2:00PM Water Cooler 4/27/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Fowl Tune of the Day

From Texas. “There’s a second Prothonotary singing twice within the background. Territorial sin….”

From alert reader MS, right here is an open supply chook tune identifier! Sadly, it’s constructed for the Raspberry PI, however that’s a neat, Jackpot-compliant machine (to the extent any digital circuitry is Jackpot-compliant).

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“That they had discovered nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

“When the going will get bizarre, the bizarre flip professional.” –Hunter Thompson

Capitol Seizure

“Textual content messages reveal Trump’s chief of employees orchestrated January 6 coup try” [WSWS]. “On Monday, CNN printed excerpts from 2,319 textual content messages despatched and acquired by Donald Trump’s former Chief of Employees Mark Meadows which affirm past a shadow of a doubt that the chief department and a considerable portion of the Republican Celebration had been scheming for months with fascists to dam the certification of the election on January 6, 2021 and set up a dictatorship. The texts expose the already threadbare lie that what happened throughout the assault on the Capitol was unplanned, spontaneous and unserious.” • Unserious? Does this look severe to you:

Readers, I hope I haven’t been remiss in not monitoring the 1/6 story intently. I confess I’ve priors, since these are mainly “The partitions are closing in!” crowd, they usually have type (which is, in fact, the genetic fallacy). Then too, the liberal Democrats staged a coup in opposition to the Trump administration in all however identify, so it’s laborious for me to get labored up about “our democracy” coming from these guys. That mentioned, in some unspecified time in the future — one assumes earlier than the summer season and in time for the midterms — a strong, coherent, non-screechy narrative, with a timeline and proof, will emerge and we’ll have to judge it. Right here’s an instance that caught my eye:

That was a key second. Trump’s individuals had put in a loyalist (Ornato) to handle Pence’s element that day. He was tasked with eradicating Pence from the Capitol they usually deliberate to take him to Andrews AFB, for his “security.” This might have prevented certification of the election. pic.twitter.com/lRzf3jkaGI

— Karen Hansen 🇺🇸🗽🌊 🇺🇦 (@knhansenmd) April 23, 2022

Pence, who emerges as a heroic albeit stolid determine, says “I’m not getting within the automobile.” Yikes! My issues with the Tweet are two-fold. Trivially, I can’t provide you with a success on “the Vice President refused to be pushed to security,” so I don’t know the sourcing. Much less trivially, it’s well-known that conspiracies increase in scale, as new actors are added to make the narrative work. On this one, Trump appears to have suborned the Secret Service. Actually? All that mentioned, we await the 1/6 Commitee’s report with curiosity. Maybe it is going to be as attention-grabbing because the Durham report.

Biden Adminstration

“A crystal-clear subject: The White Home is in determined want of latest glassware” [CNN] • Why? Has Kamala been throwing it?

2022

* * *

“‘It’s Time to Head for the Lifeboats’: Democratic Fatalism Intensifies” [New York Times]. “One signal of the alarm rippling via the celebration: Some Democratic politicians have begun creating distance between themselves and the president. Senate candidates are stampeding to interrupt with the administration’s immigration insurance policies, as an example. Different strikes are extra delicate, akin to these of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who quietly eliminated the president’s identify from information releases about federally funded infrastructure initiatives. ‘What you’re seeing is individuals feeling prefer it’s time to go for the lifeboats relatively than attempting to steer the ship, ‘mentioned Robert Gibbs, a former White Home press secretary who labored below Barack Obama. A way of fatalism is setting in amongst many, with discussions centering more and more on how you can restrict the celebration’s anticipated losses relatively than how you can acquire new seats.” • Ronald Klain feedback:

An attention-grabbing commentary, simply FYI.

President Macron seems to have secured a double-digit victory over LePen, at a time when his approval ranking is 36%. Hmmm….https://t.co/N50u8He5gW

— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) April 24, 2022

Most of me gleefully awaits Democrats getting a superb, old school beatdown come November; they’ve actually earned it! However, liberal Democrats had been hysterical about redistricting for a very long time, and it labored out nicely for them. So all of the hysteria is making me really feel counter-suggestible. If Biden may really ship on one thing — scholar loans for the alienated youth vote? Develop into a severe wartime chief? — issues is likely to be much less dangerous for Democrats than we think about in the present day. There may be additionally consideration to be given to 1/6, if Democrats may one way or the other handle to create a coherent narrative about “our democracy,” and presumably avoid wasting Home seats due to it. (Sadly, if actually the Democrats get creamed, the management will retain its grip on energy.)

