2:00PM Water Cooler 6/27/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Readers, there will be a Live Blog for The Debate, opening at 8:30PM EDT (and the link won’t work before then). Enjoy! –lambert

And reades, patient readers, I had a bit of a technical debacle, where an intermittent fault in posting caused me to lose some precious time. And now I must hustle! –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Eastern Meadowlark (Eastern), E OF DRYDEN; VIRGIL RD.; DANIEL CORY FARM, Tompkins, New York, United States. This is fantastic. Not only is it over five minutes long (with a “recorded announcement,” I grant) it’s older than I am. What a great resource.

In Case You Might Miss…

(1) The Debates, pre-game analysis.

(2) Murthy v. Missouri.

(3) Digital ID exposure debacle.

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!

* * *

The Debates: “In This Debate, CNN Is the Decider” [New York Times]. “For the first time in decades, a single television network will have sole discretion over the look, feel and cadence of a general-election presidential debate. Unlike in past years, when an independent, nonprofit commission oversaw the contests, CNN has picked the moderators, designed the set and will choose the camera angles that viewers see. Lest any voters forget who’s in charge, the red CNN logo will be ubiquitous: Rival channels seeking to simulcast the event had to agree to leave the network’s on-air watermark untouched.” More: “Within the cutthroat TV news industry, the debate is seen as an enormous marketing coup for CNN, which even at a time of austerity for cable television has stood out for ignominious reasons. The channel is currently on track for its lowest-rated month in prime time since 1991, with fewer than 100,000 average viewers a night among adults 25 to 54, according to Nielsen.” And: “[T]he last time CNN hosted a major televised political event, at a New Hampshire town hall last May, it was widely perceived as a debacle…. The CNN leader behind that evening, Chris Licht, was fired a month later. Thursday’s debate is a significant test for his successor, Mr. Thompson, a former chief executive of The New York Times and director general of the BBC.” Finally: “On Thursday, much focus will be on the moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, and their ability to keep proceedings on track. Neither anchor has moderated a general-election debate, but they both have experience at various Republican and Democratic primary debates sponsored by CNN, including an audience-free bout between Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders in March 2020.”

The Debates: “The Guy Playing Trump in Biden’s Debate Prep Has Some Thoughts” [Politico]. “Bob Bauer is Biden’s personal attorney and has had a long career as one of the Democratic Party’s top campaign lawyers. But these days, he may be best known for playing Trump during Biden’s mock debate sessions.” Bauer on the format: “[L]et’s start with it being a Kennedy-Nixon format without an audience. Let’s take down the, if you will, the politics of audience. That is to say the hooting and the endless effort on the part of moderators to warn the audience that they really need to be quiet and not create any kind of commotion. This is a serious format. It’s a format in which the candidates can be heard, but they’re the only ones who are heard and they’re performing for the country, not performing for a select audience, some of whom were fortunate enough to receive tickets to the event. So I think that is a very strong point in its favor.”

* * *

Trump (R): I guess we’lll see how Trump does with only two minutes per answer to work with:

Be as objective as you can. Policy differences aside, watch the first 20-30 minutes of Trump’s interview with @theallinpod — where, unscripted, he’s pressed on complex policy questions — and then try to argue his supposed “cognitive decline” is in the same universe as Biden’s: https://t.co/cm8TjYvtKZ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 22, 2024

Trump (R): Pretty soon the Democrats are going to have to pivot away from racism:

Yet another poll shows Trump making huge gains with Black and Latino voters, while stable or slightly losing ground with White voters

2020 Trump vote:

White: 58%
Black: 12%
Latino: 32%

2024 Trump vote (per YouGov poll):

White: 57%
Black: 24%
Latino: 44% pic.twitter.com/x8MET1XwYX

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 23, 2024

* * *

Republican Funhouse

“Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision” [Associated Press]. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” –Mike Tyson. Meaning, as I urge here, that planning is one thing, and the ability to execute is another. More: “With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own. Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page ‘Project 2025’ handbook and an ‘army’ of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the ‘deep state’ bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers.” • To be fair, I need to dig into the Heritage Foundation’s plan for the civil service, assault on the civil service, and so forth (out of scope for this post). Offhand, though, I don’t think boot camps for conservatives are going to do the job (or, rather, they will do about as well as Liberty University Law School did in producing putatively Christian lawyers for the Bush Administration). Governing really is a skill. It’s not like running a business or, for pity’s sake, a start-up.

“House Dems angle to head off Project 2025, second Trump term” [Courthouse News Service]. Reading all the way to the end: “The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year approved a subpoena for the Federalist Society founder, demanding he turn over the financial details of his relationship with Supreme Court justices. Leo, however, has refused to comply with the summons and Democrats have been largely silent about whether they will step up enforcement action against him.” • I would certainly be shocked and horrified if all the Democrat pearl-clutching about Project 2025 was nothing but a fundraising gimmick (and a talking point for Joe Biden, master debater).

* * *

NV: “Why Nevada Is the Most Unpredictable Swing State in the 2024 Election” [Bloomberg]. “Of all the battleground states in the US presidential election, none is a greater puzzle for Joe Biden and Donald Trump than Nevada. That’s because the state – with its relatively sparse population and high proportion of Spanish-speaking residents – is unusually difficult to poll. In one example of its inscrutability, two surveys conducted on overlapping days in May had sharply different results: A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found Biden and Trump tied in Nevada, while a New York Times/Siena College poll found the Republican ahead by 12 points. No other battleground state has produced such a wide range of recent polling results, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Add to that some of the most rapid demographic change anywhere in the US, and the state whose major population center is Las Vegas is shaping up to be the race’s biggest crapshoot.” • Worth reading in full. It’s complicated out there on the ground!

* * *

“The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day” [David French, New York Times]. “When we moved to Tennessee in 2006, we selected our house in part because it was close to a [Presbyterian Church in America] church, and that church became the center of our lives. On Sundays we attended services, and Monday through Friday our kids attended the school our church founded and supported. We loved the people in that church, and they loved us.” But: “I was a senior writer for National Review at the time, and when I wrote pieces critical of Trump, members of the alt-right pounced, and they attacked us through our daughter. They pulled pictures of her from social media and photoshopped her into gas chambers and lynchings. Trolls found my wife’s blog on a religious website called Patheos and filled the comments section with gruesome pictures of dead and dying Black victims of crime and war. We also received direct threats. The experience was shocking. At times, it was terrifying. And so we did what we always did in times of trouble: We turned to our church for support and comfort. Our pastors and close friends came to our aid, but support was hardly universal. The church as a whole did not respond the way it did when I deployed. Instead, we began encountering racism and hatred up close, from people in our church and in our church school. The racism was grotesque. One church member asked my wife why we couldn’t adopt from Norway rather than Ethiopia.” • An experience not unique on the right, I might add. Nevertheless.

“Tampa dentist arrested after making more than 100 online threats, FBI says” [Tampa Bay]. “In one text message, Kantwill made death threats to a person he identified as a ‘fake Reverend.’ ‘Being the anti-Christ piece of s–t that you are, we are going to kill you. Torture first, then death,’ the text from Kantwill reads. The victim installed nearly $4,500 worth of surveillance cameras ‘due to his genuine fear of Kantwill,’ according to court records. A private message sent by Kantwill through Instagram to another person reads, ‘Cannot wait to shoot your ghetto ass in the street,’ followed by a racial slur. In September 2019, he wrote to one victim: ‘God bless the Great President Trump and his family. F–k you and yours. Hire extra security … you’re gonna need it.’ The next month, the FBI interviewed Kantwill and told him to stop sending the messages. ‘Despite the FBI’s warning, Kantwill spent the next 10 months sending threats to over 40 victims via social media and email,’ the motion states.” • Again, not unique to any political party or faction, though operating differently in different cases (for example, the Canadian government closing the bank accounts of protesting truck drivers, pretty violent if you’ve got to make rent). However, I translate this to harassment of election officials, where every case I know about came from Trump supporters post-2020. I think that’s a bad thing, partly because election officials tend to be volunteers, and also because those in my small town are church-going older ladies.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Sharing”:

Today’s SCOTUS decision in Murthy v. Missouri is a win for fighting election disinformation. It overturns the 5th Circuit’s extreme ruling, and allows government agencies to resume sharing their expertise/information on foreign interference, voting disinfo, and election threats.

— Brennan Center (@BrennanCenter) June 26, 2024

As I have been saying for some time, the spooks are intelligence community is seeking the power to determine whether elections are legitimate or not; that is what the Brennan Center’s tweet amounts to operationally. What happens on Wednesday, November 6, when stories on “foreign interference” and “election disinformation,” sourced to anonymous government officials, appear on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post? (Remember, again, that for Democrats, election 2024 is existential.)

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!

Variants: Covid

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 6,000 from the prior week to 233,000 on the period ending June 22nd, below market expectations of 236,000. The claim count fell for a second consecutive week since hitting the 10-month high of 243,000, but remained well above the average from this year to underscore that while the US labor market remains at historically tight levels, it has softened from its post-pandemic [sic] resilience.”

Manufacturing: “United States Durable Goods Orders” [Trading Economics]. “New orders for manufactured durable goods in the United States rose by 0.1% month-over-month in May 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.2% increase in April and better than market forecasts of a 0.1% fall. It marked the fourth consecutive monthly advance in durable goods orders, albeit slowly.”

Manufacturing: “United States Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production index fell to -11 in June 2024 from -1 in the previous month, pointing to the fourth monthly contraction. The decline was primarily driven by paper, plastics, machinery, and transportation equipment manufacturing. All month-over-month indexes were negative and fell from last month, except supplier delivery time and the price indexes.”

GDP: “United States GDP Growth Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The US economy expanded an annualized 1.4% in Q1 2024, slightly higher than 1.3% in the second estimate, but continuing to point to the lowest growth since the contractions in the first half of 2022.”

Tech: “ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses” [404 Media]. “A company that verifies the identities of TikTok, Uber, and X users, sometimes by processing photographs of their faces and pictures of their drivers’ licenses, exposed a set of administrative credentials online for more than a year potentially allowing hackers to access that sensitive data, according to screenshots and data obtained by 404 Media. The company, called AU10TIX, offers what it describes on its website as ‘full-service identity verification solutions.’ This includes verifying peoples’ identity documents, conducting ‘liveness detection’ in a real-time video stream with the user, and performing age verification, where a service will predict how old someone is based on their uploaded photo. AU10TIX also includes the logos of other companies on its site, such as Fiverr, PayPal, Coinbase, LinkedIn, and Upwork, some of which confirmed to 404 Media they are active or former AU10TIX clients.” • But no retina or fingerprint data, so everything is good!

Tech: “The Revenue Agency puts Google in its sights: alleged 1 billion tax evasion” [First Online]. Italian (and their own translation): “After the agreement signed in 2016, the Italian tax authorities once again put the spotlight on Google, challenging the Mountain View giant for alleged tax evasion worth one billion. The Revenue Agency puts it in the sights again Google. And this time the bill could be billions. She reveals it The Sun 24 hours, according to which the Italian tax authorities are challenging the Mountain View giant alleged tax evasion amounting to approximately 1 billion of Euro. The Milan Prosecutor’s Office is also investigating the matter.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 46 Neutral (previous close: 41 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 40 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 26 at 1:24:11 PM ET.

Class Warfare

News of the Wired

“A Spud Gunners’ Guide” [SpudGuns.org]. The deck: “The definitive potato cannon guide,” More: “Well it’s been a long time in coming however I’ve finally ported a great design for spudguns.org that I’ve had sitting on the back burner for a number of years. Took a bit of doing to code the design by hand in Notepad with all the nested tables originally, however with Dreamweaver it’s only taken a few hours, not weeks. My goal on this site is to be a on[e] stop shop to reference existing designs, math, ideas, everything related to potato guns.” • I have a vague memory I was thinking of building one of these things to fire at the woodchucks, but readers talked me out of it. So maybe not news you can use.

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 griffen:

Griffen writes: “Recent May hike excursion in North Carolina’s Dupont Forest. Pretty decent rainfall prior to going there.”

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: