2:00PM Water Cooler 11/14/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, I had a Twitter debacle, and so this is a little bit light. More soon. –lambert UPDATE All done!

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Big Bend NP–Chisos Basin Campground, Brewster, Texas, United States. “Singing lustily before first light.” Indeed! This spectrogram shows the virtuosity very clearly (not all do).

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Trump transition: Biden meeting, Gabbard, Gaetz.
2. Deploy the Blame Cannons! Democrat suicide?
3. Boeing layoffs.
4. “Is the Love Song Dying?”

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

Capitol Seizure

“J6 Shocker: Phone companies dispute FBI testimony on pipe bombs suspect, key lawmaker reveals” [Just the News]. “lular carriers have told Congress they possess intact phone usage data from the vicinity where two pipe bombs were planted during the Jan. 6 incident, directly disputing FBI testimony that agents couldn’t identify a suspect because the phone data was corrupted, a key House chairman tells Just the News. The revelations from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee, adds new intrigue to a debate that has gripped Washington for nearly four years: Why can’t the FBI with so much evidence and manpower identify the suspect who planted the explosive devices at the Democrat and Republican Party headquarters hours before the Capitol was breached…. The concerns about the unsolved Jan. 6 pipe bombs have been heightened by evidence Loudermilk disclosed in the last year showing that then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was taken within 10 yards of one of the live bombs on the morning of Jan. 6 because the Secret Service did not do a thorough security sweep. In addition, Loudermilk also provided security camera video footage and still photos of the suspect holding a device that lawmakers believe was a cell phone, further making the phone data a potential case-solving piece of evidence.” • We also don’t know who set up the famous gallows, or why it wasn’t taken down.

Biden Administration

“Special counsel Jack Smith stands down in Trump classified docs case, asks court to halt appeal” [New York Post]. “Special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal appellate court on Wednesday to halt his appeal in President-elect Donald Trump’s classified documents case, citing the results of the 2024 election. ‘As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, one of the defendants in this case, Donald J. Trump, is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025,’ Smith wrote to the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals. ‘The Government respectfully requests that the Court hold this appeal in abeyance — and stay the deadline for the Government’s reply brief, which is currently due on November 15, 2024 — until December 2, 2024, to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ the federal prosecutor added.”

Trump Transition

“Trump triumphantly returns to White House as Biden pledges ‘smooth transition’” [Washington Times]. “‘I look forward … to having a smooth transition. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated what you need,’ a smiling Mr. Biden said as he congratulated a man who had relentlessly attacked his mental capacity and branded his administration as a ‘disaster.’ Mr. Trump also pledged that the transition will be ‘as smooth as it can get.’ ‘Politics is tough, and in many cases, it’s not a nice world, but it’s a nice world today,’ Mr. Trump said. They shook hands in front of a roaring fire in the Oval Office.” • What was burning in the fire? The Epstein tapes and a copy of The Enabling Act?

“Donald Trump reveals exclusively to The Post what he and Biden spoke about at DC meeting” [New York Post]. “President-elect Donald Trump told The Post Wednesday that he and President Biden “both really enjoyed seeing each other” when they sat down for a historic post-election get-together in the Oval Office. ‘You know, it’s been a long, it’s been a long slog,’ the 78-year-old said during a phone interview as he left Washington. ‘It’s been a lot of work on both sides and he did a very good job with respect to campaigning and everything else. We really had a really good meeting.’ Trump said Biden was ‘very gracious.’ ‘We got to know each other again.’”

BFFs:

So much for all that “our democracy” hoo-ha, then. Also too “fascism.” Dear Lord, these people just turn on a dime!

“Biden, Trump Die 2 Minutes Apart Holding Hands” [The Onion]. “‘Only minutes before their deaths, they requested that their hospital beds be pushed together—it’s like they knew what was coming,’ said Marlene Kato, a nurse who confirmed that medical staff at Walter Reed Medical Center, where the two presidents spent their final hours together, were stunned when Biden died at 8:05 p.m. and Trump followed at 8:07. ‘They were rivals in life, but they came together with love in death. They were both very weak, but turned their heads to face each other and smiled. Biden said, ‘You were the only one who ever got me,’ and Trump said, ‘I know.’ I started tearing up right there and then. It was just so beautiful. Then they used their final breaths to request a shared burial plot at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.’ At press time, a coroner’s report revealed that Trump had strangled Biden and then succumbed to a heart attack two minutes later.”• Oh.

