By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Chihuahuan Meadowlark, Milpa Alta, Ciudad de México, Mexico.
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Can the Democrats allow Trump to take office, should he win?
(2) White House issues corrections…
(3) Marijuana policy (“and boogie they will”).
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!
National results static, but most of the Swing States (more here) are incrementally, but steadily, moving Trump’s way. 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): Pursuant to yesterday’s ethics filing by Stefanik alleging Merchan violated New York’s section 100.3(E)(1)(d)(iii), given that his daughter is a Democrat consultant, I hate to quote Laura Loomer, but since she’s supplying documentation:
EXCLUSIVE EXPOSE:
🚨🚨🚨NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN SENDING MONEY TO JUDGE MERCHAN’S DAUGHTER’S PERSONAL HOME RESIDENCE IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA AND DECEPTIVELY DISTORTING FEC RECORDS TO COVER UP PAYMENTS TO LOREN MERCHAN’S COMPANY🚨🚨🚨
I was searching through… https://t.co/R9U8sM2YQE pic.twitter.com/Ssv2PicORe
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) May 17, 2024
The thought occurs — pure speculation — that laundering money through Democrat consultants for services rendered would be one way for the spooks to, well, express their gratitude for certain outcomes.
* * * Trump (R) (Willis/McAfee): “Fani Willis and judge presiding over Georgia Trump election case defeat challengers” (Associated Press). “Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought a sprawling racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and others, has won the Democratic primary in her bid for reelection. Willis defeated progressive attorney Christian Wise Smith in the primary election and is now set to face off against Republican Courtney Kramer in the fall. Willis told reporters after her victory that the voters sent a message that ‘people want a DA that is just, that treats everybody equally and that works hard, and they know that they have that in me.’… Meanwhile, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, the judge who was randomly assigned to preside over the election interference case, also fended off a challenger, winning a nonpartisan election to keep his seat.” • If the Democrats can’t throw Willis out after her blunders in the apocalyptic fight against fascism….
* * * Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “One Incriminating Footnote in Bombshell Trump Classified Docs Report” (The New Republic). “The 2023 opinion from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell reveals that an unnamed witness scanned and saved confidential documents onto a laptop owned by Save America PAC, a political action committee formed by Trump in 2020. The detail sheds new light on the depths to which Trump consciously violated federal law…. On January 6, 2023—two years later—Trump’s lawyer notified the government of what this unnamed witness had done and provided a thumb drive of the files to the government. This revelation came four months after the FBI had already executed a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to retrieve classified materials Trump had illegally kept…. The opinion by Howell, who presided over the case in 2023, also revealed that the FBI discovered more classified documents in Trump’s bedroom months after the Mar-a-Lago raid that turned up boxes of classified materials stored in his bathroom.” • Footnote 11, page 36.
Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “Florida hearing in Trump classified documents case devolves into shouting match” (CNN). “The heated arguments played out in a morning proceeding in Fort Pierce, Florida, that had been scheduled for Walt Nauta, one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants, to present arguments that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had selectively and vindictively brought charges against him. But the hearing quickly diverted into a longstanding disagreement over an August 2022 meeting between prosecutor Jay Bratt and Nauta’s defense attorney, Stanley Woodward. Woodward has claimed in court proceedings and filings that Bratt attempted to pressure him into convincing Nauta to cooperate against Trump by threatening to affect a potential judgeship nomination…. Nauta claims that he was criminally charged in the case as retaliation for declining to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s retention of classified documents at his estate. ‘I had been recommended for a judgeship, that’s beyond dispute,’ Woodward said Wednesday. ‘There was a folder about defense counsel on the table’ during that meeting, he said, claiming Bratt referenced that judgeship recommendation. ‘I think the implication was that I was to travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation, and if I didn’t that, there would be consequences,’ Woodward said. Prosecutor David Harbach then rose and accused Woodward of engaging in ‘procedural gamesmanship’ by making a ‘garbage argument’ about the meeting. ‘Mr. Woodward’s story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy,’ Harbach shouted, banging his hand on the lectern in front of him. ‘It did not happen.’” • I’m inclined to believe Woodward (remember, preventing Trump from taking office is existential for Democrats, so anything goes). But so far as I can tell from the coverage, there’s no contemporaneous record of the event, so we are in “he said/he said” territory.
* * * Haley (R): “Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump, ending months of silence” (The Hill). Haley: “I put my priorities on a president who’s going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border, no more excuses, a president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that.”
