2:00PM Water Cooler 6/25/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Bird Song of the Day

Eastern Meadowlark, Illinois Prairie Path–DuPage Airport, DuPage, Illinois, United States.

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) The Debates, pre-game analysis.

(2) Hillary Clinton has a book forthcoming.

(3) Counting and scripting/a> in the caring professions.

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!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

At this point, we should entertain the hypothesis that the Bragg verdict is a damp squib, unless Biden can somehow leverage it in the debate. Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. 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. If will be interesting to see whether the verdict in Judge Merchan’s court affects the polling, and if so, how. NOTE Sorry for the excess red dots; I can’t seem to make them go away!

* * *

Trump (R): “Campaign walks back Trump’s green card promise” [FOX]. “Former President Trump’s campaign walked back a promise that the former president would ‘automatically’ award green cards to migrants after they graduate from college. ‘President Trump has made it clear that on day one of his new administration, he’s going to shut down the border and launch the largest mass deportation effort of illegal aliens in history,’ Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement last week, according to a New York Post report, noting that the former president would include an ‘aggressive vetting process’ and ‘exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges.’ The comments come after Trump’s appearance on the “All-in Podcast” last week, where the former president outlined an idea to give all foreign college graduates a green card with their diploma.” • Let Trump be Trump!

* * *

Biden (D): “Greenwashing Kamala Harris: How the Veep Casts Herself as an Environmental Justice Crusader” [RealClearInvestigations]. “Vice President Kamala Harris has long cast herself as a fearless pioneer of efforts to fight for social and environmental justice. ‘When I was elected DA of San Francisco,’ Harris told a gathering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta last year, ‘I started the first environmental justice unit of any DA’s office in the country.’ In her telling, the San Francisco District Attorney formed the special environmental justice unit in the early 2000s especially to protect the long-neglected community of Bayview Hunters Point, a predominantly African American and impoverished part of the city, which had become ‘a dumping ground for people from other places.’ … But records from the San Francisco District Attorney’s office and interviews with local environmental advocates point to a different, far less ambitious record. ‘We’re unaware of any major or semi-major environmental justice work done by Harris in Bayview Hunters Point, including on the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site,’ said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, a progressive watchdog group that seeks to ‘to promote environmental, social, economic and climate justice.’ Steve Castleman, an attorney with UC Berkeley’s Environmental Law Clinic, who has worked on urban pollution issues in the Bay Area, also noted that he did not know of any significant Harris environmental justice action as DA. Far from targeting powerful corporate interests, Harris’ environmental justice unit appears to have filed only a few lawsuits, all against small-time defendants. The targets included a young man who conducted illegal smog checks at a small auto body shop in the city and a left-leaning community newspaper accused of illegally dumping leftover ink in an abandoned lot. Another defendant charged by the unit was a small construction company accused of using adulterated concrete. The major industrial polluters of San Francisco were left untouched under Harris’ watch during her two terms that ended in 2010.” • Oh.

* * *

Kennedy (I): On Assange:

Julian Assange struck a plea deal and will go free! I am overjoyed. He’s a generational hero.

The bad news is that he had to plea guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense info. Which means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 24, 2024

* * *

The Debates: “The Little Secret I’ve Learned From 30 Years of Watching Debates With Voters” [Frank Luntz, New York Times]. “Nothing draws the ire of the average voter more than candidates speaking beyond their allotted time, my focus groups have shown. While most professional debate observers ignore candidates who run long, voters punish them mercilessly. It was a major reason many undecided voters turned so strongly against Mr. Trump after his undisciplined performance in the first debate in 2020. That debate, the most consequential one in memory, was one in which many voters and political experts drew roughly the same conclusions. Mr. Trump entered the debate trailing Mr. Biden by just a couple of percentage points, but his questionable strategy to insult, badger and bully Mr. Biden was received so badly by the women in my focus group that they were as harsh about Mr. Trump as he was to Mr. Biden. In contrast, there was one moment in the Trump-Clinton debates when voter opinion really struck me. It was Mr. Trump’s offhand comment that Mrs. Clinton belonged in jail. Many pundits and political experts hated it. My focus group loved it. For them, it was accountability in action for someone as important as her, a former secretary of state. To be sure, many political experts zeroed in on the moment as a striking instance of a presidential nominee threatening to weaponize the justice system against his opponent. But I think what they missed was a yearning among some voters to see a senior official held to account and not let off the hook by a system seen as protecting insiders.” • I’m sure that Trump’s campaign team was happy with the microphone muting, for the reason Luntz gives.

