By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Killdeer, Tomahawk; Emma’s Lane, Berkeley, West Virginia, United States. “Singing while in flight.”
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Biden’s cognitive decline.
(2) Alvin Bragg’s helpers.
(3) About that word “mild”….
(4) More Boeing whistleblowers.
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
2024
Less than a half a year to go!
RCP Poll Averages, May 24:
A mixed bag for Team Trump, this week with some Swing States (more here) Brownian-motioning themselves back toward him, including Pennsylvania. Not, however, Michigan, to which Trump paid a visit. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error. If will be interesting to see whether the verdict in Judge Merchan’s court affects the polling, and if so, how.
Trump (R): “‘It’s very possible’: Trump floats imprisoning his political opponents” [NBC]. “n an interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax, Trump seemed to float the possibility of imprisoning his political opponents if he becomes president again. ‘So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,’ Trump said when discussing his guilty verdict. ‘Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question,’ he added…. Trump credited himself for not going after Clinton, compared to what is now being done to him. ‘Some people said I should have done it, but, you know, could have, would have been very easy to do it, but I thought it would be a terrible precedent for our country,’ Trump said. ‘And now, whoever it may be, you’re going to have to view it very much differently. This is a bad, bad road that they’re leading us down to as a country.’” • FAFO.
Trump (R) (People vs. Trump): “The aristocrats who martyred Trump” [Martin Gurri, Unherd]. “When Hillary Clinton, from sheer paranoia, set up her own private server to conduct business as secretary of state, the FBI naturally took an interest. I worked for many years in a classified environment. If I had done anything similar, I’d be writing this from my austere prison cell. But Clinton wasn’t me. She belonged to a different class. The FBI rapped her knuckles gently, called her out as a bad example, but refused to prosecute. When Joe Biden mishandled classified documents in an apparently egregious manner, he attracted the attention of a special prosecutor. The ensuing investigation proved without a doubt that Biden had violated the law. If I had done the same thing, and stashed government secrets in my garage near my trusty Rav4, I would never see the light of day again. But again, I’m not Biden. He belongs to a special class. The prosecutor’s report admitted Biden’s guilt but refused to prosecute because the president of the United States, leader of the free world, was too old and dotty to be held accountable. Then there’s Trump. The New York State district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is a Democrat with powerful political motives to bring down the likely Republican nominee. That should be a scandal but, in the ethical muddle of our age, it seemingly isn’t. The actual charges concocted by Bragg against Trump I leave for the legal experts to parse. None of them rose to the level of Clinton’s server or Biden’s garage sale of secrets. But Trump is the monster that haunts the nightmares of the privileged class. He must be prosecuted in multiple times and places, convicted, fined hundreds of millions, imprisoned, annihilated, pulverised. The whole process stinks of desperation. If the progressive elites who run the Biden administration felt confident they could defeat Trump at the polls, we would hear Homeric laughter ringing from the White House and its pet organs in the news media.” • Gurri is a putatively former spook who works for the Mercatus center and here I am quoting him. It’s a funny old world.
