By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Large Wren-Babbler, Pahang – Bukit Rengit, Pahang, Malaysia. I like the name, “Wren-Babbler.”
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Trump polling shows effects of conviction among independents.
(2) Biden fundraiser video.
(3) Kamala Harris mailer.
(4) H5N1 cluster continues.
Look for the Helpers
From alert reader Diptherio:
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of “Helpers” there. 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
2024
Less than a half a year to go!
RCP Poll Averages, May 24:
Still waiting for some discernible effect from Trump’s conviction (aside from, I suppose, his national numbers rising). Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. 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): “New Polling Shows the Real Fallout From the Trump Conviction” [Politico]. “In the weeks since the verdict, both parties have sought to shape the public’s initial reaction, with Republicans largely denouncing it and Democrats citing the result as further evidence that Trump is unfit for office. To figure out how this unprecedented moment is being processed by the electorate, POLITICO Magazine partnered with Ipsos in a new survey…. Among the most notable findings in our poll: 21 percent of independents said the conviction made them less likely to support Trump and that it would be an important factor in their vote. In a close election, small shifts among independent and swing voters could determine the outcome.” But: “A sizable number of Americans, including independents, question whether the verdict was the result of a fair and impartial process. And although most respondents rejected the idea that the prosecution was brought to help President Joe Biden, a large number (43 percent of all respondents) either strongly or somewhat agreed that was the rationale for the case.” • So, still volatile.
Trump (R): “Trump unleashed: This is the calm before the storm” [Salon]. “Trump’s MAGA cultists treat his speeches and rallies like a type of religious service where they are worshipping their Dear Leader as a type of prophet and messiah-god-martyr. Trump is continuing to summon and channel Adolf Hitler and the Nazis as he uses eliminationist and other genocidal language to describe non-white migrants and refugees and the other people (Democrats, liberals, and “the Left”) he views as “vermin” and human pollution in American society…. The most naïve will continue to hide behind America’s ‘institutions’ and ‘national character’ and how ‘the guardrails’ and ‘the rule of law’ will supposedly not allow Trump to engage in the types of violence and authoritarian plans he has publicly outlined and promised against his “enemies.”” • The corollary here is that if the Democrats, from the base on upwards, genuinely believe this — and I have come to the reluctant conclusion that they do, and it’s not simply manipulation — they cannot possibly allow Trump to take office. An election where Biden wins the electoral college is, you might say, Plan B. What Plan A is we don’t know, but you can be sure it’s being gamed out, just as it was in 2020 (with 2016 a gentler version).
BIden (D): “If Biden doesn’t ace the first debate, will he be replaced at the convention?” [Douglas MacKinnon, The Hill]. “[T]he scheduled presidential debate on June 27 will be the most crucial test yet to determine Biden’s mental acuity…. The pressure on Biden to ‘ace’ the debate will be enormous…. The warnings from Silver, Stephens and others are critical because aside from an outright health emergency, there is only one more “political window” left to take the president out of the running and switch in another candidate in his place. That window being at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago beginning on August 19, where Biden’s delegates could be released to vote for a more able Democrat.” • Ed Kilgore says the Democrats would swap in Harris (and not Newsom, and not my favorite dark horse, Pritzker). I don’t disagree, partly because this really is the stupidest timeline, but also because the Democrat base thinks she’s OK, and how on earth do they throw a [genuflects] Black woman under the bus? Even a woman who’s putatively Black (sadly, I can’t seem to find the very early California campaign poster where she identifies as an Indian; this was before the “person of color” locution was invented).
Biden (D): This video, I believe, is not impeachable:
Watch how Obama guides Biden, especially that creepy little pat on the shoulder at 0:34 (“We’re almost back to your room, Joe, and you can lie down”). Yikes.
Biden (D): “White House, Obama team dispute characterization of fundraiser video” [The Hill]. “The White House and former President Obama’s team disputed the characterization that President Biden froze up on stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser and had to be led off the stage by the former president. The New York Post wrote about the video of Biden under the headline ‘Biden appears to freeze up, has to be led off stage by Obama at mega-bucks LA fundraiser.’” • I think the Post and the various Trump influencers are over-egging the pudding; they should just sit back and let Biden be Biden, which he will be. There doesn’t need to be any “freeze-up”; watching the way Obama guides Biden, along with Biden’s gait, is enough. They’re also making two risky bets: (1) that Biden won’t be properly juiced for the debate; and (2) that nothing similar will happen with Trump, who’s no spring chicken himself. Paging Susie Wiles!
Biden (D): I just got my first Harris mailer, so I felt I should add some helpful annotations, and share:
[1] Harris would hardly have begun her career as an old prosecutor, surely.
