By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Common Nightingale, Potez Kovilovo – Beljarica (područje projekta “Srpsko-kineski industrijski park Mihajlo Pupin“), Beograd, Serbia.
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Keystone Cops at Trump’s assassination attempt.
(2) Unelecting Biden: The effort continues privately.
(3) Republican National Convention and J.D. Vance
Look for the Helpers
“Colorado’s ham radio operators are ready for an emergency — just don’t call them amateurs” [Colorado Sun]. “There is nothing amateur about the gathering in the remote corner of South Park. Part of the an American Radio Relay League’s annual Field Day — a nationwide rally of licensed ham radio hobbyists that started in 1933 — the circled collection of high-tech camper trailers and vans is bustling with technical wizards training for that day when they are called into service. It could be a tornado, flood, hailstorm or wildfire. Maybe an earthquake or solar storm has knocked out satellite communication. Maybe rural emergency service folks need help with a big event, like a mountain bike or running race. Whatever the reason, there are 19,629 licensed amateur radio operators in Colorado — almost 750,000 in the U.S. — who are trained and ready to keep critical communications flowing. ‘For most amateur radio groups, it’s about serving our communities,’ said Desiree Baccus — call sign N3DEZ — with the Rocky Mountain HAM Radio club, a nonprofit that maintains a network of radio-transmitting equipment across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. ‘There is only so much local sheriffs can do in small towns and you will see amateur radio operators stepping in to fill the gaps as volunteers to help as a second service to our emergency management professionals.” • Too bad about the licensing requirements…..
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).
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
“Exclusive: County Officer Warned Of Seeing Man With Rangefinder Before Trump Was Shot” [Beaver Countian]. “A Beaver County police officer warned a command center of seeing a man with a rangefinder before former president Donald Trump was shot on Saturday. The officer had also warned the man was scoping out the roof of the building he was stationed in as a counter-sniper, and that the man returned with a backpack before ultimately scaling the building…. Contrary to reports in several national news outlets, officers say the building just outside of a security perimeter established by Secret Service was in fact occupied by law enforcement. ‘There were three counter-snipers located in the building that the shooter eventually used to take shots at Trump,’ one officer told BeaverCountian.com…. A security operations plan had placed each of the three counter-snipers inside of the building looking out of windows toward the rally, with none stationed on its roof. Due to a lack of manpower, the men did not have spotters assigned to them, as would be standard operating procedure.” • And why were the agents not on the roof? One theory:
Ahh, haven’t seen this confirmed but it’d explain a lot. Police snipers were supposed to be on roof but decided it was too hot so they moved inside building. Deserting an assigned post is bad, what’s worse is SS didn’t know cops had noped out, they thought he was a police sniper. https://t.co/4o5qL1rtuY
— Carlos Mucha (@mucha_carlos) July 16, 2024
“Three snipers were stationed inside building used in Trump assassination attempt” [CBS]. “One of the snipers inside saw Thomas Matthew Crooks outside and looking up at the roof, observing the building and disappearing, a local law enforcement officer tells CBS News. Crooks came back, sat down and looked at his phone. At that point, one of the snipers took a picture of him. Crooks took out a rangefinder and the sniper radioed to the command post. Crooks disappeared again and then came back a third time with a backpack. The snipers called in with information that he had a backpack and said he was walking towards the back of the building…. By the time other officers came for backup, [Crooks] had climbed on top of the building and was positioned above and behind the snipers inside the building, the officer said.” • Looks like the Beaver Countian broke this story, and then CBS advanced it… (Pennsylvania still has a lot of local papers, interestingly.)
“Three Snipers Were Inside Building Trump Rally Shooter Fired From, Reports Say” [Forbes]. A round-up. Includes: “According to local TV station WPXI, officers on the ground first spotted Crooks nearly 30 minutes before he fired at Trump and the rally-goers.”
“Secret Service did not sweep rooftop where Trump shooter was found, source says” [Scripps]. “The Secret Service source’s statement to Scripps News confirms that the building was a blind spot in the security radar, but the source says it was up to local law enforcement to sweep it, as it was outside of the perimeter that the agency would secure. But in a statement to Scripps News, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police said the department provided “all resources” that the Secret Service requested for Trump’s rally, including 30 to 40 troopers who helped secure the inside perimeter, but that it “was not responsible for securing” the building or the property it resides on.” • So why were the snipers there at all?