The Debates: “Debates Are Lost, Not Won” [RealClearPolitics]. “Trump’s risk is less what he says and more how he acts. Will he seem unhinged, overbearing, or out of control? Biden’s risk is also less what he says, and more how he looks saying it. Will he seem frail, disoriented, or too old?” • One again, the muted microphones are a plus for Trump.

The Debates: “You Don’t Need a Shrink to Tell You Why You Feel This Way” [Harold Mayerson, The American Prospect]. “So Biden and his campaign have no need to lower expectations going into the debate, though that’s common practice for presidential candidates. Trump and his ilk have already done that for him, day in and day out for the past couple of years. If Biden actually can stand up [let’s not talk about his gait, eh?] and remember things, he will have undercut the one perception most damaging to his prospects: that he’s too old to be president—at least, when compared to Trump. For which reason, ironically, Biden goes into the debate having to surmount the same hurdle as novice candidates (a category in which Biden certainly does not belong): demonstrating that he’s simply up to the job.” • Strikes me as a debater’s point (though yes, I think diagnosis from digital evidence is both over-the-top and not needed).

The Debates: “First debate a chance for Biden to finish the Trump smackdown he started during State of the Union” [Salon]. A collection of “zingers.” More: “‘A convicted criminal who’s only out for himself.’ President Biden’s campaign last week launched a $50 million TV ad buy whose key line shows how to capture two central truths about Trump. The first — that the former president is a ‘convicted criminal’ — speaks for itself and is hard for Trump to escape. The second part of the ad – ‘he’s in it only for himself’ is equally important. Biden can quote Bill Barr, Trump’s own attorney general, who said about Trump, ‘He will always put his own interests . . . ahead of everything else.’” • Quoting people who have worked for Trump (there are other examples in the article) is an interesting tactic and might get The Donald riled up.

* * *

“Is Joe Biden’s bizarre behavior a GOP ‘cheap fake’? It’s up to him to prove that he’s OK.” [USA Today]. “Cheap fake essentially means a real video is edited in a way to become misleading. I’ve seen various versions of all the videos, however, and regardless of how they were edited or framed, Biden does not come out looking good. I encourage you to watch them for yourselves. Calling them cheap fakes is bad enough, but Jean-Pierre went further and outright lied about these clips being ‘deepfakes,’ which implies false content created through artificial intelligence or other technology.” The full Jean-Pierre quote: “Instead of talking about the president’s performance in office — and what I mean by that is his legislative wins, what he’s been able to do for people across this country — we’re seeing these deepfakes, these manipulated videos.” • From this wording, it’s also possible that Jean-Pierre is simply ignorant, and thinks that “deepfake” and “manipulated video” are synonyms.

Clinton Legacy

“Hillary Clinton to warn voters in book coming 7 weeks before election” [Axios] “Just seven weeks before the election, Hillary Rodham Clinton will release a book called “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty,” which is billed as ‘Hillary like you haven’t seen her before.’” I hope not. More: “The book includes ‘new personal insights about her old adversary Vladimir Putin.’” • Geopolitics is always personal with these people; I don’t think it’s a grift, I think it’s how they genuinely think, if either of those two words is the word I want. Everything is like high school. And speaking of making it personal, I wonder if Mother’s book will include this:

Never forget…

When Julian Assange was releasing US Government war crimes back in 2010, Hillary Clinton proposed drone striking him. pic.twitter.com/oObqv6iT91

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) June 25, 2024

Republican Funhouse

They just can’t help themselves:

House GOP is trying to cut the Antitrust Division by 20% and gut the legislation that passed in 2022 to increase funding when there’s more mergers. Populism!

(And to be clear this is the budget for next year, so it could be Trump’s antitrust division…) pic.twitter.com/RJah1myYNw

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) June 25, 2024

Democrats en Déshabillé

Realignment and Legitimacy

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!