[2] The phrase “as Vice President of the United States” does not agree with the subject of the sentence, “President Biden and I,” unless Biden is, Schrodinger-like, simultaneously President and Vice President. (Readers, I know there’s a name for this error, but I can’t dredge it up. Please add in comments).
[3] Once again, if Democrats really believe this, they cannot let Trump take office.
[4] I guess they’re going with “our democracy” and not populism (though one could argue that “our progress” gestures vaguely in the direction of populism).
[5] Contradicts [3]. Why am I sending twenty five bucks to prevent rhetoric?
“Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?” [FiveThirtyEight]. “The 2024 presidential election starts out in our forecast as a toss-up. While former President Donald Trump has a lead in most key swing states, they are close enough that a small amount of movement — or the polls being a little too favorable to Republicans — could result in President Joe Biden’s reelection. Right now, Biden is favored to win in 494 out of 1,000 simulations of how the election could go, while Trump wins in 502 of our simulations. In 4 simulations, no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives. Our forecast launches just a week and a half after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to a scheme to pay hush money to a porn star during the 2016 election. Since May 30, he has lost ground in the polls, with his national margin in 538’s polling average falling from +1.7 to +1.0 as of Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. Our forecast today thinks there is more room for Biden to improve, with economic and political “fundamentals” indicators pulling his predicted margin in the national popular vote up from -1.0 to +2.3 points. But he still lags in the key swing states, with his margin at just 1 point in Pennsylvania, the likeliest state to tip the Electoral College to either candidate, well within our uncertainty interval. And with five months left until Election Day, there is still a lot of room for the polls to change, as indicated by the 3-in-10 chance of either Trump or Biden winning a landslide of more than 350 electoral votes come Nov. 5.” • Apparently Silver’s designers felt that scrollbars weren’t needed [snarl]…. Anyhow, dragging the cursor across the text to the very end, this looks like spurious precision, to me:
“Resilience Part 1 (or a First Look at the 538 Model for 2024)” [Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo]. “538 just released its official 2024 forecast model. It shows a toss-up. (Technically, out of a thousand simulations, Biden wins 53% of the times and Trump wins 47% of the times.) This is significant, but not perhaps in the way you think. First, while poll averages are helpful to making sense of the current state of the race, forecasts are like predicting the future. In fact, they are literally about predicting the future. And predicting the future is hard — a basic life lesson if you haven’t come across it yet. To me, the 538 modeling is the gold standard. But I see it still as half a novelty. That’s no criticism of the people who put it together, incredibly smart folks [who left effing scrolls bars off the page, that kind of smart]. It’s just that there are a lot of factors that can’t be reduced to formulas and data inputs and the data that can be put into the model come with their own clouds of uncertainty. To me it’s a helpful data exercise which takes a knowledgable person’s range of factors, adds a bunch more and looks at them in a systematic and consistent-over-time fashion, stripped of wishful thinking. That’s helpful. It’s just not the be all and end all. But here’s why it’s significant.” • And on into “glass half full.” And Marshall is perfectly correct. In a 50/50 race there are paths to victory for Biden, too, just as there were for Trump in 2016. Adding, I prefer Silver the pundit to 538 the modeler. At least with the former, the assumptions are visible. Speaking of glass half full–
“The Overlooked (But Real) Possibility of a Big Democratic Win” [The Atlantic]. “The relentless focus on Trump is understandable, but it has obscured a central reality of the 2024 election: Democrats have a real chance to sweep the presidency, House, and Senate. And if they do, their congressional majority would likely be more cohesive and progressive than during President Joe Biden’s first two years in office. Biden’s deficit in the polls is much smaller than the party’s panic suggests and has narrowed since Trump’s felony convictions. Democrats need to flip only a few seats to recapture the House. Holding the Senate won’t be easy, but thanks to the retirements of a pair of maverick Democrats, even a small majority could open a path to [
pathetically small] substantial legislative achievements such as the passage of a comprehensive voting-rights bill, a federal guarantee for abortion rights, lower drug prices, and an expanded social safety net.” More: “Progressives are prodding him in this direction too. In April, the Congressional Progressive Caucus published an agenda comprising dozens of policies that it believes Democratic majorities could enact in a Biden second term and that it wants the president to highlight during the campaign. The group excluded proposals that Biden doesn’t support, such as Medicare for All. But it featured many ideas that fell just short of passing in 2021 and 2022, such as expanding Medicare coverage and Social Security benefits, implementing universal pre-K and tuition-free public college, and restoring an expanded child tax credit.” • That’s our Progressives! Never leading, always following!“The dread election: Share of ‘double haters’ hits historic high” [Axios]. “A quarter of Americans hold unfavorable views of both President Biden and former President Trump — the highest share of ‘double haters‘ at this stage in any of the last 10 elections, according to new Pew Research data. The closely watched bloc has nearly doubled in size since 2020, making this fall’s Trump vs. Biden rematch the most dreaded election in modern political history…. Top strategists say the race is likely to be decided by 6% of voters in six swing states. Many of them will hold their nose and pick a candidate they dislike in November.” But: “‘They may dislike both candidates, but the intensity on Trump’s negative is higher,’ Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock told Axios. ‘A campaign that has the resources to persuade those individuals has some advantage.’”
