2:00PM Water Cooler 1/31/2025

By Lambert Strether.

Bird Song of the Day

Brown Thrasher, Seagate Park, 4926 West Blvd, Naples US-FL 26.20687, -81.80395, Collier, Florida, United States. For grins, I put the coordinates into Google Maps, and the site is near a big highway, the Tamiami Trail. Hence the loud roaring of trucks, which the Thrasher almost drowns out.

“In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why” [Guardian]. Something was happening to the birds at Tiputini. The biodiversity research centre, buried deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has always been special. It is astonishingly remote: a tiny scattering of research cabins in 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of virgin forest. For scientists, it comes about as close as you can to observing rainforest wildlife in a world untouched by human industry. Almost every year since his arrival in 2000, ecologist John G Blake had been there to count the birds. Rising before the sun, he would record the density and variety of the dawn chorus. Slowly walking the perimeter of the plots, he noted every species he saw. And for one day every year, he and other researchers would cast huge “mist” nets that caught flying birds in their weave, where they would be counted, untangled and freed. For years, these counts captured birds’ annual fluctuations; they had good and bad years, seasons in which nests were disrupted by storms and others when they boomed. But by about 2012, Blake and his collaborators could see something was shifting. The birds were dying: not in masses at once, struck down by a plague, but generation by generation.” And today: “This week, Wolfe and collaborators published new work directly linking rising temperatures to bird declines. Their research, published in Science Advances, tracked birds living in the forest understory at the BDFFP against detailed climate data. They found that harsher dry seasons significantly reduced the survival of 83% of species. A 1C increase in dry season temperature would reduce the average survival of birds by 63%. Exactly how the heat is causing bird numbers to decline is tricky to pinpoint, Wolfe says, but “these birds are intrinsically linked to small, small changes in temperature and precipitation”. One of the most immediate ways a heating planet hurts wildlife is by putting them out of step with their food sources: when fewer insects survive dry seasons, or leaves bloom and fruit ripens at different times, birds find themselves unable to forage and feed their young. Their nests begin to fail. Within a few generations, their numbers fall.” • Like the vanished bug splats.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Elon demands access to the Federal Government’s check-writing machine.
2. DOGE’s IT.
3. The DNC meets to pick a new chair.

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Look for the Helpers

Let me leave this in for a second day. If you are in the LA area:

Free air purifiers in #LA – retweet please.https://t.co/ti2lNcypAd continues to donate HEPA +Active Carbon air cleaners to the @LADreamCenter as part of our online "Buy One, We Donate One" emergency relief program throughout January. Last Saturday a large supply of MA-35 units… https://t.co/NEGN7WvJd5 pic.twitter.com/ecEkXoijRb

— Tony Colaneri (@TonyColaneri) January 29, 2025

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My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

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Trump Administration

A spot of of good news:

Very important moment as the Trump antitrust division sues to block a big tech merger, HPE and Juniper. This one should never have gotten out of the board room. Would be catastrophic. https://t.co/BzpBGMrurD

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) January 30, 2025

And now for the rest–

* * *

“Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system” [WaPo]. “David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.” That’s too bad. Why? “Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions…. ‘This is a mechanical job — they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,’ [Mark Mazur, who served in senior treasury roles during the Obama and Biden administrations] said. ‘It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. … You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.'” • Stephanie Kelton pulls out the key quote:

"The executive order Trump signed creating DOGE also instructed all agencies to ensure it has 'full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,' which would appear to include the Treasury payment systems…Musk has characterized the…

— Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton) January 31, 2025

Hmm. Would “access to” include modifying the software in any way? Maybe I’m foily but I’m picturing Musk, slave of some defunct economist, installing a software version of the “Balanced Budget Amendment” written by some twenty-something tech bro. Or personally approving every check run, keeping a tally and stopping the press when outgo matchedi incoming, like a household.

* * *

NLRB management explains the buyouts:

NLRB's Acting General Counsel just send this memo out to staff saying, "I cannot promise you that everything is going to be OK."