* * * Biden (D): “White House issues a whopping nine corrections to Biden’s NAACP speech transcript” (FOX). “The White House transcript made nine corrections to President Biden’s gaffe-filled speech to the NAACP on Monday. Biden made multiple confusing comments and flubbed words while speaking to the civil rights organization in Michigan the night before. One notable one included his suggestion he was vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic, which began nearly four years after he left office. ‘When I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic,’ Biden said near the beginning of his remarks. ‘And, what happened was Barack (Obama) said to me: ‘Go to Detroit — help fix it.’” The next day, the White House’s correction implied that Biden intended to say ‘recession,’ referencing the Great Recession when he assumed the vice presidency in 2009.” • That makes it worse. How do you confuse the 2009 Great Recession with the 2020 pandemic? Here it is:
Scratch out “cat” and write in “dog”….
Biden (D): “Biden Can’t Blow the Debates” (Mona Charen, The Bulwark). “It was a relief therefore, when, after the New York Times/Siena poll dropped showing Trump ahead in five swing states, Biden stepped up and challenged Trump to two debates—a sign that he recognized the need to shake things up. Debates with a ‘f— moron’ (to quote a former secretary of state under Trump) are not ideal, but there aren’t a lot of good choices at the moment. Our fate as a country depends on getting the attention of voters who would rather not think about politics. Debates, as stupid and dismaying as they have become, may be the best vehicle to secure their eyeballs…. Trump and his allies have way oversold the Biden-is-senile message. A fair share of voters have come to think that he is not just old, but drooling and unable to function. The truth is that, though his voice is getting croaky, he messes up words and names sometimes, and he walks quite stiffly, he is very much compos mentis. He has demonstrated this again and again—as when he traveled to Kyiv, or to Jerusalem, or when he delivered his State of the Union message complete with unscripted moments. …. This is not to suggest that all Biden needs to do is stay vertical for 90 minutes. If Biden has a serious brain freeze or incoherent digression, he and we are in terrible trouble…. The majority of the American people have never liked Trump. Biden has given himself two opportunities to convince them that granting Trump another term, however tepid their feelings about the incumbent, would be a disaster.”
Biden (D): “CIA briefing caused investigators to stop probing Hunter Biden’s Hollywood lawyer: Whistleblower” (Washington Examiner). “The CIA gave a briefing to the Department of Justice in the summer of 2021 that prompted the department to shut down any pursuit of Hunter Biden’s lawyer and friend Kevin Morris, according to an affidavit published by Congress on Wednesday. Whistleblower Gary Shapley, a senior IRS investigator, wrote in the affidavit that while he was working on the DOJ’s broader inquiry into Biden, he was unexpectedly told by a prosecutor that he could not use Morris as a witness. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, a Delaware-based prosecutor who was heavily involved in the Biden investigation, gave the instruction to Shapley after she had been ‘summoned’ to the CIA headquarters in Virginia to receive the briefing, Shapley said. ‘AUSA Wolf stated that they were provided a classified briefing in relation to Mr. Morris and as a result we could no longer pursue him as a witness,’ Shapley wrote. Shapley said he repeatedly requested more information from Wolf but that he was stonewalled. Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer, became a financial savior to Biden when the first son was drowning in years’ worth of unpaid tax bills in 2020, according to an indictment against Biden and testimony Morris gave to Congress in January.” • Dear Hunter!
Biden (D): “Exclusive: Largest rent increases are in swing states. Will it spell trouble for Biden?” (USA Today). “As housing costs continue to be the biggest driver of core inflation, renters are feeling increasingly disillusioned with politicians. In some swing states, which are critical to President Joe Biden’s reelection bid, rental costs have more than doubled in the past four years. In fact, 6 out of the top 10 markets and 34 of the top 100 markets with the largest increases are in swing states, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data obtained exclusively from Rent.com.” • Hmm.
* * * Kennedy (I): “A Running Mate’s History: $1 Billion, Cocaine, a Fling With Elon Musk” (New York Times). So Shanahan is a billionaire, at least according to sources: “Ms. Shanahan has a fortune of more than $1 billion that stems largely from her divorce settlement last year with Sergey Brin, a founder of Google, whose net worth exceeds $145 billion, three people with knowledge of her finances said.” • First hit piece. Shanahan has certainly lived a vivid life, though perhaps less so than Hunter Biden. Then again, Hunter Biden isn’t running for Vice President….
