By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Brewer park, Miami-Dade, Florida, United States.
Beautiful:
Last night’s radar from the Netherlands. An explosion of birds heading to England! I would guess Redwing. https://t.co/eOcXbrDFFo
— Jean Roberts (@HeyshamObs) October 25, 2024
But not, one hopes, bearing new strains of flu….
In Case You Might Miss…
- Trump DOD pick Hegseth.
- Thomas Frank has risen from the grave.
- Deploy the Blame Cannons!
- Boeing layoffs, DEI axed.
- Sun Slated To Be Dimmed by Tech Bros.
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
Trump Transition
“Trump Builds Out White House Staff as He Returns to Washington” [Bloomberg]. “Dan Scavino, who previously worked in the White House during Trump’s first term, will serve as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff, Trump said in a statement on Wednesday. James Blair, who served as the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee political director, will take on the role of deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs. Taylor Budowich, who served as the CEO of the pro-Trump super political action committee, MAGA Inc., is being tapped as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. Those appointments are joining Stephen Miller, who will be deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor. Miller will have a key role in enacting Trump’s immigration policies, which the president-elect has said will center on a mass deportation of illegal immigrants and completing the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border. The four all were active in Trump’s campaign, an operation which saw the Republican standard-bearer score an unexpectedly decisive electoral victory.”
* * * “‘Who the f–k is this guy?’: Defense world reacts to Trump’s surprise Pentagon pick” [Politico]. “President-elect Donald Trump’s Tuesday night surprise pick of a conservative commentator and television host as his Pentagon chief shocked Washington, which had expected the nominee to be a seasoned lawmaker or someone with defense policy experience. National security officials and defense analysts had braced for surprises from Trump after experiencing his first four years in office. But even grading on that curve, they say the announcement of Fox News host and decorated Army veteran Pete Hegseth caught them totally off-guard. ‘[Trump] puts the highest value on loyalty,’ Eric Edelman, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official during the Bush administration, said in an interview. ‘It appears that one of the main criteria that’s being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?’ One assessment was more blunt. “Who the fuck is this guy?” said a defense industry lobbyist who was granted anonymity to offer candid views. The lobbyist said they had hoped for ‘someone who actually has an extensive background in defense. That would be a good start.'” • “A good start” at what? Commentary:
Yesterday was a bad day for those who endorse "America First" in our foreign policy.
With reported Trump appointments of neocons Elise Stefanik (UN Ambassador), Mike Waltz (National Security Advisor), and…Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), many who hoped that Trump 2.0 would… pic.twitter.com/TB1p3FoBob
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 12, 2024
Hegseth (1):
Quite something to hear the upcoming US Secretary of Defense admit that the US would lose its "whole power projection system" in the first 20 minutes of a war with China 👇pic.twitter.com/6NZ0VzFtvl
"The Pentagon has a perfect record in all of its war games against China: we lose…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) November 13, 2024
Hegseth (2):
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s new pick for Defense Secretary, says if you open up your Bible you will find that God granted Abraham the land of Israel, and this should apparently inform our understanding of the modern Israel-Palestine conflict pic.twitter.com/YVtzCQ5s5K
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 13, 2024
The Department of Governmental Efficiency:
$TSLA This is effectively a joke, and a huge blow to Musk/Vivek. That is… if you read the fine print, this new DOGE department will “provide advice and guidance from outside the government” – glorified consultants. This is a massive nothing-burger, and quasi fake office. New… https://t.co/XHX8oFJoFc pic.twitter.com/cFmt8j1ny0
— Gordon Johnson (@GordonJohnson19) November 13, 2024
I view this as a mark of favor to Vivek, although if I were Vivek I’d make sure not to be standing in the shadow of any falling safes.
* * * “Dinner at Mar-a-Lago Is for Power Games” [New York Magazine]. “The billionaire X and Tesla owner is around so much he’s even got his own intro music. ‘I don’t know if you know this, but Trump DJs Mar-a-Lago from his iPad,’ says Melissa Rein Lively, another frequent presence at the club these days. ‘So he has a walk-on song for Elon Musk, which is ‘Space Oddity.'” • What a great metaphor; if there’s a vibe shift at Mar-a-Lago, it’s probably Trump. And elsewhere? (And speaking of Space Oddity: Anyone care to make book on how long Trump and Musk are BFFs? I wouldn’t call Space Oddity’s lyrics encouraging, as far as Musk’s fate.)
2024 Post Mortem
“The Elites Had It Coming” [Thomas Frank, New York Times]. Amazingly, Frank returns from his ostracism; the Democrats must be indeed panicked, pace Silver and Kilgore below. (This version is from the Salt Lake Tribune because the NYT is working hard at preventing the various archives from working.) Worth reading in full: This:
At the Republican convention in July, JD Vance described the ruination visited on his working-class town in Ohio by NAFTA and trade with China, both of which he blamed at least in part on Mr. Biden, and also the human toll taken by the Iraq War, which he also contrived to blame on Mr. Biden. Today Mr. Vance is the vice president-elect, and what I hope you will understand, what I want you to mull over and take to heart and remember for the rest of your life, is that he got there by mimicking the language that Americans used to associate with labor, with liberals, with Democrats.
And this:
“Liberals had nine years to decipher Mr. Trump’s appeal — and they failed. The Democrats are a party of college graduates, as the whole world understands by now, of Ph.D.s and genius-grant winners and the best consultants money can buy. Mr. Trump is a con man straight out of Mark Twain; he will say anything, promise anything, do nothing. But his movement baffled the party of education and innovation. Their most brilliant minds couldn’t figure him out. I have been writing about these things for 20 years, and I have begun to doubt that any combination of financial disaster or electoral chastisement will ever turn on the lightbulb for the liberals. I fear that ‘90s-style centrism will march on, by a sociological force of its own, until the parties have entirely switched their social positions and the world is given over to Trumpism. Can anything reverse it? Only a resolute determination by the Democratic Party to rededicate itself to the majoritarian vision of old: a Great Society of broad, inclusive prosperity. This means universal health care and a higher minimum wage. It means robust financial regulation and antitrust enforcement. It means unions and a welfare state and higher taxes on billionaires, even the cool ones. It means, above all, liberalism as a social movement, as a coming-together of ordinary people — not a series of top-down reforms by well-meaning professionals. That seems a long way away today. But the alternative is — what? To blame the voters? To scold the world for failing to see how noble we are? No. It will take the opposite sentiment — solidarity — to turn the world right-side up again.”
