2:00PM Water Cooler 12/19/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Quitman Farm, Brooks, Georgia, United States.

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Continuing Resolution founders, DOGE extra-constiutional, Trump opposes debt ceiling
2. Mangione extradited to New York, lawyer claims overcharging.
3. Boeing sells some planes.

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

Biden Administration

“A Weary Biden Heads for the Exit” [New York Times]. “The biggest box left is a cease-fire in Gaza and if he manages that, it would be a validating triumph for a departing president.” • Gag me with a spoon.

Trump Transition

“Republicans scrap spending bill, under pressure from Trump and Musk” [WaPo]. “Republicans scrapped House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan plan to avert a government shutdown, as President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk joined a broad swath of the House GOP on Wednesday to condemn a compromise bill that included Democratic policy priorities. The rebuke, which built steadily through the day and culminated with a long written statement from Trump in the late afternoon, has forced Johnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime shutdown — and maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be reelected as speaker early next year.” • Musk comments:

The voice of the people was heard.

This was a good day for America. https://t.co/r8K4AcbDYf

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024

Are we little children of six? This is a dogpile orchestrated on X by the owner of X, in service of the extra-constitutional entity DOGE:

Critics say DOGE isn’t an actual “department.” They’re right. It’s a new way of doing government itself.

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 19, 2024

So, no problem there! I inveighed against extra-constitutional entities here, when Biden was losing his mind, and it wasn’t clear who, exactly, was running the country. And the same situation obtains today (“Heather Has Two Presidents”). Axelrove is right to ask:

So will President-elect Musk join the budget negotiations now?

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) December 18, 2024

“Rand Paul floats Elon Musk for Speaker” [The Hill]. “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Elon Musk serve as Speaker in a Thursday morning post on X following contentious debates over the continuing resolution (CR). ‘The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,’ Paul wrote. ‘Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).’ Later Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she would be open to supporting Musk to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a post quoting Paul. ‘I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency,” Greene wrote on X.” • Oh, so that’s what libertarianism is all about. “A libertarian and an oligarch walk into a bar, and the bartender says: ‘Sir, what’ll it be?’” • The debt ceiling was “a bad idea whose time has come” when introduced in the 1980s. Now it’s a bad idea whose time has gone…..

Meanwhile, Trump actually gets the right of it–

“Trump wants to kill the debt ceiling” [Axios]. “President-elect Trump told NBC News he supports abolishing the debt ceiling and is prepared to ‘lead the charge’ to make it happen. Republicans, including some of Trump’s strongest supporters in Congress, have historically opposed raising the debt ceiling, at least when a Democrat is in office. Now Trump says he’ll push them to scrap it entirely. That pronouncement comes a day after Trump came out against a spending deal, negotiated by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), to keep the government running through March His opposition effectively killed the bill and could lead to a government shutdown at midnight on Saturday. Raising the debt ceiling and funding the government are two separate cliffs Congress repeatedly bumps up against, and Trump is now linking them together. The debt ceiling is a particularly sticky issue for Republicans, as many campaign against running up debts. Conservative members tend to push back on raising the ceiling, particularly when a Democrat is in the White House. Thus, Republicans would likely oppose abolishing the debt ceiling in principle — but few want to pick a public fight with Trump. The president-elect also floated the idea of scrapping the debt ceiling when he was last in office, but nothing came of it. Trump pointed out Thursday that some Democrats have already backed abolishing the ceiling. ‘If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,’ he told NBC.”

Lawfare

“Fani Willis disqualified as prosecutor on Trump Georgia election case” [The Hill]. “A Georgia appeals court booted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) office from the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump on Thursday due to her relationship with a top prosecutor on the case. The panel described Willis’s relationship with ex-special prosecutor Nathan Wade as a ‘significant appearance of impropriety.’ The court declined to outright dismiss Trump’s indictment, but disqualifying Willis’s office throws the future of the case — already complicated by Trump’s impending return to the White House — further into doubt. ‘After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,’ Judge E. Trenton Brown III wrote in the court’s ruling. ‘The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring,’ it continued. The decision leaves open a theoretical possibility another prosecutor could take over the case, but the path forward remains precarious.” • Too funny. I’d speculate that the Georgia Dems thought Fani Willis was gonna be their next Stacey Abrams. And so she was, except she flamed out faster and worse.

