2:00PM Water Cooler 9/25/2024 | naked capitalism

Bird Song of the Day

Sage Thrasher, Sierra Valley–Marble Hot Springs Rd., Plumas, California, United States. “Song including mimicry. Bird singing from a fencepost at roadside.” Eight minutes so grab a cup of coffee

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Pollsters and polling.
2. Getting to know Kamala
3. Election Trump’s to lose: Is that what he’s doing?
4. Boeing’s “absurd litany of self-inflicted crises” plus brutal Senate report on whistleblower reports.

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

Trump Assassination Attempts (Plural)

“Aileen Cannon set to oversee apparent Trump assassination attempt case in Florida” (Politico). “U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — was randomly assigned the attempted assassination case Tuesday after a grand jury in Miami returned a five-count indictment against Ryan Routh in connection with the Sept. 15 incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.” • Life’s little ironies!

2024

Less than fifty days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

Once again, the Democrats must be very puzzled to have virtual unanimity across the political spectrum that “Harris is the one” — no doubt there will be another liberalgasm after Oprah — and yet the election is a virtual tie. How can this be? Perhaps a few more Republicans, generals, or celebrities will turn the tide.

* * *

“Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024” (Pew Research). “Adjusting on more variables produces more accurate results, according to Center studies in 2016 and 2018. A number of pollsters have taken this lesson to heart. For example, recent high-quality polls by Gallup and The New York Times/Siena College adjusted on eight and 12 variables, respectively. Our own polls typically adjust on 12 variables. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have that much intervention by the pollster. But the real world of survey research is not perfect.” And: “Preelection polls face one crucial challenge that routine opinion polls do not: determining who of the people surveyed will actually cast a ballot. Roughly a third of eligible Americans do not vote in presidential elections, despite the enormous attention paid to these contests. Determining who will abstain is difficult because people can’t perfectly predict their future behavior – and because many people feel social pressure to say they’ll vote even if it’s unlikely. No one knows the profile of voters ahead of Election Day. We can’t know for sure whether young people will turn out in greater numbers than usual, or whether key racial or ethnic groups will do so. This means pollsters are left to make educated guesses about turnout, often using a mix of historical data and current measures of voting enthusiasm. This is very different from routine opinion polls, which mostly do not ask about people’s future intentions.” And finally: “When major news breaks, a poll’s timing can matter. Public opinion on most issues is remarkably stable, so you don’t necessarily need a recent poll about an issue to get a sense of what people think about it. But dramatic events can and do change public opinion.” • Which is why “early voting” in any form, including mail-in ballots, is morally wrong in a democracy.

“Polling Error in 2016-2020: Look Out for Wisconsin” (Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball). “To be clear, we have no idea whether the polls will be biased consistently one way or the other in 2024. Maybe Trump will be understated again: if so, he is almost certainly going to win the election given how close the polls are now. Maybe Harris will be understated: if so, she is in a great position to win given that she appears to already lead in enough states to win 270 electoral votes, albeit barely. Or there might be little bias either way, or inconsistent bias depending on the state, in which case this election will be very hard to confidently predict based on the current numbers. Polling error is not necessarily consistent from year to year—while polls understated Trump in 2016 and 2020, the longer-term history of polling errors is a bit more mixed, per this helpful chart from the Pew Research Center based on American Association for Public Opinion Research data. . For one thing, other indicators do not really suggest that we’re in the midst of an electoral environment that is much stronger for Republicans than the past two elections (those indicators include special elections in 2023 and 2024 and the recent Washington state top-two primary). While Democrats have now nominated three different opponents against Donald Trump, Trump himself will be on the ballot for a third straight time. . The third installment of the Trump trilogy will likely look a fair amount like the first two installments as opposed to being dramatically different; this is why we’ve long expected a close and competitive election, with only the last few weeks of Joe Biden’s candidacy really making us seriously consider the possibility of Trump doing substantially better than his previous presidential runs. The close polls suggest a close election: That seems realistic.”

“Polling Whiplash” (Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect). “(The indispensable Michael Podhorzer) astutely points out that all polling is ‘opinion journalism.’ Why? Because pollsters make assumptions about who is a likely voter and how to weigh or overweigh different demographic groups. ‘The ‘opinions’ are not about issues or ideology, but about methodological approaches,’ Podhorzer writes.”

* * *

Kamala (D): Kamala’s mother wearing the sari typical of Black women from her generation:

I grew up a middle-class kid. I was raised by a hardworking mother, who like so many people across our nation, had big dreams and aspirations for her children. As president, it will be my top priority to bring down costs for working families.