Because I hardly ever read the Times anymore, I discovered the above only by listening to this YouTube, linked to by alert reader Flora. The title is indeed clickbait, as Yves suggests; the word “landslide” occurs once in the transcript, only to be debunked (colors on a map are not votes). The discussion in fact serious:
This caught my eye (slightly cleaned up):
[FRANK:] The overturning of the New Deal Democrats, the Great Society Democrats was a generational story. I don’t know if there’s a social science term for it but people never betray their betrayals. Once you do something like that, once you turn the Democratic party, which these guys did in the 1970s, once you turn on the Democratic party and say we’ve had enough of organized labor, and we’ve had enough of the party of the New Deal and all that, you’re never going back. That is what you did as a generation. It is your accomplishment. They’re psychologically incapable of saying “Oh, we were wrong, our great moment as a generation was a mistake.” No human can do that.”
One funeral at a time.
* * * “It’s 2004 all over again” [Nate Silver, Silver Bulletin]. “Of course, it didn’t work out so badly for Democrats. Bush’s second term was a disaster, marked by the failure of Social Security reform, the ongoing quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina. Democrats had a strong 2006 midterm, gaining 33… And then Barack Obama romped to the largest Electoral College and popular vote win of the 21st Century so far. Progressivism was in the ascent — until the Tea Party came along in 2010 and whipped Democrats back to reality again.” Because during the foreclosure crisis the only people [genuflects] Obama rescued were the banksters. More; “It’s hard not to see the parallels between Bush’s win in 2004 and Donald Trump’s last week. Like Bush, Trump won thanks partly to a surge of votes from Latino and Asian American voters. Like Bush, he’ll win the popular vote — probably by a margin of around 1.4 percentage points once all votes are counted. He’ll probably come just short of an outright majority, although it will be close, and Trump’s Electoral College margin was more impressive than Bush’s, who was only one state (Ohio) away from losing to Kerry. Certainly, the mood feels very different than after Trump’s first win in 2016. Democrats have approached the outcome in a more cerebral and analytical way than I was expecting, with manifestos about a new way forward for the party and unapologetic shifts away from ‘wokeness.’ The party is ready to move past the Clintons, the Bidens and the Obamas — well, unless Michelle Obama decides to run, I guess — and it would be stunning if there’s any appetite to nominate Harris or Tim Walz again. With a clear, undisputed outcome on relatively high turnout — likely in the range of 156 million votes, just a hair down from 2020 — there’s less talk about the term-limited Trump being an existential threat to democracy, rhetoric that may have been persuasive to people like me but never resonated with swing voters. And although you can find people who blame the New York Times for the outcome, for the most part, the vibe shift is in the opposite direction, away from academic polemicism and toward constructive strategic conversations about how Democrats can regain their footing for 2026 and beyond.” • Four years of lawfare and “He’s a fascist!” followed by “Never mind!” and a shift tpoward “constructive strategic conversation”? Really? Do these people ever listen to themselves? To be fair, maybe in 2028 Democrats can again nominate a charistmatic fresh face who will completely fail to rise to the occasion and normalize and rationalize everything
BushTrump did. History may not repeat, but it circles the drain.“Democrats Were Crushed in 2004, Too. It Didn’t Last Long” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “In terms of the shock value of Bush’s reelection, it can credibly be argued that in retrospect the 41st president was a paragon of civility and moderation compared to the 45th/47th. But that’s not the way it looked to Democrats at the time. George W. Bush was widely regarded on the left as a war-mongering simpleton who had sold his party’s soul to rich people, defense contractors, and Christian fundamentalists.” And the post starts out musing on the importance of history! Bush was a far, far, worse President on policy than Trump, although of course Kilfgore, as a Democrat, prizes “civility and moderation” above all else. More: “As we now know, the sense of Republican strength and Democratic weakness that was so pervasive on Election Night in 2004 was ephemeral. Within months Bush gave Democrats a unifying issue with his clumsy and immediately unsuccessful efforts to “reform” Social Security.” In which, believe it or, the blogosphere played a role. Concluding: “the further we get from the pandemic and the [million deaths, oh wait…] inflation that followed it, the less Democrats will be held responsible for the chronic unhappiness of the American people. So while Democrats really should conduct a thorough self-examination of what went wrong since 2020, despair is premature and probably unwarranted.” • They campaigned on “our democracy.” “This might be our last election!” Then their candidate gets tossed aside like a limp rag, and suddenly everybody’s talking about the next midterms. Talk about a vibe shift!
* * * “Scoop: The 2024 blame game finally comes for Hakeem Jeffries” [Axios]. Blah blah blah, all the way to this: “Jeffries is expected to be unopposed for reelection when House Democrats meet for their leadership elections on Nov. 19. Jayapal bristled at the notion she would withhold her support for Jeffries, saying ‘he is the leader of our party.’ Still, the senior House progressive who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Axios: ‘I don’t think anybody ever should take or can take their leadership for granted.'” • Why not? And how wonderfully clarifying on Jayapal.
* * * “Liz Cheney Was an Electoral Fiasco for Kamala Harris” [The Nation]. “Unfortunately, while many Democratic tacticians were enthusiastic about Cheney’s jumping on board as a Harris backer, Republican voters couldn’t have cared less. The Cheney strategy was an abject failure that added few if any votes to the Democratic total, alienated voters who have no taste for the former GOP representative’s neocon extremism, and stole precious time from an agonizingly short campaign schedule…. This reality is most apparent in the election results from Ripon. The east-central Wisconsin city where abolitionists, land reformers, and utopian socialists founded the Republican Party in 1854 seemed ripe for a cross-party appeal. Ripon has been a Republican stronghold for 170 years, but the city is also a college town that in the past has shown a good measure of enthusiasm for Democrats such as Barack Obama. But that’s not how things played out on Election Day. On November 5, Trump won 53.8 percent of the vote (2,097 ballots) in the city of Ripon, while 45 percent (1,753 ballots) voted for Harris. That was a worse finish for the Democratic ticket than in 2020, when Joe Biden won 46.6 percent (1,820 ballots), while 51.7 percent (2,019 ballots) voted for Trump. But, surely, Ripon was an anomaly. No. Definitely and unequivocally no.”
