By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Ever-patient readers, this Water Cooler will be a little bit less of everything, too; I have to put on my Mr. Pandemic hat and write about H5N1. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
American Robin, Cherokee Marsh Conservation Park–North Unit, Dane, Wisconsin, United States.
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
The Constitutional Order (Insurrection)
“Trump immunity fight turns Supreme Court textualists topsy-turvy” [Politico]. “At the attention-grabbing arguments this week over Donald Trump’s claim of sweeping presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, the six-member conservative bloc seemed largely unconcerned by a key flaw in Trump’s theory: Nothing in the Constitution explicitly mentions the concept of presidential immunity. Trump’s lawyer told the justices that the founders had ‘in a sense’ [like a “penumbra”?] written immunity into the Constitution because it’s a logical outgrowth of a broadly worded clause about presidential power. But that’s the sort of argument conservative justices have often scoffed at — most notably in the context of abortion rights. Two years ago, conservatives relied on a strict interpretation of the Constitution’s text and original meaning to overturn the federal right to abortion. But on Thursday, as they debated whether Trump can be prosecuted for his bid to subvert the 2020 election, they seemed content to engage in a free-form balancing exercise where they weighed competing interests and practical consequences. Some critics said the conservative justices — all of whom purport to adhere to an original understanding of the Constitution — appeared to be on the verge of fashioning a legal protection for former presidents based on the justices’ subjective assessment of what’s best for the country and not derived from the nation’s founding document.” • I need to reread the Federalist Papers and see if there’s a concept of lawfare in it, though I doubt it.
Biden Administration
2024
Less than a year to go!
National results are still moving Biden’s way. But all the Swing States (more here) are moving Trump’s way, although in tiny increments. It’s hard to attribute this consistency to mere chance. “All” with one exception: Pennsylvania. If Susie Wiles is such a brain genius, why isn’t she fixing this?
* * * Trump (R) (Bragg/Merchan) “Trump gets jail warning for violating hush money trial gag order; Stormy Daniels ex-lawyer testifies” [CNBC]. “Judge Juan Merchan held Donald Trump in contempt for repeatedly violating the gag order in his criminal hush money trial in New York. Merchan explicitly warned Trump that he could be put in jail if he willfully violates court orders again.” • And what a spectacle that would be!
Trump (R) (Willis/McAfee) “Fani Willis skips primary debate with Democratic challenger” [The Hill]. “Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) skipped the county’s first Democratic Party debate Sunday, leaving her challenger to debate an empty podium. The debate, held by the Atlanta Press Club, featured Willis’s Democratic challenger — attorney and author Christian Wise Smith — standing alone on the stage. After a brief introduction about Smith, the debate moderator said Willis ‘declined to participate in the debate and is represented by an empty podium.’ Willis, who is bringing a sprawling election interference case against former President Trump and his allies, instead co-hosted Atlanta’s ‘Self Care Fair,’ which is held every year in honor of Crime Victims’ Rights Week, FOX 5 Atlanta reported. The Hill reached out to Willis’s office for further comment. Her reelection campaign told Atlanta News First earlier this month that Willis is ‘not doing interviews that include discussion of the substance of high-profile cases the office is prosecuting, particularly the election interference prosecution and the ongoing trial of alleged YSL defendants,’ in reference to the ongoing trial of rapper Young Thug and his associates.” • Not a good look for Willis. Is it like there are questions she doesn’t want to be asked?
Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): This does seem odd (though I’m not a master of the detail on this case):
WELL WELL WELL I am pretty sure we never heard this part of the "classified documents/box" story!
More from unredacted motions in FLA–this is from an unsealed transcript of witness interview.
FBI agent says GSA was holding large quantity of Trump's boxes in VA and then ordered… pic.twitter.com/0i4tGdWZ9A
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) April 27, 2024
“Come and get your boxes.” Really?
