By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Orchard Oriole (Orchard), Hamilton–Royal Botanical Gardens (Princess Point), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. “Young male, photographed, audio recorded. Continuing.” Highway roar, I think, but a pretty song.
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) North Carolina legislature bails for the weekend without passing the anti-masking bill, so there’s still time to call.
(2) New Cohen’s testimony in the Bragg trial, plus theories of the case.
(4) The Impressionists and the Paris Commune.
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 now moving Trump’s way. All of the Swing States (more here) are now in Trump’s column, including Michigan and Wisconsin. 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): “Michael Cohen pressed on his crimes and lies as defense attacks key Trump hush money trial witness” (Associated Press). “Cohen is prosecutors’ final witness — at least for now — as they try to prove Trump schemed to suppress a damaging story he feared would torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign and then falsified business records to cover it up.” Scheming to “suppress a damaging story” is not per se illegal, and is standard fare in any campaign; certainly this is not the object offense. More: “Over several days on the witness stand, Cohen placed Trump directly at the center of the alleged scheme to stifle negative stories to fend off damage to his White House bid.” Ditto. More: ” Trump’s tone changed when, months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign-finance charges and implicated him in the hush money scheme. Trump was not charged with a crime related to the federal investigation.” • Cohen’s guilty plea to federal campaign charges seems to be the only untethered crime floating about, so possbily Bragg intends to make that the object offense that converts the putative business records violations into felonies. If so, (a) does a state really get to enforce Federal law, (b) why on earth didn’t the Feds charge Trump when they had the chance, and (c) the business records violations tool place after the campaign finance violations, so isn’t this theory a reversal of cause and effect? Seems like Bragg is reaching.
Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Trump New York hush-money trial is far from a slam dunk” (BBC). From April: “Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign violations as part of the alleged cover-up, which he said was directed by Mr Trump.” • As above, but note this helpfully erases the timeline (point (c)).
Trump (R): (Bragg/Merchan): “Almost end times for Trump trial spectacle but there’s still room for fireworks: 3 things to watch” (Andrew McCarthy, FOX). “It is undoubtedly true that, to convict Trump, the jury must believe Cohen’s uncorroborated testimony that Trump knew – from the Trump Organization’s then-CFO, Allen Weisselberg – the details of how Cohen was going to be paid. Prosecutors have projected the illusion that they’ve offered tons of evidence to corroborate Cohen. But they have only corroborated elements of the story that are not incriminating and not in (much) dispute. On the disputed issue of Trump’s state of mind, there is no support for the key Weisselberg story. It’s just Cohen’s word.” And, oddly, the prosecution has not called Weisselberg. On the business records offense: “Retainers* do not have to be in writing, so the fact that there isn’t a written retainer does . Cohen was holding himself out as Trump’s lawyer throughout 2017, he was available to work for Trump whenever asked, and he did in fact do lawyer work for him in 2017-18. And the Trump Organization knew it was paying for more than the Stormy Daniels NDA. So how could it be fraudulently false for the Trump org CFO to refer to payments to Cohen as pursuant to a retainer? .” A defense case? “Costello is a savvy New York defense lawyer who represented Cohen at the start of the federal investigation. He has been released from his attorney-client confidentiality obligation (because Cohen waived confidentiality when he told the feds about his discussions with Costello). On Tuesday, Costello testified before a House committee, asserting that Cohen’s testimony was rife with lies – a claim Costellos says he can back up with emails, texts, etc. Costello also testified to that effect in the grand jury. I expect Blanche will use Costello’s House and grand jury testimony in attacking Cohen on cross-examination.” In addition, Costello might testify. Federal Campaign Finance. “Team Trump should renew its request to call former FEC official Bradley Smith as an expert witness in the defense case to explain why NDAs are not actionable campaign expenditures under federal law. Judge Merchan has previously indicated he would not permit such expert testimony, rationalizing that only the court should instruct the jury on the law. But Merchan has let Cohen and David Pecker explain to the jury that they believed the NDAs violated federal law. Especially given that Bragg has no authority to enforce federal law, and Merchan has no expertise in it, shouldn’t the jury hear from at least one person who actually knows something about the subject?” • More to come! NOTE * This is presumably the answer to an argument that “Cohen was not a Trump’s lawyer because he wasn’t on retainer,” which, if present in the coverage, I missed.
Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan): “Could Manhattan court acquit Trump?” (Washington Times). “Having served on three Manhattan juries, I would not be surprised if the 12 men and women hearing New York v. Donald J. Trump acquit him of all charges. In two civil actions and one criminal case, my fellow jurors were serious, professional, and movingly civic-minded. A quiet, solemn patriotism infused our deliberations. Several jurors said that we should respect the justice system because we might need it to respect us someday… With 48% of registered voters telling Reuters-Ipsos last month that Mr. Trump’s Kafkaesque cases are “excessive and politically motivated” (41% disagree), even a Manhattan jury could scrap Mr. Bragg’s contraption. If just one juror agrees, this case will end with a hung jury. And if ‘lurid but legal’ reflects the opinions of 12 of my fellow Manhattanites — who tend to be tough but fair — then former President Donald Trump will be acquitted on all 34 charges and go back where he belongs: the campaign trail.” Would certainly be true if the defendant were anybody but Donald Trump. Oh, and this snark is pretty good: “Mr. Trump faces 34 counts of alleged falsification of business records because his bookkeepers posted ledger entries for checks to Mr. Cohen as ‘legal expenses.’ Would Mr. Bragg prefer false descriptions like ‘plumbing supplies’ or ‘marble tiles’? Mr. Trump faces prison for reporting legal expenses as ‘legal expenses,’ which is legal.”
* * * Biden (D) Abortion:
Nearly one in five voters in battleground states say that President Biden is responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion, a new poll found. https://t.co/oUPkcRMcU3
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 16, 2024
If only the Democrats had codified Roe, instead of fundraising of it.
* * * “Biden and Trump Are Set to Debate—For Now” (NBC). “Two years ago, former President Donald Trump bullied the Republican National Committee into passing a resolution declaring zero cooperation with the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Trump was convinced the group that has run the events since 1988 was stacked against him. He also wanted the debates to start sooner, well before the early-vote window opened. Trump insisted to anyone who would listen that he was far from afraid of sharing a stage with President Joe Biden, and would welcome as many as 20 such encounters. Well, the double-digit double dates remains a long shot, but it looks like the ex-President is getting much of what he wanted in facing the current one. Wednesday morning, Biden and his campaign issued their own terms for a pair of one-on-one debates, and most of them matched up nicely with Trump’s red-line demands. The Commission on Presidential Debates is left out in the cold, the first session could come as early as next month, and the whole thing would be captured for a national television audience.” More drama to come: “(E)ven in accepting Biden’s topline terms, Trump was still holding out hopes that there would be an audience, something the Biden proposal explicitly excluded. ‘I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue,’ Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump is also likely to raise objections to Biden’s term that would mute a candidate’s microphone when it is not their turn—essentially silencing Trump’s constant interjections that, four years ago, resulted in an exasperated Biden muttering with disdain: ‘Will you shut up, man?’ And no one has yet said where, physically, the TBD host would stage these events, regardless of whether megadonors and hardcore activists are in the room or not.”
“Jake Tapper and Dana Bash tapped to moderate CNN debate” (The Hill). “CNN has selected anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash to moderate the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle between President Biden and former President Trump. The June 27 debate, which will be broadcast live, will take place at CNN’s Atlanta studios and won’t feature a studio audience. CNN’s is the first of two debates Biden and Trump agreed to Wednesday, with a second planned for September, hosted by ABC. ABC has yet to announce moderators for the September debate.”