“Further thoughts about the foreseeable future” [Roger Kimball, American Greatness]. Reads like the guy emptied his quote box, but this is fun: “Pollsters are busy taking the pulse of voters, and pundits are doing their owlish best to parse the data and take the auspices. It pains me to say that many of them are in the position of poor Publius Claudius Pulcher, commander of the Roman fleet in 249 at the Sicilian Battle of Drepana during the First Punic War. It was customary, before a battle, for Romans to consult the sacred chickens. Some feed was scattered in front of them. If they ate, the auspices were good and the battle could proceed. If they turned up the beaks at the food, however, the prudent commander held back. Pulcher scattered the food. The chickens didn’t eat. He tried again. Same result. Finally, exasperated, he had the beast[s] tossed overboard and is said to have remarked, Bidant, quoniam ēsse nolunt: let them drink since they do not want to eat! Pulcher, you will not be surprised to hear, lost the battle.”
Our Famously Free Press
“Fox’s Howie Kurtz Criticizes ‘Misleading’ Coverage Of Biden Cheapfake Video — Including Fox News” [Mediaite]. “Fox News host Howie Kurtz ripped “misleading” coverage — including Fox’s — of a cheapfake video of President Joe Biden at the G7 watching a skydiving show last week. The RNC Research account seized on a moment in which the president moved away from the group to congratulate a skydiver who was packing his chute. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy then grabbed Biden’s arm to draw his attention to a member of the skydiving team who was addressing the group of world leaders…. The New York Post then posted a version of the clip cropped vertically so the skydiver Biden was congratulating didn’t show in the video.” Kurtz: “[I]f you look at it from a slightly broader angle, the President had turned to chat with a skydiver who just landed as part of a show near the world leaders and to give the man a thumbs up before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni guided him back to where they were taking a group photo.” • The moral: Always go with the wide-angle view, not the close-up. Photographers like close-ups; “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough,” said Robert Capa. But we should be looking for news photographs, not “good” photographs.
“Sinclair floods local news websites with hundreds of deceptive articles about Biden’s mental fitness” [Popular Information]. “On June 13, Sinclair’s National Desk published an article headlined, ‘Biden appears to wander away during G7 summit, escorted back by Italian PM.’ The article links to a social media post by right-wing polemicist Collin Rugg, who commented on a video clip by RNC Research. Rugg says Biden ‘appears to start wandering off at the G7 summit and has to be handled back in,’ describing it as a ‘clown show.’ The Trump campaign claimed Biden was ‘wandering around like a brain-dead zombie.’ Sinclair, echoing the Trump campaign’s political attack, described it as one of ‘a string of strange incidents for Biden.’ There was nothing strange about the incident. The G7 leaders watched a skydiving demonstration, with each parachuter carrying a flag for each nation. Biden briefly walks away from the group to give another parachuter a thumbs up. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that Biden ‘was being very polite and went over to talk to all of them individually.’” I did, in fact, see what purported to be the full video, which does this (video “purports to be” until proven otherwise). More: “Each of these crass political smears masquerading as journalism was syndicated to at least 86 local news websites owned by Sinclair. ”
Spook Country
“Intelligence Officials Secretly Paid by Big Tech to Fight Antitrust Reforms” [Lee Fang]. “High-level former intelligence and national security officials have provided crucial assistance to Silicon Valley giants as the tech firms fought off efforts to weaken online monopolies and force competition on major platforms… ‘We need to keep Big Tech strong — so it can keep America strong,’ claimed Robert O’Brien, the former White House National Security Advisor to President Trump. O’Brien has appeared on cable news programs and penned several opinion columns rallying opposition to tech antitrust reforms in Congress…. .The disclosures show that the tech group not only paid a group of former Trump intelligence officials but also retained the services of Global Strategy Group, a polling and consulting firm that advises the Democratic National Committee. CCIA, notably, repeatedly cited O’Brien’s concerns around national security and China, casting him as a neutral expert rather than a paid consultant.”