Trump (R) (People vs. Trump): “Joe Biden’s Fingerprints Are All Over The Criminal Prosecutions Of Donald Trump” [The Federalist]. “A lead prosecutor for Bragg during the trial was Matthew Colangelo. In December 2022, Colangelo left the Biden Department of Justice to ‘jump start’ the criminal case against Trump. Biden had previously named Colangelo his acting associate attorney general—the third-highest-ranking official in the DOJ.” Which is well known. This, less so: “[T]he incestuous relationship between the Manhattan D.A.’s office and Team Biden began as early as mid-February 2021. Then, ‘Bragg’s predecessor, District Attorney Cyrus Vance, arranged for private criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to be a special assistant district attorney for the Manhattan D.A.’s office.’… As The New York Times reported at the time, Pomerantz was to work ‘solely on the Trump investigation’ during a temporary leave of absence from his law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. ‘But even before being sworn in as a special assistant to the Manhattan D.A., Pomerantz had reportedly ‘been helping with the case informally for months.’” Even Democrats’ most reliable Old Grey Lady (of the evening) acknowledged, ‘the hiring of an outsider is a highly unusual move for a prosecutor’s office.’ Soon after the Manhattan D.A. hired Pomerantz, two of his colleagues, Elyssa Abuhoff and Caroline Williamson, also took leaves of absence from Paul, Weiss to serve as special assistant district attorneys on the Trump investigation. ‘For a law firm to lend not one but three lawyers to the Manhattan D.A.’s office seems rather magnanimous, until you consider Paul, Weiss’s previous generosity to Joe Biden” (a $2,800-per-plate fundraiser for about 100 guests). But for Paul, Weiss lending Pomerantz to the Manhattan D.A.’s office to control the Trump investigation, the former president likely never would have been charged. According to Pomerantz, Bragg had decided ‘not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges,’ indefinitely suspending the investigation. Pomerantz made those claims in the resignation letter he tendered to Bragg in early 2022, which was deliberately leaked to The New York Times. ‘Pomerantz’s letter and his claims that Bragg had suspended the Trump probe triggered a political firestorm, which the Manhattan D.A. sought to quell by telling the public the investigation was ongoing.” Soon after, Bragg capitulated, hiring Biden’s high-ranking DOJ lawyer, Colangelo, who proceeded to indict and convict Trump.” • Good reporting…..
Trump (R) (People vs. Trump): “The case for imprisoning Donald Trump” [MSNBC]. “As a former state and federal prosecutor, the author of many works on criminal sentencing and a sentencing consultant to major white-collar criminal defendants, I think the factors usually considered in such cases would support sending Trump to prison…. Most violations of New York’s business records laws are likely to be considered fairly minor because their object was to secure modest financial gains or avoid regulatory or tax obligations. But in Trump’s case, the prosecution’s theory was that Trump falsified business records to hide payoffs to a porn star that would damage his presidential campaign. In simple terms, the object of the crime was to corruptly affect a presidential election. And that elevates Trump’s offense above a simple recordkeeping default to something far graver. Sentencing judges also consider the histories and character of defendants in judging personal responsibility and the likelihood of recidivism. Hence, a first-time offender who has led an otherwise exemplary life is considered less blameworthy than a persistent malefactor and less in need of the incapacitation and deterrence that prison would provide.” • There is, I suppose, something to be said for carrying the test of strength through to its conclusion.
Biden (D): “What Did the President Know, and How Long Did He Remember It?” [National Review]. Follow-on for today’s Wall Street Journal story: “[I]nterviewing more than 45 sources, [the reporters offer] a grim portrait of President Biden behind the scenes: forgetful, mumbling, increasingly reliant on notes to remember basic facts, and seemingly oblivious to his own administration’s policies and decisions. The assessment from some sources that Biden has some good days and some not-so-good days reminds our Luther Ray Abel of visits to family in nursing homes throughout his childhood and early adulthood. It’s as bad as you fear, Americans, because all of us with experience with elderly relatives know that over time, the good days become rarer, and the bad days become more frequent. Put another way, Biden’s never going to be as young and sharp-minded as he was yesterday.” • Yep. Biden’s had Covid, but of course that would have nothing to do with this. And, of course, “Stress literally eats away at your brain’s cognitive reserves“. Quoting from the Journal:
Americans have had minimal opportunities to see Biden in unscripted moments. By the end of April, he had given fewer interviews and press conferences than any of his recent predecessors, according to data collected by Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor at Towson University. His last wide-ranging town-hall-style meeting with an independent news outlet was in October 2021.
He has had fewer small meetings with lawmakers as his term has gone on, visitor logs show. During his first year in office, even with pandemic restrictions, he held more than three dozen meetings of fewer than 20 lawmakers in the West Wing. That number fell to roughly two dozen in his second year, and about a dozen in his third year.
Sounds like those Republican loons in Ohio did Biden a favor by forcing a virtual nomination on the DNC; they can keep Biden off the floor as long as possible!