Under my plan, more than 100 million… pic.twitter.com/Wz0ElwGbtv

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 25, 2024

(To anyone new: I have no objection to Kamala’s identity, whatever it may be. I do object to Kamala morphing her perceived identity to meet the needs of the political campaign du jour.)

Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris Needs To Get Out More” (Ross Barkan, Persuasions). “Still missing from Harris is any sort of formal press conference or the regular television appearances that J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, still makes. She has not allowed for an extended interview with any newspaper or magazine reporter, either. If she’s visited a local Philadelphia TV station, she hasn’t sat down with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or any major print-based organization in a crucial swing state. It goes without saying she won’t subject herself to a grilling from the New York Times editorial board. Oddly, she has even dodged friendly outlets like MSNBC and pundits like Ezra Klein, who would ask probing questions but is fundamentally sympathetic to her project…. Part of the reason the election continues to be close is that too many Americans feel they know too little about Harris. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll that revealed a dip in her standing since the sugar high of the Democratic convention, 28 percent of likely voters said they felt they needed to know more about Harris, while only 9 percent said they needed to know more about Trump. ‘I don’t know what Kamala’s plans are,’ Dawn Conley, a 48-year-old small-business owner and undecided voter in Knoxville, Tenn. told the Times. ‘It’s kind of hard to make a decision when you don’t know what the other party’s platform is going to be.’.. Really, Harris should be everywhere. The Sunday morning talk shows, the newspaper sitdowns, and formal press conferences are a start. Podcasts, ethnic media, alternative media, and regional outlets should be added to the mix. If she doesn’t crave the mass heterodox audience of a Joe Rogan, she can spend extended time with the aforementioned Klein or Alex Cooper, who has become something of the young millenial/Gen Z Howard Stern.” • In my view, people do not know Harris because there is nobody there to be known.

Kamala (D): Get out more, but not like this:

Since the appearance is for an interview, I can’t really fault Kamala’s campaign for requiring invitations, but maybe a public rally on-campus too?

* * *

Trump (R): “2024 Election Environment Favorable to GOP” (Gallup). The lead: “Nearly all Gallup measures that have shown some relationship to past presidential election outcomes or that speak to current perceptions of the two major parties favor the Republican Party over the Democratic Party. Chief among these are Republican advantages in U.S. adults’ party identification and leanings, the belief that the GOP rather than the Democratic Party is better able to handle the most important problem facing the country, Americans’ dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, and negative evaluations of the economy with a Democratic administration in office.” • Handy chart:

Trump (R): “‘He should be doing better’: Even some Trump allies see him veering off course” (Politico). “Donald Trump was meeting privately in mid-September with one of his oldest friends, Steve Wynn, when the casino mogul and Republican mega-donor delivered the former president a blunt warning: You’re off message, and it isn’t helping…. To drive home his point, Wynn showed Trump polling and suggested the former president would be better off focusing on policy issues where Republicans see his opponent, Kamala Harris, as vulnerable, according to two people briefed on the meeting and granted anonymity to describe it. The meeting underscored a key point of tension inside the Trump campaign. While polls show the race is incredibly close, some of Trump’s allies are concerned that his impulses and coarse approach to campaigning are undermining him against Harris, a rival who has proved far stronger than his previous opponent, Joe Biden. In interviews, more than a dozen Trump allies described the former president as reaching a crossroads — faced with the choice of continuing with the missteps that have overtaken the past several weeks of his campaign or embracing a more calculated approach aimed at appealing to a small subset of undecided voters who are likely to sway the outcome of the election. In recent weeks, he has brought into his fold destabilizing forces like social media provocateur Laura Loomer and his controversial former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, plugged commemorative Trump coins, and asserted that if he loses, Jews would be partly to blame. ‘It’s not that he’s going backwards,’ said one Trump ally granted anonymity to speak freely. ‘But he should be doing better.’” • False dichotomy, to me. It’s not (media-driven) mis-steps vs. calculated approach; it’s populist vs. non-populist. If Trump gives the populist approach the oomph only he can give, he wins (and yes, deep six Laura Loomer and the effing cats immediately. Work the grill at MacDonalds. I mean, does anybody think those Undecideds are PMC?).