“Lichtman blames bad election prediction on disinformation, Elon Musk” [The Hill]. “Lichtman pointed to conservative media platforms and Musk, who poured millions into President-elect Trump’s campaign and has become one of his loudest media cheerleaders, as a factor in his inaccurate prediction. Musk had helped fuel the spread of false or misleading information online about issues like immigration, hurricane relief and the war in Ukraine, Lichtman said, effectively ‘putting his thumb on the scales.'” • Another way of saying this is that Lichtman’s model isn’t valid any more, because our political economy changed out from under it.
* * * The House:
Slim and razor thin: The GOP is on pace to have the smallest House majority at the start of a Congress since Alaska & Hawaii became states.
If this past Congress is any guide, we could be looking at one of the least productive Houses in the last 50 years… pic.twitter.com/0JVy3zvoeK
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) November 13, 2024
The Senate:
“Thune elected Senate majority leader” [The Hill]. “Thune has served as Senate Republican whip, the No. 2-ranking position in the Senate GOP leadership, since 2019, and largely managed operation of the Senate floor after McConnell suffered a concussion from a fall in 2023…. Thune is well liked among his Senate Republican colleagues, and his affable, humble approach to managing the conference has earned the trust and confidence of fellow GOP senators… He crossed swords with Trump in December 2020 when he whipped colleagues to oppose an effort by Trump allies to block the certification of President Biden’s victory in the presidential race. Thune declared the effort to throw out Biden electors would ‘go down like a shot dog,’ prompting an angry response from Trump, who called him a ‘RINO’ and called for him to face a primary challenge in 2022. Trump’s threat of political retaliation didn’t amount to much, as Thune easily won reelection. Thune tried to mend fences with Trump in recent months by visiting his home at Mar-a-Lago in March and toning down any criticism of the GOP presidential nominee when asked about his controversial statements.”
Our Famously Free Press
“With Surge in New Users, Bluesky Emerges as X Alternative” [New York Times]. “[Bluesky] has gained more than a million new users in the week since the election, a company spokeswoman, Emily Liu, said on Tuesday. The majority of the new users live in the United States, Canada and Britain, she added…. New or freshly active users on the platform include celebrities (the rapper Flavor Flav, the author John Green), Democratic political figures (Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary) and media personalities (Mehdi Hasan, Molly Jong-Fast).” • Wow, Molly Jong-Fast. I’m sold.
“Guardian will no longer post on Elon Musk’s X from its official accounts” [Guardian]. “In an announcement to readers, the news organisation said it considered the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter were now outweighed by the negatives, citing the ‘often disturbing content’ found on it.” • I practically live on Twitter, and the algo occasionally feeds me stuff on the Azovs. So…
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!
Airborne Transmission: Covid
“Measurements and Simulations of Aerosol Released while Singing and Playing Wind Instruments” [American Chemical Society]. From 2021 (!). From the Abstract: ” We found that plumes from musical performance were highly directional, unsteady and varied considerably in time and space. Aerosol number concentration measured at the bell of the clarinet was comparable to that of singing. Face and bell masks attenuated plume velocities and lengths and decreased aerosol concentrations measured in front of the masks. CFD modeling showed differences between indoor and outdoor environments and that the lowest risk of airborne COVID-19 infection occurred at less than 30 min of exposure indoors and less than 60 min outdoors.” • Commentary:
& the other one that shows how to reduce the aerosols: https://t.co/INMR0jreYu
That’s why I’ve been SO irate w music ed since the beginning; we did the research. We started protecting students. & then they went right along with the great unmasking & let it spread thru ensembles
— ✨🎶Kristennnn🍉✨ (@singingsox) November 12, 2024
Helpful EPA guidance:
If you’re fighting for clean air in your school district, in your vocation, in your state or province or in a lawsuit, you can now point to the US @EPA‘s guidance that ASHRAE should be consulted, specifically Standard 241: Control of Infectious Aerosols.https://t.co/lYRUugYByT pic.twitter.com/JlwSsNB40o
— Blake Murdoch (@BlakeMMurdoch) November 4, 2024
Transmission: H5N1
How is it that Bonnie Henry is still in office?
Full force H5N1 has a 58% mortality rate, it is AIRBORNE, foodborne, waterborne, fomite, blood borne, poo, etc. Bonnie Henry, laughs & states, ON VIDEO, there will be no public safety measures for human to human transmission ☣️. This is criminal pic.twitter.com/n6KgXdlatu
— Sass (@sasswashere) November 12, 2024
I know I should do a Bonnie Henry takedown, but… some figures are too repellent even for me.