Biden (D): “Biden’s challenge runs deeper than ‘bad vibes’” [Financial Times]. After blathering about deficit spending, concludes: “There is a deep sense that America is increasingly dominated by a wealthy elite. They can afford the $250,000 membership to new private restaurants, which are subdividing vibrant cities like New York and Miami by income class. They set the rules in Washington and own the preponderant share of stocks, bonds and assets of all kinds, so they prosper most when easy money policies drive up the value of those assets. And also benefit when the government steps in to bail out the markets, as it now always does at the first hint of trouble. Most people, surveys show, would prefer a more modest salary than to live among richer neighbours, yet that in effect is how Americans have no choice but to live now — in the shadows of great wealth and power. It would be unfair to blame Biden alone for imbalances that have been widening for decades, but it is also short sighted to suggest, as many have, that his main challenge is to sell the good news harder. The flaws of capitalism in its current, twisted form are real. Better ‘messaging’ won’t whisper the resulting frustrations away.” • Weirdly, the Biden administration is actually “fighting,” not “fighting for,” giant monopolies (“great wealth and power.” I continue to believe that for Democrats this will be, ultimately, a long con — extortion — and that they’ll throw Lina Khan under the bus, but for now, the fight is real, as it would have to be. Perhaps this explains why antitrust doesn’t figure in Biden’s campaign messaging at all).
PA: Biden (D): “What Trump’s Black outreach looks like in Philly” [Semafor]. “About a hundred Trump supporters, overwhelmingly Black men, gathered at The Cigar Code on Tuesday evening in North Philadelphia, filing into a smoke-filled room with tufted sofas for an informal chat with Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, about the pivotal role they have to play in the election. ‘Pennsylvania’s a swing state,’ Hunt told Semafor. ‘It’s one of the most important states in this entire election. And so what we know is we could carve out between 25% and 30% of the Black male voters in Pennsylvania. What we’re trying to do is actually go fish where the fish are. The ‘Congress, Cognac, and Cigars’ conversation, moderated by sports reporter Michele Tafoya, was tied to a kickoff event by the Trump campaign the same day it opened its first office in the city. President Biden has paid special attention to Philadelphia throughout his presidency and visited the previous week with Vice President Kamala Harris to warn Black voters that Trump was ‘peddling lies and stereotypes for your votes so he can win for himself, not for you.’ Polling has shown Republicans have a significant opportunity to make gains with Black voters this cycle, but there’s also skepticism of their party’s ability to capitalize on it.”
“America’s Most Powerful Pollster Has Some Doubts” [New York Magazine]. Interesting Q&A with Nate Cohn, the New York Times pollster: There weren’t real primaries this time around, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s been the usual election slog yet, just a creeping sense of dread among Americans that it’s going to be the same two guys. [COHN:] Yeah. This is pretty subjective, but I don’t really feel like this campaign is underway yet.” • Volatility!
“Citizen Forecasting for the 2024 Presidential Race: A Second Sounding” [The Center for Politics]. Interesting method: “Most media sources turn to public opinion polls as a leading source of scientific prediction, which rely heavily on the vote intentions of respondents for the fall. But while we have frequently relied on voter intentions to make scientific predictions about elections, we should also consider voter expectations about elections, which reflect not just current preferences but beliefs about the future. The deployment of such voter expectations, commonly referred to as Citizen Forecasting (CF), asks citizens to answer a critical question, ‘Who do you think will be elected President in November?’ These questions, which have regularly been asked in the American National Election Study (ANES), have proved to be a valuable guide to election outcomes.” Table 1: Expected presidential winner, April 2023 polling:
Table 2: Expected presidential winner, April 2024:
And concluding: “The timeline of the campaign itself, with its intensifying dynamic, suggests that the race will tighten. Election polls and citizen forecasts both narrow in on election victories as Election Day draws nearer. These results demonstrate, however, that the Biden campaign has quite a bit of work to do to convince voters not only that they should win, but that they can.” • Of course, this is June. Nevertheless…
Republican Funhouse
