2:00PM Water Cooler 8/15/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

I looked for another species of songbird that mimics, and came up with the Thrasher.

Brown Thrasher, Concord Park–The Cove, Knox, Tennessee, United States

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Walter Kim on Kamala
2. Trump to jail September 18?
3. Sanders on 2020 (a coup)
4. First monkeypox case outside Africa spotted in Sweden.

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 one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

More Blue on the map. Trump still leads nationally, but some swing states moving toward Kamala. In particular, I’m no insider, but if I were on Team Trump, Georgia’s drop from +3.6 to this week’s +0.6 might cause me to chew my hands. Georgia? Really? Atlanta burbs no longer sitting it out? Can any readers from Georgia clarify?

* * *

The Campaign Trail:

Kamala:

Kamala (D):

Strength Through Joy – Wikipedia

(I knew there was something bugging me about this “joy” thing) https://t.co/1Bie8qmnNZ

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) August 14, 2024

Seems that Walter Kirn and I have arrived at more or less the same place, albeit by different routes.

Kamala (D): “NYC kickoff rally for Harris confronts pro-Palestinian demonstration” [Politico]. “The energy and size of an ebullient rally of elected New York Democrats hyped for Kamala Harris’ candidacy met a massive crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting, banging drums and waving banners Wednesday night. The Democrats’ rally was interrupted repeatedly by the protesters — a reminder of one of the party’s biggest internal divisions…. Though Harris has yet to detail her platform and where she stands on key issues, when it comes to how she addresses members of her party and others protesting Palestinian casualties and devastation.” Oh. Tone. And style! More: “And in New York on Wednesday, the delegates who plan to show their support for her at next week’s nominating convention in Chicago appeared to have picked up on her cues. ‘We’ve got to come together,’ Espaillat was saying, as a protester shouted out from the crowd. ‘She’s got to come with us too. She will be with us. We’ll come together.’” • Pleasant to think of Kamala stepping onto the Iron Throne over a 700,000-strong pile of corpses from Biden’s Covid policies, but who wants to talk about that?

Kamala (D): “Goldman Sachs says voters are shifting to Kamala Harris—and the odds of a blue wave are swelling” [Fortune]. “Kamala Harris has pulled ahead of Donald Trump in national polls as voters turn away from third parties and the odds of a blue wave increases, according to Goldman Sachs.” How nice for her. And them! More: “‘While third-party candidates had been drawing slightly more from Biden earlier in the year, what is left of third-party support seems to be coming at least as much from former President Trump,’ the analysts wrote. ‘The percentage of undecided voters also began declining soon after Harris’s entry into the race, and is now half of what it was a month ago. Those undecided voter numbers are likely locked in, according to the investment bank.” And: “While the Goldman analysts said in the Monday note that a Harris economic plan would likely mirror Biden’s proposals with a few additions, a majority of voters surveyed by the FT and University of Michigan poll said Harris should break completely from Biden or ‘make major changes’ to his economic proposals.” • Oh, good.

Trump:

Trump (R): “Trump campaign brings Corey Lewandowski back on board” [Politico]. “Donald Trump’s campaign is expanding its ranks as he seeks to regain his footing in the presidential campaign, bringing on a handful of top allies — including former Trump 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski…. Trump has a long history of campaign shakeups — he had two in 2016 and one in 2020. But despite his current struggles in the race, Trump has remained solidly behind his current leadership. The former president told The New York Times last week that he was “thrilled” with Wiles and LaCivita.”

Trump (R): “Luntz: Trump ‘committing political suicide’ as Harris seizes ‘intensity advantage’” [The Hill]. “‘She’s bringing out people who are not interested in voting for either Trump or Biden. So the entire electoral pool has changed,’ Luntz said. ‘And if it continues in this direction, you have to start to consider Democrats winning the Senate and Democrats winning the House. ‘The actual people who are participating — she’s got intensity now. She’s got an intensity advantage. She’s got a demographic advantage. And I haven’t seen anything like this happen in 30 days in my lifetime,’ Luntz continued. Asked how significant that margin of extra Harris voters might be to the overall electoral pool, Luntz said, ‘.’” And: “Luntz suggested there are three components — attributes, issues and conditions of the country — that build a candidate’s support, adding, ‘You shift the demographics, and you shift the entire outcome.’ ‘The issues and conditions favor Donald Trump. He should be winning this election. But the attributes are so much in Harris’s favor that he’s not. I’m trying to do a focus group tonight with undecided voters under the age of 27 for a major news outlet. And I can’t recruit young women to this, because they don’t exist as undecided voters,’ he said.” • I think the pollsters are, to varying degrees, all players at this point, just like the press. But I put Luntz in the bucket of Old Brandy OGs, people who have been around a long, long time, are who they are, and don’t need to shift with the wind. Luntz, Nooners, Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato… Sanders, I suppose. That’s about. So I would take Luntz’s remarks as being very worrisome for Trump.

