and a ‘great cost-cutter’ when asked about a potential role for the billionaire CEO in his Cabinet. But even more unbelievably, the Republican candidate said with confidence that the American people wouldn’t ‘feel’ the economic impacts of cutting trillions from the budget. ‘He’ll cut costs without anybody even knowing it—nobody’s going to notice—nobody is going to feel it,’ Trump told Hannity, confirming that Musk does indeed plan to slash $2 trillion from the government’s budget.” Twitter does still work, even if the Tesla paint booth never has. More: “Musk has proposed heading a ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ under a Trump Cabinet—and the former president has clearly taken him up on it. At Trump’s hate-filled Madison Square Garden rally over the weekend, Musk announced that the target is $2 trillion in cuts.'” • Musk has a world-class case of Main Character Syndrome. Trump already has Musk’s money. If Trump becomes President, he’ll heave Musk over the side whenever he wants, even if Musk can’t entertain such a possibility.
Trump (R): “Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort” [WIRED]. “‘I was in shock and disbelief,’ says a paid door knocker flown to Michigan to help turn out the vote for former president Donald Trump on behalf of Elon Musk’s America PAC. In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump. A representative for Musk and America PAC did not return a request for comment. The contract these door knockers signed with Blitz Canvassing, which is a subcontractor of Musk’s America PAC, says they are ‘expected to maintain a 17-22% engagement rate during the campaign,’ which is a high target relative to the number of people who typically open their door for a stranger. A group of out-of-state America PAC canvassers were told during a recent team meeting that if they didn’t hit their targets, which the door knocker says were more than 1,000 a week on total doors knocked, the organization would stop paying for their motel rooms.” • Musk must be running this operation like Tesla, not SpaceX (from the results, I assume SpaceX isn’t a cesspit of bad labor practices). In would guess this story is too late to affect the campaign, but at what point does Musk, as political deadweight, outweigh the big bucks? My guess is soon, since Trump is already having to clean up after him (see above).
Trump (R): Kamala agrees:
She will be fired soon https://t.co/nMtL8MUQ75
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2024
But shut up, anyhow. (Seattle Times: “On Wednesday, the youngest-ever chair of the Federal Trade Commission reached the end of her three-year term, during which she helped overhaul the government’s approach to antitrust enforcement and brought a slew of lawsuits against major corporations. Khan, 35, can remain in her seat indefinitely, unless she is replaced. There are factions rooting loudly for each of those outcomes.” • A good interview with Khan.
* * * Kamala (D): Who did this:
Vice President Harris: Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table pic.twitter.com/KC6ms7nPig
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 30, 2024
Kamala, Kamala, Kamala. They’re Nazis. You don’t give them “a seat at the table”; look what happened to Von Papen and Hindenberg. Our Democracy is at stake! Or if they’re not Nazis, and not attacking Our Democracy, then what is your campaign about?
Kamala (D): “Biden’s Gaffes Complicate Harris’s Final Stretch, Worrying Democratic Insiders” [New York Times]. “Speaking with reporters before boarding Air Force Two outside Washington, she noted that Mr. Biden had ‘clarified his comments.’ But she added: ‘Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.” • So Trump is a fascist, but it’s OK to vote for him?
Kamala (D): “Biden Sits Uncomfortably on the Campaign’s Sidelines” [Wall Street Journal]. The deck: “Turning toward building his legacy, the 81-year-old will focus on his presidential library.” When he’s not biting babies. More: “Biden’s team has encountered some resistance raising the roughly $200 million to $300 million Biden’s allies think will be required for it based on past presidential libraries, according to people familiar with the discussions. Part of the problem is that Biden hasn’t been a strong fundraiser. According to one of the people familiar with the efforts, he has eschewed using some of the gimmicks other presidents have used to woo donors, such as inviting mega donors to stay overnight at the White House. Some donors and their advisers say they haven’t been approached but wouldn’t make a decision until election results are clear; some still feel confusion and anger around Biden’s re-election campaign and ultimate exit from the race.” • Maybe the library could have a second-story window with a wagon filled with dung directly under it. They could do re-enactments.
* * * Kamala (D): “Opinion George W. Bush is running out of time” [Matt Bai, WaPo]. This is actually not as horrid as I expected it to be. “No, I think Bush owes it to the country to condemn Trumpism in this moment because, of all our former leaders, he did the most to create it… From [Obama’s victory after Bush] came a simple ethos in Republican politics: Burn it all down. Trump didn’t spring from nowhere. He was, and is, a vehicle of fury and lost faith. If compassion doesn’t work, then maybe cruelty will. If governing in a democracy means inventing wars and bailing out banks at the expense of soldiers and laid-off workers, then maybe the democratic system itself needs to be demolished — and all its high-mindedness exposed as hypocrisy. It was Bush who opened the door to this rage-filled room full of voices screaming, ‘America First!’ Trump, an instinctive entertainer, simply walked through it.” • We often forget that in practice the Republicans are more democratic than Democrats. The Republican base hated their party leaders and got rid of them. Trump is the result. Not so the Democrats, who pivoted from Biden to Kamala, seemingly in hours, like the good authoritarian followers they are.
* * * From Carla, “Not so much a plant as a Halloween lament. Sign of the times.” A yard sign of the times, to my technical eye. Have readers spotted similar examples?
(Cf. Lamentations 3:55-66, an imprecatory prayer.)
* * * GA: “What do early votes, polls show about presidential race in Georgia, a key swing state?” [News and Observer]. “As of Oct. 29, about 3.2 million early votes have been cast in the state, ‘shattering previous early voting performance,’ according to Georgia’s secretary of state. By comparison, at the same stage in 2020, 2.1 million early votes had been cast…. Women, so far, have outpaced men in voting by a margin of nearly 12 points — 55.5% to 43.8%, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab…. This trend has also been observed in other swing states, including Michigan and North Carolina… Hatcher called the early voting data ‘difficult to read,’ and Richey said it ‘can offer limited predictive value on the eventual outcome.’ In sum, Richey said, ‘the close polling margins and demographic composition of early voters suggest that no candidate has a clear edge at this stage. Instead, it seems likely that final outcomes may hinge on Election Day turnout and any last-minute shifts in undecided voters.'”
ME: “Trump wins student mock election in Maine” [Portland Press Herald]. “Trump won 52% of the vote, beating Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 2,400 votes, according to results posted online by the secretary of state’s office.” And the deck: “Maine students have predicted the winner of every presidential election since 2008, but they missed the mark in the 2020 U.S. Senate race by voting against Republican incumbent Susan Collins.” • 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020…. Not that long actually. Even if it does seem like forever.
NC: “Black turnout is lagging in North Carolina, a warning sign for Harris” [Politico]. “Early vote numbers in North Carolina show the electorate skewing older and whiter, compared to the state’s voter registration, a red flag for Democrats who need Black voters to turn out in heavy numbers if Kamala Harris is going to flip this state. As of Wednesday, Black voters make up 18 percent of the electorate in early voting, and some Democratic operatives said they must bump that up to about 20 percent for Harris to be competitive statewide. In 2020, Black voters were 19 percent of the electorate, when Donald Trump narrowly won the state. And Democrats acknowledge that without a swing in their favor in the last days of early voting or on Election Day, it may not be good enough. About 36,000 more African Americans had voted in-person by this point in 2020 than in 2024, and ‘that gap has to be closed among African Americans for Democrats to win,’ said Thomas Mills, a Democratic strategist in the state.”
PA: “The Battle for What May Be the Most Important County in the Country” [The New Republic]. “The polling worries everyone, right and left. While I am in town, the FiveThirtyEight simulation points for the first time in months toward a Trump win. There is a subtle shift in momentum, and you feel it everywhere, like the first chill of autumn. The early voting numbers for Republicans seem to be especially high, though no one can tell if those are new voters or people who have voted for Trump anyway. The consensus seems to be that Harris is running a better campaign than Clinton did in 2016, but Trump is also running a better campaign than he did in 2020. Make of that what you will.” • A good portrait of Erie, even if it does focus — as it probably would if I wrote it — on bookstores, a local Cabernet, a food hall, and gourmet pizza. And also: ‘Not only has Erie picked every president since 2008 correctly, it has been hugely consequential in making those picks. It is a needle that registers every shift in the country’s mood, even if those shifts are happening thousands of miles away. Or, as a minister will put it at a Black church later that evening, “Erie County holds this election upon its shoulders.'”