“Why Biden did the debate throwdown, Trump agreed, and the risks for each side” (Howard Kurtz, FOX). “Candidates debate when they have to debate. That’s why Donald Trump didn’t during the primaries. That’s why Joe Biden, battling abysmal poll numbers, surprised everyone yesterday by agreeing to two debates. And why Trump, who’s been demanding a side-by-side comparison… immediately accepted.” And: “It’s hard to overstate the importance of these two events, which more than any debate since Ronald Reagan told Jimmy Carter in 1980 ‘there you go again,’ could decide the election. Biden was on track to lose the election. He’s been shielded and hardly making any news, even before Trump’s hush money trial began. His team must belatedly recognize this. Joe had to do something to shake things up. The Biden camp believes that his superior knowledge will become evident in no-frills debates. There’s also a conviction that the more the public sees of Trump, who’s been cooped up in a Manhattan courthouse, the better it is for the president. On the other hand, Trump’s sheer physical presence, and bombastic style, will present a favorable contrast to Biden’s elderly mien and thin voice (though they’re only 3-½ years apart). And trust me, as someone who’s sat down with Donald for an hour-long interview, he can focus and exercise discipline when he wants to.” • See the RCP chart I run each Friday; the race is very close. Both candidates can be excused for taking whichever side of “half empty or half full” they take. It seems the candidates themselves each decided to break a stalemate and inject volatility into the race themselves (without waiting for events). However, I would speculate that, just as in the markets, volatility most favors those with the deepest pockets, and Biden has more money than Trump. OTOH, a Trump dollar goes farther than a Biden dollar. So… let’s wait and see.
“Scripps News Exclusive: Trump willing to include Kennedy in debates with Biden” (WKBW). “In an exclusive interview with Scripps News on Thursday, former President Donald Trump said he would have ‘no problem’ sharing the debate stage with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if the independent presidential candidate met the polling threshold… ‘I would have no problem if he got whatever the threshold is,’ Trump told Benson. ‘But he’s very low and seems to be heading in the other direction, in the wrong direction.’”
* * * Kennedy (I): “R.F.K. Jr. Isn’t a Spoiler Now, Poll Suggests, but He Could Be in November” (New York Times). “Mr. Kennedy draws disproportionately from voters who usually back Democrats but have defected to Mr. Trump. In fact, Mr. Kennedy actually takes more Biden 2020 voters than Trump ’20 voters, even though Mr. Kennedy draws more Trump ’24 voters than Biden ’24 voters. He drew 8 percent of Mr. Biden’s 2020 supporters to 6 percent of those who backed Mr. Trump, even though more of his supporters would back Mr. Trump today. Similarly, Mr. Kennedy drew 7 percent of self-identified Democrats, compared with 4 percent of Republicans. And he drew 8 percent of those who backed Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate in the four states where we asked about them, compared with 6 percent of those who backed the Republican candidate. It might seem confusing that Mr. Kennedy is disproportionately strong among the sliver of Trump voters who usually vote Democratic, but it makes a lot of sense. The polls show many disengaged young and nonwhite voters who usually lean Democratic, but have soured so much on Mr. Biden that they backed Mr. Trump in the polls. But it’s not as if they love Mr. Trump. They voted against him last time, after all, and they usually vote Democratic. So it’s easy to see why these voters would prefer Mr. Kennedy to Mr. Trump. All of this adds up to an unusual takeaway: Mr. Kennedy may be winning over voters whom Mr. Biden may need in order to win, even if those voters have soured on him so much that they wouldn’t vote for him even if Mr. Kennedy weren’t on the ballot. He may not be a spoiler now, but perhaps he could be if Mr. Biden’s standing improved.” • I would bet it’s not only “disengaged young and nonwhite voters.”
Kennedy (I): On not ‘specially reliable authority:
BREAKING: A signature-gathering firm hired to secure Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s ballot spot in New York was actually covertly working for the DNC, and invalidated most of the collected ballots. Legal action against the firm is imminent, according to Kennedy.
— Patrick Webb (@RealPatrickWebb) May 15, 2024
I can’t find this confirmed anywhere, and I don’t see anything on this in Kennedy’s feed. Of course, the Democrats would, but that doesn’t mean that they did. Readers?