Trump (R): “Secret Service prepares use of bulletproof glass for outdoor Trump rallies: Sources” [ABC]. “The measure is typically used exclusively for sitting presidents, but the Secret Service is making an exception following the first attempted assassination of a presidential candidate since Robert Kennedy in 1968…. The Secret Service recommended that Trump stop holding outdoor rallies last month after a gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, fired at him from a rooftop 400 feet from the stage, nicking his ear. A man in the crowd was killed in the attack. Since July 13, Trump has held nearly a dozen campaign events, all of them indoors. Trump has privately expressed a desire to campaign outdoors and has sought assurances it would be safe, the sources said.” • Should have been done long ago. The Secret Service doesn’t have a lot of credibility here.

Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Surprise . . . Not: Judge Merchan Denies Trump’s Recusal Motion, Setting Up September 18 Sentencing” [Andrew McCarthy, National Review]. “Last week, I contended that Judge Juan Merchan is determined to pronounce sentence upon Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on September 18 — i.e., two days after early voting begins in Pennsylvania — and would therefore deny the former president’s post-trial motions (1) seeking Merchan’s recusal from the case and (2) claiming, based on the Supreme Court’s July 1 immunity ruling, that the jury’s 34 guilty verdicts against Trump must be vacated. Merchan has now taken step one. In the communication with counsel that I outlined in the above-linked column, the judge said he would rule on the recusal motion this week. Yesterday, he denied it in a curt three-page decision. To recap, Merchan should have recused himself: He is a partisan Democrat, he contributed to Biden’s campaign in violation of state ethics rules, and his daughter is a progressive operative who does lucrative campaign work for Democrats… In his aforementioned letter to counsel, Merchan said he expected to issue his immunity ruling by September 16. I argued in last week’s column that, having already had several weeks to mull over the Supreme Court’s July 1 immunity decision and the parties’ submissions on the subject, Merchan knows he is going to rule against Trump. That is why he also instructed the parties to assume that sentencing would occur as scheduled on September 18, and that they should therefore make whatever presentencing submissions they intend to make. Merchan knows the Democrats’ three other lawfare cases against Trump are bogged down in pretrial litigation (indeed, the federal indictment in Florida has been dismissed). .” • It would be deeply ironic if Merchan brought about a massive swing in Trump’s favor; presumably the Trump campaign is figuring out how to leverage this. There’s no reason Trump can’t run from a prison cell, after all.

Kennedy:

Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. reached out to Harris campaign about administration role in exchange for endorsement” [CNN]. “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign reached out to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to arrange a meeting about a possible role in her administration if he drops out of the race and endorses her, a Kennedy campaign official and a Democratic official told CNN…. Kennedy campaign staff also attempted to reach out to intermediaries for Ron Klain, former White House chief of staff for President Joe Biden, but those efforts were fruitless, the Kennedy campaign official said.” • A chat with Ron Klain. How pleasant.

* * *

Realignment and Legitimacy

The previous coup:

👀 Bernie Sanders on How the Democratic ‘Establishment’ Took Him Out of the Presidential Race

“That’s what happens when you take on the establishments. What happened is we won the first three primaries, and then the establishment got very, very nervous…and they said, ‘Hey, it… pic.twitter.com/d9Z2OGAuuH

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 14, 2024

And, thinking about this, the first coup — the dry run, you might say — (in exchange for, in my view, Clinton suppressing the story of his theft of the Texas primary): The deal being Clinton supports him at the Convention, he makes her Secretary of State and supports her in 2016. So Obama’s got some experience in this kind of manipulation. Three times, in fact: Clinton, Sanders, Biden. Quite a record.

Why now….

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, KF, 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!

Monkeypox

“WHO declares mpox outbreaks in Africa a global health emergency as a new form of the virus spreads” [Associated Press]. “The World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreaks in Congo and elsewhere in Africa a global emergency on Wednesday, with cases confirmed among children and adults in more than a dozen countries and a new form of the virus spreading. Few vaccine doses are available on the continent. Earlier this week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the mpox outbreaks were a public health emergency, with more than 500 deaths, and called for international help to stop the virus’ spread. ‘This is something that should concern us all … The potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,’ said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The Africa CDC previously said mpox, also known as monkeypox, has been detected in 13 countries this year, and more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in Congo. Cases are up 160% and deaths are up 19% compared with the same period last year. So far, there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 people have died.”