Kennedy (I): “Key RFK Jr. adviser leaves campaign alleging ‘hateful and divisive atmosphere’” (The Hill). “A senior adviser to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced she was leaving the campaign Wednesday, citing an ‘increasingly hateful and divisive atmosphere,’ a blow to the third-party bid as it steps up ballot access efforts nationwide. Angela Stanton King, the campaign’s head of Black voter outreach, said Kennedy’s campaign ‘no longer aligns with my values.’ ‘After much reflection, I’ve decided to step away from the political theater,’ Stanton King wrote on social media. ‘I will continue to advise RFK Jr. on key community issues.’ ‘Now, it’s time for me to pursue peace and fully dedicate myself to nonprofit work, supporting pregnant women and returning citizens,’ she continued. ‘This new chapter excites me, as I focus on making a tangible difference where it’s needed most.’ Stanton King was a key Kennedy adviser on the issue of abortion, expected to be a major focus in battleground states this November. Critics have repeatedly scrutinized Kennedy and running mate Nicole Shanahan’s conflicting comments on abortion rights. Kennedy, who previously said there should be no federal restriction on abortion care access, changed his position earlier this month to support some restrictions after urging from Shanahan and Stanton King.” • Hiring from NGOs, always a concern….
* * * OH: “Ohio prepares to leave Biden and Harris off presidential ballot as Democrats search for answers” (Washington Examiner). “President Joe Biden is set to not appear on Ohio’s presidential ballot in November, the state’s secretary of state confirmed. In a letter to Ohio Democratic Chairwoman Liz Walters on Tuesday, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said, ‘Today, the Speaker of the Ohio House told members of the media there would not be a legislative solution,’ adding he was ‘duty bound to instruct boards of elections to begin preparing ballots that do not include the Democratic Party’s nominees for president and vice President of the United States.’ … The Democratic National Convention will not confirm Biden as the nominee until Aug. 19, conflicting with an Ohio law requiring presidential candidates to certify their nomination to the secretary of state’s office 90 days before the election. …. The Democratic Party could still resolve the conflict by rescheduling its convention or by filing a lawsuit arguing that an arbitrary and long deadline barring Biden violates the First and Fourteenth amendments. Biden lost Ohio to Trump by 8% in 2020.”
OR: “Progressives flop in Oregon: 5 takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries” (Politico). “The left took it on the chin in Oregon on Tuesday. Major progressive figures had mobilized in a safe blue congressional district — and their preferred pick lost. Establishment Democrats, meanwhile, successfully blocked a more liberal candidate from winning the nomination for a key battleground seat. That means Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s sister won’t be joining the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in Washington next year. And that national Democrats get their candidate of choice to take on Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer — and avoid a rematch of a race they lost in 2022.”
* * * “2024 Race: Biden-Trump Matchup Margin Razor Thin With Nearly 1 In 5 Voters Likely To Change Their Minds, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; More Than 7 In 10 Voters Plan To Watch June Debate” (Quinnipiac University Poll). “When independent and Green Party candidates are added to the presidential matchup, Biden receives 41 percent support, Trump receives 38 percent support, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 14 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 2 percent support, and independent candidate Cornel West receives 2 percent support. There is no clear leader in either of these matchups as the leads are within the margin of error, making the race too close to call… Among voters supporting Biden, 15 percent say it is either very likely (3 percent) or somewhat likely (12 percent) that they will change their minds, while 84 percent say it is either not so likely (9 percent) or not likely at all (75 percent). Among voters supporting Trump, 8 percent say it is somewhat likely that they will change their minds, while 92 percent say it is either not so likely (13 percent) or not likely at all (79 percent). Among voters supporting Kennedy, 52 percent say it is either very likely (11 percent) or somewhat likely (41 percent) that they will change their minds, while 46 percent say it is either not so likely (16 percent) or not likely at all (30 percent).”
Republican Funhouse
“Extreme Right State Freedom Caucuses Create Big Headaches for Republicans” (Exposed by CMD). “In Wyoming, a far-right faction of GOP state legislators split with the rest of the party this year in unsuccessfully fighting to prevent the families of police officers killed while on duty from receiving an increase in death benefits — from 60% to 90% of the officer’s salary — because it cost too much. This is in a state where a total of 62 officers have died in the line of duty since 1877. In Idaho, members of its Freedom Caucus ousted the Republican House Majority Leader in February for being insufficiently conservative. In Missouri, five GOP members of the state legislature filibustered the state Senate earlier this month in an unsuccessful attempt to defund the state’s Medicaid program. In fact, this year the Freedom Caucus there held up so much legislation with procedural ploys that the nonpartisan Missouri Independent, which reports on state government, called the legislative session the least productive in decades. These far-right Republican state legislative groups are affiliates of the State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN)…. ‘In every state where they appear, Freedom caucuses cause headaches for the so-called establishment Republicans in charge,’ according to a recent piece in Governing. SFCN lists 11 states with caucuses, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, and until recently, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) tracked active caucuses in Mississippi and Nevada.” • I don’t blame them for acting on their (screwball) beliefs. I do blame the left for being unable to do the same thing.
