2:00PM Water Cooler 5/15/2024 | naked capitalism

May 15, 2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Oriole Warbler, Campement de Wassadou, Tambacounda, Senegal. “Duetting pair in ravine.” Go, Senegal!

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) More on Trump’s trial…

(2) Biden and Trump to debate (without Kennedy).

(3) Raw milk enthusiasts resist H5N1 “fearmongering.”

(4) North Carolina’s horrid anti-masking law, and how to make sure it doesn’t pass.

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 10:

National results now moving Trump’s way. All of the Swing States (more here) are now in Trump’s column, including Michigan and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania leans more Trump this week than last. 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. Now, if either candidate starts breaking away in points, instead of tenths of a point…. NOTE I changed the notation: Up and down arrows for increases or decreases over last week, circles for no change. Red = Trump. Blue would be Biden if he were leading anywhere, but he isn’t.

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Cross-examination throws Michael Cohen off balance, but belabors point that he hates Trump” [FOX]. Final paragraph: “How much of this is swaying the public? In the latest New York Times poll, just 29% of those in six battleground states say they are paying ‘a lot’ of attention to Trump’s legal woes.”

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Trump New York hush-money trial is far from a slam dunk” [BBC]. From back in April: “[Bragg] says Trump Organization records were falsified to conceal or aid criminal activity. But even though the trial begins on Monday, he has not specified the exact crime allegedly hidden. He has however given clues. In court filings and interviews, Mr Bragg has said Mr Trump violated both state and federal election laws, and state tax laws. “The District Attorney’s office is not precluded from presenting to the jury a variety of alternative theories on sort of why the records were falsified,” says Shane T. Stansbury, a former assistant United States Attorney in New York’s southern district. But he adds that it is unclear if a state prosecutor can invoke a federal election crime, as it appears Mr Bragg intends to do. ‘We could have appellate courts and even the US Supreme Court weighing in on some of the federal questions that are part of this theory, so I think we’re a long way from having resolution on this case,’ he says.” • Oh good.

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “The Appearance of Michael Cohen: A Wreck in Search of a Race” [Jonathan Turley]. “The calculus of Alvin Bragg is now obvious. He is counting on the jury convicting Trump regardless of the evidence. He believes that all he needs is to check the boxes on the elements of the crime, no matter how unbelievable the vehicle. The reason is that Bragg likely fears a directed verdict more than a jury verdict. After the government closes its evidence, the defense will move for a directed verdict on the basis that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction. In other words, when the prosecution rests this week, Trump’s counsel will stand and ask Merchan to end the case before it is even given to the jury. Many of us agree with that assessment. After three weeks of testimony, there is still confusion on what crime Trump was allegedly seeking to cover up. Bragg has vaguely referred to using the denotation of payments to Daniels as ‘legal expenses’ as a fraud committed to steal the election. However, the election was over when those denotations were made. Moreover, many believe that such a characterization for payments related to a nondisclosure agreement was accurate. (Hillary Clinton’s campaign claimed in the same election that hiding the funding for the Steele dossier as legal expenses was perfectly accurate). Judge Juan Merchan, in my view, has failed repeatedly to protect the rights of the accused in this case. However, he can claim that there was enough alleged to give Bragg the chance to make his case. Thus far he has not done so and, if he is truly neutral, Merchan should grant the motion.” • I think Turley is table-pounding again. I doubt very much Merchan will grant a directed verdict.