“More contagious mpox strain reaches Europe as Sweden reports first case” [Telegraph]. “‘A person who sought care’ in Stockholm ‘has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade I variant. It is the first case caused by clade I to be diagnosed outside the African continent,’ Sweden’s Public Health Agency said…. The patient had travelled to an country hit by an outbreak of the virus, Jakob Forssmed, Sweden’s Minister of Social Affairs, told a press conference…. There are two types of mpox, Clade 1 and Clade 2. While Clade 2 caused a public health emergency in 2022 it was relatively mild and has already appeared in Sweden. Clade 1b, which appeared in the DRC in September of last year, is said to be ‘the most dangerous yet.’ It has a higher mortality rate than clade 2 – said to be between 5-10 per cent compared to 0.2 per cent – and has already accounted for 511 deaths and nearly 15,000 cases in Africa this year.” • Sweden’s “Public Health” Agency break out the morphone for the elders [laughs mordantly]. Commentary:

The epidemiologist who helped in the WHO program to eradicate smallpox 👇 https://t.co/MSNl809OEd

— Carl Van Keirsbilck (@CarlvKeirsbilck) August 15, 2024

As I urged in 2022. Generally, however, we’re still hearing “close contact,” however (which is not a mode of transmission, and nigh unto handwaving, but still, showing so far no signs of being as contagious as Covid).

Airborne Transmission: Covid

“Evidence from whole genome sequencing of aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 almost 5 hours after hospital room turnover” (abstract only) [American Journal of Infection Control]. From the Abstract: “Whole genome sequencing during an outbreak suggested in-room transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to two patients admitted nearly 2 and 5 hours, respectively, after discharge of an asymptomatic infected patient. These findings suggest that airborne SARS-CoV-2 may transmit infection for over 4 hours, even in a hospital setting.” • Yikes!

Transmission: H5N1

“The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus found in U.S. dairy cattle has some characteristics that could enhance infection and transmission among mammals” [Nature]. “The Nature publication’s findings on the absence of efficient airborne transmission align with a report from the US CDC, which observed inefficient respiratory droplet transmission between ferrets (in only 1 out of 3 donor–contact pairs) of an HPAI A/H5N1 virus (A/Texas/37/2024) isolated from a human case who had been exposed to infected dairy cattle in Texas8. This still low transmission efficiency is not surprising, as several phenotypic changes are required for avian A/H5N1 influenza viruses to be transmissible via the air between mammals…. However, Eisfeld and colleagues report dual binding specificity for α-2,3 and α-2,6-linked sialic acid receptors, which they hypothesize to be a specific feature of A/H5N1 viruses isolated from cattle. This finding suggests that one of the traits required for mammal-to-mammal transmission via the air is already present in Cow-H5N1…. Monitoring the genotype and phenotype of HPAI clade 2.3.4.4b virus in dairy cattle and derived viruses is of utmost importance. This close investigation is necessary to develop and implement effective prevention strategies. .” • Worth reading in full; it’s a good round-up, too.

Positivity: Covid

“COVID positivity rate hits 21% as students return to school” [KPBS]. “As students start the new school year, San Diego County’s COVID-19 positivity rate has soared to nearly 21%, marking the second highest rate recorded since the pandemic began. Dr. Edmund Milder, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital, highlighted several key guidelines that schools are implementing to safeguard students. ‘The thing the school does is making sure you have good air quality, you know. Open windows and outdoors whenever possible,’ Milder explained” • Finally a pediatrician who knows what they’re talking about. Why don’t they all?

“COVID Levels Are ‘Very High’ in Majority of U.S. States” [WebMed]. “The latest CDC wastewater monitoring data shows that 27 U.S. states are detecting “very high” levels of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. The label “very high” indicates the highest viral activity level used by the agency. There are four lower levels that can be reported: minimal, low, moderate, and high. Nationwide, the lowest level being reported is moderate, and there are no states reporting low or minimal levels.” • With, of course, no historical data so we can judge the present by the past.

Sequelae: Covid

“COVID-19 Pandemic School Disruptions and Acute Mental Health in Children and Adolescents” [JAMA]. “In this study, school opening was associated with an increased incidence of acute psychiatric emergencies among children and adolescents, suggesting that school can be a substantial source of stress with acute mental health implications.” And: “The main reasons for the psychiatric ED visits were psychomotor agitation (33.1%), anxiety (16.1%), eating disorders (10.4%), suicidal ideation (8.8%), and suicide attempts (8.6%) (Table 1). These last 3 factors significantly increased during the study period, with increments of 294.8% for eating disorders, 297.8% for SI, and 249.1% for SA.” • So, re-opening was a greater problem than lockdowns? At least along some axes? “Mom, I missed the active shooter drills…..”