“How Security Went So Wrong at Trump’s Rally” [New York Magazine]. Former agent and University of New Haven criminal-justice professor Robert McDonald: “Any time the Secret Service goes on a protective visit, whether it’s the president, vice-president, or former presidents, the agents cannot do what they do by themselves. So the Secret Service is very good at liaison-ing and working with other partners. But they are the developers of the security plan and get buy-in and cooperation from state, local, and other federal authorities to implement the plan. The bottom line is that the buck stops with the Secret Service. We train and train and train for this type of thing and hope we never have to utilize what we train. There were some positives with the way that the team reacted, but I think, obviously, the main point of contention here is going to be ‘How did we miss that shooter on the roof? How did that happen?’ And that’s going to take some serious investigation by Congress, I think. And there may have to be, and rightly so, some accountability on the part of the Secret Service.”
“Mystery Over Trump’s Diagnosis and Treatment After Assassination Attempt” [The Daily Beast]. “So far, the Trump camp has not disclosed what kinds of tests the former president underwent, how he was treated and for what types of injuries, and if there will be follow-ups.”
“We Should Have Seen the Attempted Assassination Coming” [Lawfare] • Oh, Lawfare. Are you seriously telling me you never gamed it out?
* * * “What We Know—and Don’t Know—So Far About the Trump Rally Gunman” [Time]. Two factoids, first: “Both parents are licensed professional counselors, according to state records.” Oh. Second: “Crooks graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County with an associate degree in engineering science just over two months ago.” • Doesn’t fit the troubled loner narrative at all. What happened to this young man?
2024
Less than four months to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages: CTUTP
Second post-debate polling: No massive swing to Trump that I can see. It would be hilarious if the Biden Debate debacle had exactly the same effect as Trump’s 34 bazillion felony convictions, i.e., none, both parties are so dug in. Of course, the Biden “buzz” (yesterday) is bad, and may yet have an effect. And who, may I ask, is making the buzz? 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.
* * * The DNC
“D.N.C. Aims to Push Biden Toward Nomination Next Week, Despite Doubts” [New York Times]. “Leaders of the Democratic National Committee are moving swiftly to confirm President Biden as his party’s presidential nominee by the end of July, according to four people briefed on the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations. The move would formalize Mr. Biden as the nominee at a moment when Democrats are torn over whether he should run again after his poor debate performance…. The process will effectively begin when the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention meets on a video call at 11 a.m. on Friday, followed by another party group on Sunday. All of the more than 4,000 delegates are expected to begin casting their ballots as soon as Monday, a process that is likely to take about a week. After that, the committee is expected to quickly hold the roll call, a tradition that typically occurs on the convention floor but is being held virtually this year. The rules committee is a body of more than 180 delegates led by Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Leah Daughtry, a veteran party official. A majority of its members have deep ties to Mr. Biden and were vetted for their loyalty to him, making it unlikely that his nomination will face significant dissent…. The procedure would not change the reality of Mr. Biden’s position: Under the party’s rules, he can be replaced as the nominee only if he agrees to step aside and release his delegates.”
Electeds
“Did Trump’s shooting save Biden’s nomination?” [Vox]. “The rebellion against President Biden that was brewing among some Democrats since the president’s debate performance has vanished from the headlines, and some are speculating that it may be over for good…. After Biden gave a press conference Thursday evening in which he answered reporters’ questions for nearly an hour, the promised flood of defections didn’t materialize; it was more like a trickle. His competent performance there seemed to freeze things in place, leaving Democrats at an impasse going into the weekend. Then, Saturday evening, a shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, left one rallygoer dead and injured Trump. And it had a few consequences for Biden. First, it changed the subject…. Second, it’s generally helpful for a president in crisis to do things that are ‘presidential’…. Third and most controversial, some Democrats’ instinctive reaction to Trump’s shooting has been to assume that he’ll now win the presidency and to conclude, therefore, that a messy and difficult push to replace Biden isn’t worthwhile, since Biden’s replacement would also likely lose.” But: “That chain of logic is pretty obviously flawed. It’s far too early to write off an election that is months away, so this may be mainly a justification for inertia and inaction that key Democrats already were inclined toward. But the upshot is clear: It helps Biden hang on.”