WI: “Have Democrats found a way to win over rural America? Look at what’s happening in Wisconsin” [Politico]. “But to regain clout in Madison [,WI], they’ll need to rebuild trust with voters in a place that’s become increasingly hostile to Democrats nationwide: rural America. Democrats have a shot in Wisconsin thanks to new voting maps passed after the state’s liberal-controlled high court tossed out the ones crafted by Republicans to tilt in their favor…. Republican leaders are banking that a deep bench of incumbents and a track record of delivering tax cuts will keep rural voters in their camp…. But Democrats are looking to continue a recent string of success in statewide races after winning back the governor’s mansion in 2018 and flipping the state’s Supreme Court from conservative to liberal in 2023. They’re pouring money into more than a dozen battleground seats unlocked by new maps. ”
* * * * * *
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: H5N1
“Federal and State Veterinary Agencies Share Update on HPAI Detections in Oregon Backyard Farm, Including First H5N1 Detections in Swine” (press release) [APHIS, USDA]. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Oregon state veterinary officials are investigating positive cases of H5N1 in a backyard farming operation [i.e., not just Big Ag] in Oregon that has a mix of poultry and livestock, including swine…. On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories also confirmed one of the farm’s five pigs to be infected with H5N1, marking the first detection of H5N1 in swine in the United States. The livestock and poultry on this farm shared water sources, housing, and equipment; in other states, this combination has enabled transmission between species… USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) has conducted genomic sequencing of virus from the poultry infected on this farm, and that sequencing has not identified any changes to the H5N1 virus that would suggest to USDA and CDC that it is more transmissible to humans, indicating that the current risk to the public remains low.”
“Bird flu found in a pig in U.S. for the first time, raising concerns about potential risks to humans” [Helen Branswell, STAT]. “Pigs are sometimes called a “mixing vessel” for flu viruses, because they can be infected with both bird flu viruses and human flu viruses. If the animals are co-infected at the same time with two or more viruses, the viruses can swap genes, potentially creating a hybrid virus that is better able to spread to and among people than bird flu viruses typically are. This phenomenon, called reassortment, is what gave rise to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Because pigs can play this role, flu experts have been worried that the H5N1 virus currently spreading in cows in the United States could make its way to pigs — though any version of the H5N1.” And: “Pigs are highly susceptible to flu viruses — human and avian. In fact, over decades, human seasonal flu viruses have found their way into pig populations, where they circulate and reassort…. The fact that many of the viruses in pigs previously circulated in humans indicates they have the genetic know-how to do what H5N1 has not been able to do on its own, but could potentially acquire the capacity to do, if it underwent the right gene swap. ”
“USDA announces first H5N1 avian flu detection in US pigs” [Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy]. “Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News, said it’s not yet known if the pig was truly infected or if the nasal passages had been contaminated by environmental exposure, a situation strongly suspected when a Colorado poultry culler tested positive in 2022 during nasal swabbing that was done as part of illness monitoring. He said the necropsy examination will reveal if the pig was truly infected and if the virus was found deep in the pig’s lungs. “We’ll have to wait and see,” Osterholm said, urging caution in interpreting the new development. He noted that earlier scientific work suggested that the virus doesn’t easily infect pigs.”
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of individuals filing for unemployment benefits in the US fell by 12,000 from the previous week to 216,000 on the period ending October 26th, reaching the same level of mid-May of this year, and well below market expectations of 230,000. The decline reinforced the view that the U.S. labor market remains resilient to the Federal Reserve’s restrictive interest rates, bolstering expectations that the central bank will hold off on further aggressive rate cuts in upcoming decisions.”
Employment Situation: “United States Challenger Job Cuts” [Trading Economics]. “US employers announced 55,597 job cuts in October 2024, below 72,821 in September, but above 50.9% from 36,836 in October 2023. Aerospace/Defense led the cuts (18,465), primarily on Boeing’s announcement to cut 17K jobs, followed by Retailers (7,696) and Consumer Products manufacturers (4,571). October’s total marks the seventh time this year job cut announcements are higher year-on-year.”
Income: “United States Personal Income” [Trading Economics]. “US personal income rose by 0.3% from the previous month to $24.948 trillion in September of 2024, in line with market expectations and picking up from the 0.2% increase in the previous month, extending the view of a strong US economy despite the prolonged period of tight credit conditions. Compensation for employees continued to rise sharply….”
Inflation: “United States Core PCE Price Index MoM” [Trading Economics]. “The US core PCE price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge to measure underlying inflation, rose by 0.3% from the previous month in September of 2024, the highest gain in five months.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Stock Won’t Budge Despite All the Bad News. This Is Why” [Barron’s]. “There is a lot for Boeing investors to deal with these days. Through it all, the stock has been remarkably stable. There is a good reason for that… Boeing stock seems unaffected by all that troubling news. The reason is fairly simple: It’s half a trillion dollars. That’s roughly the value of Boeing’s backlog. Boeing can make money. It just needs to make planes. Boeing delivered 806 planes in 2018. Wall Street believes Boeing can beat that number in 2028. Wall Street’s free cash flow estimate for 2028 is about $10 billion, according to FactSet. The estimate hasn’t moved much over the past three months. No change in the long-term cash flow outlook. No change in the stock price… The big question for investors is what is the direction of 2028 free cash flow? Will it be better or worse than $10 billion? That’s hard to say. It’s a long way off, but that answer will determine how the stock does in the coming year or two. And yes, Boeing management and workers need to make peace before that. The workers make the planes.” • Well, maybe if Wall Street hadn’t given Boeing a $20 billion reacharound, the workers would be getting back to work making planes right now.
Manufacturing: “Pressure mounting for Boeing strike to end from Washington business leaders” [King5]. “The longer it goes on, however, the more business leaders across the U.S. are vocalizing their desire for an end to the strike. The Association of Washington Business’ Kris Johnson told KING 5, ‘It’s the economy that’s at stake.’ He and dozens of other business chamber leaders across 41 other states sent a letter Wednesday to leaders of both Boeing and the IAM District 751 union, pleading for an urgent resolution. The groups wrote, ‘We were extremely disappointed that union membership rejected the most recent contract proposal.'” • And I’m sure the workers were “extremely disappointed” in the contract, ffs.
Manufacturing: “The union fight to resuscitate the Boeing pension is a battle over the American dream” [MarketWatch]. “A pension, also known as a defined-benefit plan, is typically a guaranteed payout from your employer in retirement. A 401(k), or defined-contribution plan, is a workplace retirement savings and investment plan in which contributions come out of an employee’s paycheck and may be matched by the employer. ‘401(k)s just aren’t cutting it; it’s a failed experiment for millions of people. 401(k)s put all the risks and responsibilities on the individual, who may be debating between keeping the lights on or buying groceries,’ said Karen Friedman, executive director of the Pension Rights Center. “Pensions have always been part of the American dream and retirement security — so that’s what’s at stake. This [union battle] is stimulating a debate on these issues.’ Boeing reiterated the statement it has made since September.’ There is no scenario where the company reactivates a defined-benefit pension for this or any other population. They’re prohibitively expensive and that’s why virtually all private employers have transitioned away from them to defined-contribution plans,’ the company said. Bank of America analysts estimated in a research report earlier this month that reinstating the pension would cost Boeing about $25 billion over a 15-year time horizon, or $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion a year. ‘Given the state of affairs in the company’s balance sheet, the ask for a defined-benefit program restart would seem to be a nonstarter on a number of levels,’ analysts at Wolfe Research said in a recent report.” • Totally. I mean, that’s a lot of executive pensions and stock buybacks, alll gone, and who wants that?