Data Modeling

“We need to talk about the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative models (part 2)” [Closed Form]. Part 1. This is a critique of Hoerger’s work (which you will note I don’t put in Table 1 because I haven’t had time to dope out his model. So far as I know, these two posts are the only critique). Caveat: To my simple mind, that wastewater data maps directly to case data is persuasive, because Biobiot’s visual representation made that conclusion inescapable, back when we had Biobot data. Nevertheless, this author knows their stuff, so it’s worth a read. Picking out one nugget: “No matter which way you slice it, this is not good data; [a] converting wastewater to cases remains impossible to do reliably, and the PMC [b] do not have access to any actual ‘ground truth’ data about COVID transmission.” • Note I regard claim [a] as wrong, but if claim [b] is true, the data used to build the model is still suspect at least. Perhaps a kind reader who understands “linear regression” and whether it’s an appropriate tool to use for modeling a pandemic can comment. NOTE The author writes: “I think it’s time for the PMC to publicly post their modeling code and details about the modeling approach. By this I mean, whatever R scripts or Stata code (or whatever the case may be) were written to generate and evaluate the model, along with information about how accuracy is evaluated before forecasts are made, how model performance is monitored, what types of modeling approaches are being applied to deal with the autoregressive and dependent structures of infectious disease time-series data, and so forth.” Or keep it simple and release the source code. It’s hard to believe that hasn’t been done; we have github for a reason.

Social Norming

“Didn’t want to know” (1):

So several months ago I sent a doctor friend who works at a government facility an Aranet. He didn’t get it at first but then started playing with around the house and I was able to sneak in more covid info. Didn’t want to take it to work because he “didn’t want to know”.

— ocnj (@ocnj3) August 14, 2024

“Didn’t want to know” (2):

So funny thing .. my coworker’s mom actually had covid. She was sick and working and said she didn’t want to test herself because she didn’t want to know (??????). Doctor said yesterday that my covid test was unclear. They didn’t test me again. It was also 20 minutes before +

— A (@wlfsghost) August 11, 2024

“Didn’t want to know” (3):

There was an interview on Weekend on @bbcworldservice this morning with a US journalist. He said he caught Covid in Paris as did many journalists but the Olympic authorities didn’t want to know and tried to ignore it until everyone saw what happened to the US runner.

— Ennius (@red_loeb) August 11, 2024

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

[10] (Travelers: Variants) It’s rumored that there’s a new variant in China, XDV.1, but it’s not showing up here.

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Initial Jobless Claims: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 7,000 to 227,000 on the week ending August 10th, contrasting with market expectations of a slight increase to 235,000, marking the second consecutive weekly decline since reaching a near-one-year high of 250,000 in late July. It was the fewest amount of new claims filed in five weeks, challenging recent data that reflected a marked slowdown in the US labor market, and adding some leeway for the Federal Reserve to not loosen monetary policy at a magnitude that jeopardizes the fight against inflation.”

Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial Production in the United States decreased 0.2% year-on-year in July 2024, the first annual drop in three months, following a downwardly revised 1.1% rise in June.”

Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index increased to -4.7 in August 2024, the highest in six months, compared to -6.6 in July and forecasts of -6. The reading showed business activity in the New York state edged only slightly lower, with new orders falling modestly…. Finally, firms were fairly optimistic that conditions would improve in the months ahead.”

Retail: “U.S. Retail Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Retail sales in the US soared 1% month-over-month in July 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.2% drop in June and way better than forecasts of a 0.3% gain. It is the biggest increase since January 2023, with sales at motor vehicle and part dealers rising the most (3.6%), followed by sales at electronics and appliance stores (1.6%).”

Tech: “Kim Dotcom’s Extradition to the U.S. Given Green Light By New Zealand” [TorrentFreak]. “More than twelve years have passed since Megaupload became the prime target in a high-profile law enforcement operation, which led to the collapse of Kim Dotcom’s file-storage empire….. According to Stuff, New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith informed Kim Dotcom that he will be deported to the United States to stand trial…. ‘[T]he obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload, unsolicited, and what copyright holders were able to remove with direct delete access instantly and without question. But who cares? That’s justice these days,’ [Dotcom] wrote on Tuesday. Today, Dotcom followed up, stating that he has ‘a plan,’ ‘loves New Zealand,’ and doesn’t intend to leave the country.” • Not sure how this is different from Silicon Valley looting the entire Internet for training sets. Go big or go home, I guess.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 24 Exreme Fear (previous close: 23 Extreme Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 23 (Extreme Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 13 at 1:21:45 PM ET.

Gallery

Timeline cleanser:

News of the Wired

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 TH:

TH writes: “This one is an iPhone picture. Sometimes it’s just easier to use that one as my wide-angle instead of lugging around lenses and switching them out on the Nikon—but clarity suffers a little. So, for anyone unfamiliar with this scene, the J. Paul Getty Center (museum) in Los Angeles has this lovely huge pool that receives water from that waterfall, and this labyrinth of a raised shrub in its midst. It then is bordered by gardens.” I have always wanted a water feature; not, perhaps, of this scale….

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