Readers, I keep needing to leave notes like this, which is embarrassing. I promised a long Water Cooler today, but I misunderestimated the time it would take to finish a post on the splendors and miseries of Biden’s debate performance and the subsequent reactions to it. So today will be almost entirely politics, and maybe a little Covid (except for the nine charts, none of which are good news), and tomorrow’s best laid plan is for mostly Covid, which I can finish up before I hit the road. –lambert
Common Loon, Brown Bear Lake-middle, Kitimat-Stikine, British Columbia, Canada. “2 loons that I paddled right by. They were just swimming around in the middle of the lake. No sign of a nest, but I didn’t look. After I passed they started calling.”
(1) New Covid charts. Readers, I’m not happy about any of this, especially before the holiday weekend. Stay safe out there!
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Larry Tribe seems not to grasp the concept of context. He writes:
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 69 that former presidents would be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” But what did he know? He was just a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the…
— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) July 2, 2024
Here is the full quote from Federalist 69:
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and .
It’s the “afterwards” part that’s key. At least for official functions, you can’t get at the “ordinary course of law” (i.e., criminal charges) without going through impeachment first.
Lambert here: I don’t think much of the Court’s latest in Trump v. United States: “Absolute immunity” means absolute; to that extent liberals yammering about Kings are correct (although I suppose one could argue that we now have an elective monarch, rather than a heriditary one). But you can’t have “absolute” anything in a system of checks and balances; as Madison wrote in Federalist 51: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” But if the constitional rights of the “place” (i.e., official position) are “absolute,” then there is nothing to counteract the ambitions of the man, and so the majority in Trump v. United States has produced an absurd, system-destroying result. OTOH, it’s hard to see how lawfare, systematically pursued, could produce any other result, given that any Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich, and anybody can be found guilt of violating some law, given a level of effort. So if you want “energy in the executive,” you can’t sap that branch with contrived and tendentious lawsuits, and so there has to be a rule to sort them. Now there is a rule (“be careful what you wish for”). Once again Trump, as is his little way, has found a limit case in the system, and broken through it by pursuing the case to its logical conclusion. I would speculate the remedy for the butchery in Trump v. United States is Constitutional: If a President wants to break a law as part of a core executive function, Congress can over-ride by a majority vote, which the President could veto, and the veto could be over-ridden by a two-thirds majority. Perhaps readers can provide a better fix. Commentary:
This is “the only fix?” Even the Framers understood that wishing “men were angels”—i.e., not susceptible to abusing power given to them—is to wish for there to be no need for government at all. We’ve reverted to pre-constitutional thinking here. https://t.co/jAeqAg6C5h
— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) July 2, 2024
That bad government is the result of “the bad people” in office is absolutely Third World thinking. I don’t recall ever listening to Maddow; but whoever is, should stop.
FAFO:
Presidents enjoyed functional immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” between 1789 and 2023. Now, the Supreme Court has codified that immunity. This is largely thanks to the Special Counsel purporting to criminalize a massive array of “official” actions undertaken…
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 1, 2024
Why not (1):
something singularly brash & dictatorial like this will not faze T***p if he is re-elected; yet, a Democrat would never do it. it’s the old paradox of liberals creating the environment for the extinction of liberalism as in plant evolution a primary species creates the… https://t.co/Yh5i0FBqW2
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) July 2, 2024
* * * Here is one handy diagram about how Trump v. United States could affect Trump’s current cases:
There’s a lot of misunderstanding of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the presidential immunity #January6th case.
We created this infographic @just_security to explain:
– the pathways open to Jack Smith
– the scope of immunity from prosecution for all future presidents pic.twitter.com/XlFOwLldp8— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) July 1, 2024
The effect of Trump v. United States on Smith’s prosecution in Chutkan’s court:
The case now gets remanded back to the District Court, where Judge Chutkan is in charge. She’s been ordered to engage in proceedings to determine whether Trump’s actions were “official acts” of the office of the President, or “unofficial acts” of a candidate or citizen.
— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) July 1, 2024
Trump v. United States should not affect the Georgia case:
This is the money quote for the whole Trump v. United States case. Justice Barrett has it exactly right — and shows why the Court (and maybe the Special Counsel) is making this way too hard. The sole question should be whether acts relating to running for president are core… pic.twitter.com/PLD933l6W0
— Lessig 🇺🇦 (@lessig) July 1, 2024
If in fact a President’s running for President is a core official function, than indeed l’etat c’est moi. So, something to watch.
2024
Less than a half a year to go!
RCP takes North Carolina off the table as a Swing State, and replaces it with Virginia. Trump is still holding his own, and this is before 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!