* * * PA: “Will Robert F. Kennedy Jr. make the ballot in Pennsylvania?” (Inquirer). “Independent candidates and third-party nominees must file petitions for ballot access by August 1. As an independent, Kennedy Jr., needs to file 5,000 signatures of registered voters and pay the state $200. That’s a relatively low threshold in the nation’s sixth most populous state. Delaware, which has a fraction of Pennsylvania’s population, sets a signature threshold of 1% of registered voters — which for this election is more than 7,600. Missouri, which has roughly half of Pennsylvania’s population, has a threshold of 10,000. The petition signers can be from anywhere in Pennsylvania, belong to a political party, or be unaffiliated. A spokesperson for Kennedy’s campaign said volunteers will soon begin collecting signatures in Pennsylvania. Campaigns could start filling them out in mid-February…. Kennedy’s petition signatures in Pennsylvania will need to survive expected legal challenges from the Democratic National Committee or outside groups. The DNC has launched an offensive against Kennedy, deploying mobile billboards to areas where he is campaigning that blast Kennedy for receiving donations from Trump donors.”
Spook Country
“US intel chief warns of increasing threats to 2024 election” (Agence France Presse). • Because of course they are. This is so, so stupid. Electoral politics is a rough game and a difficult business. Even the best of consultants, operatives, campaigners miss the mark, after spending enormous amounts of money and effort. Do we really believe some Russki influencers, no matter how dastardly — are going to be able to affect this process — digitally! — to the slightest degree? It’s demented, like imagining a mouse can assault an elephant. The real agenda here, I would submit, is ending up with a system whereby the spooks certify elections as being “clean.” No doubt that’s what the spooks want, but do we? Anyhow, here we go again:
The US government is fully reviving the Russiagate hoax for the 2024 election. pic.twitter.com/jge06myrXE
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 16, 2024
–>
The Wizard of Kalorama™
“Obama will headline fundraiser to boost Democratic Senate candidates” (NBC). “The June 5 event in Potomac, Maryland, will feature Obama and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the state’s junior senator, discussing ‘the importance of protecting Democrats’ Senate majority and the stakes of the election,’ a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee aide said. Longtime Democratic donors Jeffrey and Lora Drezner are hosting the evening fundraiser, according to a copy of the invitation.” • The Drezners are not AIPAC. But they are Sidwell Friends! So a nice tight little community.
Pandemics
“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
“North Carolina Senate panel advances anti-mask bill” (WRAL). “Senate Judiciary Committee Republican voted in a voice vote with Democrats objecting to advance a law to enhance penalties for people who wear masks while committing another crime or for those who block traffic. House Bill 237 now moves to another Senate committee. But the bill also removes a provision that exempts people who wear masks for health and safety reasons that was added in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.”
“North Carolina House Bill 237” (LegisScan). Here in relevant part is the text:
Senator Buck Newton: “The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson County, said the bill is not intended to “prosecute granny for wearing a mask in the Walmart — unless she was sticking steaks in her bag.” • What a knuckle-dragger. If what he says is true, then why delete section 6? Let Granny wear her mask and then prosecute her for shoplifting, which is already illegal, mask or no. Here is what HB237 outlaws:
This will be ILLEGAL in North Carolina: my niece and nephews masking for my health and safety after my double lung transplant for cystic fibrosis. Because state Senator Buck Newton feels threatened by college kids protesting, nobody can mask. #HB237 #ncpol #ncga pic.twitter.com/nk1BjqDV88
— Cat Williams (@dizzycatdesign) May 15, 2024
However, the bill has not yet passed:
We still do not know when #HB237 will be voted on in the NC House. They convened today and almost immediately voted to adjourn to Monday at 10am. That means there’s still time to contact your reps and in the meantime, mask up! 😷 https://t.co/U3vLSdR2uw
— GiannaMarie – Charlotte Mask Bloc (@the_GiannaMarie) May 16, 2024
(For numbers to call, see yesterday’s post here.)