Trump (R): “Haitian group in Springfield, Ohio, files citizen criminal charges against Trump and Vance” (Associated Press). “The leader of a nonprofit representing the Haitian community invoked a private-citizen right to file charges Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, over the chaos and threats experienced by Springfield, Ohio, since Trump first spread false claims about legal immigrants there during a presidential debate. The Haitian Bridge Alliance made the move after inaction by the local prosecutor, said their attorney, Subodh Chandra of the Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm. Charges brought by private citizens are rare, but not unheard of, in Ohio…. State law requires a hearing to take place before the affidavit can move forward. As of Tuesday afternoon, none had been scheduled. Trump and Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio, are charged with disrupting public services, making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity. The filing asks the Clark County Municipal Court to affirm that there is probable cause and issue arrest warrants against Trump and Vance.”

Trump (R): “Donald Trump Has a Plan to Make America’s Children Healthy Again. It’s a Good One” (Robert Redfield, Newsweek). “In 2019, the Trump Administration set a course to address chronic disease, funding earlier interventions to curb the growing crisis. Five years later, this issue is exactly where it needs to be: at the center of the presidential debate, now in a unique partnership. To heal our children, a president must see the possible and lead our nation to act. After more than 40 years in the public health arena, it might surprise some of my colleagues to know I think President Trump chose the right man for the job: Robert Kennedy, Jr…. Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups. But it doesn’t stop in the health agencies: the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a captive of industry, too. Created to help the family farmer and to ensure a wholesome food supply, today the agency often favors large corporations over the interests of small farmers and the public’s health. To cure our children, we must reevaluate our food choices and the underlying practices of the agricultural sector. We must prioritize wholesome and nutritious food.” • A populist opportunity here, too.

* * *

Kennedy (I): Asking for my vote again:

Zelensky’s only strategy for victory is to embroil us in World War III. And VP Harris is all for it https://t.co/U1Dmlwtx7A

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 25, 2024

* * *

NY: “Trump sets his sights on deep-blue New York” (The Hill). “While Trump’s hopes of flipping New York seem lofty, Republicans point to other underlying reasons for his visits there, namely to boost four House Republicans in the state whose results may decide which party controls the House: Reps. Mike Lawler, Anthony D’Esposito, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams.” • “Lofty” doesn’t begin to describe it.

PA: “Pennsylvania poll reveals tight presidential race, inflation a key concern” (The Hill). “Vice President Harris narrowly leads former President Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to a new poll released by Monmouth University Wednesday. Data showed that 40 percent of voters in the Keystone State said they will definitely vote for Harris, compared to 38 percent who said the same of Trump. Eight percent said they would probably vote for the vice president, while seven percent said they would probably vote for the former president, according to the poll.”

PA: Oopsie:

With bit more time, I’d authenticate the screen dumps. Nevertheless…

Realignment and Legitimacy

Firesign Theatre as scorching as ever:

Hat tip to alert reader justme.

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!

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) (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading. NOTE The date seems to be wrong, but the number of sites has changed so this is new.

(2) (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

(3) (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.

(4) (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

(5) (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely down.

(6) (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.

(7) (Walgreens) Big drop continues!

(8) (Cleveland) Dropping.

(9) (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.

(10) (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?

(11) Deaths low, but positivity up.

(12) Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

There are no statistics of interest today.

Manufacturing: “Boeing gives striking Machinists union more time to vote on latest offer” (Seattle Times). “Boeing Co. backed down from a Friday night deadline for striking workers to approve its latest contract offer after union leaders refused to schedule a vote…. The sparring has injected new tension into the talks at a time when the cash-strapped plane-maker can’t afford a long, drawn-out strike. Boeing’s tactics have also puzzled some longtime observers of the planemaker’s labor relations. ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Leon Grunberg, an academic who’s tracked Boeing labor relations for a quarter-century. ‘I don’t know if it’s a misstep from the CEO or people further down.’… Boeing on Tuesday said that it had offered the union more time and ‘logistical support’ for a vote. It removed the Sept. 27 deadline, without imposing any new time frame for acceptance of the offer. ‘This strike is affecting our team and our communities, and we believe our employees should have the opportunity to vote on our offer that makes significant improvements in wages and benefits,’ Boeing said in an emailed statement. Union officials have said they wouldn’t schedule a vote on the company’s latest proposal, describing it as unrealistic and disrespectful in a fiery statement posted late Monday.” • Our “team.”

Manufacturing: “Striking Boeing workers would like the company to stop negotiating in public” (Quartz). “‘Our members stand strong, and we remain ready to continue mediated or direct negotiations with Boeing,’ (IAM) said in an update to members on Tuesday. ‘This has been made clear to both the company and our membership. The only way to resolve this strike is through negotiations, and rest assured, your Union will not bargain through the media.’”