Manufacturing: “It’s a human issue with Boeing” (Letter to the Editor) [Columbia Basin Herald]. “This strike is about respect and human factors, not money. The return of our pension is paramount. Company leadership and their contract negotiators are snowblind and tone-deaf. We have long memories and have been grievously disrespected these past 10 years we’ve gone without any contract improvements. The Machinist Union membership didn’t ruin this once great company. Company management owns the debacle. The media keeps harping that we won’t win our pension back. That is what the robber barons said a century or more ago about unions winning the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, vacation time and medical benefits among other human factor issues that we have fought and paid for in blood. This is the new ‘Gilded Age’ we are living through. Working-class women and men are standing up to the oligarchs and corporate greed. This is a fight that we have to and will win for all working families.” • I wonder whether this sentiment is shared by the 36% who voted for the current contract (and what Boeing management and the union are doing about that).
Manufacturing: “The Mysterious Case of Boeing and the 350 Missing Planes” [Barron’s]. “Boeing has experienced years of struggle tied to design and production problems with the 737 MAX. As a result, it doesn’t provide guidance. Wall Street still makes projections. At the start of 2024, analysts expected Boeing to deliver about 700 planes and generate an operating profit of about $5.5 billion, according to FactSet. Now the estimates are 377 jets and an operating loss of more than $7 billion. Those numbers—both Boeing’s and Airbus’—mean 353 planes have vanished from delivery estimates. The number will creep higher the longer the Boeing labor strike that began on Sept. 13 goes on…. The missing 2024 deliveries might end up equating to about 2% of total airline capacity. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to affect airline capacity planning and, therefore, airfares.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing skips China’s biggest airshow amid spending curbs” [Business Times]. “The US planemaker will not be one of the exhibitors at the Zhuhai Airshow next month, a spokesperson said in an e-mail response. The planemaker has previously said it is looking to curb spending amid a crippling strike… Boeing has also been caught up in the geopolitical tensions between the US and China, and new orders for the planemaker have been scarce in what is one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets.”
Manufacturing: “China voices support for Nasa over botched Boeing Starliner space mission” [South China Morning Post]. • When your enemy’s drowning, throw ’em an anvil.
Manufacturing: “Boeing strike will dent last jobs report before election” [CNBC]. “Economists expect the U.S. to have added 100,000 jobs in October. Bank of America this week forecast that payroll tallies will be at least 50,000 lower than they would have otherwise been because of the strikes and affects of both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 60 Greed (previous close: 60 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 30 at 1:00:29 PM ET.
Gallery
Onward to Cubism (1891):
Woman with Dog pic.twitter.com/lIgB0FjlhR
— Pierre Bonnard (@pierre_bonnard) October 31, 2024
Reminds me of Eloise in Paris, I can’t think why:
“Shroud of Turin ‘does not show face of Jesus’ – in fact he never touched it says study” [Daily Star]. “[The study] found that the impression on the fabric could not have been made by a three-dimensional human body, but was perhaps from a bas-relief – a shallow carving. Author of the study Cicero Moraes, used a virtual fabric to carry out his tests and said that when laid flat it showed ‘a distorted and significantly more robust image’ than that on the shroud, as a result of the change from 3D to 2D.’ He said the findings were easy to explain and added: ‘The explanation of the differences is very simple.’ ‘When you wrap a 3D object with a fabric, and that object leaves a pattern like blood stains, these stains generate a more robust and more deformed structure in relation to the source. ‘So, roughly speaking, what we see as a result of printing stains from a human body would be a more swollen and distorted version of it, not an image that looks like a photocopy.’ ‘A bas-relief, however, wouldn’t cause the image to deform, resulting in a figure that resembles a photocopy of the body.'” • I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up, at least.
“#JeNeSuisPasLiberal: Entering the Quagmire of Online Leftism” [David Auerbach, The American Reader]. • I hate this kind of chart — who invented it, McKinsey? — but FWIW here it is:
“Digging Into PlantStudio, a Bit Late” [Pketh]. “PlantStudio is a surprisingly deep botany simulator for creating and arranging 3D models of herbaceous plants based on how real plants grow, change, fruit, and flower, over their life cycles. Because the last release of the app was in 2002, and it was for Windows 95/98/2000/NT4, we’ve got a little bit of work to do to get it running on macOS.” • Indeed! Looks fun, though!
“You Don’t Need to Be a Billionaire to Ride in Her Rocket Car” [Wall Street Journal]. “When my father was growing up, he used to go to Cleveland’s Euclid Beach amusement park. He had his first date there, and so did many of his friends. There was a ride with space rocket swings called the Rocket Ships. When the park closed in 1969, it was the end of an era. One day, in the 1970s, my dad was driving in Cleveland and saw one of the old rockets from that amusement park ride in the backyard of a house. He parked out front and sat there, remembering the glory days. A guy came out and said, ‘Hey, can I help you?’ My dad asked about the rocket, and the guy said, ‘You want it? You can have it.’ [His] mind was amazing. He could make a car out of anything. I have a car he built out of a bathtub. He decided to build the Rocket Car, a street-legal vehicle he could use to drive his family around. My dad mated the original rocket with a subframe from an Oldsmobile Toronado and a modified Oldsmobile ‘Rocket 455’ engine—so it all fit together. Inspired by a school science project my brother Eric was doing, my dad used chains and gears from heavy equipment in the steering mechanism. My father built the first Rocket Car before I was born, but he found a second rocket and built a second car for my mother, Leanne Heitman, after I was born.”
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 JC:
JC commments: “Taken on my daily walk around the golf course with the pooch. Pooch not included.”
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Wow, I’m betting that the speechwriter who gave Harris that bit about Bush owing it to America either forgot himself or is hoping anyone listening forgets that in the early days of the primaries for 2020 everyone was sure it was going to Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush, the dynasties redux. And Trump buried the selected one who came with all the minds that gave us George W. Like Lambert, I actually give the Republicans and their system credit. Their voters didn’t want another Bush and he didn’t get the nomination. From the rise of Sanders I would bet that Democratic voters didn’t really want another Clinton either, but similar to Biden and now Harris, they didn’t get to decide.
And, Kamala, I would rather George W. apologized to America for the twenty years we spent in Iraq and for foisting both Dick and Liz Cheney on us in public positions rather than toiling in obscurity still doing evil in the background.
I have been a physician for decades. On holidays, like Memorial Day, Halloween, Christmas, etc, I have always sent my patients, colleagues, family, friends, and thousands of students/residents over the years an email. Something about medicine, something about history, something about my life experience as a physician. I try to make them as uplifting as I can. Also, alerts if things in the practice are changing, etc. I have recognized long ago that people are really focusing on negativity in things that they cannot change – and as their health coach – I try to get them to focus on things that are more transcendent.
A small essay that can be read in 5-10 minutes.
At the end of this Halloween’s note, I wrote a paragraph stating how I have been a PCP now through 8 previous Presidential elections, and how at no other time had I ever seen the stress and anxiety and insomnia that I am now. I made it crystal clear in the email that I am seeing this from all sides – and that all of us need to take care of our mental health. And also that we need to make sure that we maintain our life relationships – that no election is worth separating from your family.
Usually the day or two after I write these, I get a few hundred thank you emails back. At no time in the past has there been any kind of hateful letters back. Not even once in decades.
As of this AM – there are now 9 emails back from patients – full of extreme vitriol and downright hatred – basically with the message – how dare you admonish anyone for being concerned about the future of this country – what kind of horrible person are you – we ALL need to be terrified of what will happen if X gets elected.
All 9 are from the same side – and I will give you one guess which side that is. I will put it this way – “joy” is no longer the password.
I have never been so depressed as a physician – and I feel so hopeless for what I fear is about to happen. We can no longer bestow even kindness and respect on one another without inflaming the mob. Lord have Mercy.
You have far more patience and tolerance that I. If I was in your shoes, I’d simply reply to those 9 emails with references to psychotherapists, and no comment added.
“I have been a physician for decades…”
Besides being superb, which you are, this thoughtfulness is an important reflection on what public health entails. These reflections are quite helpful to your many readers.
Might be an idea to keep an eye on those 9 people if Trump wins as they may totally lose the plot.