Democrats en Déshabillé
“Pressley says Trump Justice Department would ‘go on a murdering spree’” (The Hill). “In a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on the Office of Personnel Management, Pressley warned of what she viewed as negative policy implications of ‘Project 2025’ — a detailed set of policies, spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, that would drastically reshape the federal government to support a hypothetical future Republican president. The effort — sometimes referred to as a blueprint for a second Trump administration — would consolidate executive power, slash funding for many agencies, and replace career civil servants with loyal supporters of the president in an executive order known as ‘Schedule F.’ ‘It is critical that we understand that the far-right extremists who are advocating for Schedule F see it as a means to an end. It is their pathway to enact ,’ Pressley said at the hearing… ‘The Department of Justice would go on a murdering spree,’ she said. ‘It would rush to use the death penalty and expand its use to even more people, while circumventing due process protections.’ Project 2025, according to its text, calls for ‘the next conservative Administration’ to ‘do everything possible to obtain finality for the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row.’” • So the headline is somewhat — not entirely — clickbait. “Policy violence” is not the same as Trump’s “locked and loaded” for him personally. Nevertheless, Pressley clearly believes it. That said, I think the Democrat base takes a somewhat less systemic view than “policy violence.” See this handy chart from The Liberal Patriot:
So I think it’s fair to say that the Democrats, top to bottom, are of the view that Trump cannot possibly be allowed to take office, no matter what. We would not, then, looking at a transition from one party to another, but at something existential. Where to go from there, I don’t know, except to note that in their control of the press, and in their alliance with the spooks, the Democrats are well equipped to do the needful, moreso than the Republicans (who, to date, lack the “mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites” that would otherwise provide their countermove). I imagine all this is being gamed out somewhere in the Beltway right now, just as in 2020 (“Project Transition Integrity“), certainly by Democrats, possibly by Republicans.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“THIRTEEN conservative counties in Oregon approve ballot measures for SECESSION vote that would see them join non-woke Idaho – as they issue list of demands” (Daily Mail). “The proposal seeks to move the Oregon border 200 miles to the west, meaning that 14 counties and several partial counties would fall under Idaho state lines. Organizers behind the Greater Idaho movement say east Oregonians are being alienated by the state’s progressive policies which they blame for high crime rates. They claim a move to Idaho would allow residents to take advantage of lower taxation and provide better representation and governance. Measure 7-86, as it was known, passed by 53 percent in Crook County in the latest boost to the Greater Idaho campaign. However, the vote is not legislatively binding and just means residents are in favor of informing state and federal representatives that they support negotiations to annex part of Oregon.” • Handy map of “Greater Idaho”:
Festung Squillionaire, more like it.
“Gen Z’s pessimism fueled by depression, social media use: Expert” (NewsNation). • Not by a million dead from a pandemic, lousy wages, and the inability to start a family or own a house. No no!
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Maskstravaganza
“University of Otago’s Michael Baker among health experts calling for better face mask use in New Zealand after international study on effectiveness” (Newshub). One of the co-authors of Greenhalgh et al.’s mask paper:
Prof Baker wants to see better infection prevention and control policies reinstated, especially in four areas:
“Updating our policies will allow all New Zealanders to benefit from the effective and versatile protection that masks provide against seasonal, epidemic and pandemic infections,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Denial and Cope
The circle of living your life:
Testing and Tracking
Speculation on Biobot:
I suspect they are in a death spiral. Their “update” this week, which is two days later than usual, just shows a graph that is identical to last week’s. They did not report this week’s real-time wastewater levels, so I physically measured them for the past 6 weeks. The values are…
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) May 23, 2024
I hope this isn’t true. If it is true, it would be totally in paradigm for CDC and our political economy: A crapified system owned and run by a giant monopoly.
Sequelae: Covid
“Unraveling the enigma of long COVID: novel aspects in pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment protocols” (abstract only) (Inflammopharmacology). From the Abstract: “The paper introduces a unified theory of long COVID, detailing a novel pathophysiological framework that interlinks persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection, autoimmunity, and systemic vascular pathology. We posit a model where viral reservoirs, immune dysregulation, and genetic predispositions converge to perpetuate disease. It challenges prevailing hypotheses with new evidence, suggesting innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. The paper aims to shift the paradigm in long COVID research by providing an integrative perspective that encapsulates the multifaceted nature of the condition. We explain the immunological mechanisms, hypercoagulability states, and that feed NeuroCOVID in patients with long COVID.” Yikes. This tweet quotes the text:
“The nervous system, particularly the brain, can become infected by SARS-CoV-2 early in the course of COVID-19 via viral access through the cribriform plate located at the upper part of the nose..
this route is more ominous than previously thought.