“Democrats ring alarm bells over younger voters and the 2022 election as Biden’s scores slip” [NBC]. “Mary Collins voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. A yr and a half later, Collins, 25, of Raleigh, North Carolina, offers the White Home and the Democratic-led Congress a 4 out of 10 on efficiency. ‘It simply doesn’t look like there’s a number of progress,” she mentioned. “You hear some good issues the Biden administration has completed, however in any other case it is rather underwhelming.’…. Scores of People like Collins — younger, liberal-leaning, economically anxious and disenchanted that Democratic-controlled Washington hasn’t completed extra to enhance their lives — maintain substantial energy within the 2022 elections. Democrats want Gen Z and millennial voters to end up to have any hope of protecting the Home or the Senate. They usually don’t habitually vote in midterms. Collins mentioned she does plan to vote this fall —’sadly’ for Democrats. A registered unbiased, she’s open to options however turned off by the GOP’s opposition to abortion rights, dismissal of local weather change and denigrating of migrants and non-Christians. After youth turnout soared to file ranges in 2020, fueled by Biden’s progressive agenda and a need to ship President Donald Trump house to Florida, Democratic strategists are sounding the alarm concerning the lack of enthusiasm amongst younger voters. They worry it may trigger dissatisfied youthful People to take a seat out the 2022 elections and ship a walloping for the celebration. Stopping that, they are saying, would require extra funding and outreach, in addition to coverage wins or proof that Democrats are preventing for points they care about.” • No, not “preventing for.” Delivering. This isn’t laborious!

“Republicans are greater than able to blowing the 2022 midterms” [The Hill]. “No less than three components may reverse the anticipated fortune for the GOP. The primary can be voter apathy by conventional Republicans, conservatives and folks of religion. The second can be — drum roll, please — potential fallout from something Donald Trump says, does or hints. And the third can be a full-court press by Democrats, aided by some within the mainstream media, to come back throughout as out of the blue reasonable whereas metaphorically throwing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as far overboard as attainable. All three components will occur to some extent. The query is, will some mixture of them be sufficient to carry the Democratic majority in Congress after November? Apparently Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) important technique for successful is to keep away from mentioning something that Republicans would do in the event that they regained majority management. The quote generally attributed to Napoleon — ‘By no means intrude with an enemy whereas he’s within the means of destroying himself’ — is smart if one believes the Democrats are failing throughout the board, however many Republican voters who’ve been burned earlier than by the GOP management nonetheless need to hear a plan.” • Heave Biden and Harris over the facet why? As a result of they’re too far left?

“The Squad may develop stronger even when Dems lose huge” [Axios]. “The Squad is poised for large good points in November regardless of the Democrats’ probably lack of the Home. The progressive politics that mainstream Democrats blame for his or her decline stand to take heart stage if each trendlines maintain. And the Squad-Plus can be positioned to push the diluted ranks of its rivals into backing a few of its agenda — impacting the 2024 presidential race. As many as six staunchly progressive candidates have viable possibilities to win Home seats this cycle.” Greg Casar (TX), Jessica Cisneros (TX), Summer season Lee (PA), Erica Smith (NC), Becca Balint (VT), and Amy Vilela (NV). Extra: “Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley simply defeated main challengers in 2020 and appear on glide paths for reelection this cycle.”