Trump (R) (Bragg Merchan): “Trump Should Be Acquitted in Manhattan” [Andrew McCarthy, National Review]. This is well worth a complete and careful read. “Trump ought to be acquitted for the simplest of reasons: Prosecutors can’t prove their case — neither the case the grand jury actually charged, 34 counts of felony business-records falsification, nor the case that elected progressive Democratic district attorney Alvin Bragg has imagined into existence, an uncharged conspiracy to steal the 2016 election by suppressing politically damaging information in violation of federal campaign-finance law.” The business records charges: “Under §175.05 of New York’s penal law as relevant here, to establish the misdemeanor, prosecutors must prove that the accused ‘with intent to defraud . . . causes a false entry [to be made] in the business records of an enterprise’ (emphasis added). I have highlighted two elements of the crime because they are discrete and it is vital not to conflate them. If fraudulent intent could be assumed from the fact than an entry is false, the legislature would not have added the words ‘with intent to defraud.’ Both elements must be proved — falsity and fraudulent intent.” And: “As for the entries in the Trump Organization records, testimony at trial this week showed that the bookkeeping department logged payments as ‘legal expenses.’ Not much thought went into this: The bookkeeping department was using a drop-down menu on a computer program designed in the early nineties, and routinely put payments to lawyers and related expenses in this general category. That aside, these were legal expenses. Cohen was Trump’s lawyer when he negotiated the NDA with Daniels’ lawyers and paid the $130,000 to close the deal. That’s an expense incurred in a legal transaction.” McCarthy then goes on to discuss Cohen’s installement payments, where he thinks Bragg is on firmer ground, but this article was written before Cohen’s testimony. On election theft: “Bragg’s fever dream, which he’s trying to spin into an actionable conspiracy offense, is that Trump stole the 2016 election. But that’s partisan hyperbole, not a legal theory. New York has no crime of “election theft”; in the criminal law, there can be no conspiracy unless the objective of the conspiratorial enterprise is a crime. By Bragg’s lights — to the extent I can wrap my brain around his contention — Trump schemed to deprive the nation of a Hillary Clinton presidency.” On campaign finance, a potential object offense: “Federal campaign-finance laws are abstruse, so Congress unsurprisingly requires prosecutors to prove willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases involving them. Bragg can’t come anywhere close to providing such proof with respect to Trump’s supposed ‘intent’ to violate the laws regarding disclosure of campaign expenditures. Bragg contends that Trump paid money to conceal damaging information (Stormy’s allegation of a tryst) that would have harmed his election bid. Even if that’s true, to bury information in the context of a campaign is not the same thing as willfully transgressing the campaign-finance laws. There is no evidence that the campaign laws factored into Trump’s thinking at all. To the contrary, the evidence cuts the other way Bragg’s prosecutors have made much of Trump’s hands-on management style, his penchant for watching every penny and minimizing costs. If, as Bragg maintains, Trump believed that the Stormy NDA and the reimbursement of Cohen arising out of it were campaign expenditures under federal law, there is no reason to believe that Trump would have paid them out of his own pocket; he would instead have used campaign funds.” And: “Add to this that the FEC — a federal agency that actually has jurisdiction to enforce the campaign laws and expertise in applying them — investigated Trump and decided not to proceed against him. Why is that important? Because the FEC is in charge of civil enforcement. The civil burden of proof of a violation is a mere preponderance of the evidence, a significant step down from the burden on prosecutors to prove criminal offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. If the FEC concluded that it could not prevail against Trump on a civil-law standard, it is absurd to think he could be proved guilty on the daunting criminal-law standard.” • Again, this is from May 11, and doesn’t take Cohen’s testimony, which may speak to intent, into account. Still worth a read!

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Prosecutors say Trump’s hush money was ‘election interference.’ Will jurors — and voters — believe it?” [Politico]. “Despite its tabloid roots in a “catch and kill” scheme aimed at suppressing the stories of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, Bragg’s defenders have described the scheme as a bid to win the White House in 2016 by fraudulently concealing information from voters. In this framing, the hush money scheme was a precursor to Trump’s bid to hang on to power by illegitimate means four years later. ‘It is an election interference gateway drug,’ said Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House ethics lawyer who served as a special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Trump. Eisen is at the forefront of the effort to rebrand the New York case and released a book earlier this month titled, ‘Trying Trump: A Guide to His First Election Interference Criminal Trial.’” Fine. What statute did Trump violate? More: “[Former Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith] said the issue in this case, as in Edwards’, isn’t just whether the defendant had a general understanding of campaign finance law, but could really have known for sure that what he was doing was illegal. ‘The strongest argument for Trump is that in fact there is quite a bit of controversy over whether this is illegal. Look at the FEC’s own rulings,’ Smith said. It’s unclear how Bragg’s prosecutors would meet that burden or if the judge will require them to. Pretrial motions didn’t really tee up the issue. It is likely to arise as the lawyers debate jury instructions or in a motion the defense typically makes asking the judge to toss the case after the prosecution’s witnesses have testified. Eisen said he thinks Justice Juan Merchan will apply a lower standard in the state prosecution [no doubt!]. ‘It’s so much easier than in federal court,” Eisen said. However, there’s a risk to allowing prosecutors to get a conviction without having to prove that Trump knew he was breaking the law: That issue could be strong fodder for an appeal and might lead to any guilty verdicts against Trump being overturned.”