‘This too shall past’
The citizens of a rapidly declining empire are encouraged to fight each other so that they don’t consider the illegitimacy and failure of their ruling class as a whole. It’s not going to get better.
What do you expect from genocide supporters?
Btw, I’m listening to the soundtrack of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I am transported to a more hopeful time before I was born–even such a blatant cash-in was humane and good and had aspired to beauty. Try it.
Wow. That’s really sad.
A thought that I’ve had for a while is losing relationships over this election is going to have a much greater impact on a person than the outcome of this election. I know you know that. I just wish there was a way to communicate that to those don’t.
I consider myself lucky that somehow no one in my life is at that point. I have a few friends who get a little into TDS, but it’s not an all consuming obsession. For the most part, it just doesn’t come up too much.
I really feel like working yourself into bad mental health over politics is a sucker’s game. It accomplishes nothing except guaranteeing we the people stay divided and fighting each other. I’m sorry that you got a negative reaction from that message (and I’m sure you put it much better than I just did.)
I am so sorry, IM Doc. That an expression of care and concern can trigger people is a truly sad state of affairs. Hug those who haven’t succumbed a little tighter. I know you are praying for the rest.
I feel so humbled by your practices, and learn how to be a better clinician.. Thank you for sharing, hoping cooler heads prevail here.
My wife’s relationship with her sister was nuked when she voted for Jill Stein (IIRC) in 2016. Full on TDS hit the sister. “YOU LET A NAZI INTO THE WHITEHOUSE”.
Wife was voting in ILLINOIS, there was no way T was going to win there, she could have voted STATLER/WALDORF for all the difference it would have made. They haven’t spoken since.
This time it will be worse.
I’m actually more than a little impressed that they were able to dust off the TRUMP HITLER narrative and ramp it up to this degree. We told you he would start WW3 last time, and he didn’t. But this time for sure he will, for sure.
(Please ignore Gaza. Please ignore our proxy war with Russia. Please ignore our shenanigans over Taiwan, etc etc etc).
Brass necks all round.
The apology you suggest should be directed towards the victims, namely Iraqis, a million of whom were killed, not the invading force, which suffered nominal casualties.
I don’t disagree with, but question the importance of, your other observations.
The first part of Kamala’s premise was what Bush owed the country, not the world.
However as I I believe we never should have invaded Iraq, to me a fully realized apology would cover all the victims on both sides. Also for the record, I see far too many homeless vets on the street to think the victims from the invading forces should be considered nominal, especially as their leaders lied through their teeth to get them there (and in Cheney’s case became vastly richer doing so.) The devastation of that decision, and the decision to invade Libya, and the choice to use Ukraine as a pawn against Russia include too many victims on all sides. And those decisions were deeply bipartisan.
I didn’t really address the totality of the bs that Bush created Trump, but besides rejecting Bush style politics, if she was really trying to say it was a reaction to Bush rather than an embrace and extension of his policies where does that leave Clinton who should have been the continuation of the change promised by Obama. But then it also ignores Obama’s lack of change and that contribution to Trump’s election. We won’t mention that it was the cunning scheme of the Clintons to convince Trump to run at all. There are so many reasons for Trump’s election and his continued popularity, but I just picked the most obvious reason blaming Trumpism on Bush falls apart.
But I do apologize for saying 2020, when it was the 2016 primary when Republicans kicked Jeb to the curb.
Yes. I’ve always thought that Trump is really Obama version 2.0, a rejection of the status quo, examplified by Bushism amd Clintonism, paired with the hope deferred that began to dry up, fester, stink, and explode in the sun. But the establishment people just don’t seem to get this.
For anyone interested:
The Albuquerque Journal’s photos from the Trump rally today.
I believe they will keep updating.
I wish that I could see the behind-the-scenes polling/data that made the Trump campaign want to visit NM and VA, at the opportunity cost of squeezing in another visit to the standard swing states.
Hispanics. He’s outperforming with this group. It’s how Nevada and Arizona are in play.
This is another reason for the manual labor cosplay.
If a billionaire can get his hands dirty….
Jul 15, 2024 · What percentage of Virginia is Hispanic? As per the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates, 10.03% of Virginia population is Hispanic.
In New Mexico, Hispanics have been a majority of the population since 2021 and the state’s largest racial or ethnic group since the early 2000s. In 2022, the state was home to 1.1 million Hispanics.
I would lay odds that the real victory they seek now is the popular vote. If he can expand his turnout even in states he is unlikely to win he gives that a greater chance of happening. That explains Madison Square Garden, the stop in Virginia as well as going to Albuquerque. He wants to cut the Democratic margin of victory.
And yes I do think the internal numbers of both parties has Trump winning the electoral college.
A Dem superdelegate, via our contact, on 10/28: “He is now reporting to me that Trump is ahead in the internal polls in NH and VA and tied in NM.”
Why didn´t Biden actually say “trash” but “garbage”?
* * *
Do Not Vote for those Who Support Genocide (w/ Kshama Sawant) | The Chris Hedges Report
60 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/do-not-vote-for-those-who-support
A truly representative and honest voice for the working class—one that takes part in the struggle, resists cozying up to the centers of power, makes tangible, material commitments rather than settling for empty rhetoric—is hard to find in the United States. Kshama Sawant, the socialist and former Seattle City Council member who won the battle for a $15 minimum wage, introduced the Amazon tax and championed unprecedented renter’s rights joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the 2024 election.
* * *
recent FAIR content related to the election campaign and media:
‘The Point Is to Sprinkle a Little Doubt About the Election’
CounterSpin interview with Shawn Musgrave on voter fraud hoax
by Janine Jackson
https://fair.org/home/the-point-is-to-sprinkle-a-little-doubt-about-the-election/
Musgrave´s piece:
https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/trump-lawyers-election-fraud-lawsuits-strategy/
White Men Get Short End of Stick—in NYT Chart, if Not in Reality
Jim Naureckas
https://fair.org/slider/white-men-get-short-end-of-stick-in-nyt-chart-if-not-in-reality/
It’s supremely unhelpful of the New York Times (Upshot, 10/26/24) to compare income of white men without college degrees to white, Black, Latine and Asian-American women with college degrees:
Bezos’ Declaration of Neutrality Confirms: Billionaires Aren’t on Your Side
Pete Tucker
https://fair.org/home/bezos-declaration-of-neutrality-confirms-billionaires-arent-on-your-side/
CPB Funds Ideological Overseers at NPR in Response to Right-Wing Criticism
Julie Hollar
https://fair.org/home/cpb-funds-ideological-overseers-at-npr-in-response-to-right-wing-criticism/
Theres a new shoeonhead, for those who appreciate that…
The Man Problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSw04BwQy4M
She’s quite good. Thanks for the link.
Thank you!
This is good, I just wish it were 5 minutes long not 28. Video’s low bandwidth really frustrates me.
Adding, OK I’m at minute 20. What a brutal stomping!
I thought that the White House corrected his statement. He had said “Garbage” but meant to say “White Trash.”/s
I’m now seeing more Trump yard signs in the neighborhood than Dem candidate signs. This was not true four years ago if one can take it as any sort of “sign” of the times or of Tuesday’s results.
Then there are the sensible majority like yours truly with no signs. If civil war is on the horizon–there’s a new movie–I’m staying out of it.
I live in a 2 NPR-Democrat to 1 everything-else neighborhood.
I was surprised by seeing so many houses (say 33% of Dem. houses) that had yard signs for the bottom-of-the-ticket local candidates but no Harris sign…..even though the local Dem. candidates have the exact same party platform as Harris.
If you’re a braver person than I, living as I do in an enclave of self righteous PMC TDS zealots, you might ask some of them. Maybe it’s related to foreign policy issues, which are strictly federal.
Something similar here with many signs for the Dem congressional candidate and many fewer for Harris/Walz. Perhaps the Harris campaign rightly considers spending money here to be a writeoff. Reportedly they late in the game are also giving up on North Carolina.
Where I am–swing state city, working class neighborhood known for being “bad” (though I think it’s a wonderful neighborhood)–I’m shocked by the sheer number of Harris/Walz yard signs and by the paucity of Trump signs. I really did expect there to be way, way more Trump enthusiasm especially in this neighborhood, as it is not at all PMC.