OR: “Thriller candidate shakes up Oregon Home contest” [The Hill]. When Oregon formally gained a brand new U.S. Home seat within the decennial redistricting course of final yr, it set off a scramble amongst formidable politicians who noticed a uncommon probability to advance their careers. Three state representatives, a former county commissioner and the chairwoman of the Oregon Medical Board shortly jumped within the race. However the dialog within the new district has been dominated by a 35-year-old newcomer making his first run for workplace who has raised extra money than another contender and who has been bolstered by an unprecedented onslaught of tens of millions of {dollars} in tv promoting paid for by a number of political motion committees. Now, in a state ordinarily managed by the Democratic institution, celebration insiders are asking one query: Who’s Carrick Flynn? Defend Our Future PAC, a bunch backed by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, has already spent $6.2 million on tv, digital and radio advertisements and one other $500,000 introducing Flynn by mail. It’s an unbelievable sum of money in a main contest, particularly on behalf of a candidate who has by no means sought workplace earlier than. And it has angered Flynn’s rivals who level out that the highest Democratic tremendous PAC has opted to weigh in on behalf of a straight white male in a contest that options three girls of colour…. Lots of Flynn’s donors are concerned in an internet discussion board known as Efficient Altruism, a bunch that analyzes how greatest to spend cash on philanthropic efforts. Their conclusion, in response to a number of the posts backing Flynn, has been that spending a couple of million on a congressional race may lead to billions in spending on pandemic preparedness by the federal authorities. Flynn is ‘the primary individual to ever run for US congress on a platform of stopping future pandemics,’ wrote one consumer, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, who known as his donation to Flynn “the perfect $5,800 I’ve ever donated (to pandemic prevention).” • This appears to be the Efficient Altruism discussion board; the funding is just not clear to me.

PA: “Senate front-runner in Pennsylvania embraces Biden and progressive agenda amid Democrats’ midterm dilemma” [CNN]. “Lt. Gov. John Fetterman swung by the center of Republican nation in Southwestern Pennsylvania, within the reddest of crimson districts, the place then-President Donald Trump trounced Joe Biden by greater than 55 factors and MAGA indicators are nonetheless obvious on seemingly each different road nook. However relatively than reasonable, Fetterman leaned into his progressive views.

As he labored a couple of dozen voters on the Flyin’ Lion watering gap, whereas sporting a hooded sweatshirt, basketball shorts and gymnasium sneakers on a snowy spring day, Fetterman renewed his push for marijuana to be legalized nationwide, touted the function of immigrants within the US, known as for the transgender group to be handled equally, decried efforts to pare again abortion entry and backed requires stricter gun legal guidelines, together with a ban on semi-automatic rifles. In an interview with CNN, Fetterman didn’t cover his palpable frustration with Democratic senators, saying, ‘I’m disenchanted in our caucus’ for not growing the $7.25 federal minimal wage, and he blamed West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for blocking the Biden agenda, leaving his celebration ‘floundering.’ When requested about requires extra bipartisanship, Fetterman didn’t flinch, asserting there’s little frequent floor in working with Republicans who undermined the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 victory and tried to outlaw abortion. ‘I additionally desire a full head of hair,’ mentioned the bald, 6-foot-8 Democrat. ‘However realistically that’s not going to occur proper now.’”

UT: “Utah Democrats again unbiased as US Senate candidate” [ABC]. “Utah Democrats pulling laborious to defeat Republican Sen. Mike Lee took the weird step Saturday of spurning a celebration hopeful to as a substitute get behind an unbiased, former presidential candidate Evan McMullin. Democrats had been swayed by calls from distinguished members who mentioned McMullin, a conservative who captured a major share of the vote in Utah in 2016, was the perfect probability to beat Lee within the deeply conservative state that hasn’t elected a Democratic U.S. senator for greater than 50 years. ‘I need to symbolize you. I’m dedicated to that. I’ll keep my independence,’ McMullin instructed Democratic delegates.”

2024

“Kamala Harris’ chief of employees heading for the exit” [CNN]. “Flournoy is the newest in an extended string of exits from the vice chairman’s workplace, which has been shaken up a number of instances in current months. Flournoy’s deputy Michael Fuchs earlier this month introduced that he can be leaving the administration. The White Home confirmed just lately that nationwide safety adviser Nancy McEldowney would step down, to get replaced by her deputy Phil Gordon. And Harris’ communication’s group acquired an almost full makeover in current months, after her communications listing Ashley Etienne, chief spokesperson and senior adviser Symone Sanders and deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh all left the workplace inside months of each other different. Flournoy, who joined the group initially of the operation, led the workplace via a rocky summer season for the vice chairman, throughout which Harris drew criticism after a number of messaging missteps and staffing points. Republicans have seized on any obvious missteps, concentrating on the vice chairman relentlessly. One of many hardest moments for Flournoy got here after myriad experiences of dysfunction overtook the workplace’s message, many centered on the chief of employees’s management — and by extension Harris’ management. Voles was employed in the course of these summertime experiences. In a press release Thursday, Harris recommended her exiting staffer.” • This episode of The West Wing Factor consists of an incident in Poland. the place Harris responded with inappropriate laughter to a fairly query on refugees from Ukraine. “A buddy in want is a buddy in want [laughter].” The laughter, apparently, went on for a while.