“Donald Trump Jokes He ‘Can’t Get Rid’ of Elon Musk Amid Growing Influence” [Newsweek]. “”Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him—at least until I don’t like him,” Trump joked, acknowledging Musk’s growing presence in his inner circle.” And: “During his week-long stay at Mar-a-Lago, Musk has bonded with the president-elect’s family, posing for photos and playing golf, while also joining calls with foreign leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He is also scheduled to meet Argentina’s President Javier Milei at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. Although the president-elect has often said that Musk likely won’t take on a full-time position due to his other commitments, Musk—who once vowed to stay out of politics—appears to be enjoying his new role.”

“Trump’s pick for top intel job has been accused of ‘traitorous’ parroting of Russian propaganda” [NBC]. • The spooks seem unhappy.

“Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk” [Tom Nichols, The Atlantic]. • As do Never Trumper national security goons.

“The Curious Case of Tulsi Gabbard: Is She a Russian Asset or a Dupe?” [Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark]. “Because for a decade Gabbard has looked and behaved like a Russian asset.” • An asset? With a handler? I’ll only believe this if 51 intelligence officials tell me so. (Sorry to go all heuristic on this, I should be assessing all this on the merits, but sheesh.)

“Gaetz resigns from Congress — possibly skirting long-awaited Ethics report” [Politico]. “Dozens of GOP lawmakers indicated that leadership had told them about Gaetz’s resignation before Johnson made the announcement. Many were excitedly spreading the news, glad to be rid of the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership ouster. Gaetz didn’t attend the GOP’s hours-long meeting near the Capitol on Wednesday, where Republicans elected their leadership slate. Johnson said Gaetz had resigned so abruptly because he knew how long it would take to fill the seat if he becomes attorney general…. Other GOP House colleagues believe his decision is actually tied to an Ethics Committee report investigating several allegations including that Gaetz engaged in sex with a minor, which they believe was poised to be released in a matter of days. Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has sought to attack the panel probing various allegations against him. If Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, the report likely won’t be formally released, though it could leak. One House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, tied Gaetz’s resignation to trying to ‘stymie the ethics investigation that is coming out in one week.’” • It seems to have been pretty effectively stymied already, but whatever.

“Trump Nominates ‘Khanservative’ Matt Gaetz as Attorney General” [Matt Stoller, BIG]. Stoller followed anti-trust in Congress closely. Here’s a telling anecdate about Gaetz:

At one point during the markup, at 3am or so, [Democrat David Cicilline, actually an anti-monoply ally] allowed an amendment that punched a loophole in one of the bills. The amendment would have let big tech firms purchase companies for less than $50 million in value without much scrutiny. It wasn’t a big deal; everyone was exhausted and wanted to just move along. But at that moment, Gaetz chimed in and said he opposed it. He didn’t win. But he was the only member in either party to say he wanted no loopholes, no matter how small, for big tech.

When the spotlight is on, most people do not want to appear craven. But when the spotlight is not on, when it’s 3 am and the only people who are paying attention are powerful lobbyists from organized money, well, that’s when someone tells you what their priorities are. And in that case, Gaetz said he’d fight for every inch, even if he would get no credit, even if everyone was tired, and even if he was going to lose, and in losing, upset several corporations worth a trillion dollars apiece.

The whole piece is worth reading in full, given that Gaetz seems sound on Lina Khan, defense reform, and surveillance (and actually called for Snowden to be pardoned). So no wonder powerful forces want to take him down.

“Matt Gaetz once faced a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department he could now lead” [Associated Press]. “The federal sex trafficking investigation that began under Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump’s first term focused on allegations that Gaetz and onetime political ally Joel Greenberg paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex. Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison. Federal investigators scrutinized a trip that Gaetz took to the Bahamas with a group of women and a doctor who donated to his campaign, and whether the women were paid or received gifts to have sex with the men, according to people familiar with the matter who were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation. Prosecutors also investigated whether Gaetz and his associates tried to secure government jobs for some of the women, and scrutinized Gaetz’s connections to the medical marijuana sector, including whether his associates sought to influence legislation Gaetz sponsored, the people have said. Gaetz had remained under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations that he was part of a scheme that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. The committee began its review of Gaetz in April 2021, deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request, and renewed its work shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended a sex trafficking investigation. Over the summer, the committee provided an unusual public update into its long-running investigation, saying its review now includes whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. Gaetz has categorically denied all the allegations before the committee.” • Well, I suippose we can expect a leak shortly. (One reason I apply a hermeneutic of suspicion to sex scandals is that long, long ago, an Illinois Republican got taken down over sex club allegations in a set of mysteriously released divorce papers, and the Democrat went on to win. I focused my aghastitude on the scandal, but the winning Democrat was this dude named Barack Obama, who was just another elected at the time.)