Meanwhile, Maskless Mandy — quondam Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services — will be in-state shortly; I wonder if she’ll have anything to say:
Hey @CDCDirector—any words for the state of North Carolina as they ignore “health care issues”? You’ll be there in 6 days for @WakeForest‘s commencement; will you speak on an individuals right to use the tools @CDCgov recommends to control&prevent disease?https://t.co/9GZHbHXIlw https://t.co/kn03Rr0vc1 pic.twitter.com/sNmztaJjvS
— itsbabs.bsky.social ✨ (@babs_zone) May 14, 2024
Sequelae: Covid
“”Spanish flu,” encephalitis lethargica, and COVID-19: Progress made, lessons learned, and directions for future research” (European Journal of Neurology). “The so-called “Spanish flu” was the first globally documented viral pandemic and was active mostly between 1917 and 1920 in Europe, the USA, and other countries. It differed from other globally prevalent and active diseases such as polio or measles insofar as its infectious spread was in distinct waves that resulted in a high mortality of children and adults. It killed >20 million people worldwide, more than had died during the first World War. It incapacitated large areas of urban living and led to the closing of schools, universities, and other institutions. Public transportation was affected, as was any kind of public communication. Although the mode of transmission by air was eventually identified as the most likely mode of transmission, protection from being afflicted was not clear when the pandemic hit initially. It brought along a widespread fear of contagion. Wearing of masks, hand hygiene, avoiding public gatherings, and isolation of the diseased in special hospital wards were the main measures of protection for individuals. Approximately 2-3 million people developed an acute neurological disorder named ‘encephalitis lethargica,’ which had a high mortality of approximately 40%, receded only slowly, and in the mid-1920s had almost disappeared. Late, chronic forms persisted and occurred up to the late 1930s, and severe cases were mostly treated in psychiatric institutions. Some patients also developed a postencephalitic parkinsonism (PEP). .” • Looks like we dodged a bullet on an encephalitis lethargica equivalent; Long Covid is bad, but doesn’t have a mortality rate of 40%. Other than that, we don’t seem to have learned much. And given our Covid experience, the “repression in the public awareness” doesn’t seem “remarkable” at all, but rather the norm.
Origins Debate
“HHS suspends federal funding for EcoHealth Alliance” (STAT). “The Biden administration has suspended federal grants issued to EcoHealth Alliance, the infectious disease research group caught up in a controversy over its work in China, and plans to bar it from receiving future funding. The Health and Human Services Department dispatched its decision in a letter Tuesday, two weeks after House lawmakers grilled EcoHealth President Peter Daszak on the nonprofit’s research, oversight, and safety measures, particularly its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and contentious infectious disease studies known as gain-of-function research.” • Should have been done long ago, even leaving Wuhan and possible gain-of-function research aside; EcoHealth was clearly on omnishambles (Vanity Fair, 2022). Although one might indeed question whether omnishambularity served other purposes….
Elite Maleficence
First, this atrocity:
Mandy’s little doodle here mentions young families and pregnancy. Infants have the highest C0VlD hospitalization rate of any age group, and pregnant women are 8x more likely to die if they get infected with C0VlD. She should do some finger paints with the blood on her hands. https://t.co/hZfTSpLFot
— Derek Franks (@Derek_a_Franks) May 15, 2024
(The drawing style at top left is pervasive — note the extremely harmless and tentative half-smile — and it makes my back teeth itch.)
Now, this atrocity:
Turns out uninsured Americans won’t be able to get free COVID shots from @CDCgov this fall
Last year, federal Bridge Access Program pledged shots until December. That will now end in August, after Congressional cuts
“difficult decisions had to be made”https://t.co/lspZjMgugd https://t.co/jukUgj6DAt pic.twitter.com/vZ7DfiT8Jf
— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) May 15, 2024
Lambert here: Patient readers, I’m going to have to rethink this beautifully formatted table. Looks like Biobot data still functions, CDC variant data functions, ER visits are dead, New York hospitalization seems to be dead since 5/1 (No, it’s alive!), when CDC stopped mandatory hospital data collection, Walgreens functions, Cleveland Clinic functions, CDC traveler’s data functions, New York Times death data has stopped. (Note that the two metrics the hospital-centric CDC cared about, hospitalization and deaths, have both gone down). 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.
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) Slight upward movement, supported by yesterday’s Walgreen’s positivity.