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “The increasingly embarrassing details at Trump’s trial” [Aaron Blake, WaPo]. “Not only has the testimony tied Trump to an objectively seedy plot to keep Stormy Daniels’s and other people’s allegations against Trump from public view, but it also has occasionally featured some personal details that could live long in 2024 voters’ memories — and potentially campaign ads. And that’s not just when it comes to the salacious details of the alleged sexual encounter.” • “Objectively seedy.” Why, it’s almost as if that was Bragg’s goal!

Trump (R): “Crypto is Trump’s new weapon against Biden” [Politico]. From last week: “Donald Trump is making presidential history all over again: He’s poised to be the first major party nominee to court cryptocurrency traders. It’s leaving some Democrats feeling uneasy. Trump told crypto backers at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday that they ‘better vote’ for him because of the way the Biden administration has unleashed a regulatory crackdown on the industry.” • Politico emptied its Rolodex on this one, but I’m guessing the explanation is simple: Trump is trying to peel away Kennedy voters, because Kennedy is pro-crypto. That’s disconcerting, because it means Trump is acting like a conventional politician, assembling bundles of verticals. I hope Susie Wiles didn’t get him thinking that way, but I attribute the change, if change it be, to Trump being tied up in court, and not being able to do A/B testing at rallies. Stoller agrees:

Trump (R): Wildwood, New Jersey:

Hmm. Goes with reader observations on lack of Trump yard signs [musical interlude].

Haley (R): “Nikki Haley gathers her donors and ignores Trump” [Politico]. “During a private, two-day donor retreat in Charleston, South Carolina, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador thanked a group of around 100 donors and her team gave a presentation on her campaign’s fundraising and strategy. But Trump was barely mentioned even as Haley continues to rack up votes in primaries despite dropping out of the race in early March. As expected, Haley did not endorse the former president during the retreat, nor did she encourage her supporters to back his campaign, according to attendees at the event. The Charleston retreat showed the former GOP candidate continues to have the backing of an extremely loyal group of donors and supporters who plan to keep following her, even though she has yet to announce her next move beyond joining the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C.-based think tank.” • Hmm.

Biden (D): Biden challenges Trump:

Biden (D): “Biden, Trump agree to June presidential debate hosted by CNN” [Axios]. “President Biden and former President Trump have agreed to participate in a June 27 presidential debate hosted by CNN. The CNN debate sets up a televised confrontation before either candidate’s nominations are formally complete and marks their first televised match-up since 2020. The candidates are threatening to cut the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has managed debates since 1988, out of the process. The debate will be held in CNN’s Atlanta studios, the network announced Wednesday. CNN said no audience members will be present. The Biden campaign views the current debates as ‘structured like an entertainment spectacle’ that doesn’t enforce its own rules, per a letter to the commission released Wednesday. The campaign instead wants to work directly with broadcast networks that host both GOP and Democratic primary debates. The letter proposes just the two candidates and a moderator, with no audience. It also suggests microphones that cut off automatically at time limits and when it’s not a candidate’s turn to speak.” • I’m glad to see the Commission on Presidential Debates get the chop, but why not the League of Woman Voters? Presumably because Biden wants strict control over the environment — hence, no audience, which I think is unfortunate. Just select audience members at random.

Biden (D): “Biden Offers to Debate Trump, With Terms, Shunning the Debate Commission” [New York Times]. “Mr. Biden and his top aides want the debates to start much sooner than the dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, so voters can see the two candidates side by side well before early voting begins in September. They want the debate to occur inside a TV studio, with microphones that automatically cut off when a speaker’s time limit elapses. And they want it to be just the two candidates and the moderator — without the raucous in-person audiences that Mr. Trump feeds on and without the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.” • I’m sure cutting out Kennedy suits Trump just fine.

Biden (D): “Playbook: The other trials hanging over 2024” [Politico]. “Two radio interviews Biden recorded with Black journalists will air today, one in Milwaukee, and the other in Atlanta … on Thursday, Biden is set to meet with plaintiffs from the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case and their families … on Friday, he will give remarks at an NAACP event featuring the Brown plaintiffs and members of the Little Rock Nine … on Saturday, he heads to Atlanta for a campaign event … and on Sunday, he will give the commencement address at Morehouse College, the legendary all-male HBCU, before traveling to Detroit for the annual NAACP Freedom Fund dinner. It’s quite the run of events, and while most of these have been planned for some time, we’re still struck by (1) the timing — coming just as the new NYT/Siena polls put a new spotlight on his persistent weakness with Black voters — and (2) the conventionality of the outreach here, which leans heavily on a civil-rights focus that might not be especially relevant to the young and politically unengaged voters who are dissatisfied with Biden and flirting with other candidates.” • Investing a lot of the campaign’s most valuable resource — the candidate’s time — very early, and on a constituency I would think they had locked up.