"I know that the past few days and nights have been extremely scary and distressing for some of us." pic.twitter.com/2xje1Tpczi

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 31, 2025

(Klippenstein is doing a great job on this stuff.)

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Snark is easy:

The White House digital team deserves an award for what they have been pulling off. pic.twitter.com/zdkxMHsGy0

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 31, 2025

(and see the Community Note). Email servers are hard:

You made the photohttps://t.co/yxHJfYOkPs

— Katerina Dimitratos (@KDimitratos) January 31, 2025

(Recall there’s a lawsuit about that unsecured server, Jane Does 1-2 v. Office of Personnel Management.)

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“FAA Report on D.C. Plane Crash Is Out—and It’s an Indictment of Trump” [The New Republic]. It’s like every dish of news I order comes with a side of hysteria. More: “An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration found that in reality, the tower’s staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to The New York Times. There was only one air traffic controller to handle both helicopters and planes in the airport’s vicinity, a job usually assigned to two people…. Staffing levels at the airport’s control tower have been below adequate levels for years, like many of the U.S.’s other airports. DCA’s tower only had 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to congressional reports. This is well below the FAA and air traffic controller union’s preferred number of 30, and is due to employee turnover and budget cuts, according to the Times.” • The headline is deceptive, since DEI is not ruled out. And speaking of the FAA–

* * *

Meritocracy:

Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just sent out a memo directing staff to "give preference to
communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average" pic.twitter.com/O1EIxjUPdz

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 30, 2025

But meritorious at what?

Nominations

“Gabbard in danger after views on Snowden rankle GOP senators” [The Hill]. Republican senators pressed Gabbard to declare Snowden a ‘traitor’ and to acknowledge that he ‘harmed’ U.S. national security, but Gabbard refused to do so, raising alarm among Republicans who will be voting on her nomination in the weeks ahead. ‘People are holding their cards pretty close to the vest, but that nomination is in trouble,’ said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on Gabbard’s chances of getting through the Senate…. A key moment during Thursday’s hearing came when Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) asked whether Gabbard views Snowden as a ‘traitor,’ advising her that members of the Intelligence panel would feel a lot better about her nomination if she would do so. Instead, Gabbard sidestepped two questions about whether Snowden betrayed the nation, telling lawmakers she is ‘focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again,’ referring to Snowden’s theft of secret documents. Lankford, who earlier this month said he would support Gabbard, said after the hearing that he was ‘surprised’ by her response. ‘I was surprised, because that doesn’t seem like a hard question on that. It wasn’t intended to be a trick question by any means,’ Lankford said. The Oklahoma senator said it should have been an ‘easy question’ to say it’s ‘universally accepted when you steal a million pages of top-secret documents and you hand it to the Russians, that’s a traitorous act.'” • It isn’t (Snowden’s documents revealed illegal and unconstitutional behavior) and wasn’t (the documents were vetted by journalists to make sure nothing that would injure national security got out). Good job, knuckledragged, you might have sunk the nomination of the only person in the Beltway willing to throw a net over the spooks. Of course, if that was the objective…

Democrats en déshabillé

“The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024” (interview) [Associated Press]. “As the Democratic National Committee prepares to elect a new chair, its departing leader says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in the 2024 race…. He also offered advice to his eventual successor, who will be chosen Saturday.” From the interview: “Why did Harris and Democrats lose the White House? [HARRISON: “‘I don’t know that there’s one answer. A lot of people like to come up with things, and they say it’s the economy. Well, it could have been a part of it. I think every state had their own little nuance. In Michigan, the Palestinian issue played something there.’ ‘The gap in which she lost wasn’t huge, but when you add up little pockets where it’s, some people because of Gaza, some people because of the economy, some people because she was a woman. And I think in many of those states, those little nicks here and there added up to how she lost in some of those states.'” • Harrison has learned nothing. It was also his party’s job to find those “little nicks”, as clearly the Republicans were able to do.