* * * Trump (R): “Trump will go from the trial to the trail and back again” [CNN]. “Donald Trump will make his most concentrated effort yet to turn his criminal trial into a political asset in the next two days, heading from the courtroom to the campaign trail and back again…. With court dark on Wednesday, the presumptive GOP nominee will fly to the epicenter of his clash with President Joe Biden, making stops in two swing states, Wisconsin and Michigan, that could decide the destiny of the White House. The trip will show how useful it is for an indicted candidate to have his own plane.” And, presumably, his very well-paid and completely trustworthy mechanics. More: “The former president has been complaining that he’s been penned up in court and unable to effectively campaign. ‘I’m not in Georgia, or Florida or North Carolina, campaigning like I should be. This is about election interference,’ he said earlier this month. But he spent the trial’s off day last Wednesday playing golf at his course in Bedminster, New Jersey, CNN reported. Still, the four-day-a-week court schedule does present its constraints. Trump, for example, has yet to reschedule a rally that had been due to take place on April 20 in North Carolina but was cancelled because of a dangerous storm.”
Trump (R): “Trump touts ‘great meeting’ with DeSantis to discuss 2024 and ‘future of Florida'” [The Hill]. “While Trump likely does not need DeSantis’s help to win the state of Florida in November, the Florida governor has a strong base of donors and supporters who could help the former president as he takes on President Biden. DeSantis is also believed to have an eye on the 2028 presidential race, and patching things up with Trump would likely benefit his future prospects.” • He’s gonna need bigger lifts.
* * * Biden (D): “Column: President Biden’s big campaign promises come with a warning label” [Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times]. “In a second term, Biden says, he would raise taxes on corporations and high income earners, meaning anyone making more than $400,000 a year. He says he would use some of the new revenue to reduce the federal deficit and the rest to fund a long list of programs, including an expanded child tax credit, a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, family and medical leave and universal pre-kindergarten education…. One is abortion rights. The president has promised to seek new legislation to protect women’s rights to obtain abortions in every state. ‘I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,’ he promised in his State of the Union address…. But codifying Roe vs. Wade in federal law is another promise that is easier said than done. To pass such a law would require at least 60 votes in the Senate or a decision to suspend the filibuster rule… A third pillar of Biden’s campaign should be easier to deliver if he wins: his promise to protect the nation’s democratic institutions from Trump, who has said he would order the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents if he returns to the White House… Biden has offered an unabashedly progressive vision for how he would govern in a second term.” • What, no school uniforms?
* * * Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. qualifies for California ballot” [The Hill]. “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the ballot in California, his campaign announced Monday. Kennedy, alongside running mate Nicole Shanahan, was backed by the American Independent Party (AIP) of California… The campaign confirmed it filed paperwork with California’s secretary of state on Monday…. California marks the third state ballot Kennedy and Shanahan have officially qualified for, following Utah and Michigan. They have also gained enough signatures for ballot access in seven other states, including New Hampshire, Nevada*, Hawaii, North Carolina*, Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa” (* = swing states). • I don’t see how this affects the election outcome, since Democrats dominate California, but it does legitimate Kennedy as a candidate. (As for the seven, Kennedy doesn’t have “enough signatures” until the Democrat lawyers are done savaging them. I wish the press would stop saying this.)
Kennedy (I): On populism:
I agree with @glennbeck that the real war in America today isn’t between left and right; it’s a class war. The question is whether the rising populist revolution is going to be hijacked by dark, regressive forces – as it was in the 1930s – or whether it will be harnessed by more… pic.twitter.com/HprckIR9gt
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 29, 2024
Kennedy (I): On foreign policy:
During a conversation with Ben Shapiro, Robert Kennedy Jr. laid out part of why the U.S. government's outlook on foreign policy is wrong.
"You can make an argument that Taiwan is absolutely (a) critical national security asset for us, and we cannot let the Chinese invade. The… pic.twitter.com/6rjwj8xT94
— Christian Movick (@ChristianM_74) April 29, 2024
Kennedy asking for my vote here:
If one wishes, as I was brought up to wish, the United States to be a great power — as opposed to, say, a continent of warring statelets — Kennedy’s seems like a pretty good approach. Of course, “project economic power abroad” implies fixing our manufacturing base, because if we project financial power, it’s right back to the gunboats.