“The Multiplicative Power of Masks” [Aatish Bhatia ⨉ Minute Physics]. “We now know that masks have an outsized effect on slowing the spread of COVID-19. And yet, some people oppose wearing masks because they view this as a personal choice rather than a public health issue. This misses the big picture because masks protect the wearer and the people around them. This two-way protection makes widespread mask-wearing a powerful way to extinguish an epidemic. By doing the math on masks, we’ll see how when 60% of people wear 60% effective masks, disease transmission drops by as much as 60% — roughly what’s needed to stop the spread of COVID-19.” • And whatever the next airborne pandemic might be.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC November 4 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC November 9 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 2 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data November 12: | National [6] CDC November 8: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens November 11: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 9: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC October 21: | Variants[10] CDC October 21: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
“Why Boeing Killed DEI” [City Journal]. “Earlier this month, Boeing’s newly installed CEO, Kelly Ortberg, quietly dismantled the DEI department and accepted the resignation of the office’s vice president. To understand how this happened, we reached out to [an] insider.” “[INSIDER]: [Ortberg] is looking at every business and every process with fresh eyes, asking the basic question, ‘Does this help us build airplanes?’ HR organizations like to make the argument that you need the right mix of skin color and gender preference to perform and innovate. But everyone who has had to build things knows that what really drives value is integrity, hard work, and technical expertise. This doesn’t mean that bias doesn’t exist and that we don’t need to fight it, but he [Ortberg] gets that the best culture directly promotes values and results, not identity groups.” And: “oeing more than anything needs an aligned workforce focused on building airplanes, and it’s an easy decision to reject the divisive and U.S.-centric language of DEI in favor of a unified vision for a diverse, global company.” • Thing is, if Boeing were a co-op like Mondragon, I can see that Boeing asking exactly the same question: “Does this help us build airplanes?”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Forecasts 67% Growth In Global Air Cargo Fleet By 2043, Driven By Asia Demand” [Benzinga]. “Boeing projects a 4% annual increase in air cargo traffic through 2043, anticipating a 67% growth in the global freighter fleet. Asia-Pacific leads demand, requiring 980 new freighters; North America follows with 955 as Boeing forecasts robust e-commerce growth.” • Plus freighters have less reputational and legal risk; if they fall out of the sky, there are no pesky passengers.
Manufacturing: “What Can Be Learned From Boeing’s Downfall?” [Forbes]. ” Once-proud society that honored engineering successes and problem-solving gave way to a perspective that undervalued technical knowledge in favor of financial results. Since the company’s fundamental safety criteria were violated, this decline of basic values not only harmed employee morale but also resulted in oversights and expensive blunders. Clearly, fostering innovation and preserving quality depend on a mission-driven culture whereby staff members are empowered to defend business ideals. Companies that want long-term success must stick to their basic goal and acknowledge the importance of the knowledge of their staff, particularly in sectors where quality and safety take front stage.” • Take software — please!
Manufacturing: “Boeing Faces Risk as It Starts Job Cuts in Tight Labor Market” [Bloomberg]. “[T]he company is staffed for peak production levels it likely won’t see for years, especially after a 53-day strike largely halted work in its plants across the west coast. Boeing had 171,000 employees at the start of this year, 12% more than the 153,000 it employed five years earlier, when its factories were at their pre-crisis peak…. ‘We need to reset priorities and create a leaner, more focused organization,’ Ortberg said during an Oct. 23 earnings call. The cuts are intended to ‘focus on consolidation of areas where we’re not efficient, and we need to continue to focus on reducing non-essential activity.'” • Defense…
Manufacting: “Boeing layoffs weren’t just a strike threat” [Quartz]. “Reuters reports that the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, the union representing Boeing engineers, received word from Boeing that 60-day layoff notices would be issued to its members this Friday. Seattle-area CBS (PARA) affiliate KIRO says that the machinists’ union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, has no updates to share…. When Boeing first announced the layoffs, it blamed the move on ‘near-term challenges’ tied to the strike. But it is becoming clearer that the company’s cash-conscious caution will not end now that the machinists are back at work. Despite raising mountains of cash to refill its stoppage-drained coffers, the company still has a long way to go to dig itself out of the $6 billion loss it incurred last quarter.” • Maybe axe the troublemakers? I’m sure we’ll find out.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 69 Greed (previous close: 68 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 58 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 13 at 1:25:26 PM ET.
Gallery
Winter is coming:
Not much playing on the ice on this frigid winter day. People are just trying to get to a warm home. By Aert van der neer, d. OTD in 1677. pic.twitter.com/c924dedM8v
— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) November 9, 2024
“Silicon Valley’s Elite Pour Money Into Blotting Out the Sun” [Bloomberg]. “[T[here are people working in semi-secret on technology to tweak the weather, even if they’re nowhere close to controlling hurricanes. A growing number of Silicon Valley founders and investors are backing research into blocking the sun by spraying reflective particles high in the atmosphere or making clouds brighter. The goal is to quickly cool the planet. A couple of startups are already trying to deploy this untested technology or betting governments will eventually use it, while a cluster of Bay Area nonprofits are backing research into its planetary impact. With the world hotter than at any point in human history and emissions showing no sign of falling, the pitch is that dimming the sun is a relatively cheap way to turn the heat down. ‘To get started it only takes one person to say, ‘I have 100 million quid, I have a business jet, let’s go,’‘ said Andrew Lockley, a UK-based independent researcher in the field scientists call geoengineering. ‘History will judge whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.'” Well, that’s re-assuring. “Many tech types turn to science fiction for inspiration, and in the case of geoengineering there’s a template: Neal Stephenson’s 2021 novel Termination Shock. The plot follows a Texas billionaire who takes climate matters into his own hands by building the world’s biggest gun to shoot particles into the sky to reflect incoming sunlight.” • But only certain sorts of science fiction; I don’t think Ursula LeGuin, Philip K. DIck, or even WIlliam Gibson figure largely in the tech bro Weltanschauung. For a review of Termination Shock, see The Ironies of Neal Stephenson: Thoughts on His Thriller, Termination Shock at NC.
“My Social Anxiety Cheat Sheet for Mingling” [Adam Grant]. “I got this advice from a manager about dealing with people in general and love it. People like to talk about themselves and they like it when you encourage them to do so. When you get people to keep talking about themselves, it’s less work for you, and it makes them feel good talking to you.” • Hmm.
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 expat2uruguay:
expat2uruguay writes: “Spring cuttings waiting for further processing tomorrow and hopefully to become new plants.” Uruguay being in the Southern hemisphere.
Once more, kind readers, thanks to those who have sent in plant images. However, the queue is still short, and that always makes me nervous. Do you have an images to send in, especially of autumn produce or winter projects? Thank you!
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re: plantidote. Is that a begonia plant in flower? Beautiful.
Looks more like a pelargonium/geranium. That must be a cheerful sight on the table in the spring.
The large blossom is from a Pelargonium cultivar (AKA Geranium). The red-leaved plant could be a begonia.
“People like to talk about themselves and they like it when you encourage them to do so. When you get people to keep talking about themselves, it’s less work for you, and it makes them feel good talking to you.”