“It’s Not an Accident That So Many GOP Senate Candidates Are Rich” [NOTUS]. “In a calculated risk, Republican officials and allies of Donald Trump have rallied behind Senate candidates who — like Sheehy — have never held elected office but can help fund a campaign through their own personal wealth. In addition to Sheehy, who received a key endorsement from Trump that helped clear his path to the nomination, national Republicans backed Senate candidates like Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania and Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, both of whom are rich and politically inexperienced. A fourth wealthy Republican candidate, Bernie Moreno in Ohio, had more competition in his primary but ultimately won the Senate nomination thanks to a Trump endorsement. ‘We’ve focused on recruiting candidates who are really strong fundraisers or who are capable of making a personal investment in their campaign to try and close the money gap,’ said one GOP aide involved in Senate races, who noted that the party’s candidates in Senate elections have been heavily outspent in recent years. Republicans maintain that their candidates’ wealth could help free up money elsewhere on the 2024 Senate map, letting the party push deeper into Democratic territory and maximize its gains. But such an expansion depends on candidates like Sheehy holding up under pressure in their own critical races against experienced incumbent Democrats with massive fundraising hauls of their own.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
“The legal fight over the 2024 election has begun” [Axios]. “The Trump-controlled Republican National Committee is assembling a network of lawyers and volunteers to gather string for lawsuits challenging the results of the Nov. 5 vote. The RNC plans to hire more people for the operation than for any other department it has, a committee official told Axios. The RNC has installed 13 “election integrity” state directors who’ve been hosting training sessions with state and county GOP parties in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin. It’s also contracted with 13 in-state counsels to help identify local litigation opportunities. Beyond that, Trump’s campaign and RNC plan to recruit and deploy 100,000 volunteers, law students and lawyers to serve as poll watchers and observers…. Democrats are responding to the onslaught of GOP lawsuits with legal challenges of their own. Some are spearheaded by the Democratic National Committee and election lawyer Marc Elias‘ firm, which is operating independently from the Biden campaign [oh, yeah, right]. The DNC and the Biden campaign are building out their own election litigation team to respond to GOP lawsuits .”
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 (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!
Transmission: H5N1
“How Michigan became ground zero for H5 avian influenza in the US” [Detroit Free Press]. “Michigan has become ground zero for the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus that’s sweeping the nation, killing turkeys, chickens and wild birds, infecting cows and other mammals — and now has sickened a third U.S. farmworker. The Great Lakes state has more dairy cattle herds known to be infected with avian influenza than any other state in the U.S., with 24 outbreaks in 10 counties as of Friday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It now also has two farmworkers with confirmed bird flu infections — transmitted to them by close contact with sick cows… The reason Michigan’s tally of livestock outbreaks and farmworkers with avian influenza is higher than other states is not because Michigan is especially ripe for viral activity or because there’s something different about the state’s cows or workers, said Dr. Arnold Monto, emeritus professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan and co-director of the Michigan Center for Respiratory Virus Research and Response. “The main reason we’re detecting more infection is because we’re doing very good surveillance,” Monto said. “Other states need to do the same. … It’s being missed.” • It’s not being “missed.” It’s being suppressed. That’s what the refusal to test amounts to.
“USDA aims to isolate, exhaust H5N1 virus in dairy herds” [Successful Farming]. “The USDA’s strategy against bird flu in dairy cattle is to identify infected herds and wait for the virus to die out within the herds, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday. ‘I’m confident we have a good understanding of the virus and how it is being transferred,’ he added. ‘We are trying to essentially corner the virus’ within infected herds so it eventually dissipates, he said during a teleconference. • With voluntary testing? Really?
“USDA Adds House Mouse To Mammals Affected by H5N1” [Avian Flu Diary]. “Last week the USDA added domestic cats to their list of mammalian infections, and in today’s update, they’ve added 11 infections of a new species Mus musculus (the common house mouse), all from a single county (Roosevelt) in New Mexico…. While it is not surprising that mice are susceptible to H5N1, given past laboratory experiments (see NIH Assessing avian influenza in dairy milk), this is the first time they’ve been placed on the USDA’s list.”
Censorship and Propaganda
“From Long COVID Odds to Lost IQ Points: Ongoing Threats You Don’t Know About” (interview) [Philip Alvelda, Institute for New Economic Thinking]. A good round-up; NC readers will be familiar with all the points made, but many won’t, and it’s good to see them collected in one place on a platform like iNet. However, this exchanged leaped out at me:
[ALVELDA:] The UK and the US are among the few nations where public health agencies have been subverted, controlled, and confused by the political machinery. As a result, they’ve abandoned their public health mission and are merely making a minimal effort to maintain politics and economics as usual. The reality is that everyone, from infants on up, would benefit dramatically from receiving a booster every six months. What you need is the most updated vaccine available, whether that’s a booster of the most recent formulation or a new vaccine designed for a completely new set of variants. Essentially, you should be getting whatever is the latest available.