* * * Biden (D): Desperation sets in:
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden just co-authored a piece laying into big pharmaceutical companies for over-charging Americans on obesity drugs. I realize Biden is senile, but would his replacements do anything like this? Most wouldn’t. https://t.co/e6qUxGJTDk
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 2, 2024
Biden (D): Oh good:
SCOOP: The Democratic National Committee will take over the digital homepages of three major battleground-state newspapers tomorrow. It looks to “remind voters that the only thing that stands between Donald Trump and our democracy is Joe Biden.” https://t.co/O1ALXNuRaz
— Axios (@axios) July 2, 2024
Back in the day, David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was running for Governor of Lousiana against the famously corrupt Edwin Edwards (“The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”) The Democrats won, with an equally famous bumper sticker that read: “Vote for the crook. It’s important!” So, “Vote for the corpse. It’s important!” (and [family blog it] the [family blogging] National Review got there first. Why oh why do Democrats suck so much?!
* * * [Whoops, forget to delete the squillion links I’d collected and can’t get to. Maybe later! –lambert]
* * *
Republican Funhouse
https://x.com/galvinalmanza/status/1807195762192724403?s=12
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!
Vaccines
“NIH-sponsored trial of nasal COVID-19 vaccine opens” (press release) [NIH]. N = 60. “A Phase 1 trial testing the safety of an experimental nasal vaccine that may provide enhanced breadth of protection against emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is now enrolling healthy adults at three sites in the United States. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is sponsoring the first-in-human trial of the investigational vaccine, which was designed and tested in pre-clinical studies by scientists from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Laboratory of Infectious Diseases.” • Late is better than never, I suppose. I just hope they don’t butcher this like they butchered the RECOVER (Long Covid) project. Perhaps one of our medical mavens can comment on the study methodology; the arms, and so forth.
Variants: Covid
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. Worse than two weeks ago. New York is a hot again, and Covid is spreading up the Maine Coast just in time for the Fourth of July weekend, in another triumph for Administration policy.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) LB.1 coming up on the outside.
[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Now acceleration, which is compatible with a wastewater decrease, but still not a good feeling .(The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation, which in fact shows that Covid is not seasonal. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[7] (Walgreens) Still going up!
[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. 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 rasnge. 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) Same deal. Those sh*theads. I’m leaving this here for another week because I loathe them so much:
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The number of job openings rose by 221,000 from the previous month to 8.140 million in May 2024, beating the market consensus of 7.91 million. It follows a downwardly revised 7.919 million in April which was the lowest in three years. ”
Supply Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Logistics Manager’s Index in the US edged lower to 55.3 in June 2024 from 55.6 in May, but pointed to a seventh consecutive month of expansion in the logistics sector.”
The Bezzle: Direct action brings satisfaction:
A supermarket in France decided to go cashless.
A group of more than 50 locals got together and all went and filled trolleys at the same time.
They came to the check out and all said that they only had cash. No cash = leaving the stuff behind and walking out.
The manager was…
— Miss Jo (@therealmissjo) July 1, 2024
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Neutral (previous close: 47 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 2 at 12:42:35 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Oil Supply/Price. “Oil demand is stable” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 186. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Not what the climate coverage implies.
Class Warfare
“The Shareholder Supremacy” [Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?]. “[I]t was the Shareholder Supremacy movement that created the nebulous creature known as ‘management’ — a figurehead that exists to increase company value and make speeches rather than have any kind of domain expertise or bonafides, someone with just the ability to move numbers around and point at people to ‘get things done,’ even if ‘things’ might mean ‘make something worse as a means of cutting costs.’ In the eyes of the Shareholder Supremacist, the CEO of a tech company isn’t someone that builds, invests in, or proliferates technologies, but a stage-magician-accountant hybrid that uses a combination of sleight of hand and vague promises to convince those around them that a company is ‘the future,’ with the occasional result being that the company might develop technology at some point. Yet it took decades for the damage to really set in, when, in 1960, a horrible little man called Jack Welch would join General Electric….” • “A stage-magician-accountant hybrid….” Dave Calhoun, is that you?
News of the Wired
“The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet” [New York Times]. “We stepped out and walked a short distance to a large plastic spigot protruding from the rock. A pearly stream of water trickled from the wall near the faucet’s base, forming rivulets and pools. Wafting from the water was hydrogen sulfide — the source of the chamber’s odor. Kneeling, I realized that the water was teeming with a stringy white material similar to the skin of a poached egg. Caitlin Casar, a geobiologist, explained that the white fibers were microbes in the genus Thiothrix, which join together in long filaments and store sulfur in their cells, giving them a ghostly hue. Here we were, deep within Earth’s crust — a place where, without human intervention, there would be no light and little oxygen — yet life was literally gushing from rock.” • Perspective!
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: “This is at the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona Del Mar – a favorite haunt. I liked the spotlight effect of the sun on the rich orange/red blossoms. The fly was a bonus…or not, depending on how one feels about flies.” I guess at thsi point I’m for any insects at all, until the soil microbes figure out what to do next!
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