Clinton Legacy
“Hillary Clinton’s shock Tony’s appearance baffles viewers as she makes political joke” [Daily Express]. Clinton is a producer of the Broadway musical Suffs (“Suffragettes”). This seems to have been the joke: “While speaking about the suffragettes, she quipped she knows how ‘hard it can be to make change’, referring to her attempts for the Presidency.” • Her outfit:
If you had to run, I suppose that’s easier to do in a caftan that a Nina McLemore….
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: Covid
“Viral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 in body fluids associated with sexual activity: a systematic review and meta-analysis” [BMJ Open]. From the Abstract: “Objective: To identify and summarise the evidence on the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA detection and persistence in body fluids associated with sexual activity (saliva, semen, vaginal secretion, urine and faeces/rectal secretion)…. Results: … The maximum viral persistence for faeces/rectal secretions was 210 days, followed by semen 121 days, saliva 112 days, urine 77 days and vaginal secretions 13 days. Culturable SARS-CoV-2 was positive for saliva and faeces.” • News you can use!
Elite Maleficence
< a>“Bird flu snapshot: A critic of the U.S. response speaks out, and USDA tries to ‘corner the virus’” [STAT]. “Seth Berkley, the former head of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, gave voice last week to a point of view STAT has been hearing for a while about the U.S. response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows. ‘It’s been shocking to watch the ineptitude,’ Berkley, an American currently living in Switzerland, said… Berkley was talking, among other things, about the surveillance being done to try to get a handle on how widespread the outbreak has actually become. It has been nearly three months since the virus was first identified in cattle, and the country is no closer to an answer to that question…. Have any of the affected herds cleared their infections? If so, how many? The USDA couldn’t answer those questions on Thursday. And yet Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack confidently declared at a press conference earlier this month that his department feels it knows how the virus is moving between herds and how to stop it. ‘We are trying to essentially corner the virus,’ Vilsack said, despite the fact that operators of only 11 of the affected herds have applied for USDA help to improve biosecurity on their farms and defray testing costs.” • I have to confess, there are times when our institutional response makes me feel like this:
The videographer survived, fortunately, as I, and you who are reading this have done, so far. So, not “fear mongering” but clarity, rational apprehension, anticipation.
“It will be a miracle if H5N1 does not go full explosive pandemic.” [Lazarus Long, ThreadReader]. “So, the USDA is telling us not to worry because they are depending on public health to test people to let us know if it is spreading in people. Who are not being tested.” Oh. More: “Not coincidentally, did you know that 10% of poultry workers test positive for H5N1? Per @NIOSH, in DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number 2008–128. “Protecting Poultry Workers from Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)” In which they recommend respirators or PAPR.” • PAPR = Powered Air Purifying Respirator.
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] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. The numbers in the right hand column are identical. The dots on the map are not.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that last week KP.2 was all over everything like kudzu, and now it’s KP.3. If the “Nowcast” can’t even forecast two weeks out, why are we doing it at all?
[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) A slight decrease followed by a return to a slight, steady increase. (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) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads. I’m leaving this here for another week because I loathe them so much:
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index increased to -6 in June 2024 from -15.6 in May, beating forecasts of -9. It is the highest reading in four months, although it still pointed to a moderate decline in business activity in the New York State.”
Tech: “Proton is taking its privacy-first apps to a nonprofit foundation model” [Ars Technica]. “‘We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can’t be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypto ‘foundations’),’ Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote in a blog post announcing the transition. “Instead, Proton must have a profitable and healthy business at its core.’ The announcement comes exactly 10 years to the day after a crowdfunding campaign saw 10,000 people give more than $500,000 to launch Proton Mail. To make it happen, Yen, along with co-founder Jason Stockman and first employee Dingchao Lu, endowed the Proton Foundation with some of their shares. The Proton Foundation is now the primary shareholder of the business Proton, which Yen states will ‘make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits.’ Among other members of the Foundation’s board is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of HTML, HTTP, and almost everything else about the web. Of particular importance is where Proton and the Proton Foundation are located: Switzerland. As Yen noted, Swiss foundations do not have shareholders and are instead obligated to act “in accordance with the purpose for which they were established.’ While the for-profit entity Proton AG can still do things like offer stock options to recruits and even raise its own capital on private markets, the Foundation serves as a backstop against moving too far from Proton’s founding mission, Yen wrote.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 42 Fear (previous close: 38 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 43 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 17 at 1:48:29 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 188. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Bird flu not a concern, apparently. Still flirting with the 189 ceiling….
The Gallery
Some say the Nabis are just wallpaper. And sometimes they are! But what wallpaper!
News of the Wired
“NASA again delays Boeing Starliner’s return home” [Phys.org]. “Mark Nappi, vice president of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, added, “We have an incredible opportunity to spend more time at station and perform more tests which provides invaluable data unique to our position.” • Nothing to see here!
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