Manufacturing: “Another unforced error by Boeing is souring the new boss’ good vibes” (CNN). “There’s an old saying for labor relations, says Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations: ‘You never want to negotiate in the press.’ ‘The bargaining team is responsible for negotiating with management,’ Wheaton said. ‘And what Boeing did is it say, ‘yeah, I don’t care.’ … They just sent it out to everybody.’ He added: ‘I don’t know what their game plan is. I think they were just not very bright on how they did that.’ It’s also not clear what role Ortberg played in the decision to take the offer directly to union members and the media. But it’s a clear departure from the diplomatic approach the CEO had signaled early on.

‘Everybody thinks unions strike over money,’ Wheaton notes. But often, it’s also about respect. ‘Obviously Boeing did not respect the union in this setup.’ Ortberg came into the top job with a big advantage: His predecessors were so openly hostile toward labor, even small gestures seemed to buy him some credibility. It’s not too late, according to Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, who told me he is ‘still hopeful’ Ortberg can right Boeing’s course, even with . ‘Diplomacy matters in situations like this,’ Aboulafia said, adding: ‘It’s hard to tell what’s Ortberg’s mistakes … and what’s just Boeing institutional arrogance.’” • Could be both!

Manufacturing: “Boeing Workers Felt Schedule Pressure Even After Midair Blowout” (Bloomberg). “According to the survey conducted with about 2,100 Boeing workers in May — four months after a fuselage panel blew off a 737 Max aircraft shortly after takeoff — less than half of frontline manufacturing personnel stated that schedule pressures didn’t cause their team to lower standards. The revelation shows that workers continued to feel pressure to cut corners even after Boeing’s campaign to overhaul its safety culture was well underway.”

Manufacturing: “Preliminary Information from the Subcommittee’s Inquiry into Boeing’s Safety and Quality Practices” (PDF) (United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations). “Whistleblower reports spanning more than a decade raise questions about Boeing’s ability to timely source and track aircraft parts and ensure that damaged or inadequate parts (‘nonconforming parts’) are not used in aircraft production. The tracking and disposition of aircraft parts that do not conform to their quality or design specifications is heavily regulated, and criminal penalties apply to knowing or intentional falsification, concealment, or materially fraudulent misrepresentation in connection with records documenting the disposition of aircraft parts.3 Aircraft manufacturers are required to maintain a written quality system that includes “(p)rocedures to ensure that only products or articles that conform to their approved design are installed on a type-certificated product…. In May 2024, Sam Mohawk, a current (i.e., still alive) Boeing Quality Assurance investigator at the MRSA in Renton, Washington, informed the Subcommittee that he has witnessed systemic disregard for documentation and accountability of nonconforming parts at Boeing’s Renton facility, where the 737 MAX is manufactured. On June 11, 2024, Mr. Mohawk filed a claim with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (‘OSHA’), which is attached as Attachment 1. This complaint has not been previously released publicly. Mr. Mohawk’s current role at MRSA includes handling nonconforming parts, work that he alleges became significantly more complex and demanding following the resumption of 737 MAX production when the FAA authorized the aircraft to return to service following two crashes in 2018 and 2019. Mr. Mohawk alleges that ‘(c)ompared to pre-grounding, MRSA was experiencing a 300% increase (of nonconformance reports)’ and that “the 737 program was losing hundreds of non-conforming parts.’ .” • Yikes!

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 67 Greed (previous close: 65 Greed) (CNN). One week ago: 60 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 25 at 1:55:41 PM ET.

News of the Wired

“How We Sort the World: Gregory Murphy on the Psychology of Categories” (The MIT Press Reader). “We put an awful lot of effort into trying to figure out and convince others of just what kind of person someone is, what kind of action something was, and even what kind of object something is. We often feel that once we determine the thing’s category, then all questions will be answered about it: The person is qualified or unqualified; it’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing; the object must be made out of wood. But division into categories is often arbitrary — not completely, but in some respects. And every category is a simplification to some degree; it throws away information about the thing. If you call me an academic, that is no doubt true, but that doesn’t include a lot of other information about me, nor do I correspond exactly to your stereotype of an academic. (OK, I actually do, but a lot of academics don’t.) There are a number of different ways to make categories, and they don’t always agree with one another. At some point, we have to make a principled decision about what the category is and why that is the best way to think about it, because the world isn’t pre-divided into nice categories that we simply have to notice.” • Hmm.

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