Democratic Strategists
“Private efforts to nudge Biden to step aside continue” [CNN]. “The public calls from Democrats asking President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race have quieted in recent days, but private efforts to nudge the president and his top aides continue, several Democratic sources told CNN. Among the efforts, these sources say, are repeated memos from a seasoned and respected Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg, sharing his take that Biden is on track to lose the election – and in a way that does deep damage to other Democratic candidates. ‘Lose everything,’ is how one Democrat described a polling memo Greenberg sent to Biden’s inner circle in recent days. ‘Devastating,’ was the one word answer of a second Democrat close to the White House who is familiar with the Greenberg memos. These sources said Greenberg has sent several memos over the past two weeks since the president’s devastating debate performance, analyzing internal polling he asserts shows the president’s position continues to deteriorate because Americans overwhelmingly do not see him as up to serving four more years.”
* * * Republican National Convention: “I Expected the Republican National Convention to Be Dark and Tense. It’s Something Else Entirely” [Slate]. “Almost instantly, I realized I had read the vibe all wrong. The law enforcement and volunteers working the entryway had me through a bag scan and a metal detector in seconds. The mood was not tense—it was almost chipper. Once inside, I was again surprised by the jubilance of the many conventiongoers. Red hats crowned smiling faces as attendees giddily rushed toward the arena and secured a place in line to get inside and escape the heat…. I moved through the crowd, and the mood only got more jubilant. One man sported an elephant hat fitted with a long trunk that extended and stuck out over his head. I spotted a pair of golden Trump shoes, and several people wore shirts with photos of Trump’s face printed all over them. One woman sported a large top hat with an image of Abraham Lincoln next to Trump pulling his shirt open to reveal a Superman S beneath it… There were more MAGA celebrities inbound, with gaggles of giddy convention attendees lined up to take selfies with them. And as I continued to navigate the convention on its first day, the excitement remained in the air. People dutifully condemned Democrats—who were described as all-powerful but also somehow feeble and inept—and the shooting if I asked. But each time I got the slight sense I was ruining the vibe a little bit. More than once, people around me broke into chants of ‘USA,’ with laughter and the easy confidence of people who think they have this thing in the bag. Whatever horrors the weekend had brought, they were ready to party.”
Republican National Convention: “Sean O’Brien, Teamsters union chief, becomes first Teamster to address RNC” [CBS]. “Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, gave Monday’s keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, delivering one of the most anti-big business speeches in recent RNC memory and becoming the first boss in the organization’s 121-year history to address the convention. ‘Today, the Teamsters are here to say we are not beholden to anyone or any party,’ O’Brien said. ‘We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition, ready to accomplish something real for the American worker. And I don’t care about getting criticized.’ O’Brien tackled topics that aren’t typically fodder for Republican voters. He blasted big businesses like Walmart and Amazon. He admonished the Chamber of Commerce, calling it ‘unions for big business.’ And he said Washington isn’t looking out for workers. ‘The American people aren’t stupid, they know the system is broken,’ he said. ‘We all know how Washington is run. Working people have no chance of winning this fight. That’s why I’m here today, because I refuse to keep doing the same things my predecessors did.'” • Hmm.
Republican National Convention: “Conservatives Slam RNC For ‘Giving a Primetime Speaking Slot to a Pro-Abortion Feminist’ Who ‘Praised Satanism’ [Mediate]. • Excellent. But why wasn’t “OnlyFans model” in the headline?
Republican National Convention: “Behind the Curtain: Why J.D.” [Axios]. Trumpworld insiders tell us these were key factors in sealing the deal for Vance: youth & vigor; smart; american dream bio; storyteller; smooth talker; new money. And: “Carlson, who has a prime-time speaking slot at the convention, told us the logic for Vance ‘is that he doesn’t secretly hate Trump, as all the rest of them do. He fundamentally agrees with Trump. That’s precisely why neocon donors [who want more aid for Ukraine] fear him.’ Vance also had the most chemistry with Trump, who got to know him after Don Jr. pushed his dad to endorse Vance for Senate in 2022. Trump has genuine affection for Vance — rare for Trump, and a real change from his reasoning for picking Mike Pence in 2016.” • Hmm.