Sure, your work is completed:

SEN. WARREN on @MeetThePress: “I’m not working for president in 2024, I’m working for senate.”

— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) April 24, 2022

Democrats en Déshabillé

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, actually, a tough downside. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working elements of the Celebration reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between parts of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not solely) these parts comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

Word, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different courses; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

Republican Funhouse

“EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s firm to rumble with Twitter from Sarasota County” [USA Today]. “Rumble is a video platform firm, and its controversial transfer to Sarasota County just lately induced simply that: a rumble. Now for one thing way more seismic, that ought to actually rattle the dishes within the cabinets of conservatives and critics alike: Donald Trump’s media firm is simply 11 miles away from Rumble. The main points of how Trump’s firm wound up on North Cattlemen Street, in an industrial a part of Sarasota, are unknown, however certainly it’s right here, in response to state enterprise data, and out of the blue we’ve turn into a hoop lady within the struggle between Trump, Huge Tech, Twitter and Elon Musk. On April 18, state data present that Trump Media & Expertise Group Corp. registered as a enterprise in Florida and used an workplace constructing on North Cattlemen Street in Sarasota as its deal with. The eight officers within the firm – together with Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. and former California Congressman Devin Nunes – additionally listing the Sarasota deal with, although there isn’t any indication any of the officers have any connection domestically, nicely, apart from the very fact Trump was farcically honored as “Statesman of the 12 months” by Joe Gruters and the Sarasota County GOP, ahem, twice. So why is that this such an enormous deal? As a result of Trump Media & Expertise Group owns a social media app known as Reality Social, which is Trump’s antagonistic reply to Twitter…. On April 22, a press launch said that Rumble had ‘efficiently migrated Reality Social’s web site and cellular functions to Rumble’s Cloud infrastructure,’ and that ‘Reality Social’s transfer marks the primary vital buyer to come back on board with Rumble.”

“The Slime Machine Concentrating on Dozens of Biden Nominees” [The New Yorker]. “However the fierce marketing campaign in opposition to [Ketanji Brown Jackson] was regarding, partly as a result of it was spearheaded by a brand new conservative dark-money group that was created in 2020: the American Accountability Basis. An specific goal of the A.A.F.—a politically lively, tax-exempt nonprofit charity that doesn’t disclose its backers—is to stop the approval of all Biden Administration nominees.” • I’m in aghastitude. As regular, Republicans are extra severe about their politics than liberal Democrats. Why haven’t Democrats already completed this?

“Unique: Madison Cawthorn pictures reveal him sporting girls’s lingerie in public setting” [Politico]. • This is the reason conservatives have higher intercourse. The fun of transgression! I hate this type of story. Who cares? I imply, after Teddy Kennedy? The Huge Canine? Cuomo?

Realignment and Legitimacy

Perhaps so:

They’re coming for lgbtq marriages https://t.co/N9pOVcqCG9

— Molly Jong-Quick (@MollyJongFast) April 24, 2022

If that’s the case, liberal Democrats failed on this the identical method they failed on abortion: They didn’t embody “judge-made regulation” in laws after they had the ability to take action.

#COVID19

Lambert right here: If some trusting, non-realist soul tells you that “Covid is over,” you may inform them that instances are up, transmission is up, check positivity is up, hospitalization is up, fast riser counties are up, and wastewater is up, too. And that is all from knowledge designed to help the narrative, and gamed inside an inch of its life. So, if alerts like which are flashing crimson, think about what the actual sign have to be like. (Word additionally that is all with BA.2 solely, and with what the institution considers an “immune wall” created from vaccination and prior an infection. Since semper aliquid novi Africam adferre, and we’ve let ‘er rip on the airports…. Effectively, I simply hope we get fortunate. “God has a particular windfall for fools, drunkards, and america of America.” –Otto von Bismarck.

In the meantime, Fauci appears confused:

Commentary on scientific communication from the Biden Administration and our public well being institution:

In case you missed it, right here’s a publish on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case rely, which I (nonetheless) think about most essential, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “group ranges” suppose. However these are the numbers we’ve.