* * * “Trump and Biden are ‘darn near even’ in the 2024 election. Here’s where the race could go” [USA Today]. “Despite problems that would have destroyed other candidates, presumptive 2024 GOP White House nominee Donald Trump is basically tied with Biden little more than six months before Election Day.” 124 days to Labor Day. More: “All told, the 2024 presidential race right now is a push and may stay that way through the Nov. 5 election. Any number of future developments could decide the contest, given what Malloy described as ‘broad dissatisfaction with both candidates.'” • Events, dear boy, events. Personally, I don’t see how, given the corner they’ve painted themselves into on “our democracy,” the Democrat coalition (electeds, press, spooks, assorted Flex Nets, PMC base) can possibly allow Trump to take office. So that should be interesting.
Our Famously Free Press
“Social media companies have too much political power, 78% of Americans say in Pew survey” [TechCrunch]. “According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 78% of American adults say social media companies have too much influence on politics — to break it down by party, that’s 84% of surveyed Republicans and 74% of Democrats. Overall, this viewpoint has become 6% more popular since the last presidential election year…. While 71% of Republicans surveyed said that big tech favors liberal perspectives over conservative ones, 50% of Democrats said that tech companies support each set of views equally. Only 15% of adults overall said that tech companies support conservatives over liberals.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
Harvard encampment:
In 1986 we occupied the Dean’s office & built a shantytown in @Harvard Yard to force the university to divest from companies profiting from apartheid S. Africa. They threatened us with expulsion. We said, “F*uck you, we won’t do what you tell us.” Students! Thanks for keeping… https://t.co/luD7CwuvuW
— Tom Morello (@tmorello) April 29, 2024
Cheeky!
Vanderbilt encampment:
i find it really intriguing how the south’s student activism never gets as much media attention as other regions. day 28 of Vanderbilt’s encampment and i only read about it being the first university to start one YESTERDAY. https://t.co/J9ykmO1b9u
— pomegranate (@5imulation5warm) April 25, 2024
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!
Airborne Transmission: Covid
“Predominant airborne transmission and insignificant fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a two-bus COVID-19 outbreak originating from the same pre-symptomatic index case” [Journal of Hazardous Materials]. From the Abstract: ” We conducted a mechanistic modeling and calculated the exposure dose and infection risk of each passenger in a two-bus COVID-19 outbreak in Hunan province, China. This outbreak originated from a single pre-symptomatic index case. Some human behavioral data related to exposure including boarding and alighting time of some passengers and seating position and mask wearing of all passengers were obtained from the available closed-circuit television images/clips and/or questionnaire survey. Least-squares fitting was performed to explore the effect of effective viral load on transmission risk, and the most likely quanta generation rate was also estimated. This study reveals the leading role of airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission and negligible role of fomite transmission in a poorly ventilated indoor environment, highlighting the need for more targeted interventions in such environments. The quanta generation rate of the index case differed by a factor of 1.8 on the two buses and transmission occurred in the afternoon of the same day, indicating a time-varying effective viral load within a short period of five hours.” • A neat study from 2022 that we somehow missed at the time. Note the five-hour exposure period.
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Cases | |
| ★ National[1] Biobot April 29: | Regional[2] Biobot April 29: |
|
 |
| Variants[3] CDC April 27 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC March 23 |
 |
 |
| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data April 26: | National [6] CDC April 20: |
|
 |
| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens April 22: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic April 20: |
 |
|
| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC April 8: | Variants[10] CDC April 8: |
 |
 |
| Deaths[11] | |
| Weekly deaths New York Times March 16: | Percent of deaths due to Covid-19 New York Times March 16: |
 |
|
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) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.2 has entered the chat, at least in the model. As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
[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) Flattening out to a non-zero baseline. 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) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Slight uptrend.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Uptick.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly. And 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
Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, dropped to 37.9 in April 2024, down from 41.4 in the prior month and below market forecasts of 45.”