Republican National Convention: “Who is JD Vance? Things to know about Donald Trump’s pick for vice president” [Associated Press]. “Trump has also complimented Vance’s beard, saying he ‘looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.'” • Wowsers.
Republican National Convention: “Europe reacts to J.D. Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘This is a disaster for Ukraine'” [Politico]. • Europe should be worrying about how it’s going to get cheap gas for heating when AMOC flips, not Ukraine.
Republican National Convention: “Trump’s VP Pick Won’t Help Him Win Election” [Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics]. “One of the interesting things about this already-exceedingly interesting election was that Donald Trump had a variety of good potential vice-presidential picks. Different options brought different things to the ticket: Doug Burgum looked the part and lent an air of seriousness to the ticket; Marco Rubio helped Trump with Hispanic voters; Greg Abbott emphasized Trump’s border security message while adding extensive executive experience; Tim Scott could help Trump double down with minority voters; Glenn Youngkin could put a purplish-blue state solidly into play. It was really an embarrassment of riches. Instead, he picked J.D. Vance, a vice-presidential candidate who adds absolutely nothing to the ticket. In fact, he might make things more difficult for Trump…. Then there are the suburbanites, whose defections in 2020 cost Trump the presidential election (and whose defections in 2022 cost Republicans control of the Senate). These voters are particularly concentrated in states like Nevada and Arizona (where supermajorities of voters live in suburbs). Vance’s brand of big-spending conservatism matched with culture warrior bona fides really does nothing to allay their fears about Trump. It may actually push them further away.” • Hmm.
Republican National Convention: Vance as a Judas Goat for ambitious PMCs to fill the Republican gap on policy competence:
Quick take on Vance: his appointment as VP suggests that the GOP is looking to make an appeal to anti-woke Silicon Valley or finance types to fill the void left by the Republican Party's competency crisis.
Right now, there is tremendous asymmetry between the parties in policy…
— TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) July 16, 2024
Bush the Younger’s administration has this problem, and Heritage still has it, judging by Project 2025’s call for boot camps where bright young conservatives can get training for government service.
* * * Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “Special counsel to appeal judge’s dismissal of classified documents case against Donald Trump” [Associated Press]. “A spokesman for Smith revealed the move in a statement Monday hours after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the case. The judge sided with Trump’s lawyers, who said Smith’s appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution. A successful appeal by prosecutors could result in the indictment being reinstated, though even if that there were to happen, it would be virtually impossible for a trial to take place before the November presidential election.”
* * * Biden (D): “Full Replay: President Biden Interview With NBC’s Lester Holt” (transcript) [RealClearPolitics]. “For example, you know, the January 6th — you know, the attack on the Capitol, the — I — I — Lester, I got in this race early on in 2020 — for the 2020 race. I wasn’t gonna run again because I’d lost my son. I didn’t — you know? And — until I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. Those folks coming out of the woods with torches, carrying swastikas, singing the same Nazi bile that was accompanied by this Ku Klux Klan and a young woman was killed. And — and it was a bystander. And — the president — then president was asked, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘The very fine people on both sides.’ Not fine people on both sides. No excuse. Zero.” • This is lowering the temperature? On the durable “very fine people” see Snopes here.
Biden (D): “Most Voters Want Biden To Step Down, Oldest Voters Least Concerned” [RealClearPolitics]. “In a CBS News/YouGov poll published last Monday, voters were asked whether Biden should drop out of the race and allow another Democrat to vie for the title of the party’s nominee. Most voters (64%) believe it is time for a new Democratic candidate. Of the 1,130 registered voters surveyed, only 20% of respondents under 30 believed Biden exclusively had the appropriate cognitive health to serve as president. (The younger a voter was, the more likely they were to believe neither candidate had adequate mental fitness. 37% of voters under 30 felt that neither candidate had appropriate cognition, as did 35% of voters aged 30-44 and 28% of 45-64 year-olds.) The age group least concerned with the cognition of the 2024 major party candidates are voters 65 and up, of whom only 19% believed neither candidate had appropriate cognitive health.” • Handy chart:
Most shocking chasm heading into conventions: per new @NBCNews poll, just 33% of Dem voters are satisfied w/ their party's presidential nominee, vs. 71% of GOP voters. pic.twitter.com/RnFosCwSlm
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) July 15, 2024
Biden (D): “J.D. Vance offers Democrats an opening” [Nate Silver, Silver Bulletin]. “But there’s also the question of whether the “Democracy is on the ballot” message has been effective in the first place. It’s been the centerpiece of Biden’s campaign from the start — but polls find that the message mostly resonates with high-engagement, college-educated voters, which is basically the only group that Biden hasn’t lost ground with since 2020. A new Democratic ticket, with more ideological balance than the Republican one, could perhaps offer a fresher spin on it, while also making a better claim than Vance to truly representing the interests of the working class.”
Biden (D): “VP Harris “prepared” to debate J.D. Vance” [Axios]. “‘Vice President Harris is prepared to debate J.D Vance,’ Biden campaign spokesperson TJ Ducklo said in the call with reporters after Trump named Vance as his running mate. ‘We have accepted the proposal from CBS News … to participate in that debate, and we feel very good.’ State of play: The Biden campaign accepted the invitation to participate in an in-studio VP debate hosted by CBS on July 23 or Aug. 13.”
* * * Kennedy (I): “Trump met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to seek endorsement” [Politico]. “Former President Donald Trump met this morning in Milwaukee with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to discuss the possibility of the independent candidate endorsing the Republican nominee, according to multiple people familiar with the huddle. Asked about the meeting and a potential endorsement, Kennedy denied that he plans to drop out of the race. ‘Yes, Mr. Kennedy met with President Trump today to discuss national unity, and he hopes to meet with leaders of the Democratic Party as well,’ Kennedy campaign press secretary Stefanie Spear said in a statement. ‘And no he is not dropping out of the race. He is the only pro-environment, pro-choice, anti-war candidate who beats Donald Trump in head-to-head polls.'”
Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. Apologizes After Video of Call With Trump Leaks Showing Private Comments: ‘We’re Gonna Win'” [Mediaite]. Trump on vax: “Something’s wrong with that whole system. And it’s the doctors, you find. Remember I said I want to do small doses? Small doses. When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a… you know 10 pound or 20 pound baby. It looks like you’re giving you should be giving a horse this. And do you ever see the size of it, right? You know, it’s just massive. And then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times. And then you hear that it doesn’t have an impact, right? But you and I talked about that a long time ago.” • Kennedy apologizes:
When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 16, 2024
* * * “Get a Grip, Democrats. You Can Still Win This” [Washington Monthly]. “[P]olitical professionals should know better than to predict defeat four months before Election Day, especially when polls remain close. The ups and downs of the 2024 race should have already reminded us that an event today can be superseded by an event tomorrow. Not two months ago, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, and Biden was inching up in the polls. Just before the debate, Biden took a brief lead in the FiveThirtyEight national average and nearly did the same in RealClearPolitics. Then, the post-debate panic over Biden’s mental acuity knocked him back two or three points in those trackers. It is trite but true to note that a lot can happen over the next three months. We can’t be clairvoyant, but optimism is warranted. Israel and Hamas may soon agree to a ceasefire. Biden’s border crackdown may continue to drive down the number of illegal crossings and relieve pressure on municipalities. Perhaps most importantly, the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates and buoy public perception of the growing economy. Many Democrats are understandably nervous about how Biden will perform in the campaign’s final weeks, but let’s not forget that Trump may do plenty to rankle swing voters, as he has throughout his political career. It’s not true that Trump always ‘gets away with it.’ If he did, Republicans would have had better electoral performances in 2018, 2020, and 2022.”
“Stop Pretending You Know How This Will End” [The Atlantic]. “Let me offer another interpretation of Saturday’s shocking event: Nobody knows anything. Anyone who claims to have already figured out precisely how Trump’s bloody ear will influence the 2024 election or strain the nation’s civic bonds is lying to you and to themselves. The history of failed assassination attempts in the United States and abroad offers only the murkiest indication of the path forward. “Would-be assassins are chaos agents more than agents that direct the course of history,” says Benjamin Jones, an economist at Northwestern University who has studied the effects of political assassination attempts over the past 150 years. These liminal figures—light-years from fame, yet inches from infamy—tend to change the world in minuscule ways, if they change anything at all. The legacy of failed presidential assassination attempts in the U.S. should temper expectations that this past weekend was a world-historical event. Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1912 campaigning for president in Milwaukee and, with Paul Bunyan heroism, continued his speech after being struck; he still lost. During a three-week span in 1975, two women tried and failed to shoot Gerald Ford. He lost his upcoming election, too. When Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, a brief spike in his approval rating disappeared within a matter of months.”
Democrats en Déshabillé
Greenwald is correct:
I know nobody cares, but the reason this New Yorker cover is so dumb, among many reasons, is Amy Coney Barrett has repeatedly voted against Trump and the conservative majority, while John Roberts cast the decisive vote to save Obamacare.
But this is how liberals see the world: https://t.co/fT3zI2i5gt
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 15, 2024
New Yorker readers were my people; I grew up waiting eagerly for the New Yorker to come in the mail (bookish, I was). The topic were interesting, the reviews were great, the little movie blurbs were wonderful, the cartoons were funny… And now…. What a sad mess.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Dare to struggle? Dare to win?” [Closed Form]. “We are not allowed to talk about what we’re actually doing, and we’re especially not allowed to disagree. To disagree is to engage in “infighting” and “drama” that occlude the core mission of most NGO groups (many, many leftist formations are NGOs in the US): building lists of emails. This is a consequence of social media optimization logic together with the chokehold that nonprofits and other NGOs have on the political landscape in the US (this is particularly pronounced in Pittsburgh which informs my perspective tremendously — I am not arguing this is the sum total of the left or the case everywhere, just that it is widespread). It all adds up to a distressing “banking” model of political education. Gone are the days of study, argument, struggle, development of oneself and others in common intellectual pursuit. Were they ever here? LOL. Who knows. But time after time in my own life I have been expected to just show up and execute on some tactic that I had no part in developing and was not welcome to have any part in developing, from the mundane (aimless canvassing “for Medicare for all”) to the risky (a favorite strategy of NGO-affiliated organizers in Pittsburgh during the first Trump administration was “taking intersections” — stopping traffic, often with a terrifyingly inadequate number of inexperienced people, to no conceivable strategic or even tactical end). Someone else — they’ll never tell you it’s some old ass white person on a nonprofit board — already has the correct idea, even though the political situation is shifting and unfolding, and they’re gonna put it in your head, and you’re gonna act like you believe it and you understand what it’s doing, by doing what they tell you to do. That’s what it means, in the vast majority of cases, to participate in protest in the US in recent years.” • Well worth a read.
“Traveler’s Guide to the Acronym Wasteland” [The Anarchist Library]. The deck: “A general, group-by-group overview of some tankie and authoritarian entryist Left orgs in Philly (though partly relevant to other contexts; many are national groups), to help more autonomous, uncontrollable rebels better understand and defend against their manipulations.” • Lots and lots of detail of the world beyond the NGOs, not all of it edifying.
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, KF, 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!
Transmission: H5N1
“Despite bird flu anxiety in the dairy barn, a yearly tradition carries on at an Iowa county fair” [STAT]. Good local color, well worth a read. But: “The only way to make sure is to test widely, hoping that every sample comes back negative. That wasn’t in the cards at the moment, given some producers’ sentiments.” • [lambert pounds head on desk].
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Nevertheless:
Maskstravaganza
“Admission screening testing of patients and staff N95 masks are cost-effective in reducing COVID-19 hospital acquired infections” [Journal of Hospital Infection]. Agent-based model over 178 outbreaks in acute care settings in Australia. From the Abstract: “Compared to no admission screening testing and staff surgical masks, all scenarios were cost saving with health gains. Staff N95s + RAT admission screening of patients was the cheapest, saving A$78.4M [95%UI 44.4M-135.3M] and preventing 1,543 [1,070-2,146] deaths state-wide per annum. Both interventions were individually beneficial: staff N95s in isolation saved A$54.7M and 854 deaths state-wide per annum, while RAT admission screening of patients in isolation saved A$57.6M and 1,176 deaths state-wide per annum.” • Good to know, but won’t appease the RCT crowd (as if anything would).