[PARRAMORE]: So regardless of age or health condition, we should all be getting a shot every six months? Not once a year as we’ve been led to think?
[ALVELDA]: Yes, that’s correct. It’s that simple. Every six months. Health agencies are trying to get people to treat COVID like other diseases, even though it’s actually very different. They’re trying to get us used to the idea of getting an annual booster, similar to what you do for the flu. But COVID variants progress faster than that, which is why COVID is a very different situation.
[PARRAMORE]: So it’s known that a shot once a year isn’t going to cut it, even though the CDC won’t come out and say it?
[ALVELDA]: That’s right.
At the best, this is a counsel of despair, and entirely predictable, given Biden’s vax only policy of mass infection without mitigation: there is no alternative (TINA) to virtually continous vaxxing. But I flat out don’t accept the recommendation; any vaccine every six months can’t possibly be good for the body; how many insults is the immune system supposed to endure? But in any case, this will make “vaccine hesitancy” even worse (or even more sensible, depending on your point of view). Meanwhile, potentially sterilizing nasal vaccines limp along, with virtually no funding. I keep reminding people to make sure to renew their passports, or obtain one. This exchange gives one more good reason.
Testing and Tracking: H5N1
Wastewater detectives:
Pigs, I believe, have both avian and mammal receptors, so they are a natural “mixing vessel,” as it were, for H5N1.
Sequelae: Covid
Another perspective on “mild”:
Yes. As I tell the community health workers when I deliver trainings: “Asymptomatic means the burglar’s in the house and has opened the safe deposit box, but the dog’s not barking.”
— Renee Despres, PhD, MPH (@knityarn) June 4, 2024
Asymptomic = the immune system didn’t kick in. Can people more knowledgeable than I am confirm this framing?
Celebrity Watch
“Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Make Announcement After ‘Vocal Issues’ Forced Them to Postpone Concerts” [American Songwriter]. • Huh. I wonder what caused those vocal issues. ‘Tis a mystery!
Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Biobot data is gone, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone dark). Ideally I would replace hospitalization and death data, but I’m not sure how. I might also expand the wastewater section to include (yech) Verily data, H5N1 if I can get it. Suggestions and sources welcome. UPDATE I replaced the Times death data with CDC data. Amusingly, the URL doesn’t include parameters to construct the tables; one must reconstruct then manually each time. Caltrops abound.
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) Dead.
[2] (Biobot) Dead.
[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that the model completely missed KP.2.
[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slight leveling out? (The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[7] (Walgreens) 4.3%; big jump. (Because there is data in “current view” tab, I think white states here have experienced “no change,” as opposed to have no data.)
[8] (Cleveland) Going up.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Flattening.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) KP.2 enters the chat, as does B.1.1.529.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED not up.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States ADP Employment Change” [Trading Economics]. “Private businesses in the US added 152K workers to their payrolls in May 2024, the least in four months, and well below forecasts of 175K and a downwardly revised 188K in April…. “Job gains and pay growth are slowing going into the second half of the year. The labor market is solid, but we’re monitoring notable pockets of weakness tied to both producers and consumers”, said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP.”