That’s why I like to strike up a conversation by saying, “What the f*** is wrong with you?”
What’s your least favorite part of the article?
One scene from a personal favorite movie, Tombstone, has the loquacious Doc Holliday meeting rival gun enthusiast Johnny Ringo at the dealer table where the Earps have set up shop.
“I don’t know him, but there’s something about the eyes…No I’m sure I don’t like him…”. Then a few seconds, after exchanges in Latin, “Mr. Ringo is an educated man, now I’m sure I hate him…”
Very funny, however, my mom decades ago said “If you want people to think you’re the most fascinating person they’ve ever met, just ask them about themselves.” Everyone agreed Mom was fascinating (and one hell of a saleswoman).
Seeing as Native Americans lived here for around 8,000 years, wouldn’t they have similar claims to the USA-as the Jews regarding Israel, albeit not in the Bible?
Yes but which native Americans? They had their own wars of conquest.
Of course the Israelis have always used your example as a defense. Shorter them: we are among the finest minds of the 19th century.
Regardless of the justice or morality the Americans back then saw the pioneer conquest of the West as historic inevitability given overcrowded and unjust to poor people Europe. And it probably was. Whereas Palestine was a land without (Jewish) people mostly and they had to be persuaded to go there.
I am reminded of the speech, a devilish take on war, by the character the Judge in McCarth’s “Blood Meridian”:
“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by an ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man’s vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.”
It’s worth noting here that The Judge is most often read as a character of absolute horror, representing genocidal european philosophy/civilization (that says that it will never die), and followed in the epilogue by its advancing feed lots and fence poles.
It’s a bad old world.
One might say, which Jews? The ones whose ancestors stayed on the land and converted to Christianity and/or Islam over the years (aka the Palestinians) or the ones who say (and might actually be) they are descended from the diaspora that didn’t convert? Seeing as that I met at least one Palestinian who proudly said his people (presumably, Palestinian Christians generally) are descended from the tribe of Daoud (i.e King David), who’s to say that they are not “real Jews”? (I should think they are at least as Jewish as Warren is a Native American)
Paleo-archeologists claim that the ancient DNA from the Natufian population over 13,000 years ago cluster quite closely with the modern day Palestinians and Bedouins. Basically meaning that they have been in the hood about 11,000 years before proto-Judaism emerged from the Caananite religions.
Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/2003-05-13/ty-article/israels-skin-cancer-rate-second-highest-in-the-world/0000017f-f11e-d8a1-a5ff-f19e2e900000
May 13, 2003
The skin cancer rate in Israel is among the highest in the world, the Israel Cancer Association reported yesterday. At the end of 2000 there were 3,631 skin cancer patients in Israel and around 200 die every year…..”
Lots of old people in Israel…
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/sraels-adult-18-population-distribution-by-age-and-gender-intermediate-growth_fig1_336194679
re: “Liz Cheney Was an Electoral Fiasco for Kamala Harris” [The Nation].
Ya think? / ;)
If only it was enough to reset the Democratic policy of ignoring their now former working class base in order to appeal to suburban Republicans. This election should have put a knife in the heart of Chuck Schumer’s less than brilliant strategy that was always about fundraising not governing. Liz Cheney was the obvious result of that thinking And they were deluded enough to think it was a huge win.
Hell it should have torn the head off and set offa huge funeral pyre.
I know I should do a Bonnie Henry takedown, but… some figures are too repellent even for me.
Lambert is only human, and in view of his mighty labours to date, it would be ungrateful to quibble.
So I will try to offer something positive at such a moment of bleakness, and bring forward a welcome example of “News You Can Use”. The Toronto Star appears to have lifted its paywall for some helpful advice: Here’s how not to bring bed bugs home after visiting Toronto for Taylor Swift concert.
>know I should do a Bonnie Henry takedown, but… some figures are too repellent even for me.
Lambert is only human, and in view of his mighty labours to date, it would be ungrateful to quibble.
I suggest Lambert continuing on his takedowns has me thinking that someday we will find him immortalized in the ” Taking one for the team “Hall of Fame. Yellow waders and all.
So is Boeing front office best reflected as a grouping of Porsche driving executives, aka the infamous but fictional Bill Lumbergh from Office Space ? \sarc
I’d be interested in there lurks within Boeing HQ a real version of Peter Gibbons. Going further still with the analogy, perhaps instead I project the likelihood of a Peter, a Milton or Michael Bolton, at least 1 in 3…
Larry Johnson on the DOD pick. He says Trump is setting up a group of loyalists who won’t go behind his back as in Trump One (yes you Nikki). I think he makes some good points.
https://sonar21.com/what-is-donald-trump-doing/
I hope he is right. Macgregor and Napolitano do not sound so positive about it. They, on the contrary, are saying that this looks like his choices came off of a Miriam Adelson wish list. But, who knows? Is a hundred million dollars really all that persuasive an argument for a billionaire? I guess we will find out.
Will loyalists to Trump be loyal to the country? I guess we’ll find out.
He has said that he wants the war in Israel to stop before he is inaugurated, and he has a Lebanese son in law that is advising him as well. I have to wonder if Trump is not giving the uber-Zionist cadre just enough rope to hang themselves. The stuff coming out about these people is really appalling, and the MAGA crowd is not having it.
Maybe that is the point of the exercise?
Hoping the same, rope-wise. I do however think Hegseth is a good choice. All the public sees are the press conferences and Hegseth is perhaps the best choice for dealing with the pro-arms industry news media. It would be interesting to know who picks his top staff for him.
If he is a disaster, Gabbard will be waiting in the wings.
I do wonder if some of Trump’s picks might be swapped out if the Senate logs out and lets Trump do recess appointments. I am not realigned yet and don’t really trust Trump but I also feel enormous hostility towards Democrats in Congress and see no reason why they should try to blow up Trump’s nominees (as they most surely will). I believe in honeymoons and believe even more strongly that Democrats would fare better in 2026 if they gave Trump the traditional 100 day honeymoon.