The Harris campaign has been thick on the ground here. More canvassers than I’ve ever seen, people handing out yard signs right and left. Trump campaign is nowhere. So it might just be that the Harris voters got their supply of yard signs and merch without any effort on their part.
SCENE: Small town in a swing state — county seat & smack dab in the middle of the county, but second banana to a bigger and more famous city on one edge of the county — and with a local issue manifested as signs in local races too . . .
And there are more signs in more yards than I can recall ever before in my 30+ years living here (off and on, out of 45+ since my family first moved here).
I haven’t counted, but my driver’s-seat-of-the-pants estimate from taking my kids to and from their schools is Harris(/Walz) mayve 2-to-1 over Trump/Vance . . . plus many yards with down-ticket signs too. The corner at the front driveway to the high school is 3/4 a gauntlet of D signs, including one porch-railing-covering banner as big as the standard big Trump signs (of which there are more around town, not to mention in the surrounding townships where the overall any-size ratio is reversed if not eclipsed).
OTOH, the side entrance to the high school (and the football field) — and a driveway packed morning and afternoon with cars used, since the pandemic arrived, for mandated one-way traffic conveying kids to the adjacent grade school (we go out the other side, running that gauntlet) — runs around a bigger parking lot whose outermost row or two is constantly populated by cars and trucks with flag displays.
(It used to be a clearly Trumpish row. Maybe the Harris and Walz gun-toting stories had some impact there. [/s] Or maybe the school board decided that wasn’t proper, even if it’s a legal distance away from any doors into the building, and the HS isn’t a polling place. At least, not normally; perhaps it’s an early-voting site now?)
But what has struck me most about the population explosion on our lawns — whether manicured (nay, petrochemically polished) or left with a thoroughly lived-on look — is the number of different designs of Harris signs. If I had the time, it’d probably be a good photo-essay to make my phone-camera a political Pokeball and “catch ’em all”! The other day I saw a new one (new for me, anyway) with the “slogan” “Grab Him By the Ballot”. Not going very high there, eh, people?
As for me and my house . . . on a respectable corner of two roads which run between fancier streets, one with more older-money homes and the other with newer and more PMC-looking developments . . . we have a few local-race signs (on one side of the biggest local issue); one sign for our older daughter’s hapkido school (in that bigger city down the road); and one more, reminding folks that the Green Party is “your alternative!”
Mind you, if someone asked me I’d have to tell them there are actually five alternative parties on the ballot in this state. And if they didn’t stop me fast enough, they’d also hear about NPA candidates running with No Partisan Affiliation (though it ain’t necessarily so for all of them, for various reasons) — and even some folks who’ve gotten mad enough to not take any more and file the notarized paperwork required to compel poll-workers to actually count any votes written in for them (oh, the horrors). . . .
But that’s another story. (Or two or three.)
I live in Ilhan Omar’s bluer-than-blue district (MN-05) and while I haven’t seen any Trump signs (or any other Team Red candidates, for that matter) in Minneapolis proper, I have seen a few in one of Minneapolis’s non-upscale inner ring suburbs in her district which is a first for me.
I’ve only seen three Harris/Walz bumper stickers so far (one was attached to another cyclists saddle, the other two taped to the car’s inside of the back window so they can be easily removed).
Professionally printed “Cats for Kamala” signs are popular in my low-end-PMC neighborhood.
just started the american reader thing(and hafta set it aside while i have somebody to help move scaffolds), and man…the confusion of tongues is getting pretty serious.
i decided to venture into the article after spending a hot minnit scrutinising that derned chart,lol…i think i reside in the bottom right quadrant…but cannot really tell.
and in my world, people who police content are not “left”, at all.
and “Liberal”, at least in today’s sense(ass opposed to, say Jefferson or Paine) shouldnt even be on chart pretending to clarify divisions of “The Left”.
must go labor for a lil bit more.
FTA:”The importance of Ethical agency is not specific to the Moralist Cluster. Nietzsche’s finding of ressentiment in the general population of Christians, liberals, and moralists—claiming moral superiority as a compensatory mechanism for a lack of power and control over one’s self and one’s environment—haunts the foundations of left-liberalism as well. The smug moral superiority of everyone from organic shoppers to cyclists to recyclers represents the Ethical pillar at work. The Moralist Cluster is distinguished, rather, by its use of Suspicion mechanisms: the tendency to assign authentic, positive agency only to themselves while distrusting the proclaimed motives of others. Activists must presuppose their exemption from any substantive false consciousness in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and self-abnegation.”
i can almost get what this guy is trying to do.
johnson gets limp with all the academic rhetoric, of course….which is a giant problem in the intellectual left,lol.
still do not know where i fit into his schema.
Outside and above the arbitrary two dimension plane. Or so you seem to me.
A challenging model for others.
aye.
am both broad and deep.
Do you suppose some people like to put others on two-dimensional planes (the only kind AFAIK) so they can be left alone on their private Olympus to control us with their games of eleventh-dimensional chess?
> the arbitrary two dimension plane
Whiteboard-optimized.
Wow. Liberal Democrats really believe that a not insubstantial number of married Trump voting men are abusers.
They Want to Ensure That, This Time, White Women Vote for a Woman (archive.ph blocked, only first ~ 10 paragraphs)
And
(bold mine)
Because all that matters to women is abortion, obviously. Personal safety, economic issues, whatever, aren’t relevant. Women should only vote their uterus.
Of course women are people and vote for all sorts of reasons. Anecdotally, the women I know are pretty disturbed by Roe’s overturning, and they blame Trump entirely even though the dems cynically neglected to codify Roe (so that they could continue to fundraise off the issue). Word of mouth accounts are getting passed around about horror stories in the red states. Having to give birth to a dead fetus, doctors hesitating to take life saving measures for the mother out of fear of “murdering” the unborn, miscarriages treated like suspicious deaths, etc. Macabre stuff.
Honestly, given the political state of affairs, I think abortion is a key reason why the election’s so close. Without that issue mobilizing women, Trump would probably have a very big advantage.
might near 20 years ago, in between both our boys*, Late Wife had an ectopic pregnancy…emergency laproscopic surgery removed it, and it went down in her Permanent Record as an ABORTION, as far as the State of Texas was concerned.
the injustices, indignities and even “Horrors” have been there for a long, long time…while the dems sat on their hands on top of all that dry powder in the vault with their grasshopper god.
(* the ectopic surgery supposedly cut her remaining fallopian tube(the first being cut, for some reason, long before)…Doc actually joked, “yall can go screw like rabbits, now”…and 2 years later, we were pregnant with Benjamin,lol.)
That sounds like a wonderful gift.
One thing people forget, assuming they ever knew in the first place, is that women have furnished the most ardent pro AND anti abortion voters. Decades of polling research have shown this. Men don’t care about abortion much–it’s not our problem. But, to women, abortion, including opposition thereto, IS a woman’s isdue. The most persistent Dem delusion is that being for abortion is a winner vis a vis all women.
I believe that a not insubstantial number of men are abusers, Trump voters or otherwise. I believe this because abuse of women is not insubstantial.
Abortion can be and often is a matter of personal safety. People vote for all sorts of things, including safety and freedom.
gorgeous plant pic JC – now want to see pooch!
Just imagine what might happen if any of us
Jail baby. These people think they’re above the law. And they are. The only solution is for the judge to hold Musk in contempt, and jail him when he refuses to pay the fine.
How much do you want to bed that happens in any lifetime?
LOL.
I have added orts and scraps (including a lot of state clips). (That Section Three article is important; there was like a year of lawfare over that, and here we go again.)
Thank you for that article! It is interesting, though I am a bit skeptical of arguments that state legislatures are entirely independent. One reason is that there’s already language in the Constitution limiting that independence . . . in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment with its Mal-Apportionment Penalty for states that deny voting rights.