Biden (D): “Panic or patience? The Democrats’ dilemma as Biden stumbles out of the gate” [Washington Examiner]. “Trump’s leads are not big, at least not in most places, and by historical standards should not be insurmountable. Trump is up by 1.2 points nationally. The RealClearPolitics average shows him ahead by just 0.6 points in Wisconsin. Biden and the Democrats have a money advantage over Trump, enhanced by the fact that only one candidate faces staggering legal bills. The Democratic campaign apparatus should be formidable. This is also extremely early in the general election cycle. Democrats exceeded expectations in the midterm elections. They have added to their coalition higher propensity voters in the Trump era. Biden has dismissed ‘the polling data’ as having been ‘wrong all along’ although that was as much a comment about the public’s conclusions about the economy as the accuracy of the polls. This is an argument for trusting the process and the Biden campaign to methodically erode Trump’s leads in the battleground states in the coming months as voters start paying closer attention. It is a safer bet, these Democrats contend, than trying to force out Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in favor of candidates who did not participate in a primary process the incumbent largely dominated.” • Harris really does work as an insurance policy. If there is to be another candidate (Newsom, Pritzker, whoever) Harris has to be thrown under the bus. I don’t see how that happens, and Black voters would be unhappy (see above two links) and very willing to share their unhappiness. But I can’t imagine a more gravitas-free Presidential candidate than Harris. If the Democrat machine is capable of putting her in the Oval Office, my hat will be off to them.

WI: “Biden campaign works to woo Black voters in key swing state of Wisconsin” [ABC]. “In his fourth trip to Wisconsin already this year, President Joe Biden on Wednesday, at an intimate [i.e., controlllable in case of disaster] campaign event in the swing state, sought out Black voters to speak about the stakes in November… On Wednesday the campaign announced a new $14 million paid media investment for May that includes seven-figure investments into African American, Hispanic, and AAPI media. Wisconsin has special political significance. It’s part of the critical ‘blue wall’ in the Midwest that voted Democratic for decades before Trump’s candidacy. Biden only won the state over Trump in 2020 by some 20,000 votes. A loss in November would likely be a major blow to his reelection effort. According to the latest Marquette Law School polling, just 37% of Black voters in Wisconsin say they’re ‘very enthusiastic’ about November’s presidential election. The coveted group makes up nearly 7% of the state’s population, according to the 2020 census and 21% in Milwaukee. In a recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll, Biden faces additional problems with Black Americans in terms of turnout. The poll found that 62% of Black Americans say they’re ‘absolutely certain to vote,’ down from 74% in June 2020.”

WV: “Jan. 6 felony rioter Derrick Evans loses GOP House primary in West Virginia” [NBC News]. “Evans’ fundraising emails, with subject lines like “I did time in Prison for Trump,” have highlighted his actions on Jan. 6 as a selling point for his candidacy. One ad even featured stock video of fake FBI agents busting through a window feet-first, when, in fact, video shows that Evans’ 2021 arrest was relatively mundane…. [Rep. Carol Miller], who was first elected to the House in 2018, is a supporter of Trump, and she aligned with him in nearly all of her votes when he was in office. Miller was even one of 147 Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s victory after the Capitol attack. Trump did not endorse in Miller’s primary.” • Ten paragraphs on the riot (not an “insurrection,” hmm) but no actual results (!), which were Reed 63%, Miller 37%.

“Column: A lesson from Presidents Biden and Trump — the new normal is nonstop crises” [Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times]. “‘People are reeling from the sense that we can’t get going in the right direction,’ said Celinda Lake, one of Biden’s top pollsters, relating sentiments from voters in focus groups. ‘They’ve been shocked by events they never expected: Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine, Gaza, even the wildfires in Maui and the collapse of the bridge in Baltimore.’” • Not to mention a pandemic in which a million people died. “Focus” seems rather like a misnomer….

Democrats en Déshabillé

“Can the 2024 DNC Thwart Chicago Protests by Going Virtual?” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. • They’d l-o-o-o-v-e to go virtual. If Biden slips a cog, they stop the tape. And if the Convention ends up in a smoke-filled room, nobody will be able to cover it. The protesters are just giving them a handy excuse for what they want to do anyway.