I’m of the view that whomever Trump appoints to these various posts matter little. This is because Trump (and every POTUS) has less power than myth says. The administrative state is very powerful and can override (in a manner of speaking) presidential directives. Trump was greatly hamstrung during his first term. Despite he being “smarter” this second go around, Trump likely will be greatly hamstrung again.
From the Politico link:
“He is a former executive director for Vets for Freedom and former CEO of Concerned Veterans for America — a group advocating for outsourcing of health care for veterans that was funded by the Koch brothers.
…
During the first Trump administration, Hegseth played a pivotal role in several episodes in which Trump inserted himself in the military justice system in order to grant clemency to troops convicted of war crimes.”
‘Hegseth, who was a platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay during his military service, defended the treatment of inmates detained there.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth
And that was back in the bad old days of 2004 when a lot of those prisoners should never have been there but were there to make up the numbers.
I imagine it will be nice for Trump to have someone ready to hand in his cabinet that knows how to waterboard anyone he needs information out of. Fewer saboteurs that way.
Tulsi Gabbard to DNI is interesting.
She can find out who put her on the watch list!
Rubio at State is interesting. Is he there to sabotage that nest of neocons?
Rubio is there to grease the skids for a hot war with China. He is an uber China hawk.
This will be good. I will have to get some popcorn for the confirmation hearings.
Hey NC!
A member of my group, Class Unity, is having a heterodox economic conference at his university in Rio Grande, TX in February if y’all are interested!
A lot of us Left Economic Populists are interested in this, and the organizer is trying to have a Grand Colloquium of Leftist orgs like Platypus, ACP, Sublation Media, and Class Unity get involved.
I’d like us to develop an Economic Program for a Populist Third Party so we can help workers understand their different locals and how the wealthy trick them with numbers and taxes and stuff:
Hi comrades. Does anyone know if we have plans to discuss the strategic opportunities presented by the election? I’m seeing some people in my social media circles openly discussing perhaps returning to DSA, and rebuilding from there. Of course, I’m dubious as to what opportunities that could possibly present. But it does seem to suggest that there is a new wave of searching for answers breaking out. And I’m just wondering, are we having that discussion here in Class Unity or is that a discussion folks would like to have in the near future?
Also, if anyone is interested, we are going to be having a conference down here in Texas in February about these issues. We are still accepting proposals to give papers. A lot of the Platypus guys are coming (Cutrone, Spencer Leonard), and Varn too. And Ben Burgis, and Benjamin Studebaker. It would be great to see some of you there for what promises to be a historically important discussion.
https://ccpsconference.org
“Hi comrades. Does anyone know if we have plans to discuss the strategic opportunities presented by the election? I’m seeing some people in my social media circles openly discussing perhaps returning to DSA, and rebuilding from there. Of course, I’m dubious as to what opportunities that could possibly present. But it does seem to suggest that there is a new wave of searching for answers breaking out. And I’m just wondering, are we having that discussion here in Class Unity or is that a discussion folks would like to have in the near future?
Also, if anyone is interested, we are going to be having a conference down here in Texas in February about these issues. We are still accepting proposals to give papers. A lot of the Platypus guys are coming (Cutrone, Spencer Leonard), and Varn too. And Ben Burgis, and Benjamin Studebaker. It would be great to see some of you there for what promises to be a historically important discussion.”
This is absolutely fantastic!
Not to assign work, but please make sure all the papers, and ideally transcripts of Q&A sessions, are available and linkable online (i.e., not buried in PDFs). After all, we want working people to be able to read them….
COVID and the arts
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2024/11/07/macbeth-david-tennant-covid/
As David Tennant’s Macbeth gets cancelled, more questions are raised around Covid protections
Have a performance where masks are required and enforce the requirement. Update the ventilation, if needed.
And require that all the performers be masked as well, to show productive sincerity.
If one can act through a mask, then one has a truly bright career ahead of them.
Of course, Kabuki Masks?
A guaranteed sellout inside the beltway!
About the song Space Oddity, everyone knows the David Bowie original.
A very good singer who sings as ” Puddles The Clown” did his own version of this which is very good in its own way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydhE7wThDtI
I got to see Puddles live this summer. He opened for Primus and then joined them later and sang a cover of Dio’s Holy Diver. Worth it if you can catch him live!
I saw him live in a small venue pre-COVID and I echo the recommendation, he is fantastic!
Bizarrely, we listened to Bowie’s Space Oddity just this morning – and I really liked it. However, I think this version sucks the life out of the song and is too tedious to finish.
I added orts and scraps, including the very welcome return of Thomas Frank!
Thomas Frank seemed during the panel discussion at times giddy with delight. And so he should be. Having been shunned by the U.S. MSM for being so incisively correct in his scathing critique of contemporary Democrat elites, it appears he’s being welcomed back. I am
giddy with delightcautiously optimistic at the prospect of his ideas once again being deemed acceptable in polite society.A little comic relief. This headline writer wins the interwebs today – Wind Blowing Out of Uranus Makes It Hard to Probe, NASA Complains.
Somebody really enjoyed writing that one.
The comments about 2004 are, eh, interesting. 2004 was the last election I voted in and I wasn’t cynical enough to not to fall into anti-W hysteria then. But, what really made me rethink everything I thought until then about politics was the way my friends and colleagues approached the election and reacted to the outcome in the immediate aftermath, which, at that time, seemed bizarre…but has nothing on the hysteria around Trump this time around (or, for that matter, 2016). The experience did immunize me against the Obama euphoria 4 years later.
Any insight on Asset Allocation (AA) for retirement, in the uncertain future where the Limits To Growth-type exhaustion of key resources or other world changing-calamity such as climate change occurs?
In the current era (including New Deal & Reaganomics Neoliberal eras) until now, I tend to believe picking 1 of several proven AA using low-cost index funds listed at the informational site portfoliocharts (such as Boglehead 60% global stocks, 40% 30 year treasury bonds, or Permanent Portfolio) will work to achieve 3%+ real/inflation-adjusted returns with low max drawdown.
However if/when the Calamity hits, I doubt stocks and bonds will even maintain real (even 0% real return) value. The only thing I guesstimate is to live in an area that is likely to be habitable and pay off your residential home. Still hold stocks/bonds/cash I Bonds savings bonds, but just know than in the Calamity ALL paper financial assets may Fail to match inflation. We Muricans may face the additional challenge of our USDs losing relative value if the USD at some time is less important as a global reserve currency.