2024 Post Mortem

“The Difference That Matters Most Isn’t Between Left and Right” [Jeet Heer, The Nation]. “But left-right isn’t the only relevant taxonomy in politics. Ben Kawaller of The Free Press interviewed AOC-Trump voters for an illuminating TikTok video in which some expressed anger at inflation while others complained about Kamala Harris’s record as a hard-nosed prosecutor. One African American woman said, ‘Kamala Harris is a puppet.’ When Kawaller asked, ‘A puppet of who?,’ the woman responded, ‘A puppet for the system.’ In that succinct phrase, ‘a puppet for the system,’ we get to the heart of why Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024—both times running as an anti-system politician channeling the anger of voters who are deeply frustrated by the status quo…. Not just in America but in other advanced democracies around the world, the most salient cleavage right now is not left versus right but system versus anti-system.” • Change vs. more of the same…

Democrats en déshabillé

Gonna need a bigger tent:

Are they really though? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/KKwmNeMYBR

— screamingmemey (@screamingmemey) December 17, 2024

Republican Funhouse

“Musk and Trump are viewed roughly the same by Americans, an AP-NORC poll finds” [Associated Press]. “About 4 in 10 Americans have a somewhat or very favorable view of the world’s richest person, very similar to the percentage who view Trump positively. Likewise, about half of adults have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Musk — again, similar to Trump…. The relationship between the two men has no parallel in U.S. history, said David Nasaw, biographer of American business tycoons Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst. He noted that Musk, to a level unlike other tycoons, has relied on subsidies and favorable government decisions for his success from Tesla to SpaceX.” • So, utterly conflicted. As one would expect an oligarch in government to be, by the mere fact of ownership at scale.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“UnitedHealthcare CEO suspect faces federal murder, stalking charges after returning to NYC” [CBS]. “UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione is back in New York Thursday after waiving extradition in Pennsylvania. He was ushered from the courtroom to a waiting plane by NYPD detectives after waiving extradition. Mangione could appear in front of a judge in New York City for arraignment in just a matter of hours…. He is then expected to be held at Rikers Island, where he will be in isolation and protective custody because of his high-profile status, sources said.” On the “overcharging” (hat tip, alert reader dommage): “‘The federal government’s reported decision to pile on top of an already overcharged first-degree murder and state terror case is highly unusual and raises serious constitutional and statutory double jeopardy concerns. We are ready to fight these charges in whatever court they are brought,’ Manhattan prosecutor-turned-defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said in a statement Thursday morning.”

“How New York prosecutors used a terrorism law in the charges against Luigi Mangione” [Associated Press]. “If a defendant is convicted, the “crime of terrorism” designation boosts the underlying offense into a more serious sentencing category. For example, an assault normally punishable by up to 25 years in prison would carry a potential life sentence.” Exactly as Bragg did with Trump, converting misdemeanors into felonies. More: “There’s no comprehensive count of cases where the anti-terrorism statute was used, because it can be layered onto many different types of charges, from weapons possession to murder…. In New York City alone, over a half-dozen cases of various sorts have used the terror law, starting with the 2004 indictment of a Bronx gang member. He was accused of killing a 10-year-old girl and paralyzing a man at a christening party…. Courts haven’t set out overarching rules for when a case qualifies. However, the state’s top court said the Bronx gang member’s case did not. The high court overturned his conviction. Justices were skeptical that the shooting — allegedly targeting a rival gang member — was meant to intimidate the broader community. They also worried that the meaning of terrorism could be trivialized if ‘applied loosely in situations that do not match our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act.’”

“EXCLUSIVE: Investigators are convinced ‘CEO assassin’ Luigi Mangione did NOT act alone…and there are three key clues” [Daily Mail]. For Mangione stans, worth reading in full; too much detail to excerpt. “But two leaders in the investigative field who have analyzed the case have now told DailyMail.com that some key details are being ignored – and that those clues point to at least one accomplice to the alleged murderer.” Key point: “The shooter appears to be on the phone in the [CCTV] video, raising the prospect that an accomplice monitoring Thompson’s movements called him to say that the CEO would shortly be leaving his hotel, the five-star Marriott across the street from the Hilton. ‘If it were me doing surveillance of this sort, I’d be paying off a door guard or concierge. Like, ‘Hey man, I’m really trying to see what’s going on with this guy. Can you help me out?’ said [one investigator]. ‘It just seems like a team that was doing good surveillance and reporting to their client.’” • Also plenty of issues with the timeline. NOTE Given that “A second industry leader in private intelligence for celebrities and CEOs spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity due to being close to the case,” I wonder if this story was planted by the defense?

Here is a thread picking away at inconsistences, worth reading in full:

Mangione described evidence being planted on him in court, specifically the $10K in multiple currencies.

He didn’t mention the manifesto or gun, perhaps under advice from his lawyer, but has maintained he is innocent.