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

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!

Airborne Transmission

“Nukit Tempest Review” [Joey Fox, It’s Airborne]. “Nukit recently created a new air cleaner called the Tempest, which I think could be the best one on the market for many situations. It uses the PC fans to ensure high clean air delivery rate with very low noise…. This is currently the best model for people who want a sturdy and professional looking air cleaner. If I was asked to design a space with in room air cleaners, this is could be the best option, so I’m pickier with this than any other one I’ve seen.”• Although Fox does suggest improvements, this a big thumbs up for Naomi Wu’s company from a highly credible North American source.

Transmission: H5N1

“How fast is bird flu spreading in US cows? ‘We have no idea’” [The Hill]. “‘Without testing, without surveillance, we have no idea [of the spread],’ [Erin Sorrell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security] said. ‘We are not able to essentially move forward with an improved approach to protecting agricultural workers from occupational exposures if we don’t understand how they were exposed, and the potential risk of additional people being exposed and infected.’ … Farmers have been reluctant to allow federal health officials onto their land to test potentially infected cattle amid uncertainty about how their businesses would be impacted. Farmworkers have also been reluctant to participate in screening, and experts said it’s likely due to a mix of fears over job loss, immigration status, language barriers and general distrust in public health systems. ‘They are socioeconomically vulnerable. … In some circumstances, it kind of requires the buy-in of the employer to engage in surveillance of these workers. And that hasn’t happened in a substantial way to date,’ said Jessica Leibler, an environmental epidemiologist at Boston University’s school of public health.” • [Family blog] their businesses if they depend on infected cattle. Of course, that will never happen, because libertarians will immediately start yammering about tyranny. And they’re gonna yammer us all the way into the next pandemic.

“Flu season is over, but there is a viral surge in California wastewater. Is it avian flu?” [Los Angeles Times]. “An unusual surge in flu viruses detected at wastewater treatment plants in California and other parts of the country is raising concerns among some experts that H5N1 bird flu may be spreading farther and faster than health officers initially thought. In the last several weeks, wastewater surveillance at 59 of 190 U.S. municipal and regional sewage plants has revealed an out-of-season spike in influenza A flu viruses — a category that also includes H5N1. The testing — which is intended to monitor the prevalence of ‘normal’ flu viruses that affect humans — has also shown a moderate to high upward trend at 40 sites across California, including San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego. Almost every city tested in the Bay Area shows moderate to high increases of type A viruses…. ‘There seems to be an outbreak throughout California, and, as far as I know, they haven’t reported any infected cows in that state yet,’ said Marc Johnson, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the University of Missouri, referring to the cluster of yellow and orange dots on the WastewaterSCAN map. Johnson is among a number of experts urging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test specifically for H5N1 and to make those results public.” • Seems like what CDC from butchering the Covid tests was to avoid testing, and, if testing happens, conceal the results as long as possible. Why the heck isn’t Maskless Mandy out there jawboning the farmers? Or, for that matter, Biden? More from Johnson:

“Raw-milk fans plan to drink up as experts warn of high levels of H5N1 virus” [Ars Technica]. “To drink raw milk at any time is to flirt with dangerous germs. But, amid an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in US dairy cows, the risks have ratcheted up considerably. Health experts have stepped up warnings against drinking raw milk during the outbreak, the scope of which is still unknown. Yet, raw milk enthusiasts are undaunted by the heightened risk. The California-based Raw Milk Institute called the warnings ‘clearly fearmongering.’ The institute’s founder, Mark McAfee, told the Los Angeles Times this weekend that his customers are, in fact, specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows. According to McAfee, his customers believe, without evidence, that directly drinking high levels of the avian influenza virus will give them immunity to the deadly pathogen.” • A problem that may solve itself, over time….

Maskstravaganza

(The thread includes a sample email.)

NC’s anti-mask law (2):

NC’s anti-mask law (3):

But why the baggy blue….

Elite Maleficence

Cleaning the air for themselves, but not for us:

Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Looks like Biobot data still functions, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, New York hospitalization seems to be dead since 5/1 [No, it’s alive!], when CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, Walgreens functions, Cleveland Clinic functions, CDC traveler’s data functions, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone down). 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.

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) Slight upward movement, supported by yesterday’s Walgreen’s positivity.

[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….

[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that the model completely missed KP.2.