Manufacturing: “Missing emergency slide that fell off Delta flight found — washed up in front of house of lawyer whose firm is suing Boeing” [New York Post]. • Well, at least it wasn’t a body.
Manufacturing: “American Airlines trims three routes from DFW Airport over Boeing delivery issues” [Dallas Morning News]. “The ongoing Boeing 787 Dreamliner delivery delays have forced an adjustment in service on certain routes for the second half of the year and first quarter of 2025, according to American. The three routes include American’s daily flights to Dublin, suspended beginning Oct. 26 and returning summer 2025; daily flights to Rome, also suspended Oct. 26 and returning summer 2025; and flights to Kona International Airport will not operate in the winter.”
Manufacturing: “C919 mega-purchase by China’s flagship airline lifts home-grown jet in competition with Boeing” [South China Morning Post]. “Air China’s eye-catching agreement to buy 100 domestically made C919 jets is expected to turn heads overseas and further elevate interest in the relatively new planes as the reputation of rival Boeing has been grounded by safety concerns. The order size from China’s flagship airline also ensures years of additional business for the C919’s state-owned manufacturer, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), which could in turn attract investment and more purchases, according to analysts. Air China, a Beijing-based carrier with 196 flight destinations including more than 60 overseas, said on Friday that it had signed an agreement with Comac to buy the C919s from this year through 2031. Sweetening the deal, the airline said it had negotiated a ‘rather large price discount’ off the listed total of US$10.8 billion for the order.” • And all China has to do is execute on quality assurance to start eating Boeing’s lunch.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 42 Fear (previous close: 43 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 39 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 30 at 1:42:44 PM ET.
Class Warfare
“The Fate of Composition” [The Anarchist Library]. “The thematic of “class composition” is often cited as the most significant theoretical and practical contribution of the operaismo tradition.[13] By speaking through the objective categories of economic rationality, the production process, and the division of labor, “composition” was an attempt to explain class activity that did not, on the surface, avail itself of the psychosocial complexities presented by “consciousness,” “hegemony,” or processes of ideological “interpellation,” which had dogged so-called “Western” Marxism since the spectacular revolutionary failures of the interwar period. “Class composition” appeared as a return to form—in many ways a return to Marx—present informally in Marx’s most sophisticated political analyses. Examples here might paradigmatically include The Class Struggles in France (1850), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), and The Civil War in France (1871), but we must also include his articles on the British Chartist movement and the American Civil War, and his letters on the Irish question.” • Worth a read!
News of the Wired
“Imperfections create connections” [David Heinemeier Hansson]. “The last MacBook I really loved was the original 11” MacBook Air. It was full of compromises. A cramped screen. Chips that weren’t quite fast enough. An iconic, wedgy design. It was so good because it was also kinda bad. I thought that era was simply gone. But over the last month or so, I’ve developed much of the same affection for the Framework 13. Exactly because of all it’s compromises and it’s quirky design choices. It uses an odd 3:2 display, which is almost as tall as it is wide. In a time when most every other maker has gone 16:9 or 16:10. And it’s matte, not glossy. The keyboard has twice the travel of most modern laptops. Giving it almost a vintage feel, which, once you get used to it, is really addictive. It has interchangeable ports?! You can configure the 4 slots with every combination of USB C, USB A, ethernet ports, HDMI ports, and additional storage you desire. Then swap them quickly and easily. An ingenious alternative to dongle life. And to top it off, I’ve chosen to run Linux on mine full time.” • So I guess I have to put the Framework 13 on my watchlist (and it does seem more Jackpot-ready than the Mac). Readers, are any of you familiar with it? The price is certainly right.
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 LL:
LL writes: “Cherry blossom season is a bit early here in the Northwest.”
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!
RE: Nothing in the Constitution explicitly mentions the concept of presidential immunity.
Nothing in the Constitution explicitly mentions the concept of judicial review either, but yet Marbury v Madison was still decided over 200 years ago and is followed to this day.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marbury-v-madison *
* be very careful with that link – we wouldn’t want it to go missing and have the National Archives start issuing subpoenas!
I don’t think that there is mention of actual political parties in the US Constitution either but there they are.
> I don’t think that there is mention of actual political parties in the US Constitution either but there they are.
No. Parties had not yet appeared in the US; the closest thing to them was factions. But now we have an unwritten Constitution just like the Brits. The parties obviously have constitional status in our unwritten constitution, equal to any branch of government, but they’re throwing the separation of powers out of whack, maybe even destroying it completely.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/29/lawyers-israel-arm-sales-biden-00154958
Attorneys inside and outside the administration urge Biden to cut off arms to Israel
So far more than 90 lawyers have signed on to a legal letter alleging Israel’s conduct in Gaza violates U.S. and international law.
RE: President Biden’s big campaign promises
So if these things are really so crucial and “our democracy” will go the way of the buffalo without Joe’s leadership, what, exactly, is stopping him and the rest of the Democrat party from say, codifying Roe, you know, now?
A Republican majority in the House plus some antibortion Democrats in the House. Also, some of the Senate Democrats might be afraid of election losses if they would vote for such a thing.
Federal-National legal abortion will be a lagging indicator just like Federal-National legal marijuana will be.
The dotard didn’t just talk about abortion, and besides, he had a Team D majority in both houses from 2020-2022.
At least we don’t have to hear about his murderous “Freedom Agenda”, since that apparently sank like a stone with undecided voters in swing states after the State oi the Union Address.
2020-2022 is not “now”. 2020-2022 was “then”. ” Now” begins on April 30th of 2024 and continues into tomorrow and the days beyond.
Since you said . . . ” what, exactly, is stopping him and the rest of the Democrat party from say, codifying Roe, you know, now? ” . . . and you took special pains to italicise the word ” now” for special emphasis, I figured that you actually literally meant “now”. So I answered you as to why he and the Senate Dems CAN’T do it “now” because the House Dems are not the majority.
If you had meant to say ” why couldn’t he haven’t done it between 2020 and 2022, you know . . . right THEN . . . you should have typed it that way so that literal thinkers like me would know what you meant.
I think you are responding to someone else’s comment.
Regardless, Roe obviously wasn’t such a priority for Biden then, just as it wasn’t a priority for Obama even when he had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House.
When Obama was running for President he said that he would make abortion a priority but after he won, said that he was putting that issue on the back-burner.
Obama lied about almost everything. But his delivery was so smooth! That’s what Democratic voters want: sweet, sweet lies being whispered in their ear.
I would prefer the Huey Long type myself.
I begin to wonder whether part of Obama’s mission was specifically and in a very targeted way destroy all hope for change and all hope of hope.
Aside from the obvious prevention of New Deal Revival/Restoration.
That was Bernie.
You know . . . you are right. And I looked right at the name above the comment and saw ” Feral Finster” that first time.
Sometimes my brain just does that. I don’t know why.
Blaming the big, bad republicans is a bit cliche at this point in time, donchathink?
Here’s the real answer – they aren’t trying to codify it now, just like they didn’t for the previous 50 years even when they held the congress and the presidency, because they don’t want to.
DINGDINGDING
There’s always some excuse or another. “Oh it was the big bad republicans.” “Oh it was an election year.” “Oh it wasn’t an election year.” “Oh it was a day ending in Y.”
Anyone who believes the Dems really mean it this time are hopeless.
Yes, since its the Dems we are talking about here, it is a bit cliche. It is also literally correct between “now” and the end of this Congress.
But if the Dems get both branches of Congress and also the Presidency again, they will indeed demonstrate the threadbareness of the cliche by refusing to codify R v W after the seating of that next Congress and the term-uptake of the President. They will, as you suggest, find a reason not to.
So people at the State level will try State Legalizing abortion wherever they can. The US will become a patchwork of probortion states and antibortion states for a while.
Ohio and Kansas voters supported abortion rights about 60% to 40% at the ballot box, so if anything it seems like codifying Roe could be electoral boost and not an anchor.
Codifying Roe will be a totally lagging indicator. If a veto-proof majority-load of States force legal abortion into their state constitutions, then the Federal DemParty officeholders might start running on Codify Roe once they know it is totally safe and non-controversial to do so.
RE: President Biden’s big campaign promises
Talk is cheap. Biden had a Team D Congress for his first two years, so what was stopping the dotard?
Viewing ‘Biden'(TM) as an extension of the ‘Obama'(TM) regime, I seem to remember there being more than one circumstance where Roe v Wade could have been codified.
Moving ‘back’ a bit and viewing ‘Biden'(TM) from an institutional standpoint; the feckless character of the Democrat Party, who ‘Biden'(TM) represents, appears to be the ‘real’ problem.
As always, watch what ‘they’ do and ignore what ‘they’ say.
It has been an issue ever since the first Chief Executive had a decision to make when crossing the Delaware River… row versus wade?
Gadzooks! Ye original “Gentleman Baby Farmer?”
Agreed. If they codify Roe the issue and the fundraising. At this point, I’d bet the Republicans codify Roe before the Dems.
What was stopping him? Manchin and Sinema. It’s a team effort. There will always be someone stopping the Democratic president on his own side. Like Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Bill Nelson with Obama. If Biden is somehow miraculously re-elected with majorities again, it will be two or three new Team D obstructionists that will supposedly prevent him from being FDR II. And, like Obama (and Biden’s own first term), he won’t use the bully pulpit and fight for any of the programs that are supposedly being obstructed. Like Obama, he probably won’t even promote legislation because “it wouldn’t pass anyway”. Yup, it’s not just the president that doesn’t want to deliver on helping the peons, it’s the whole party apparatus. It’s been like that ever since the DLC/New Democrats took over in the late 1980s.
Revolving villains. The “big beatiful tent” is full of ’em. In fact, they are what makes the big tent beautiful.
Taibbi’s latest. No paywall. About the WH Correspondents Dinner.
Activism Uncensored: Pro-Palestine Protesters at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Ball gowns, bullhorns, and press on press crime, as documented by News2Share
Ford Fischer and Matt Taibbi
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-pro-palestine
The comments are something else. Full-throated calls for genocide U-S-A U-S-A.
I noticed that.
I have to put on my Mr. Pandemic hat
We expect the full rig!
I’ve always loved that look since, I dunno, the 13th C.?
> We expect the full rig!
Not such a bad idea….
re: Robin song. Very nice. In the background a Meadowlark is singing.
I couldn’t hear the meadowlark. At what timepoint on the sliderbar do you hear the meadowlark?
( I did hear some redwinged blackbirds and a chipping sparrow and just once some other bird which I would have to listen to several times to see if I can identify it or not.)
Ah, you are right. The distant trilling is a redwing blackbird, not a meadowlark. Thanks.
Well . . . I was hoping the meadowlark was there and I was just missing it. Because Eastern meadowlarks are rare enough now that even to hear a sign of one, even on a recording, is a very nice thing.
After work when I have more time, I will circle back to this tape and try working out what that other mystery bird is that sang just once towards the end of the tape. It is a series of low hollow tuneful/noteful croaks, as if from some kind of waterbird.
Well, I listened several times on a different computer with different plugged in speakers, and I don’t hear the ” water bird” at all. Maybe next time I am at the computer I thought I heard it on, I will remember to listen again and see if I hear it on that former computer.
Back to computer #1..didn’t hear croaking waterbird this time, did hear some ducks quackling in the far distance. So, was croaking waterbird an auditory hallucination? Maybe.
> In the background a Meadowlark is singing.
The 5-star recordings tend to be of one single bird’s song (for documentation). But I like the ones with background noise like other birds, or train whistles, airplanes, etc. More of a sense of place.
About those cherry blossoms a bit early in PNW . . .
Here in lower Michigan the redubds have reached peak flower already and they normally shouldn’t be there till early May. Also, many lilacs are opening bloom and some are approaching peak. And today I heard a yellow warbler sing. That “shouldn’t” happen till early-mid May. And i haven’t heard any myrtle warblers yet and they are usually about the first and most of the warbler migration to arrive.
Re: RFK, jr. foreign policy – “project economic power abroad”
Sounds like Monroe Doctrine 3.0!
Or 4.0, I lost count!
His grandfather’s genes showing.
“project economic power abroad” = dictatorial contractual conditions see history.
I still remember when Republicans used political consultants as thugs against vote counting in Miami and lawfare to get W. Bush elected president, and Democrats mostly did… nothing. Comical, that? Surely that scheme was further advanced than whatever nonsense Trump allegedly tried to pull. To liberal Democrats, there is no history, only the future of Democracy, always at risk, matters!
My favorite moment of not managing to do anything effective was the famed butterfly ballot. Not managing to sue for and get a do over with an obviously flawed ballot is truly ridiculous. I mean even Pat Robertson, who benefited greatly from the design, came flat out and said it was obvious these voters did not intend to vote for him.
Not being able to come up with a case that either got a new vote or deeply embarrassed those that denied it…well considering the rest I guess it was par for the course.
Yes, I have wondered about that. I have wondered whether the “Democrat” who designed those ballots was really a deep cover Republican operative, who cleverly ratfucked the ballots themselves.
Buchanan thought it was kind of funny. Those voters who cast their votes for Buchanan instead of the Gore they thought they were voting for were mainly old Jewish retirees. Buchanan had a laugh over that.
My favorite moment in Fahrenheit 911 was watching AL Gore, in his capacity of President of the Senate, gaveling the Congressional Black Caucus into silence so they couldn’t challenge the Florida vote before the Senate counted the electors. Democrats craven to the very end.
My impression is that the CBC only became utterly corrupt after that point, and why the heck woudn’t they?
This was the exact moment I realized who the Dems really were. Others I know tried to explain or justify it. I accepted it as the Dems telling me who they were.
Well, that’s who the DLC/ Hamilton Project/ Borenite-Fromite Dems who conquered and purged the Party certainly were.
And Gore may have also had the same psychological debility that Sanders has . . . being a personally nice guy in a business where nice guys finish last.
Perhaps part of the DemParty’s personal distaste for Trump may lie in his demonstration of what “fighting for” something really is, and they don’t like their behavior compared to Trump’s in that regard.
I’m old enough to remember Lee Atwater. I think he helped Bush Sr. get elected.
Aaron Mate publishes an excellent How We Got To This Point in Ukraine.
https://www.aaronmate.net/p/how-10-years-of-us-meddling-in-ukraine?publication_id=100118&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=3ib01&utm_medium=email
Thanks for the must read Aaron Mate link.
The Framework 13 doesn’t have a track point. Surprising as its very much a thing that tech types (and many others) consider a deal breaker even though nobody ever talks about it and people have dropped brands when they dropped it.
Doesn’t seem to be an option, either.
That said, i think it is on their radar. And the keyboard is swappable down the road anyways.
It really is a curious beast, as is their larger and more recent 16 model with an optional dedicated GPU.
One thing of note is that the ports are in effect recessed dongles, as they connect via USB-C to the motherboard. But use a fixed size module to house the electronics flush with the chassis (ethernet excepted, due to the nature of the RJ port). I think i saw some blog post recently about someone hiding their mouse dongle using a 3d-printed module case.
Another thing is that when they announced upgraded motherboard for the 13, they also announced a 3d printed case, and the files for doing so at home, that allowed both new and old motherboards to be used as a desktop computer.
Is this a good time to remind everyone that, were it not for Hillary Clinton and John Podesta and their “pied piper” strategy (and Bill Clinton urging him to run in the first place), Trump would most likely not be a “thing” and would never have been president once let alone being a danger of being president twice? And the reason Julian Assange is in prison today?