2024 Post Mortem

Deploy the Blame Cannons!

“The Democrats Committed Suicide This Year” [James K. Galbraith, Project Syndicate]. ” Trump’s final tally will be only slightly higher than his 2020 total of 74.2 million votes. For Harris, though, we will see a disastrous decline from the 81.2 million votes that Joe Biden received, and this despite the fact that the voting-eligible population has increased by four million. In other words, Trump gained almost no support in his four-year campaign for redemption. If all the voters were the same, one could even say that he merely got his 2020 supporters to vote for him again. In fact, about 13 million people (most of them eligible voters) have died, and about 17 million have become voter-eligible, implying that Trump replaced his losses about one-for-one, while a decline in turnout cost the Democrats nearly ten million votes. These numbers cast grave doubt on explanations of the result that focus on economic conditions, and still more on the impact of advertising and get-out-the-vote campaigns. The results also deflate analyses based on the ‘American voter.’… The real story is that one side voted at peak strength, and the other did not.” More: “After we have ruled out the implausible, at least three reasonable conjectures remain. The first concerns the conditions of voting. In 2020, owing to the pandemic, voting was more accessible than ever before…. In 2024, some – though not all – of these expedients no longer existed, after already declining in 2022. It is standard in America to use the structure of voting to help determine the outcome: long lines at the polls discourage turnout, especially among working people with limited time.” Yes, the distinctive competence of the modern political party. More: “A second plausible explanation concerns voter registration. Students and low-income minority citizens move more frequently and usually must re-register every time their address changes. It is highly probable that this burden falls more heavily on Democrats.” And now: “The third hypothesis turns on the long-standing divisions within the Democratic Party…. The Clintons and Obamas are currently the de facto heads of the centrist faction, and Biden and Harris were their appointees…. The Democratic leadership engineered this situation and must therefore desire it. Win or lose, it remains in control of a vast shadow apparatus: consultants, pollsters, lobbyists, fundraisers, key positions on Capitol Hill. Any concessions to new forces within the party would undermine this control, whereas losses to Republicans do not. The Democratic leadership would far rather lose an election or two – or even become a permanent minority party – than open the party to people it cannot control. The 2024 election was, therefore, a suicide. The Democratic leadership was, at best, indifferent to the erosion of voting access, negligent in retaining 2020’s new voters, and proactive in ensuring the abstention of what little remains of its ‘left’ wing. It tried to cover this up, as usual, with celebrity endorsements and identity politics. As usual, it did not work. But the party’s mandarins and their apparatchiks will be around next time to try again.” • I could quarrel with causality (“economic conditions” is surely a little slippery), but this conforms in almost every respect to my priors (except one should hardly leave the spooks, the press, and the NGOs out of the “vast shadow apparatus”). So I like it 🙂

“Trump’s Win Leaves Democrats Asking: Where Are Our Bro Whisperers?” [New York Times]. “[S]ome younger Democrats said a broader strategy shift was in order, especially in terms of how politicians approach nontraditional media. Celebrity appearances and paid endorsements from influencers come across as transactional and inauthentic, they said. ‘It’s last-second, ‘Let’s get Beyoncé onstage to say we support women,’ but that doesn’t move anyone who wasn’t already going to vote Democrat,’ said Ayem Kpenkaan, a liberal content creator who goes by @bocxtop on social media. As Democrats were casting about for explanations for Mr. Trump’s victory, posts by Mr. Kpenkaan, 25, blaming ‘alpha male podcasts’ for men’s rightward shift went viral. He suggested that Democrats needed liberal versions of media platforms that are culturally right-leaning but not inherently political — like Barstool Sports, the popular sports brand that has become so enmeshed in online culture that it has coined a phrase, Barstool conservatism. ‘We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.” • “Content creator” sounds something like a producer of “slop feedstock” to me, but what do I know?

“The State-Level Differences Between the Presidential and Senate Races” [Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball]. The Abstract: “Split outcomes between presidential and Senate results saw a resurgence in 2024, as at least four Donald Trump-won states sent Democrats to the Senate. Republicans still took the majority in the Senate because while Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) performed notably better than Kamala Harris, they did not do so by enough to hold their seats. Across most key Senate races, Senate Democrats ran better than Harris in rural parts of their states but were comparatively weak in some suburban counties. In one of Harris’s best states, Maryland, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) stood out as Republicans’ top overperformer, although Harris’s 26-point margin in the state was too much for him to overcome.” • Handy map:

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 (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

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

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

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

Stay safe out there!

Transmission: H5N1

“Bird flu: Canadian teenager is critically ill with new genotype” [BMJ]. “A Canadian adolescent is in a critical condition in a British Columbia hospital after becoming infected with a new genotype of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The patient, who has not been publicly identified, developed conjunctivitis on 2 November, followed by fever and coughing. While these symptoms have been common in people infected with H5N1 bird flu in North America—until now, all US cases—the teenager in Canada then developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and was admitted to intensive care on 8 November. ”

“Canada: PHAC Confirms HPAI H5N1 Genotype D1.1 In B.C. Human Infection” [Avian Flu Diary]. “We now have the answer to at least 2 of our questions regarding the H5 virus infection in a teenager from British Columbia; according to a statement from the PHAC (h/t FluTrackers) the subtype has been confirmed to be H5N1 and the genotype is D1.1. ” More on D.1.1:

Perhaps we should give consideration to invoking the precautionary principle:

We really shouldn’t play “let ‘er rip” with H5N1, but that’s what we’re doing.

Scientific Communication

Let’s do brunch over at Blue Sky:

Media

“Covid grifters are (still) wrong: the structure of esoteric knowledge” [ClosedForm]. “I could take a weathered desire path here and argue that these analyses are politically dangerous in addition to being ignorant; that they misidentify the culprits, misunderstand the problems, point people galvanized to ‘get involved’ down dead-end paths. Someone else can make those arguments. I want to talk about something weirder: the funky thread of esotericism running through the beautiful tapestry of the Covid grifter community and through its associated epistemological stance…. The Covid grifters miss (‘miss’ is a bit passive) alternative explanations because they assume that if it is published in a scientific paper, it must be true and must confirm their existing belief. This is a grave misunderstanding of what the scientific literature is. It’s not a repository of truth claims. It’s a body of work produced by people working in a specific political economy, one that incentivizes publishing ‘statistically significant’ findings (which are not the same thing as actually significant or meaningful findings), and really incentivizes publishing anything about hot topics like, say, a devastating pandemic.”

Elite Maleficence

The UK, but yikes:

Nosocomial Covid in Wales

‘Number of inpatient Covid-19 cases in hospital in Wales’

On 10 November 2024, at least 67% of inpatient Covid cases in Wales were the result of hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infection…

(PHW data) pic.twitter.com/HnGsHtf7hL

— Gwladwr (@gwladwr) November 13, 2024

“There’s a Better Way to Talk About Fluoride, Vaccines and Raw Milk” [Emily Oster, New York Times]. “Consider three topics of much public discussion: measles vaccines, raw milk and water fluoridation. All three represent fault lines between what is said by public health agencies and by Mr. Kennedy and other skeptics. Where their messages differ is in the strength and complexity of the evidence…. My suggestion is that when asked about these topics, health experts provide this level of detail. Simply saying that vaccines are good and raw milk is bad misses specifics that people find important. People often do their research, and if they feel the risks of raw milk have been exaggerated, it can erode their trust. Now perhaps that person is more likely to distrust the vaccine messaging, too. With more information, we provide room for people to drink raw milk but also vaccinate their kids. Which is, basically, a reasonable choice. Providing context also helps people make sense of new information…. Being more nuanced will not be easy for public health agencies. They need to put more trust in their audience…. If health experts share a more balanced message about raw milk, more people might drink raw milk. And, yes, that does entail some increased risk. I am arguing that in exchange you may get higher measles vaccination. It’s not a perfect scenario, but it may mean that fewer people get sick and die. Which, after all, should be the ultimate goal.” • The problem here is that Oster, an economist, has track record:

Here’s a horrendous example of COVID misinformation spread by Emily Oster in 2020, which has been proven wrong by research many times since. Please do not listen to any of her advice about public health. pic.twitter.com/bAnP3rbXEv

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) November 14, 2024

Just like all the pro-Iraq pundits, still making bank, twenty years later…

HICPAC meeting today and tomorrow:

I apologize for not getting to this earlier; mentally, I’m still digging out from the election. Here are the drafts HICPAC has been working from:

For the latest on HICPAC, see NC here.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts