By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Ever-patient readers, this Water Cooler will be a little bit less of everything, too; I have to put on my Mr. Pandemic hat and write about H5N1. –lambert
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Bird Song of the Day
American Robin, Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park–North Unit, Dane, Wisconsin, United States.
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Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
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The Constitutional Order (Insurrection)
“Trump immunity fight turns Supreme Court textualists topsy-turvy” [Politico]. “At the attention-grabbing arguments this week over Donald Trump’s claim of sweeping presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, the six-member conservative bloc seemed largely unconcerned by a key flaw in Trump’s theory: Nothing in the Constitution explicitly mentions the concept of presidential immunity. Trump’s lawyer told the justices that the founders had ‘in a sense’ [like a “penumbra”?] written immunity into the Constitution because it’s a logical outgrowth of a broadly worded clause about presidential power. But that’s the sort of argument conservative justices have often scoffed at — most notably in the context of abortion rights. Two years ago, conservatives relied on a strict interpretation of the Constitution’s text and original meaning to overturn the federal right to abortion. But on Thursday, as they debated whether Trump can be prosecuted for his bid to subvert the 2020 election, they seemed content to engage in a free-form balancing exercise where they weighed competing interests and practical consequences. Some critics said the conservative justices — all of whom purport to adhere to an original understanding of the Constitution — appeared to be on the verge of fashioning a legal protection for former presidents based on the justices’ subjective assessment of what’s best for the country and not derived from the nation’s founding document.” • I need to reread the Federalist Papers and see if there’s a concept of lawfare in it, though I doubt it.
Biden Administration
2024
Less than a year to go!
RCP Poll Averages, April 26:
National results are still moving Biden’s way. But all the Swing States (more here) are moving Trump’s way, although in tiny increments. It’s hard to attribute this consistency to mere chance. “All” with one exception: Pennsylvania. If Susie Wiles is such a brain genius, why isn’t she fixing this?
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Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan) “Trump gets jail warning for violating hush money trial gag order; Stormy Daniels ex-lawyer testifies” [CNBC]. “Judge Juan Merchan held Donald Trump in contempt for repeatedly violating the gag order in his criminal hush money trial in New York. Merchan explicitly warned Trump that he could be put in jail if he willfully violates court orders again.” • And what a spectacle that would be!
Trump (R) (Willis/McAfee) “Fani Willis skips primary debate with Democratic challenger” [The Hill]. “Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) skipped the county’s first Democratic Party debate Sunday, leaving her challenger to debate an empty podium. The debate, held by the Atlanta Press Club, featured Willis’s Democratic challenger — attorney and author Christian Wise Smith — standing alone on the stage. After a brief introduction about Smith, the debate moderator said Willis ‘declined to participate in the debate and is represented by an empty podium.’ Willis, who is bringing a sprawling election interference case against former President Trump and his allies, instead co-hosted Atlanta’s ‘Self Care Fair,’ which is held every year in honor of Crime Victims’ Rights Week, FOX 5 Atlanta reported. The Hill reached out to Willis’s office for further comment. Her reelection campaign told Atlanta News First earlier this month that Willis is ‘not doing interviews that include discussion of the substance of high-profile cases the office is prosecuting, particularly the election interference prosecution and the ongoing trial of alleged YSL defendants,’ in reference to the ongoing trial of rapper Young Thug and his associates.” • Not a good look for Willis. Is it like there are questions she doesn’t want to be asked?
Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): This does seem odd (though I’m not a master of the detail on this case):
WELL WELL WELL I am pretty sure we never heard this part of the “classified documents/box” story!
More from unredacted motions in FLA–this is from an unsealed transcript of witness interview.
FBI agent says GSA was holding large quantity of Trump’s boxes in VA and then ordered… pic.twitter.com/0i4tGdWZ9A
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) April 27, 2024
“Come and get your boxes.” Really?
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Trump (R): “Trump will go from the trial to the trail and back again” [CNN]. “Donald Trump will make his most concentrated effort yet to turn his criminal trial into a political asset in the next two days, heading from the courtroom to the campaign trail and back again…. With court dark on Wednesday, the presumptive GOP nominee will fly to the epicenter of his clash with President Joe Biden, making stops in two swing states, Wisconsin and Michigan, that could decide the destiny of the White House. The trip will show how useful it is for an indicted candidate to have his own plane.” And, presumably, his very well-paid and completely trustworthy mechanics. More: “The former president has been complaining that he’s been penned up in court and unable to effectively campaign. ‘I’m not in Georgia, or Florida or North Carolina, campaigning like I should be. This is about election interference,’ he said earlier this month. But he spent the trial’s off day last Wednesday playing golf at his course in Bedminster, New Jersey, CNN reported. Still, the four-day-a-week court schedule does present its constraints. Trump, for example, has yet to reschedule a rally that had been due to take place on April 20 in North Carolina but was cancelled because of a dangerous storm.”
Trump (R): “Trump touts ‘great meeting’ with DeSantis to discuss 2024 and ‘future of Florida’” [The Hill]. “While Trump likely does not need DeSantis’s help to win the state of Florida in November, the Florida governor has a strong base of donors and supporters who could help the former president as he takes on President Biden. DeSantis is also believed to have an eye on the 2028 presidential race, and patching things up with Trump would likely benefit his future prospects.” • He’s gonna need bigger lifts.
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Biden (D): “Column: President Biden’s big campaign promises come with a warning label” [Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times]. “In a second term, Biden says, he would raise taxes on corporations and high income earners, meaning anyone making more than $400,000 a year. He says he would use some of the new revenue to reduce the federal deficit and the rest to fund a long list of programs, including an expanded child tax credit, a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, family and medical leave and universal pre-kindergarten education…. One is abortion rights. The president has promised to seek new legislation to protect women’s rights to obtain abortions in every state. ‘I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,’ he promised in his State of the Union address…. But codifying Roe vs. Wade in federal law is another promise that is easier said than done. To pass such a law would require at least 60 votes in the Senate or a decision to suspend the filibuster rule… A third pillar of Biden’s campaign should be easier to deliver if he wins: his promise to protect the nation’s democratic institutions from Trump, who has said he would order the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents if he returns to the White House… Biden has offered an unabashedly progressive vision for how he would govern in a second term.” • What, no school uniforms?
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Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. qualifies for California ballot” [The Hill]. “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the ballot in California, his campaign announced Monday. Kennedy, alongside running mate Nicole Shanahan, was backed by the American Independent Party (AIP) of California… The campaign confirmed it filed paperwork with California’s secretary of state on Monday…. California marks the third state ballot Kennedy and Shanahan have officially qualified for, following Utah and Michigan. They have also gained enough signatures for ballot access in seven other states, including New Hampshire, Nevada*, Hawaii, North Carolina*, Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa” (* = swing states). • I don’t see how this affects the election outcome, since Democrats dominate California, but it does legitimate Kennedy as a candidate. (As for the seven, Kennedy doesn’t have “enough signatures” until the Democrat lawyers are done savaging them. I wish the press would stop saying this.)
Kennedy (I): On populism:
I agree with @glennbeck that the real war in America today isn’t between left and right; it’s a class war. The question is whether the rising populist revolution is going to be hijacked by dark, regressive forces – as it was in the 1930s – or whether it will be harnessed by more… pic.twitter.com/HprckIR9gt
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 29, 2024
Kennedy (I): On foreign policy:
During a conversation with Ben Shapiro, Robert Kennedy Jr. laid out part of why the U.S. government’s outlook on foreign policy is wrong.
“You can make an argument that Taiwan is absolutely (a) critical national security asset for us, and we cannot let the Chinese invade. The… pic.twitter.com/6rjwj8xT94
— Christian Movick (@ChristianM_74) April 29, 2024
Kennedy asking for my vote here:
If one wishes, as I was brought up to wish, the United States to be a great power — as opposed to, say, a continent of warring statelets — Kennedy’s seems like a pretty good approach. Of course, “project economic power abroad” implies fixing our manufacturing base, because if we project financial power, it’s right back to the gunboats.
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“Trump and Biden are ‘darn near even’ in the 2024 election. Here’s where the race could go” [USA Today]. “Despite problems that would have destroyed other candidates, presumptive 2024 GOP White House nominee Donald Trump is basically tied with Biden little more than six months before Election Day.” 124 days to Labor Day. More: “All told, the 2024 presidential race right now is a push and may stay that way through the Nov. 5 election. Any number of future developments could decide the contest, given what Malloy described as ‘broad dissatisfaction with both candidates.’” • Events, dear boy, events. Personally, I don’t see how, given the corner they’ve painted themselves into on “our democracy,” the Democrat coalition (electeds, press, spooks, assorted Flex Nets, PMC base) can possibly allow Trump to take office. So that should be interesting.
Our Famously Free Press
“Social media companies have too much political power, 78% of Americans say in Pew survey” [TechCrunch]. “According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 78% of American adults say social media companies have too much influence on politics — to break it down by party, that’s 84% of surveyed Republicans and 74% of Democrats. Overall, this viewpoint has become 6% more popular since the last presidential election year…. While 71% of Republicans surveyed said that big tech favors liberal perspectives over conservative ones, 50% of Democrats said that tech companies support each set of views equally. Only 15% of adults overall said that tech companies support conservatives over liberals.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
Harvard encampment:
In 1986 we occupied the Dean’s office & built a shantytown in @Harvard Yard to force the university to divest from companies profiting from apartheid S. Africa. They threatened us with expulsion. We said, “F*uck you, we won’t do what you tell us.” Students! Thanks for keeping… https://t.co/luD7CwuvuW
— Tom Morello (@tmorello) April 29, 2024
Cheeky!
Vanderbilt encampment:
i find it really intriguing how the south’s student activism never gets as much media attention as other regions. day 28 of Vanderbilt’s encampment and i only read about it being the first university to start one YESTERDAY. https://t.co/J9ykmO1b9u
— pomegranate (@5imulation5warm) April 25, 2024
Pandemics
“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 (dashboard); 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, 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!