Any time is a good time to remind the readership of that. And so . . . this is a good time.
And why not remind everyone that SecState Hillarrhoid Clinton also supported the Anti-Zelaya coup in Honduras and got Obama to support it as well.
Let’s not forget the Clinton involvement in Haiti either.
The Clintons are about the closest thing we have in the modern age to the anti-Midas — everything they touch turns to [family blog].
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/20/israel-aipac-house-mike-johnson/
Mike Johnson’s largest donor in 2023 was AIPAC.
AIPACkage deal…
I’ll scratch your end times if you’ll scratch mine~
Eschatological bromance?
AIPAC to Mike: Here’s a suitcase of cash. You know how to vote. Are you getting it?
Mike: Armageddin’ it!
I am a long term (as in starting from late 90s) Linux user on desktops and laptops. I can attest to Framework 13 being one of the most lovely light laptops to use as one’s primary compute device, as I’ve been doing for the past six months.
Linux compatibility is something I’ve struggled with for devices from every major manufacturer, constantly looking through log files and online forums for hints on why some component is not recognized. It is so refreshing to have all the accumulated knowledge needed to get the device up and running be presented to you by the manufacturer in easy-to-follow instructions! Little things like always-working finger readers are a lovely delight to have.
The ability to configure ports is quite nice, though I should say that each port does take up more space, and so one can have at most two ports one either side (plus the inbuilt headphone jack). A little experimentation with what works best for all the desktop monitor setups I use and I’ve settled in on the configuration that works best for me. The real delight has been the ability to carry two microSD ports on me when out taking pictures and doing a speedy transfer of data without messing with dongles or draining camera battery!
The 3:2 screen takes about two weeks to get used to. The real issue with it is that all desktop monitors in use today are 16:9 or 16:10, and so when switching from a monitor back to laptop (say on the trip back home on a train), one has to reconfigure all window frames to work nicely with the changed aspect ratio.
Overall, a really happy customer! Fingers crossed that they stick around for a long time.
At this point I’m so blind I have trouble with my 15″ 2015 MBP. I can’t even see the 14″ MBP 2023. I don’t know how I’d do with a 13.5″(!) display. Sigh. I find the 16″ 2019 just a bit too big, smaller text. The best size continues to be a 15″. Oh well. Maybe they’ll make a bigger one some day.
Someone on Reddit said this of the resolution:
Ugh.
they do make a larger version but its the ‘too-large’ 16″ version. I think they feel that there is enough differentiation between the 13″ and the 16″ that they will stick to these two only for now. The 16″ can, I believe, be configured to be a gaming laptop if you so desire.
The resolution is a bit of a jump up from my previous laptop, and this is partly why I have trouble when I switch back from external monitors (all 2k resolution, roughly 70% of the laptop screen) to the laptop. My kludge for this is slightly different from the suggestions above; gnome has ‘accessibility’ enhancements, and one is to make all elements of the windows large. This works well for me.
I’m also a happy Framework 13 owner and run Linux on mine. The hardware and the keyboard feel is very reminiscent of the aluminum MacBooks pre-butterfly keyboards. I love that all the parts are user-replaceable, including the motherboard. The ability to switch the port configuration around is great!
The battery could last longer, but that’s a minor quibble for me.
I expect to do some hardware upgrades on this one after awhile but if it got fried for some reason I’d buy another in a heartbeat.
The older parts like motherboards can still be put to good use; you can stick them in these enclosures and continue to use them as, say, a media PC connecting to a TV etc. That is a very cool re-use of older but still functional parts!
“punish bad behavior if we need to” is a cute way to talk about the death of most photosynthetic life in the northern hemisphere.
OMG CALPOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a brave group of people. That’s how you protest genocide. [Family Blog] encampments with tents. Just asking to get rolled over. Take the buildings and force the police out just like the video. I’m proud of them.