The only thing he has been able to state publicly was this: https://t.co/9dKXZNv8DS

— spencer 🦈 (@Unpop_Science) December 18, 2024

* * *

“Copyright Abuse Is Getting Luigi Mangione Merch Removed From the Internet” [404 Media]. “An entity claiming to be United Healthcare is sending bogus copyright claims to internet platforms to get Luigi Mangione fan art taken off the internet, according to the print-on-demand merch retailer TeePublic. An independent journalist was hit with a copyright takedown demand over an image of Luigi Mangione and his family she posted on Bluesky, and other DMCA takedown requests posted to an open database and viewed by 404 Media show copyright claims trying to get “Deny, Defend, Depose” and Luigi Mangione-related merch taken off the internet, though it is unclear who is filing them…. There is no world in which the copyright of a watercolor painting of Luigi Mangione surveillance footage done by Kenaston is owned by United Health Group as it quite literally has nothing to do with anything that the company owns. It is illegal to file a DMCA unless you have a “good faith” belief that you are the rights holder (or are representing the rights holder) of the material in question…. United Healthcare did not respond to multiple requests for comment…. It is theoretically possible that another entity impersonated United Healthcare to request the removal because copyfraud in general is so common.”

“He Was Surgeon General — And He’s Got Thoughts About the Reaction to the United Healthcare Killing” (interview) [Jerome Adams, Politico]. “This erosion of trust hurts everyone, from the upstream public health policy maker to an ICU doctor who’s trying to provide recommended care for a patient who’s refusing it because they say they don’t believe that the health care system has their best interest at heart. This leads to worse health outcomes. It prolongs public health challenges. And what scares me the most is, without trust, the foundation of our health care system starts to crumble. It makes it difficult to address current and future health issues, and that’s going to impact the new administration. I have said that very publicly that [officials] have to be careful about acknowledging real faults in the prior Covid response, while balancing that against the erosion of trust. In about a month, it’s not going to be on the Biden administration to deal with H5N1 [bird flu]. It’s going to be on the Trump administration. It’s not going to be on the Biden administration to deal with measles outbreaks across the country. It’s going to be on the Trump administration. You can’t un-ring that bell after you’ve helped sow mistrust in many ways, and then expect people to suddenly believe in what you’re saying when you’re in charge.”

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

[1] (CDC) Seeing a little more red, but nothing new at major international hubs. Interestingly, Calculated Risk is watching wastewater too.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveled out.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US fell by 22,000 from the previous week to 220,000 on the first week of December, much more than market expectations that they would fall to 230,000, easing concerns of weaker labor conditions following last week’s unexpected surge. The result was in line with the Federal Reserve’s recent projections that few interest rate cuts would be required next year, signaling the FOMC’s view that inflation poses a bigger threat to the economy than a softening labor market.”

Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US plunged to -16.4 in December 2024, its lowest level since April 2023, from -5.5 in November and way below expectations of 3, signaling a further weakening in regional manufacturing activity.”

Manufacturing: “United States Kansas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production Index fell by one point from the previous month to -5 in December of 2024, its second consecutive negative print, and consistent with other surveys flagging contractionary trends in the US manufacturing sector.”

Real Estate: “United States Existing Home Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Existing home sales in the US rose by 4.8% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.15 million in November 2024, the highest in eight months, compared to 3.96 million in October and better than market expectations of 4.07 million.”

Manufacturing: “Boeing Wins $36 Billion Deal From Turkey, Trumping Airbus” [Bloomberg]. “Boeing Co. won an order valued at $36 billion from Pegasus Hava Tasimaciligi AS, in its biggest commitment so far this year that deals a blow to rival Airbus SE, previously the preferred choice for the Turkish low-cost airline. The carrier has firm orders for 100 of the as-yet uncertified 737 Max 10 model that it will begin receiving in 2028, with options for another 100, it said in a stock exchange filing. The total value of the agreement assumes that all options are converted, though customers typically negotiate steep discounts for large deals. The accord, the largest order in Pegasus’s history, is an important win for Boeing as it works to overcome the fallout from a prolonged strike and a near-catastrophic accident at the start of the year. For Pegasus, the deal marks a strategic reversal after the carrier said less than two years ago that it wanted to become an all-Airbus operator.” • Wow, Turkey’s really been in the news lately!

Manufacturing: “Taiwan’s China Airlines splits $12-billion jet deal between Boeing and Airbus” [Reuters]. • Wow, Taiwans’ really been in the news lately!