Manufacturing: “Two more Boeing whistleblowers go public over plane safety: ‘Like a ticking timebomb’” [New York Post]. “Brian Knowles, a Charleston, SC, attorney who represents whistleblowers including Irvin and Paredes and also represented Barnett and Dean, told The Post his law firm has fielded dozens of new calls from potential whistleblowers in recent weeks…. ‘Missing safety devices on hardware or untightened hardware means that you’re not going to be able to control the airplane if those fail,’ [Roy] Irvin told The Post…. [Santiago] Paredes was a production inspector for Spirit AeroSystems for 12 years before leaving in 2022. He told The Post he was shocked when he arrived at the company and, he alleges, saw hundreds of defects on the production line. He was even more horrified, he said, when he was pressured not to say anything. ‘I was at the end of the production line and so I was supposed to be looking at the finished product before they shipped it to Boeing.’ Paredes said. ‘Instead I saw missing parts, incomplete parts, frames that had temporary clamps and missing fasteners, dents in the parts, damaged parts, cut rivets, issues that might occur but should be fixed before they got to me. Everything I was seeing was like a ticking time bomb.’ … His bosses, he alleged, would pressure him to keep his reports to a minimum — and nicknamed him ‘Showstopper’ because his write-ups on the defects would often delay deliveries.” • I don’t see how this company culture gets fixed; you have to fire all the managers down to the shop floor level.
Manufacturing: “United Airlines to hire fewer employees due to Boeing aircraft delivery delays” [WION]. “According to a company executive, United Airlines will hire fewer employees than projected in 2024. The decision comes as the airline deals with delays in Boeing aircraft delivery. Kate Gebo, United’s president of human resources and labour relations, revealed that the airline expects to hire approximately 10,000 new employees next year, down from 13,000 to 15,000.” • Oopsie.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 44 Fear (previous close: 41 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 49 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 5 at 1:42:13 PM ET.
Health
“Higher mushroom consumption is associated with a lower risk of cancer” [Science Daily]. “The systematic review and meta-analysis examined 17 cancer studies published from 1966 to 2020. Analyzing data from more than 19,500 cancer patients, researchers explored the relationship between mushroom consumption and cancer risk. Mushrooms are rich in vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants. The team’s findings show that these super foods may also help guard against cancer. Even though shiitake, oyster, maitake and king oyster mushrooms have higher amounts of the amino acid ergothioneine than white button, cremini and portabello mushrooms, the researchers found that people who incorporated any variety of mushrooms into their daily diets had a lower risk of cancer. According to the findings, individuals who ate 18 grams of mushrooms daily had a 45% lower risk of cancer compared to those who did not eat mushrooms. ‘Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of ergothioneine, which is a unique and potent antioxidant and cellular protector,’ said Djibril M. Ba, a graduate student in epidemiology at Penn State College of Medicine. ‘Replenishing antioxidants in the body may help protect against oxidative stress and lower the risk of cancer.’”
Class Warfare
“How 1980s Yuppies Gave Us Donald Trump” [Politico]. ” President Ronald Reagan’s approval ratings were low, the Democrats had done well in the midterm elections and the misery of the 1981-82 recession was still palpable. The ’84 race would, Democrats believed, be a referendum on Reaganomics, and if that were the case, the American people might be glad to reverse course and put a Democrat back in charge. Going into the primaries, Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, a classic New Deal Democrat, was the clear front‐runner to win the nomination; he had a double‐digit lead over other Democrats in national polls and a string of endorsements from unions and party insiders. But not everyone was willing to hand the nomination to Mondale, including Gary Hart, the 46‐year‐old senator from Colorado…. What most distinguished Hart, though, was the fact that he wasn’t a traditional New Deal Democrat. While he was a decade older than the oldest members of the baby boom generation, he shared a sensibility with those who’d come of age in the 1960s — and particularly with those well-educated young professionals who’d been flooding into American cities over the last several years. He was liberal on social issues like women’s rights, abortion and the environment, but he wasn’t afraid to question Democratic Party orthodoxy on things like defense (he didn’t want to cut spending, just refocus it) and the economy (where he questioned the clout of Big Labor and put a premium instead on innovation and technology).” • Ah, “innovation.”
News of the Wired
“Boeing’s Starliner launches astronauts for 1st time in historic liftoff (photos, video)” [Space.com]. “Starliner is headed toward the International Space Station (ISS), where Wilmore and Williams will spend about eight days putting the spacecraft through a series of tests toward operational crew certification. Rendezvous is scheduled for Thursday (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT).” • Here’s hoping they doublechecked the doors…
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 Upstater:
Upstater writes: “It’s that time of year! These are early bearded irises.” Readers will remember how many times I have exclaimed “That’s my favorite flower!” of many flowers. But irises are my favorite flower.
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!