(2) (Biobot) No backward revisons….
(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) The data is now updating again. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.
(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) Flattens.
(10) (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly. Still no mention of KP.2
(11) Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist….
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” (Trading Economics). “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 10,000 to 222,000 on the week ending May 11th, less than market expectations of 220,000. It was the third-highest reading this year, keeping the claims well above the last 9 months’ average, and pointing to the weakening labor market in the US.”
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production MoM” (Trading Economics). “Industrial production in the US was little changed in April, following a 0.1% increase in March and missing market expectations of a 0.1% growth. Manufacturing output, which makes up 78% of total production, decreased 0.3 percent, compared with market forecast of 0.1% increase. Also, mining output decreased 0.6 percent, largely because of an 18.1 percent decline in the index for coal mining. On the other hand, the output of utilities increased 2.8 percent.”
Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” (Trading Economics). “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US remained positive but dropped 11 points to 4.5 in May 2024, from a two-year high of 15.5 in April, below market expectations of 8.”
Housing: “United States Housing Starts” (Trading Economics). “Housing starts in the US rose 5.7% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.36 million in April 2024, reversing from a downwardly revised 1.287 million level in March. Figures came once again below forecasts of 1.42 million, as high rates and home prices continue to weigh on home builders.”
The Bezzle: “The hunt for rare bitcoin is nearing an end” (Ars Technica). “In the same way a dollar is made up of 100 cents, one bitcoin is composed of 100 million satoshis—or sats, for short. But not all sats are made equal. Those produced in the year bitcoin was created are considered vintage, like a fine wine. Other coveted sats were part of transactions made by bitcoin’s inventor. Some correspond with a particular transaction milestone. These and various other properties make some sats more scarce than others—and therefore more valuable. The very rarest can sell for tens of millions of times their face value; in April, a single sat, normally worth $0.0006, sold for $2.1 million. (Billy) Restey is part of a small, tight-knit band of hunters trying to root out these rare sats, which are scattered across the bitcoin network. They do this by depositing batches of bitcoin with a crypto exchange, then withdrawing the same amount—a little like depositing cash with a bank teller and immediately taking it out again from the ATM outside. The coins they receive in return are not the same they deposited, giving them a fresh stash through which to sift. They rinse and repeat.” • Totally productive activity, well worth the energy expended.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 59 Greed) (CNN). One week ago: 46 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated May 16 at 3:18:03 PM ET
Zeitgeist Watch
“Always Angry? How Pent-Up Fury Sabotages the Body” (Inside Hook). “Uncontrolled anger has a long list of unsavory side effects. Think: headaches, indigestion, insomnia, eczema and muscular tension (especially in the neck and shoulders). Chronic anger can even affect entire systems in the body — a study published in Immunology demonstrated that unchecked anger can even suppress the immune system, which makes you more susceptible to infections and illnesses. This line really stuck out to me: ‘Individuals with below average levels of anger control were shown to heal significantly slower than subjects less disposed to this emotion.’ The key word there is ‘control.’ It would be ridiculous to suggest that anger isn’t a real and valuable emotion in the human arsenal; the same study discusses anger’s advantageous role for our ancestors, priming their bodies before a fight. But we live in a different age — and slamming your hand against a laptop is not the same as battling a beast in the jungle. When you’re angry, your blood pressure, heart rate and adrenaline levels are all elevated. This puts a massive strain on the body, and especially on the cardiovascular system. Angry brains are swimming in way too much cortisol, all the time. This can impact your sense of memory, concentration and decision-making…and perhaps compel you to do angry little things (like getting embroiled in a road rage incident), feeding a self-defeatist cycle.” • Various strategies suggested, including physical activity, deep breathing, talking it out, timeouts, and “experiment” (lambert bangs head on desk).