The pits of the cribriform…— Hiroshi Yasuda (保田浩志) (@Yash25571056) May 23, 2024
Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Biobot data is gone, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone dark). 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. UPDATE I replaced the Times death data with CDC data. Amusingly, the URL doesn’t include parameters to construct the tables; one must reconstruct then manually each time. Caltrops abound.
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) Dead.
(2) (Biobot) Dead.
(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) Slightly, but distinctly up. The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and around the country through air travel). So my natural inclination is to see how wastewater at JFK and EWR is doing. CDC, before it decided to butcher wastewater visualization, provided data down to the sewage treatment plant level, so I could check the Brooklyn plant for JFK (and also the Brooklyn plant for LGA). Well, that’s no longer possible, but the Verily (vomits quietly) wastewater site — Biobot being kaput — provides data on EWR. Here it is:
So, New York City Hospitalization up, Covid from air travel up. Make of that what you will. Covid is also up in Singapore and France, you will recall.
(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) Up and down.
(10) (Travelers: Variants) KP.2 enters the chat, as does B.1.1.529 (with backward revision).
(11) CDC’s data and visualization, still being updated.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” (Trading Economics). “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 8,000 to 215,000 on the week ending May 18th, below market expectations of 220,000. The claim count was considerably below the elevated levels from earlier in the month but remained firmly above the averages from February to April to consolidate the softer momentum in the US labor market.”
Manufacturing: “United States Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index” (Trading Economics). “The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production index improved to -1 in May of 2024 from -13 in the previous month, pointing to the softest contraction in three months.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 59 Greed (previous close: 58 Greed) (CNN). One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 23 at 12:32:09 PM ET.
The 420
This Isn’t Your Father’s Marijuana Use” (Washington Monthly). “A new study has documented a remarkable rise in Americans’ use of marijuana. Over the last 30 years, the number of people who report using the drug in the past month has risen fivefold from 8 million to 42 million. Through the mid-1990s, only about one-in-six or one-in-eight of those users consumed the drug daily or near daily, similar to alcohol’s roughly one-in-ten. Now, more than 40 percent of marijuana users consume daily or near daily… Legalization and commercialization have produced a spectacular rise in the potency of cannabis products. Until the end of the 20th century, the average potency of seized cannabis never exceeded 5 percent THC, its active intoxicant. Now, the labeled potency of “flower” sold in state-licensed stores averages 20-25 percent THC.” • Commentary:
A society where individuals are constantly self-medicating with a mind altering substance is a health recipe for disaster. We need an honest conversation about the risks of normalizing widespread marijuana use- especially for kids/ pregnant women/ before driving/ while at work.… https://t.co/KT8XDJ5xy1
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) May 23, 2024
“And with the right medication….”
I don’t know if this is an actual “boogie“; I think not. One reviewer calls it “a loose funky-tonk wobble.” But I don’t know what that even means, if anything. Perhaps the musicians in the readership will enlighten us?
The Gallery
“Live all you can. It’s a mistake not to.”
Gustave Caillebotte, Man at the Window https://t.co/OMzADJkSga pic.twitter.com/AQiaByz48C
— Impressions (@impression_ists) May 22, 2024
“Out of the Ordinary: Vermeer’s world and ours” (The Point) “The experience of Americans coming to terms with Dutch art in self-reflective ways is a recurring theme in 21st-century American literature. Take, for instance, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013), named after the aforementioned painting by Carel Fabritius. The book follows Theo, a young American, as he struggles to find his place in our modern world; the bird—a light, almost weightless creature affixed to a feeding post—becomes symbolic of these travails. The painting is so magical, Theo narrates, one barely notices ‘the chain on the finch’s ankle, or think what a cruel life for a little living creature—fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless place.’ For Tartt, The Goldfinch is not so much an illustration of a bird as an inverted portrait of us: modern subjects, bearing the shackles of our own putative freedom. ‘It’s hard not to see the human in the finch,’ Tartt writes. ‘One prisoner looking at another.’” • The Goldfinch:
News of the Wired
Genius!
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 CK:
I think we are mostly past winter now, touch wood, but this is a lovely photo.
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:
Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:
If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert (UNDERSCORE) strether (DOT) corrente (AT) yahoo (DOT) com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!