“Democrats are voting in a new party leader — but it’s not enough to right the ship” [New York Post]. “The race for DNC chair could matter if the party’s woes were purely a matter of campaign mechanics: The central party helps to maintain voter contact databases and provides technological infrastructure that all its candidates can access. If the Democrats’ November defeats were due to poorly maintained databases or outdated voter modeling software, the new chair could fix those and propel the party to victory. That, however, is clearly not the case: Democrats are losing because of their message, not their tactics or techniques…. A new party chair cannot turn such a precipitous decline around. That is the job of elected Democrats.” • Of course, the Post’s advice is that Democrats should be more like Republicans. Conveniently, many Democrats believe the same.

Ben Wikler. Endorsed by Third Way:

Third Way has endorsed Ben Wikler for DNC chair, have asked him if he agrees with this advice for 2028 (will post if I get answer) https://t.co/QxyxKMrJhA

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) January 31, 2025

Weirdly, but appropriately:

Stoller comments:

And Ben Wikler says this screed against 'oligarchy' while financed and partnering with billionaire monopolist Reid Hoffman, who worked hard to have an investigation into his own business shut down by lobbying fire Lina Khan. Just a clown show embarrassment. https://t.co/SJLEUICChf

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) January 31, 2025

I remember those “Bold” “Progessives,” but only because they used to word “bold” a lot, which I came to dislike.

Faiz Shakir. Remember him?

Sounds like Shakir took the lessons of being badly burned by the Sanders 2020 staff to heart; they had pushed Sanders off the clean, clear economic message of 2016.

And:

Faiz says the goal is the working class defeating oligarchy, and the DNC is built for another purpose.

So let's redo the DNC to serve that purpose.

Makes a ton of sense to me. https://t.co/iU5rT0yHSB

— Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout) January 31, 2025

“Bernie Sanders’s ex-campaign manager wants to rebuild Democratic party: ‘What new ideas are we bringing?'” [Guardian]. “In the wake of Democrats’ losses in November, it has become conventional wisdom that the party has a ‘media problem’, but Shakir frames the issue as more of a platform and messaging problem. He accused the DNC of over relying on gimmicky language rather than presenting a concrete strategy to confront an unjust economy, and he pointed to More Perfect Union’s coverage of efforts to cancel medical debt and unionize Starbucks employees as a potential template for how the party can use content to send a pro-worker message to voters.” • I confess I like the More Perfect Union stuff when it comes across my feed. Still, the extent to which Shakir wants to remake the Democrats into a working class party is an exact measure of how much the Party will oppose him.

* * *

Sunrise Movement not being especially helpful, assuming help is possible:

There have now been so many protests that officials & moderators are discussing ways to try to keep the forum going – with DNC officials possibly leaving – or halt it altogether.

At least a dozen students have been removed so far. pic.twitter.com/lZKgcdzveE

— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) January 31, 2025

Apparently, the level of disruption was such that interactions between the candidates were curtailed. Which may or may not matter to you.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Trump and the Collapse of the Old Order” [Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal]. An aria in three parts. One: “When Mr. Trump fires the inspector general, when ICE gets the illegal-immigrant child molester, when Mr. Trump tries to get rid of the federal workforce—he’s settling all family business. His second term can be understood as an attempt to change his image from Sonny to Michael.” Two: “I saw a broad and growing sense in Washington that American domestic politics, or at least that part of its politics that comes from Washington, is at a similar inflection point. That the second rise of Donald Trump is a total break with the past—that stable order, healthy expectations, a certain moderation, and a strict adherence to the law aren’t being “traduced”; they are ending. That something new has begun. People aren’t sure they’re right about this and no one has a name for the big break, but they know we have entered something different—something more emotional, more tribal and visceral. There is the strong man, and the cult of personality, and the leg-breakers back home who keep the congressional troops in line.” Three: “A word to Democrats trying to figure out how to save their party. The most eloquent of them, of course, think the answer is finding the right words. We need to talk more like working people, we need Trump’s touch with popular phrasing. The answer isn’t to talk but do.” And: “Most of all, make something work. You run nearly every great city in the nation. Make one work—clean it up, control crime, smash corruption, educate the kids. You want everyone in the country to know who you are? Save a city.” • Hmm.