Censorship and Propaganda

“A resource for COVID-19 research and information [“You Have To Live Your Life”] • Maps minimizing, eugenicist cliché to counter-evidence using dropdowns:

There should really be a word for “minimizing, eugenicist cliché.” Perhaps in German?

Prevention

“And Now Xylitol” [Derek Lowe, Science]. “The authors studies two large and separate cohorts of patients across several years, and fasting xylitol concentration in the blood certainly seems to be correlated with major adverse coronary events, along with stroke… The evidence looks pretty solid, although the mechanism (as with erythritol) is still something of a mystery. … At any rate, I would regard these studies as reason enough to avoid both of these compounds as sweeteners, and I would extend the caution to the other sugar alcohols as well (maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, etc.) We really need to understand more about these things, and ditching the sugar-free gummy candies and the like seems like a prudent move.” • So I guess Xylitol chewing gum as a Covid preventative is out?

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

“The Economy”: “United States Chicago Fed National Activity Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Fed National Activity Index increased to +0.18 in May 2024, the highest in three months, up from a revised -0.26 in April.”

Manufacturing: “United States Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The composite manufacturing index in the US Fifth District slumped to -10 in June of 2024 from the neutral reading of 0 in the earlier period, a sharp contrast to market expectations of a 2.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 39 Fear (previous close: 39 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 44 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 25 at 1:47:21 PM ET.

Class Warfare

“The Triumph of Counting and Scripting” [Salon]. “Erin Nash was a hospital chaplain whose job was to be with people in some of their worst moments, praying, holding hands, even singing with them. Shadowing her on her rounds, I watched as she managed to create brief peaceful moments with suffering patients and their families again and again, making temporary sanctuary between the thin blue medical curtains despite the buzzing alarms, fluorescent lighting, and constant stream of footsteps on the linoleum floors nearby. I was surprised to learn that in addition to consoling the bereaved and calming the anxious, Erin (the names in this piece have been changed) had to fill out three separate charts—including the standard electronic health records system that many clinicians use—for every person she visited. She even carried around a cheat sheet to help her remember the codes, murmuring, under her breath, ‘Asking for a prayer is a resource, family together is a resource,” while she hunted and pecked at the keyboard. Nobody was being billed for Erin’s work, so why was she charting in triplicate? To find the answer, I spent five years talking to workers like Erin, as well as the managers and engineers who are trying to design and impose the systems that control her work. Ultimately, the spread of data analytics into feeling labor is more than just the latest frontier in an inexorable drive toward increasing efficiency everywhere. It has implications for A.I., the future of work, and the stratification of human contact.” • Reminds me of this from The Onion…

“First we shape our social graph; then it shapes us” [Henrik Karlsson, Escaping Flatland]. “I’ve been using the word culture so far, but that is not the exact word for what I am gesturing at. It is not the wider culture we internalize; it is the particular set of influences that surround us, what Tim Urban has called ‘our unique cultural intersection’. Is there a word for this? I don’t know. But discussing the terminology with GPT-3, a large language model, it suggests I use the word milieu, which sounds sophisticated in a distinctly French way. This I can live with. A milieu, says GPT-3, is the culture contained in your unique set of connections. (Merriam Webster’s dictionary says ‘the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops.’) Unlike the word culture, as anthropologists invoke it when they talk about ‘French culture’ or ‘Balinese culture,’ a milieu is not a monolithic thing. Your milieu is not the same as your sister’s. It is an ever-shifting, individual configuration of information flows. The Twitter feed you have curated is a milieu. Your friend group (which is not the same as the friend groups of the other people in that group!) is a milieu. It is by changing your milieu that you change yourself. Curating our milieu is something we all do these days, if not always consciously.” •

News of the Wired

I am not feeling wired today.

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: “We’ve been lucky in that the prior owners of our property never used chemicals. Neither do we and as a result, the amphibians love to hang out in our yard. The perennial geranium just started to bloom and will come on strong this week after the rain.” “Skink” is, IIRC, the name of a dealer in Spook Country. But this ampihibian seems quite nice!

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