The penalty is steep: loss of a proportional share of the state’s House seats and accompanying Electoral College votes. It hasn’t been enforced yet, mind you — though some have tried:
https://gpus.org/other/press/pr_2004_12_16.html
For more about putting this issue on the MAP (heh), see:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/04/court-rules-on-pro-bono-electoral-college-lawsuit-filed-by-a-dc-statehood-green-party-member/
or from a less Green-specific perspective:
https://nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-96-number-4/the-penalty-clause-and-the-fourteenth-amendments-consistency-on-universal-representation/
Asa Gordon is also the author of the Taxpayer Voter Identification Act:
https://greenpagesnews.org/taxpayer-voter-id-act-would-allow-more-citizens-to-vote/
“China voices support for Nasa over botched Boeing Starliner space mission” [South China Morning Post]. •
They’re not wrong to have that perception.
JD Vance’s interview w/Joe Rogan debuted….nothing earth-shattering except that Vance was taking about the profit motives of pharma cos more like Ralph Nader than Ronald Reagan or Harris.
And if one is pro-hallucinogens for therapy use; JD Vance via Rogan’s personal lobbying might be the best crack at changing the FDA regs in a long time.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rogan%20vance
all of which goes to show that we aint in Kansas anymore,lol.
spend a bipartisan 40or 50 years narrowing the accepted discourse…all the while essentially merging the “2 opposing parties” on any really substantial issue…and increasingly(frogs in slowly heating pot) suppressing dissent…and when it all gets just too absurd any mores…things start bubbling up in the cracks.
ive thought for a long while that we’re way overdue for an overturning of the party system(what are we in, the sixth?)…but i think now that its more fundamental than that…..Left and Right as designations…derived from the seating arrangements in the prerevolution french parliament …no longer hold…and even liberal and conservative…and progressive, too…are all but useless for self-designation. nor are they really applicable to Others.
is Vance right or left?….looks a lot like he has features of both.
is he conservative? yes, in ways,lol…but he’s also small-l liberal.
i foresee much ferment around these questions, going forward.
i consider myself a left-libertarian, with a dream of socialism…but i’d settle for a new new deal…or real, prudhommeian anarchism…and since i’m the only one out here, i am instead an Anarch, taking a page(and only a page) from Junger’s forest passage(that portion only moved me because i am the only one i know who thinks about such things…cant be a singular socialist,lol…nor a singular anarchist…both are category errors…a Union of One?,lol…i’m on strike, all by myself? is there a point to that?)
AFAICS, left-wing and right-wing don’t mean a lot in these times when everybody knows it’s only the wings with the gravy that get served.
I just watched the first hour while canning tomato marinara sauce with the wife.
He is very relatable, and is someone I can see myself having a civilized and pleasant conversation with. I do not agree with everything he is saying, but it is not word salad and he is obviously bright. He reminds me of so many medical students I have had the privilege to mentor over the years.
Furthermore, “weird” is not even close to how I would describe him. The fact that the entire Democratic structure has gone in for this is a reminder to those of us not on their hopium that they are basically full of it. It is a very disconcerting situation.
Trump has now had 100 million views on his Rogan interview.
The Vance interview is just 7 hours old – and there are already 3.6 million on YouTube as I write this – and another 2.3 million on Spotify. I have not looked at the others.
When this is all accounted for at the end of the election, if Kamala loses, her failure to show up for this show is going to be looked at as a critical mistake. Also, the main stream media going forward is going to be toast. Rogan and those like him are going to be the new arbiters going forward. And I do not in any way think that is a bad thing. The main stream organizations, especially after the issues occurring this past few weeks, deserves to die a very horrible death.
i agree.
people are craving legitimacy and honesty.
thats what i get from my eavesdropping in beer store or feedstore…and its what i get from trolling all manner of folks on twix.
really rather encouraging.
but we’ll see.
and it aint just due to the shenanigans and failures of the “last few weeks”,lol.
this has been building, out here in the hustings, and at the bottom, up, for a long time.
even the stupidest po folks i have known have been viscerally aware of the problem forever, even/especially if they couldnt articulate it.
meaning, all the poor folks i have known, stupid, smart, relatively successful, or not.
everybody down here where i live has known in their bones that shit was frelled.
its just now working its way up, as the bloodfunnel, as it were, digs deeper, and upwards.
Like Rogan or not, I like the long conversation. I’ve watched maybe a dozen or so of his shows. I get more out of that type of interview than the Jerry Springer type stuff the MSM gives us. They can’t die a horrible death fast enough.
And thank you for all you give us here IM Doc.
IM Doc, you’re correct: JD Vance is very bright and a quick learner. He’s also young and dynamic. Combined with his political and religious views, these qualities make him extremely dangerous. I don’t know if you read his book “Hillbilly Elegy.” I did, shortly after it came out, and it made me sick to my stomach. He has been a toxic influence in the state of Ohio.
I felt the same, or nearly the same as you when I read his book.
It disappointed me because just before that I had read a much better book in what was then quite a little sub genre of it’s own.
The better book was Joe Bageant’s “Deer Hunting with Jesus”.
A much more perceptive book. Entirely free of Vance’s recourse to patriotism and military service to validate his criticisms of the US.
Vance reminds me of several USMC enlisted people who came to college either on GI Bill or as part of officer training program (apparently, USMC actively promotes officers from the ranks by sending them to college.) Every one of them was a great person in every way imagibable–hard working, bright, thoughtful, personable, and exceptionally helpful to their fellow students, although I suppose Vance is more accomplished than my former students.
This was in sharp constrast to regular ROTC students whom I found to be exceptionally prone to cheating and plagiarism, as well as getting smugly combative when they got caught.
H5N1 possibly is pigs: I recall a virologist describing pigs as living, breathing gain of function labs.
The price we pay for bacon.
Pig-to-human jump likelihood is way higher than that of cow-to-human. Pigs are infinitely more effective than any human “gain of function lab” would be if such a thing ever exists or tries. Do we call now virologists “gain of function types”? Let’s hope these are only isolated cases… (I mean both the poor little piggy and yours).
yeah. its been known for years that the annual flus that sweep the world come out of rural china, where humans live closely with ducks and pigs…ducks, etc provide the bird flu varieties, humans, the human flus already there…pigs catch them both and mix them.
remember that pigs are somehow very close to humans, physiologically…who coulda known,lol? one can get a pig kidney transplant, and such.
CDC,WHO, et alia have had teams in rural china forever attempting to determine next year’s flu that will sweep the world, so as to make a vax…sometimes rather successfully. they do that by testing the pigs, among other things.
so, yes, this is a worrying development…and i predict that it will eventually be used against small, diverse farms…when the giant CAFO’s…and willy-nilly global travel…create far more problems with human health, in toto.
> living, breathing gain of function
I need to look up the jargon, and the biology but IIRC, pigs have “receptors” of the kind that birds do, and also of the kind that mammals do. So an ideal “lab” for reassortment (and no wonder the Americas turned into a charnel house when the Spanish introduced them). I wonder if feral hogs enter the picture at all…
Factsheet on swine influenza in humans and pigs
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
This was just discussed in a lecture I attended –
And yes – feral hogs are an issue.
I wonder about feral billionaires? Musk seems to be example prime.
The Lake
For years there have been no fish in the lake.
People hurrying through the park avoid it
like the plague. Birds steer clear
and the sedge of course has withered.
Trees lean away from it,
and at night it reflects, not the moon,
but the blackness of its own depths.
There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.
Underwater pigs glide between reefs of coral debris.
They love it here. They breed and multiply
in sties hollowed out of the mud
and lined with mattresses and bedsprings.
They live on dead fish and rotting things,
drowned pets, plastic and assorted excreta.
Rusty cans they like the best.
Holding them in webbed trotters
their teeth tear easily through the tin,
and poking in a snout, they noisily suck out
the putrid matter within.
There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.
For on certain evenings after dark
shoals of pigs surface
and look out at those houses near the park.
Where, in bathrooms,
children feed stale bread to plastic ducks,
and in attics,
toy yachts have long since run aground.
Where, in living-rooms,
anglers dangle their lines on patterned carpets,
and bemoan the fate of the ones that got away.
Down on the lake, piggy eyes glisten.
They have acquired a taste for flesh.
They are licking their lips. Listen .. .
— Roger McGough
Pig’s anatomy resembles the anatomy of humans so much that they use to test new ammunition types on pigs to assess what damage that they would cause.
In fact Musk doesn’t run SpaceX operations, Gwynne Shotwell does. Perhaps that explains things.
Gwynne Shotwell: The brilliant (non-Musk) mind behind SpaceX LA Times
And at the same time, maybe not.
She claimed with a straight face in a TED talk that SpaceX rockets would rival planes/air travel as the method to travel long distances on Earth.
The inconvenient facts of pollution, noise, wasted resources, space-suits, and the non-existence of rockets with short turnaround times didn’t phase her at all.
She may be good at running a company, but she is just as nutty on technical matters.
Bill Clinton explains how the Democrats really think about Palestinians and Arab-Americans.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/bill-clintons-comments-gaza-michigan-rally-draws-social-media-outrage
Bibi must get a good laugh when he hears a speech like this and then clicks open one of Bill’s Epstein tapes for reassurance that more is forthcoming. Talk about garbage. I am flabbergasted that he dove into the deepest of dark Hasbara with the Judea and Samaria “the ancient Jews were there first” trope. He actually used those words. Clarifying. And horrifying.
Whenever I hear a version of “Jews were there first,” I think of someone I know from my old parish–a Palestinian Catholic whose family came from Bethlehem (he goes/went to a Latin church in the States, but, for all I know, his family may well have been of an Eastern Catholic group.) He described his people as members of the Tribe of Daoud who followed Jesus before anyone else in the world. I assume he meant the Palestinian Christians generally. Now, Daoud is David in Arabic, as in King David. So he is not just saying that his people are deeply rooted in Christianity, but also are as “Jewish” as any Jew. I tend to think this is probably true. So maybe the “Jews” were there first, but who’s to say that Palestinians aren’t “Jews” who were there first?
Cliton’s speech is gonna go over big with the Michigan Muslims, fer sure.
He’s so certain that all he has to do is explain his delusions, and then people go “I get it! Genocide is OK, actually!”
“Bill Clinton explains how the Democrats really think about Palestinians and Arab-Americans”
The meanness is spectacular.
When Clinton was talking about ‘those kibbutzim in Israel right next to Gaza, where the people there were the most pro-friendship with Palestine’ he is talking about what are essentially military outposts ‘hiding behind human shields.’ Those are occupation forces meant to hem the Palestinians in. It’s like if Germany set up mini-villages around Dachau in the 30s and somebody claimed that the people in those mini-villages were on really good terms with the inmates of Dachau itself.
I really think he does not like Kamala.
I think if she does indeed lose, the subsequent fracturing of the Democratic Party is going to be for the ages. If you closely pay attention, it has already started.
Fracturing into what pieces?
The old union voters are at least half way gone – and I anticipate they will be gone for the Dems going forward.
There are multiple ethnic groups peeling off – Latinos, Asians and even Jews.
The Obama faction and the Clinton faction are clearly at odds.
The woke crowd is clearly irritating multiple other factions.
The gays in my orbit are rapidly being concerned about the wokester’s handling of the young kids and gender surgeries.
The billionaire class is also splitting up.
If they do have a loss, this is all going to get really out in the open.
> I really think he does not like Kamala.
Well … :) He knows someone who thinks they should have been the 1st Madame President, doesn’t he? Remember that Noonan article (via peggynoonan.com) saying that Kamala should have been replaced, and expanding the raison d’être thusly: “[t]he practical path would be to make a change that reassures, to a veteran, highly regarded figure in whom people might feel confidence.”
Sounds like Nooners was talking about “the most experienced candidate ever”, doesn’t it? I’ve said it before: HRC (and her husband) won’t shed a tear if Harris loses.
because I am a TikTok voyeur and fascinated in getting glimpses of other people’s lives….
tag along with a woman voting in Vegas.
https://www.tiktok.com/@iamthelmalouise/video/7427622213857086750
From the Undisclosed Region, skepticism about the Shroud of Turin.
Here is the underlying article, given that the Star isn’t the best news source:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5003510
You can click through to the display of the PDF.
Depending on one’s theological point of view, the shroud of Turin is either more important or less important than the U.S. elections.
Let’s assume some importance,
The tells that it is an “icon”:
–The cloth simply is too new.
–The shroud turned up sometime around 1350 and was snapped up by the Savoy, who are pretty shrewd at the business of snapping up. They snapped up some major collections of Egyptian artifacts about two hundred years ago, and the Museo Egizio of Turin is now the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside Egypt.
–The position of the hands. It may be modest, but it defies gravity. See article by Moraes for further explanation.
–From the article, the man is 180 cm, the same height as I am. Obviously, the shroud doesn’t depict me.
–After long lists of software and how various imaging devices work, Moraes points out that a bas relief explains the resultant quality of the image better than the characteristics of a corpse.
–Medieval tomb iconography. It was a time of lots of reliefs of stretched-out dead people.
So: The shroud is a source of pilgrims. Pilgrims generate jobs: One has to make food, sell tasteful souvenirs, run inns, provide entertainment… all of which are easy to come by in Turin (historically speaking, of course).
One odd fact left out: What is the image made of? Paint? Dye? Rust? Moraes wasn’t given access and didn’t speculate. Some of the other analyses that I have read border on calling the coloration pixie dust. I’m inclined to think that our medieval forebears had a few tricks up their sleeves. I wouldn’t rule out madder.
The shroud hardly ever goes on display, so don’t save your pennies for a pilgrimage. I’m not sure when it will next be manifested to the crowds. And in the meantime, more gianduiotti for me.
And yet, there are plenty of images not made by human hands to contemplate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheiropoieta
One must not be too skeptical.
Re: yard sign of the times. Here in DC, I spotted a small front yard with a few similar tombstones, bearing “Twitter,” “WaPo,” and “Dinosaurs.” Not sure if the last one referenced anything political. Dem leadership?
> “Dinosaurs.”
WaPo management?
Just yesterday, Mike Benz referred to an article in the CIA-backed Journal of Democracy, written in July 2005, which laid out a 7-stage strategy for regime change (based on case studies of Blob actions in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia. It is entitled “Transition From Post Communism” Vol. 16, No. 3 (July 2005). Chances appear high, in my opinion, that this type of color revolution strategy could be operationalized in the U.S. between Nov. 5 2024 and Jan. 2025, if Trump is the winner.
Also check out the 14th Amendment Center at Howard University (established in late 2023 and now affiliated with Harvard). They appear to have been doing serious research about Sections 2 and 3 of the 14th amendment to potentially nullify any Trump electoral victory.
Things to keep an eye on (between Nov. 6 and Jan. 6, 2025) if Trump wins:
a) Attempts to create alternative results (most likely on a regional basis in particular swing states).
b) The creation of an organization made up primarily of lawyers and academics that presents a parallel vote tabulation to official results that can serve as a vehicle to incrementally delegitimize the official results.
c) The creation of networks of street protestors to potentially intimidate any Supreme Court decision-making with the message being that they will burn the country down unless there is a nullification of the Trump victory.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/07/sherrilyn-ifill-interview-howard-university-14th-amendment-trump-democracy
January 7, 2024
Sherrilyn Ifill on a Trump win: ‘We will cease to be a democracy’
By Rachel Leingang – Guardian
The longtime civil rights lawyer on the 14th amendment, a new center for Howard University – and resisting
[ Good grief. ]
1st question:
“Are we in a crisis point for democracy, unlike we’ve seen in our lifetimes?
Absolutely. No question about it. We are in a crisis. Any time members of Congress say, as many apparently told Senator Mitt Romney, that they’re afraid to cast the vote they believe they should cast on impeachment because they worry about their children and their wives, we have a problem. We are in an authoritarian moment. Unfortunately, it’s a global authoritarian moment, which makes it even more challenging.”
Mitt Romney. Yeah right. Saviour of democracy.
See for the above quote:
THE ATLANTIC (what else!)
What Mitt Romney Saw in the Senate
In an exclusive excerpt from my biography of the senator, Romney: A Reckoning, he reveals what drove him to retire.