Manufacturing: “Airline watchdog group demands answers from NTSB regarding Boeing crashes” [KOIN]. “The Foundation for Aviation Safety, led by former Boeing manager-turned-whistleblower Ed Pierson, is raising concerns about the NTSB’s response to issues with the 737 Boeing Airliners in connection to two deadly plane crashes: 2018’s Lion Air incident and 2019’s Ethiopian Air incident…. The watchdog group claims it uncovered evidence of issues with Boeing’s electrical manufacturing that may hold weight in each case. However, they allege the NTSB is not sharing this information with international agencies and investigators as they should…. Compared to the aftermath of the 2018-19 fatal crashes, the Foundation for Aviation Safety said the NTSB’s investigation into Boeing’s safety issues was much more robust for the non-fatal Alaska Airlines incident in which a door plug blew out a plane mid-air above Portland nearly one year ago.”

The Bezzle:

Yes, this happens to me:

But of course Elon would never manipulate clicks or bots for political purposes, not even for something really important, like DOGE, or Mars colonization….

The Bezzle:

And of course Elon would never manipulate the training sets or prompts…

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 27 Neutral (previous close: 33 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 50 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 19 at 12:53:31 PM ET. Quite a swing!

Gallery

I dunno. This doesn’t feel like New England to me. Am I wrong?

This, however, does:

I feel the ocean off to the right.

Zeitgeist Watch

“Advanced Civilizations Could be Indistinguishable from Nature” [Universe Today]. “One of the foundational questions of our day concerns the Fermi Paradox, the contradiction between what seems to be a high probability of extraterrestrial life and the total lack of evidence that it exists…. ‘As the authors state,’ [researcher Lukáš] Likavčan writes regarding Haqq-Misra and Baum’s sustainability solution, ‘the formulation of the Fermi paradox contains a biased presupposition based on the observation of only one planetary community of intelligent species (i.e. humans), which is in turn based on a warped understanding of human history, which assumes that history unfolds in a progressive series of civilizational, colonial expansions.’…. [But if] the planet is primary… any technosphere will have to be harmonious with planetary conditions. From that perspective, the only successful technosphere is one that folds back into the biosphere, making it very difficult, even impossible, to detect.” • Hmm.

“The EU must build on past successes” [Martin Wolf, Financial Times]. Filing here because of this passage: “Europe should not embrace a social model that risks delivering the US pathologies of premature death, mass murder and stratospheric rates of incarceration. Yet radical changes are essential.” • Ignore the haters, Uncle Sam!

Class Warfare

“Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season” [Reuters]. “Thousands of Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab workers will walk off the job on Thursday morning, in the crucial final days of the holiday season, after union officials said the retailer failed to come to the bargaining table to negotiate contracts. The strike is a challenge to Amazon’s operations as it races to fulfill orders during its busiest season of the year, although union-represented facilities represent only about 1% of Amazon’s hourly workforce. In the New York City area, for example, the company has multiple warehouses and smaller delivery depots. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said unionized workers at facilities in New York City; Skokie, Illinois; Atlanta, San Francisco and southern California will join the picket line to seek contracts guaranteeing better wages and work conditions. The Teamsters union has said it represents about 10,000 workers at 10 of the company’s U.S. facilities. Workers at seven of those facilities will walk out on Thursday, the Teamsters said.”

News of the Wired

“A Knife Forged in Fire” [Chicago Magazine]. “He put it back in the forge and this time heated it until it was in a yellow rage of photons. Again, he fitted the wrench to the glowing end. And then, using his entire body and the leverage of the long-handled wrench, he began twisting and twisting. The metal shed great gray flakes, and the yellow bar gradually turned orange, looking like a twist of taffy as Sam put all of his effort into the now-helical bar until it would turn no more. It was as if he were doing battle not so much with steel but with fire itself, placing the bright yellow bar in the press and then wringing the light right out of it, for that’s what it was, a blade of bright light that he strangled until it went black.” • Just a touch over-written, but what a neat process!

“ISO 8583: The language of credit cards” [Increase]. “When the standard was first defined in 1987, it included the overall structure of the message specification and the names and lengths of the core fields, such as the card number (“primary account number”) in field 2 and the transaction amount in field 4. The message began with a 4-digit Message Type Indicator code representing whether it was an authorization message, a reversal, or some other message type. This was followed by a bitmap that told the recipient which fields were present. It left room for a few fields that could be used by networks to include network-specific information, and as a result the various card network specifications quickly diverged through a series of nested fields that did not overlap at all. Later versions of the standard greatly increased the number of fields, reducing the need for network-specific behavior for new implementations. Specifications like Visa’s Base I have thousands of clients running on everything from mainframes to devices like ATMs, however, making sweeping backwards incompatible changes next to impossible. As a result, these specifications still largely follow the rules set forth by the original standard from 1987.” • Also a neat process.

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 JJD:

JJS writes: “Amanita caesarea emerging. One of them knocked out by a squirrel, sadly.” I hope the squirrel didn’t take a bite!

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