“We’re Preventing Covid With Defective Information” [Bloomberg]. No sh*t, Sherlock. ” [There is a] sample on the company, which has generally backed away from knowledge assortment that will have offered a clearer view. A couple of months into the vaccination effort, in 2021, the CDC determined to cease counting delicate vaccine breakthrough infections, describing them as anticipated and a distraction. It was a choice that left the company unable to see clearly when vaccine efficacy started to fade. (The CDC is taking steps to do higher: It’s pushed for extra authority to gather native knowledge, and on April 19 the company launched its new Heart for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, promising that it might assist modernize efforts to raised perceive and predict infectious illnesses.)” • As I present right here, the Heart for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics gained’t make its knowledge public, and it’s operations are run by a spook, oh nicely.

Case rely by United States areas:

First decisive upward flip, so we’ll see the way it goes. Keep in mind, it’s 100% sure the instances numbers are considerably understated. They’ve all the time been gamed, but it surely’s worse than earlier than. One supply mentioned they although instances is likely to be undercounted by an element of six. Gottlieb thinks we solely choose up one in seven or eight. Along with the Fauci line, I’ve added a Democrat-blue dotted line for what the case rely can be if it had been 57,000 * 6 = 342,000. Listed below are the instances for the final 4 weeks:

Seems just like the Northeast has handed the torch to the West.

NOTE I shall most actually not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. Because CDC has combined a leading indicator (cases) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning sign of a surge, and a poor way to assess personal risk. In addition, Covid is a disease you don’t want to get. Even if you are not hospitalized, you can suffer from Long Covid, vascular issues, and neurological issues. For these reasons, case counts — known to be underestimated, due to home test kits — deserve to stand alone as a number to be tracked, no matter how much the political operatives in CDC leadership would like to obfuscate it.

Here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to community transmission. This is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you. The truth is, each day I’m going to the identical URL. Yesterday, on the regular URL, I discovered this shame to humanity:

Luckily, CDC solely moved the transmissibility knowledge to a brand new URL. So right here once more is the map CDC doesn’t need you to take a look at:

The Northeast stays stubbornly and solidly crimson. Now California is crimson as nicely. (It seems like parts of Maine went from Excessive (crimson) to Substantial (orange), however that a part of Maine is the Unorganized Territories, the place nearly no one lives.

Hospitalization (CDC Neighborhood Profile):

The baseline remains to be low. However hospitalization is most positively up. (Word pattern, whether or not up or down, is marked by the arrow, at prime. Admissions are offered within the graph, on the backside. So it’s attainable to have an upward pattern, however from a really low baseline.)

A brand new method for hospitals to recreation the information:

IM Doc writes: “I might guess with Omicron about 60% of the sufferers had been on Dexamethasone – so no – not an enough proxy” for hospitalization.

Only a reminder:

As with the whole lot else, as a result of america is just not a severe nation, our hospitalization knowledge is dangerous. Right here the baseilne is off:

Dying charge (Our World in Information):

Whole: 1,019,008 1,018,582. I’ve added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line. Numbers nonetheless taking place, nonetheless democidally excessive.

Covid instances in prime us journey locations (Statista):

Nonetheless a bumpy experience…. (Word the standard of those numbers varies wildly. The UK is terrible, France and Germany are higher.)

Stats Watch

There are not any official statistics of curiosity in the present day.

Manufacturing: Hmm:

I can’t bust Nikkei’s paywall, however the important thing level is within the Tweet.

Labor Market: “Delta Air Traces to begin paying flight attendants throughout boarding” [Al Jazeera]. “Delta Air Traces, which has narrowly fought off a number of makes an attempt to unionise its flight attendants, will start paying cabin crews throughout boarding, a change that’s anticipated to extend their wages by a number of thousand {dollars} a yr. It’s a notable change for United States airways, the place pay for flight attendants begins when all of the passengers are seated and the airplane’s doorways shut.” • That’s ridiculous! I believed flight attendants had a union!

Immediately’s Worry & Greed Index: 31 Worry (earlier shut: 27 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 48 (Impartial). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Apr 27 at 10:00 AM EDT. ZOMG they modified the art work!

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. File Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 188. (Keep in mind that bringing on the Rapture is good.)

The Gallery

Sundown:

Heck, extra orange:

Class Warfare

Wonderful. A really hopeful signal:

I keep in mind this anecdote. Good to see it re-surface:

Identification politics is loss of life to solidarity. That’s why it pays so nicely.

Information of the Wired

I appear to not be wired in the present day. Dang!

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