What do ya think?! (c) Ed Schultz
Investment returns for calendar year 2022 were broadly speaking horrendous and in the toilet. I think equity market indices did begin to turn gradually from bear to bull by late that year, but that’s off recall so maybe worth some validation.
Cash and very ST money market funds were the only positive returning sectors…Real estate and gold were also moderately higher for 2022…. Investing for an apocalypse is out of my scope of any real or supposed intelligence on such matters. Below link is pretty informative I think.
https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.html
Responding because I’m interested in this scenario but I either did miss, or lack at detecting any implied sarcasm. Free advice disclaimer and all that…
my cousin, the part time/sometimes day trader, asked me the same.
i said what i always said: i get a windfall, i rummage in my mental list of things that need doin in order to bring us closer to autarky, and spend that windfall immediately on hard goods/equipment/etc that will be needed for those things that need doin.
it can be a pain to protect 100 sheets of 3/4″ plyboard for 2 years,lol, but tarps are cheap and that ply would cost me a lot more, today…and the money wouldnt have kept well, either; eaten up by bank fees or robbed(by me, for sudden necessaries) out of the mattress.
if its a really large windfall, buy land out in the sticks that nobody wants.
and yes, i remain a doomer. i dont see anything in the usa getting any better in my lifetime.
$100 says Hegseth never gets approved by a Thune led senate. But they can’t stop Trump from purging the brass. Nobody can. At least not legally. Should at least be entertaining watching the Democrats try to defend the military industrial complex against a Republican president. Since so few of them saw the irony in having the Cheneys on their side, I doubt they’ll see it in that either.
A point that I believe has been largely somewhat in discussions on how Trump will govern is this: he can’t run again. He does not have to promote any specific policy to court the desires of the populace in view to a future election. Additionally, he is old and has seen it all–over-the-top vilification, lawfare, impeachments, assassination attempts. In theory, the only check on what he wants to do is the system/blob/Deep State. With his indisputable communication skills, Trump could, by appealing directly to the populace, try stuff that is largely opposed by the blob. It may likely be defeated, but what does the guy have to lose? This leads to an examination of what makes him tick. Ego? Legacy? Physical self-preservation? Damn if I or anyone else truly know.
“ignored” in place of “somewhat”
I’ll preface my thoughts on our national politicians and most highly elite thought leaders and all the associates go with them…I generally distrust the lot of them but watch what they do opposite what they say…
Trump would desire a historical comparison to Reagan, I believe that all else equal. Not the early onset or initial signs of developing Alzheimer’s Reagan…much to the chagrin of our nation’s coterie of armchair analysts ready to diagnose Trump as afflicted with this, that and the other.
A flailing second term for DJT # 47 would make it highly difficult for a JD Vance, or a Tom Cotton or any other current Senator, House Rep or Governor to ride the Trump coattails in 2028 or beyond.
But then again this is America, so by then in 2028 the future America might just say to America 2024, “Watch this and Hold Mah Beer”…
I think it depends on how they game it out. A guy like Youngkin would desperately want Trump to flail about while Team Blue makes no reforms. They just don’t want to aggressively make Trump flail to avoid being the “RINO.”
The perception of the fungability of the 100k+ crowd will be key. Without the Trump “charisma”, I think there is a path to pull those votes while Democrats swear by Buttigieg.
I see Trump as a wanna be “Wise Guy” who defeats all of his adversaries. He absolutely hates to lose. Trump came of age at the height of New York Cosa Nostra power. As a real estate developer Trump had to work with mob controlled contractors of all kinds. He probably broke bread with a variety of mid-level mobsters and came to identify with them in that he learned to admire their style. Trump enjoys glitz and glamour. So did the upper echelon mobsters. Trump loves to assign nicknames, especially to those he wishes to disparage. Mobsters also had nicknames. John “the Teflon Don” Gotti. Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. And so on. Trump is vintage New Yorker. Lots of hot air, but deep down he has a good heart.
I think that I’ve been here with everyone first freaking out then dealing with Covid since it showed up in maybe January 2020? I’d have to go back and read the dailies. Thank god for this damn blog.
Maybe I’m nuts, but looking at those charts above, it seems like we finally arrived at the tail end of this. I remember thinking that after the West gave up on protecting citizens about mid 2022, my wife said that we’re in this for five years now, and screwed. Hopefully next year is the last real Covid pandemic year. Until the next time. Trying to be uplifting here because it’s been brutal at work as well lately.
Best wishes! Enjoy something that gives you pleasure!
> Maybe I’m nuts, but looking at those charts above, it seems like we finally arrived at the tail end of this.
I’m waiting until after the Holiday infection period.
But yes, it’s possible that the powers that be have successfully laid down another tranche of lethality, like deaths of despair, deaths from no single payer, deaths from various forms of pollution, deaths from diet and pharma…
Adding, my view is that Covid-conscious is adaptive, in the Darwinian sense, but it takes awhile for the benefits to appear relative to the Covid-denying population. On the IQ drops and executive function lossage from repeated infection: “If you can keep your head when all around you / are losing theirs and blaming it on you…”
> IQ drops and executive function lossage
Nearly had a wreck yesterday, on our four-lane mall road, mature preppy (on foot) crossing as I was at the wavefront of traffic, gets across but sees something shiny and turns around and jumps into the lane fifty feet ahead of me (less than 1.5 seconds at 30mph). I swerve left, a very unhappy van with a fortunately vigilant driver next to me.
A single data point, but I’ve lived in this college town over thirty years and it’s the ‘biggest lack of impulse control’ that I’ve seen. At least light-pole climbers don’t risk multi-car pile-ups.
> Hopefully next year is the last real Covid pandemic year.
I don’t think that “post-pandemic endemic with widespread community transmission” is going to be better than what we currently have. Unless, perhaps, the CV evolves to a variant that is more highly transmissible than the others and that causes much less damage to vasculature and organs.