By McKay Coppins
https://archive.is/8I0DG
Coppin´s own magazine not only publishes on his very own book. No, it allows him to actually publish the excerpt HIMSELF. And as an item about Romney from Romney´s biography?! investigative journalism at its finest.
Don´t you think a 3rd assassination would save ´em all the other trouble?
But thanks for the hint of course, will check it out.
I am having this hypothesis that based on certain fonts used in online publishing it is possible to identify whether a site is e.g. CIA sponsored or not.
For instance https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/
reminds me too much of FOREIGN AFFAIRS in design and general looks.
here Benz´s “recommendation”, by… drum rolls.. Michael McFaul, apparently one of the biggest idiots on planet Earth (judging from the many complaints one hears.)
Transitions from Postcommunism
by Michael McFaul
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/transitions-from-postcommunism/
the pdf is available via download button there
p.s.Good God: featured also THIS German lady:
“Ukraine: The Role of Regionalism”
essay by Gwendolyn Sasse
Sasse: One of those establishment creatures who abused her credentials to push for war over Crimea in the FAZ winter 2022!
And as such she has written the one tiny book about the Ukraine War that is most prevalent in Berlin public libraries, “Der Krieg gegen die Ukraine” – “The War Againt Ukraine”
https://www.chbeck.de/sasse-krieg-ukraine/product/33864904
Beck of course being a russophobic, classical German bourgeois publishing house.
Quite a malign piece of work too many innocent souls will be falling for. Made me really angry.
A small book, around 100 pages, just a couple of footnotes because it´s – you know the trick – just an innocent little “essay”, yet by a real EXPERT, which makes footnotes superfluous garbage for amateurs.
My vote blue no matter who mother said today “When Musk takes over, that will all go away(free speech). Will be a lot fewer people too, when vaccines are banned.” She is also absolutely convinced that Trump is a Putin stooge and that women will have their right to vote taken away by the Republicans.
And a friend that works in a very public-facing job said they are “sensing a heightened level of fear and anxiety pervading the public arena.”
Happy Halloween!
Which is fun because he’s a Nazi as well apparently. Liberal Democrat land is very confusing. And scary. I guess keeping up with it correctly is the tell you’re part of the group.
Maybe the real reason it’s going to take 6 days to “count the votes” is to allow the losing side to slowly acclimate?
And the election is on November 5th. Funny date that, as some might say.
Where is Guy Fork
: Remember Remember the t5th 5th of November with , gunpowder treason and Plot.
As my father said, Guy Forks was the only person to enter the Houses of parliament with honest Intentions.
That’s a good one.
Unbelievable…except not.
Jimmy Dore show with Due Dissidence guys. utube, ~20+ minutes.
“Turning Gaza Into A Place No Human Can Exist!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYsERBAT36U
This week a good and NC relevant In Our Time podcast–the Haymarket affair.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023gm2
I listen to this podcast every week – I think it has been on 20 years?
It is always very interesting. The guests are world experts and Melvyn Bragg knows how to ask very piercing questions. I know of no American journalist in the main stream media that can claim that on their resume.
He is clearly getting old, you can tell in his voice. I do wonder what will happen when he has to retire.
He’s 85.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvyn_Bragg
“Some of his early television work was in collaboration with Ken Russell, for whom he wrote the biographical dramas The Debussy Film (1965) and Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), as well as Russell’s film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers (1970).”
I’ve actually seen all of these–a long time ago. They were once shown on PBS. I’ve listened to the show for a long time but not as long as you. I believe Lambert is a fan as well.
Thanks for this as it is new to me. I have always preferred to read but as I age and the eyes get worse podcasts will be more important.
> Melvyn Bragg and guests
Absolutely top-notch! I listen to this a lot. It’s both calming and mind-bendingly intelligent (a salutary reminder that there’s still good scholarship out there, and scholars who work to “[augment] of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life” by communicating their results and insights in plain language (the latter requirement being ruthlesslessly enforced by Bragg).
The Biden library? Isn’t the obvious joke to just recycle Shrub books? He was forced to step down from the ticket. He might raise as much money as the Clintons since 2016 if he’s lucky.
As a known plagiarist, Biden should just get new covers for older books.
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Joseph R. Biden
Catch Me If You Can by Joseph R. Biden Jr
East of Eden by Joseph R. Biden Jr
The Sweet Smell of Success by Joseph R. Biden Jr
Into Thin Air by Joseph R. Biden Jr
Heck,if he followed Barack’s lead of having no actual material in the library they could just paint the book covers and Trompe l’oiel shelves. Then they would only have to change the author’s name and biography in the digital copies no one would ever request. That ought to save them 10 or 20 million alone.
You forgot one:. Mein Kampf, except he’ll have to add an epilogue–I lost the fight because of the stab in the back.
How to win friends and influence people should be in there somewhere.
first thing i put on my top 5 list, where it remains.
Vince is underrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2ap1M3rII
my dad turned me on to it.
another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYvtAR1Uds&list=PL0R8rRyc7_V6J0McAWTSzG7ZvO4CG_Qn9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJLqeCbOtbY
Best Christmas Album EVAH!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fh133ZO1AE&list=PLEpZan9S2GOFesp-gJqsdD80a7zoaflHa
Surely not:
https://youtu.be/WwdI-gbm5kE?si=6IWH1r2JoAE1rjGH
I’ll assume this is snark… Elvis, really? Whatever undeniable (and intial) impact he had on the business at the time, as an artist he was over-rated as was his musical output, imho… but to each his own.
As for a single Christmas song, I’ll raise your Elvis bet with the Pogues “Fairytale of New York.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8
And here’s another: Laura Nyro – Christmas In My Soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYCFSM9OjSw
Since the local radio station started their Christmas songs this morning, here’s some of my favorites: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJmx2Soe5oiA-OFtCQ_T0_YjySFnSoMPD
(Los Straightjackets – Lucha Libre surf rock)
Great Power Politics
Adam Tooze on Bidenomics
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n21/adam-tooze/great-power-politics
#AllThingsElection2024 #TheFinalCountdown
::musical interlude:: (via YouTube)
:)
The Bonnard painting uses a color palette from the Giuseppe Gallo book that Wol linked to in the Oct 29 Water Cooler. The woman and her checked blouse are central to the composition. The caramel or ochre colors of the dog, the child’s hair and decorative element on the left put additional focus on the woman — but you can’t miss the sweet dog. Bonnard was inspired by Japanese art.
yes, thank you.
Haven´t seen yet, er, biopic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnard,_Pierre_and_Marthe
Istn´t there a correation between the triangle of figures with Biden biting the baby with mother and Bonnard´s dog-woman-woman…
more serious, one may notice the efficient contrast of the curly pattern on the dress of the female on the right top and the checkered dress of the woman in the centre (with the simple green grounding colour on the left top margin, while the attention lies with blues in the centre and the brown/ocher-coloured fur).
In the crosshair however the great white scarf of the checkered lady with – variation #3 along curls right and squares left – ittle red spots! and that – may be – cheekily corresponding with large white spots (flowe buds?) above her head around the gentleman´s head – which makes me think something might be going on between her and him.
(But I guess that´s just my ego as observer who wants to interpret something into where there is just colour and fabric…)
The Japanese aspect – I can be very wrong here however – could mirror in the bold bird´s eye view from top of the entire piece on the 2 women with a shift in perspective within the upper left corner and the one on the dog.
> The Bonnard painting uses a color palette from the Giuseppe Gallo book that Wol linked to in the Oct 29 Water Cooler.
Great catch! (I never think of palettes influencing, as opposed to line and form and tone, but of course they would!)
Broken electronic voting machines making the rounds on Twitter. Would be hilarious if Trump and Republicans get us paper ballots again.
German BERLINER ZEITUNG
Pfizer deal: Ursula von der Leyen refuses to provide information to EU Parliament
The EU Commission is appealing against two rulings that would have forced Ursula von der Leyen to be more transparent. The opposition in the EU Parliament is outraged.
by Michael Maier
https://archive.is/1Ewsd