[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) The data is now updating again. 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) Slight uptick.

[8] (Cleveland) Leveling out.

[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Flattens.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly. Still 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

Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPI)” [Trading Economics]. “The consumer price index in the United States rose by 3.4% year-over-year to 313.548 points in April 2024, following a 3.5% increase in March and below the market consensus of a 3.4% advance. ” • 3.4% < 3.4%? Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index fell to -15.6 in May 2024 from -14.3 in the previous month, below the market consensus of -10.0. The reading suggested that business activity declined for a sixth consecutive month in New York State, with new orders falling significantly and unfilled orders continuing to shrink while shipments held steady. Delivery times shortened, and inventories were little changed. Labor market conditions remained weak, with employment and hours worked continuing to move lower.”

Retail: “United States Retail Sales YoY” [Trading Economics]. “Retail Sales in the United States increased 3% year-on-year in April 2024, following a downwardly revised 3.8% gain in March.”

Manufacturing: “DOJ: Boeing breached 2021 safety agreement that prevented charges for crashes” [Axios]. “The Department of Justice said Boeing breached its obligations under a 2021 agreement that allowed it to avoid criminal prosecution for two fatal 737 MAX crashes, according to a court filing Tuesday. Under the agreement, Boeing paid more than $2.5 billion to settle criminal charges related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration allegations in connection with the FAA’s investigation into the jet crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. The DOJ said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, that Boeing failed to ‘design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations,’ per Reuters.” • Whoopsie.

Manufacturing: “Ex-Boeing engineer sidelined after a 787 critique defends troubled plane” [Dominic Gates, Seattle Times]. “Salehpour’s main allegations center on how the large 787 fuselage sections are fastened together with a “splice plate” around the circular join between them. (He made separate allegations about poor manufacturing quality on Boeing’s 777 jet.) His concern on the 787 is how Boeing deals with tiny gaps at those major fuselage joins. These gaps are not along the circumference of the join but inside the aircraft, between the splice plate and the skin of the fuselage. Salehpour claims the forces Boeing mechanics apply to close these gaps during final assembly can damage the carbon composite skin around the fasteners at the join — risking a major structural failure… Hart-Smith [also a Boeing dissident] believes Salehpour is mistaken. His analysis supports Boeing’s insistence that the 787 fuselage gaps are not a safety risk. Salehpour is ‘right in theory that if you have to apply too much force to close the gaps during assembly, that could damage the structure,’ Hart-Smith said in a phone interview from Australia. ‘But it appears the gaps are not big enough to make that happen. ‘It’s not a safety issue.’” • That would be nice.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 59 Greed (previous close: 52 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 41 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 15 at 1:49:41 PM ET.

The Gallery

A non-creepy Balthus!

Class Warfare

“Trypillia mega-sites: a social levelling concept?” [Antiquity]. “Explanations for the emergence and abandonment of the Chalcolithic Trypillia mega-sites have long been debated. Here, the authors use Gini coefficients based on the sizes of approximately 7000 houses at 38 Trypillia sites to assess inequality between households as a factor in the rise and/or demise of these settlements. The results indicate temporarily reduced social inequality at mega-sites. It was only after several generations that increased social differentiation re-emerged and this may explain the subsequent abandonment of the mega-sites. The results indicate that increases in social complexity need not be associated with greater social stratification and that large aggregations of population can, for a time at least, find mechanisms to reduce inequality.” • Hmm.

News of the Wired

“How Google Became Evil” [Dana Blankenhorn, Facing the Future]. “When a company loses its passion, when it tosses employee morale in the sink, it’s time to walk away. I dumped my Alphabet (Google) stock last week. Google began losing its way the day co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin left. They’re now the 6th and 7th richest people in the world. Their fortunes, taken together, would rank them 1st, by a huge margin. What are they doing? Not much. Page ‘invests in start-ups’ and ‘life extension.’ Brin has hosted a baby shower where adults wore diapers. These are no longer serious people. Yet both retain their voting stock meaning they, and in time their kids, will be absolute rulers of all Google domains.” • Oh.

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 IM:

IM writes: “The dearth of pines did not go unnoticed. A ponderosa pine from the ancient gneiss bluffs above vaseaux lake in the south okanagan. More than 400 days old I’m guessing.” In response to yesterday’s bonus plant, which I repost, with commentary:

I should pair this with a pine tree, but I don’t seem to have one in the queue….

And a pine tree magically appeared!

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:

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