I don’t think we will be out of these woods until there are genuinely sterilizing vaccines that are widely accepted or some even worse public health emergency happens that motivates the populace to embrace NPIs.
The functionally stupid “progressive” that “fell” for two-track on Biden’s agenda, which then died in the Senate. Maybe she really is this stupid, or maybe she’s always been playing a con like AOC. Who’s to say? Regardless, this is where Biden’s agenda, such as it was, went to die. All of the mildly progressive asks died with her refusal to buck per party and demand the Biden agenda benefits be part of what became the IRA. Oops.
Harris didn’t even bother to run on getting this stuff passed under a future Harris administration, lol.
And now that Trump-Hitler is reelected, the world returns to normal. Transitions. Midterms. Liberal Democrats really are garbage. Screaming about authoritarianism endlessly, the end of Democracy, and now here we are. Why would anyone believe anything these people ever say again? The ultimate crying wolf.
Liberal Democrats have no decency, and no morals.
Ray of sunshine…
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/11/13/politics/trump-picks-tulsi-gabbard-director-of-national-intelligence?amp_js_v=0.1&_gsa=1#webview=1
Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, that’s going to be fun. Probably not as much fun as watching Merrick Garland twist himself in knots to try to take down Trump and fail, but still interesting and absurdist fun.
Pass the popcorn! Is there a right-wing John Waters directing this flick?
Garland? Did he even learn where his office was?
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI):
Ha! I’m on board for that one! Most of his other appointments, not so much.
For the record, if Lichtman really wants to consider misinformation as a factor in his flawed analysis, he really should look to the misinformation that he consumes as fact everyday – straight from The NY Times and the network news. That and his own bias. I’d give Lichtman’s analysis of why his vaunted no fail prediction system failed more consideration, if brighter minds than his, aka the NC community, hadn’t pointed out the various ways his conclusions on several of his points were more tortured than clear. IOW, he wanted it to be Biden, and then Harris, so he put his thumb on many points that were not clearly in their favor.
> IOW, he wanted it to be Biden, and then Harris, so he put his thumb on many points that were not clearly in their favor.
That’s true too, and he wasn’t the only one.
That said, no paradigm lives forever. and we should give consideration to moving beyond personalizaiton and asking why the paradigm failed (for example, open involvement in the political process by oligarchs, not acting through straws, is new, but Lichtman, like the good liberal he is, ignores class power and goes straight to messaging isssues).
What he is even complaining about? Like he didn’t hear before that misinformation/Musk/Putin are the greatest scrounges of our time? Or is he saying he is the one who was misinformed?
Nobody can predict future and Lichtman is just example of survivor bias. There will be tens of thousands of Americans who correctly predicted the last ten elections simply because there is like hundredth million who do it every time, so there will be plenty of those who got ten straight just by random chance. Find one who can offer some plausible sounding theory for her choices (although in reality it’s just heuristic + guessing, because again nobody has set of equations where you can plug in some numbers and on the other end it spits out who will win in 2028) and voila – you have your next oracle.
I didn’t provide a link earlier.
As per the NY Post Trump nominates Matt Gaetz for Attorney General
Looks like Trump gave Vivek and Elon bullshit jobs- box checkers! Bwahahaha!
If it’s truly outside of Federal employment they wouldn’t even get the tax waiver! Graeber might be gone, but his theory makes things like this hilarious and relatable.
#BlameCannons (Incoming!)
> The Democrats are a party of college graduates, as the whole world understands by now …
Yep, both the party and their
trollsacolytes know that too …” … if having a degree were a requirement to vote.” (via X/Twitter)
Wow … just wow … ironically, you’d think this would make them want to line up with Bernie’s “free college tuition” policy … but no.
#Lichtman #JustTakeTheLBro
> Another way of saying this is that Lichtman’s model isn’t valid any more, because our political economy changed out from under it.
Too kind!
Sadly, Lichtman reveals that he too is a brain-addled Lib when it comes to the economy. See my NC comment from October 31st – I watched Lichtman’s NY Times hosted video on his “13 Keys”. Two of them have to do with short term and long term economic outlook. He gave those to Harris/Biden! I asserted then that his choice to do so was incorrect. He, like many establishment Democrats, felt that the economy was just fine, and that the electorate would confirm that bias.
> “ … Musk had helped fuel the spread of false or misleading information online about issues like immigration, hurricane relief and the war in Ukraine, Lichtman said, effectively ‘putting his thumb on the scales.’”
Musk didn’t give Trump any (or many) new voters. The people who stayed at home or didn’t vote Dem were disaffected (former/2020) Democrat voters and Independents who were turned off by a campaign that was largely empty of real policy, and overflowing with meaningless tribal virtue signaling.
NYtimes.: Trump Chooses Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence
“But only certain sorts of science fiction; I don’t think Ursula LeGuin, Philip K. DIck, or even WIlliam Gibson figure largely in the tech bro Weltanschauung.”
I’m 100% certain it’s going to be bad. Probably worse than Snowpiercer.
Astonishingly, the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to Director of National Intelligence brought out the most vituperative comments in the New York Times. I realize now that Gabbard was shunned in the Democratic Party for actually working for peace, even as a serving armed services officer, and that many Democratic Party members never forgave Gabbard for working for peace when Democratic leaders wanted yet another war, this in Syria:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/us/politics/trump-tulsi-gabbard-director-national-intelligence.html
November 13, 2024
Trump Chooses Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence
Ms. Gabbard, a former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party, would hold a top job in the administration, overseeing 18 spy agencies.
By Julian E. Barnes
A coupla years ago Hillary Clinton came out and virtually called her a Russian spy but was forced to back down. If Gabbard gets into that job, perhaps she could send for Hillary’s files. She could do with the laugh.
And then there was also Bari Weiss’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience where she accused Tulsi of being an “Assad toady” but didn’t know what the word “toady” meant (and had to have someone look it up for her on-air) and couldn’t remember any of the details of what she did to deserve being characterized that way.
The Director of National Intelligence is somewhat like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is not an operational position in that Gabbard would not have operational control of the intelligence agencies. The spooks keep spooking regardless of who holds the DNI post.