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Lambert here: As I have indicated with handy “No” logos, everything’s gone dark except for trusty New York State hospitalization (daily), Walgreen’s positivity (weekly), and the Cleveland Clinic (?). Readers, do you have any suggestions about alternatives at state level? Thank you! How I wish we had Biobot back. (Sorry for the inartistic positioning of the logos. It was the best I could do. UPDATE Darn it, I thought those checkerboards signified “transparent.” I will fix Monday. UPDATE I missed a couple. I guess this outage has me more ticked off than I thought.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC January 13	Last week[2] CDC (until next week):
Variants [3] CDC January 18	Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC January 11
Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data January 30:	National [6] CDC January 24:
Positivity
National[7] Walgreens January 27:	Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic January 18:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC December 30:	Variants[10] CDC December 30
Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 11:	Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 11:

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) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely jumped.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, rose to 39.5 in January 2025, up from a six-month low of 36.9 in the prior month, but missing market expectations of 40. This is the first increase after three consecutive months of decline, though the index remains below both the level of November 2024 and the 2024 average.”

Inflation: “United States PCE Price Index Annual Change” [Trading Economics]. “The headline annual PCE inflation rate in the US edged up to 2.6% in December 2024, the highest rate in seven months, from 2.4% in November and in line with expectations.”

Personal Income: “United States Personal Income” [Trading Economics]. “US personal income rose 0.4% month-over-month in December 2024, in line with market expectations and following a 0.3% increase in November. Employee compensation grew by 0.4%, compared with the 0.5% gain in the previous month, driven by private wages and salaries (0.4% vs. 0.5%).”

* * *

The Bezzle:

The JP Morgan analyst has had enough LOL pic.twitter.com/gSdKFD2Ehe

—  Q-Cap  (@qcapital2020) January 31, 2025

And this guy wants to get his hands on the government printing press…..

Tech: I hate notifications too:

real pic.twitter.com/KE6a9iUeZN

— Images AI Could Never Recreate (@imagesaicouldnt) January 30, 2025

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 47 Neutral (previous close: 45 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 45 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 30 at 12:42:01 PM ET.

Book Nook

A literal nook:

7. Keith Richards' home library, Connecticut pic.twitter.com/6d4of0zRu2

— CLT (@CLT_Exam) January 27, 2025

Zeitgeist Watch

“What Makes a Great Mocktail?” [Serious Eats]. “Wouldn’t it be great if you could sip a mocktail that looks and tastes just like the real thing? Today, we’ll look at the science of how alcohol actually tastes, how to mimic it, and whether this is a good idea. Later this week, we’ll look at the flavors that appear in great spirits and how to mimic them with some actual recipes. The prevailing knowledge seems to argue that you can’t recreate the taste of alcohol without actually using it. Is that true? Let’s step back. Maybe a better first question would be: What, exactly, does alcohol taste like? The answer to this question may not be as obvious as you think.” Answer: “[T]ingly, drying, bitter, and sweet.”

Gallery

Feral?

Albert Dumouchel (1916-1971), The Horrible Snow Cat, 1969, woodcut pic.twitter.com/DwHx9NHWmN

— Marysia (@marysia_cc) January 31, 2025

Musical Interlude

I saw Marianne Faithfull years ago in a small room at the Montreal Jazz Festival, full of blue light. Wonderful chanteuse, despite or perhaps because of the cigarette and the whiskey glass; charisma like a supernova. With Garth Hudson:

News of the Wired

“Signs Of Life In A Desert Of Death” [Noema]. “A hundred miles to the north is the site of one of the modern world’s worst ecocides. I have come to Uzbekistan to visit a vanished sea.” Cutting to the chase: “The tiny crustacean bodies wriggling in the brine are a clear example that if the apocalypse has come, life has managed to carry on…. A hardy, woody shrub called saxaul is another form of new life.” • Worth reading in full; great topic, good photos, good writing.

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From BB:

BB writes: “Cosmos. There are several different species. I don’t know which this one is, but it is about 7 feet tall.” My goodness!

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