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Airborne Transmission: Covid
“Predominant airborne transmission and insignificant fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a two-bus COVID-19 outbreak originating from the same pre-symptomatic index case” [Journal of Hazardous Materials]. From the Abstract: ” We conducted a mechanistic modeling and calculated the exposure dose and infection risk of each passenger in a two-bus COVID-19 outbreak in Hunan province, China. This outbreak originated from a single pre-symptomatic index case. Some human behavioral data related to exposure including boarding and alighting time of some passengers and seating position and mask wearing of all passengers were obtained from the available closed-circuit television images/clips and/or questionnaire survey. Least-squares fitting was performed to explore the effect of effective viral load on transmission risk, and the most likely quanta generation rate was also estimated. This study reveals the leading role of airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission and negligible role of fomite transmission in a poorly ventilated indoor environment, highlighting the need for more targeted interventions in such environments. The quanta generation rate of the index case differed by a factor of 1.8 on the two buses and transmission occurred in the afternoon of the same day, indicating a time-varying effective viral load within a short period of five hours.” • A neat study from 2022 that we somehow missed at the time. Note the five-hour exposure period.
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TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
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] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.2 has entered the chat, at least in the model. As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flattening out to a non-zero baseline. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Slight uptrend.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Uptick.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly. And no mention of KP.2
[11] Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist….
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, dropped to 37.9 in April 2024, down from 41.4 in the prior month and below market forecasts of 45.”
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Manufacturing: “Missing emergency slide that fell off Delta flight found — washed up in front of house of lawyer whose firm is suing Boeing” [New York Post]. • Well, at least it wasn’t a body.
Manufacturing: “American Airlines trims three routes from DFW Airport over Boeing delivery issues” [Dallas Morning News]. “The ongoing Boeing 787 Dreamliner delivery delays have forced an adjustment in service on certain routes for the second half of the year and first quarter of 2025, according to American. The three routes include American’s daily flights to Dublin, suspended beginning Oct. 26 and returning summer 2025; daily flights to Rome, also suspended Oct. 26 and returning summer 2025; and flights to Kona International Airport will not operate in the winter.”
Manufacturing: “C919 mega-purchase by China’s flagship airline lifts home-grown jet in competition with Boeing” [South China Morning Post]. “Air China’s eye-catching agreement to buy 100 domestically made C919 jets is expected to turn heads overseas and further elevate interest in the relatively new planes as the reputation of rival Boeing has been grounded by safety concerns. The order size from China’s flagship airline also ensures years of additional business for the C919’s state-owned manufacturer, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), which could in turn attract investment and more purchases, according to analysts. Air China, a Beijing-based carrier with 196 flight destinations including more than 60 overseas, said on Friday that it had signed an agreement with Comac to buy the C919s from this year through 2031. Sweetening the deal, the airline said it had negotiated a ‘rather large price discount’ off the listed total of US$10.8 billion for the order.” • And all China has to do is execute on quality assurance to start eating Boeing’s lunch.
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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 42 Fear (previous close: 43 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 30 at 1:42:44 PM ET.
Class Warfare
“The Fate of Composition” [The Anarchist Library]. “The thematic of “class composition” is often cited as the most significant theoretical and practical contribution of the operaismo tradition.[13] By speaking through the objective categories of economic rationality, the production process, and the division of labor, “composition” was an attempt to explain class activity that did not, on the surface, avail itself of the psychosocial complexities presented by “consciousness,” “hegemony,” or processes of ideological “interpellation,” which had dogged so-called “Western” Marxism since the spectacular revolutionary failures of the interwar period. “Class composition” appeared as a return to form—in many ways a return to Marx—present informally in Marx’s most sophisticated political analyses. Examples here might paradigmatically include The Class Struggles in France (1850), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), and The Civil War in France (1871), but we must also include his articles on the British Chartist movement and the American Civil War, and his letters on the Irish question.” • Worth a read!
News of the Wired
“Imperfections create connections” [David Heinemeier Hansson]. “The last MacBook I really loved was the original 11” MacBook Air. It was full of compromises. A cramped screen. Chips that weren’t quite fast enough. An iconic, wedgy design. It was so good because it was also kinda bad. I thought that era was simply gone. But over the last month or so, I’ve developed much of the same affection for the Framework 13. Exactly because of all it’s compromises and it’s quirky design choices. It uses an odd 3:2 display, which is almost as tall as it is wide. In a time when most every other maker has gone 16:9 or 16:10. And it’s matte, not glossy. The keyboard has twice the travel of most modern laptops. Giving it almost a vintage feel, which, once you get used to it, is really addictive. It has interchangeable ports?! You can configure the 4 slots with every combination of USB C, USB A, ethernet ports, HDMI ports, and additional storage you desire. Then swap them quickly and easily. An ingenious alternative to dongle life. And to top it off, I’ve chosen to run Linux on mine full time.” • So I guess I have to put the Framework 13 on my watchlist (and it does seem more Jackpot-ready than the Mac). Readers, are any of you familiar with it? The price is certainly right.
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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 LL:
LL writes: “Cherry blossom season is a bit early here in the Northwest.”
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