The Gallery
Not hard to answer, but what lovely paintings:
Monet or Turner? pic.twitter.com/redoRss5bx
— Impressions (@impression_ists) May 11, 2024
“‘A Plaything for Rich People and Fancy Museums’? Reevaluating Impressionism at 150” (Artnet). “Context, in short, is key. ‘Many of the artists are responding to the traumatized citizens of Paris after ‘l’année terrible’ (“the terrible year,” as Victor Hugo called the violent series of conflicts rocking Paris from 1870-1871), and you cannot have what people think of as Impressionism… without considering what happened three years earlier in the capital, which was horrific,’ said (Mary Morton of the National Gallery). As a result, the Impressionists felt a ‘need to move forward, to forge a new path, and not be mired in the past, to move beyond all the trauma,’ added (Kimberly Jones at the NGA in Washington). ‘We’re presenting this so people understand what they’ve lived through, and why this art is forward-thinking, and why there is a degree of optimism in this.’…. As the world they knew shifted beneath them, the Impressionists, aware that all could have been lost in the recent destruction, took a leap and began showing the poetry and significance of a fleeting moment. Their rapid painting technique was ideally suited for this, allowing them to seize an ephemeral impression of light, or any simple act of daily life. This was indeed radical, and far from frivolous. It was life-affirming, and, for some, a mechanism for survival.” • I’m not sure the subtext on the Paris Commune is correct, here (I mean, “all could have been lost.” What would be wrong with losing Adolph Thiers?) I’m not sure about “art as a response to trauma” either. Have we seen any of that from Covid? I mean, apart from Taylor Swift’s tour?
Class Warfare
On “techno-feudalism,” so-called:
If any reader has time on their hands, perhaps they could grab a cup of coffee and see how Varoufakis’s thesis holds together.
Asking for my vote:
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) May 15, 2024
News of the Wired
“I Don’t Want To Spend My One Wild And Precious Life Dealing With Google’s AI Search” (Aftermath). Excellent rant: “Google’s AI search has arrived, uninvited, to my browser, and I cannot make it leave. It isn’t just that it serves me crap whenever I enter a question into my search bar, but that I have to wait for all the crap I don’t want in the first place. Let me tell you a story from my day: I was paying invoices, and I wanted to doublecheck that the number of episodes of our podcast, Aftermath Hours, squared with what our producers had billed for. I typed “Aftermath hours spotify” into my browser window, which–depending when I’ve last cleared my history–either autofills the URL for the podcast on Spotify or takes me to Google search results, where our Spotify page is the top result. But now, when I get Google, I have to wait through a nearly three-second pause before AI information about the podcast appears at the top of the page, followed by a link to Spotify and other results. While I appreciate that, in this instance, the AI-generated information about the podcast is correct, this information is not what I’m looking for, and I have to wait three seconds for it to show up just so I can ignore it. These three seconds are wrecking me. I’m not one of those lifehacking types who wants to optimize every bit of their day, but that three second wait is just enough friction that I notice it every time. It’s a small annoyance in the moment, but over the course of a day’s queries–any writer or editor can tell you that the number of weird searches you do adds up–that friction starts to build into a drag. I feel like to load onto my screen so I can scroll past it. That’s something I already deal with when visiting the ad-laden websites Google search brings up; I don’t need a preview! It makes the already unpleasant experience of Google search even worse than it already is. Before some stray AI evangelist leaps into the comments to promise the tech will get better, I want to be clear that even if it were instantaneous, I still wouldn’t want it. I didn’t ask for results from the plagiarism machine!” • I can’t wait….
I really like the Midwest Modern account (having grown up in the Midwest):
This is peak advertising. You could pay ad guys a million dollars and they wouldn’t come up with something this good. https://t.co/tUioXS0HpX
— Midwest Modern (@JoshLipnik) May 6, 2024
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: “So our drive from Westminster California to Trona, California always includes a long stretch of highway 395. There’s nothing along the route for many miles—I’m going to say take a stab and say 20 (give or take), but I’m never paying close attention. On that same note, I never think about what city I’m in, but according to my phone, this is Helendale. We just had to stop for the rainbow, and happily, my iPhone is smart enough to tell me where I am. I have to look this city up and see if anything exists in Helendale besides desert flora and fauna. I’m afraid I do not know what the yellow or purple wildflowers are.” Well, this is absurdly beautiful! I hope it’s a portent!
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!