Elite Maleficence
They knew:
This might surprise everyone including journalists, unions such @nynurses @NationalNurses & others but an overlooked 2011 OSHA training video shows the government knew SARS viruses like Covid were airborne over a decade ago, that elastomeric respirators were of critical… pic.twitter.com/AkcSWPGyCe
— Nicolas Smit (@PPEtoheros) July 16, 2024
They just don’t want you to know.
Now I will always hate the color teal:
CDCs language is such a laughable show of manipulation. Instead of "it's going up" they say "it's not declining." Instead of green > red that everyone understands for low/high it's ALL teal.
Does anyone know looking at this map what any of those colors mean? No? Of course not. https://t.co/EYv12afMx3
— Covid Caution KP.2 / KP.3 FLiRT Variant + LB.1 (@CovidCaution) July 16, 2024
Our World in Data memory-holes the life expectancy drop:
I suppose I should have asked whose world “our world” is. Here’s a link.
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Wastewater | ||
| This week[1] CDC July 8: | Last Week[2] CDC June 24 (until next week): | |
|
| |
| Variants [3] CDC July 6 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC July 8 | |
 |
|
|
| Hospitalization | ||
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data July 12: | National [6] CDC June 22: | |
|
|
|
|
| Positivity | ||
| National[7] Walgreens July 15: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 6: | |
 |
 |
|
| Travelers Data | ||
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC June 24: | ★ Variants[10] CDC June 24: | |
|
 |
|
| Deaths | ||
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC July 6: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC July 6: | |
 |
 |
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.
[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! (Because there is data in “current view” tab, I think white states here have experienced “no change,” as opposed to have no data.)
[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.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Retail: “U.S. Retail Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Retail sales in the US stalled in June from May 2024, following an upwardly revised 0.3% rise in the previous period.”
Housing: “United States NAHB Housing Market Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index in the US eased by one point from the previous month to 42 in July of 2024, the lowest in the current year, and below market expectations of 44.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 63 Greed (previous close: 61 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 52 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 16 at 12:35:46 PM ET •
Musical Interlude
Tragedy narrowly averted:
Photo Book
“How the Rise of the Camera Launched a Fight to Protect Gilded Age Americans’ Privacy” [Smithsonian]. “The same year Kodak cameras hit the marketplace, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Anthony Comstock—the anti-obscenity crusader after whom the 1873 Comstock Act is named—had arrested an amateur photographer for selling manually photoshopped pictures that placed ‘the heads of innocent women on the undraped bodies of other females.’ In 1890, a mugshot photographer for the New York Police Department was fired for selling copies of the mugshots to arrestees themselves—an arrangement the New York Times described as a ‘lucrative business.’ Boundless fascination with photographs created a bustling economy. People bought and collected random photographs from dry goods stores, general junk shops, vending machines and even cigarette packs. Demand was so robust that amateurs were just as able to sell to this market as professionals,” • Sounds like AI.
Book Nook
More damn books I won’t have time to read:
Octavia Butler’s 1993 dystopian novel “Parable of the Sower” begins in July of 2024. Climate change is turning the globe into a hellscape with droughts, fires and calamitous weather events. Racial and class inequities have soared, women’s rights are under threat, and white…
— Michiko Kakutani (@michikokakutani) July 16, 2024
Worth clicking “Show more” for the Presidential slogan….
News of the Wired
“Are you guilty of tsundoku?” [Travel between the pages]. “The Japanese word tsundoku means buying books and letting them pile up unread. The word dates back to the very beginning of modern Japan, the Meiji era (1868–1912) and has its origins in a pun. Tsundoku, which literally means reading pile, is written in Japanese as 積ん読. Tsunde oku means to let something pile up and is written 積んでおく. Some wag around the turn of the century swapped out that oku (おく) in tsunde oku for doku (読) – meaning to read. Then since tsunde doku is hard to say, the word got mushed together to form tsundoku.” • I am totally guilty. But just think of buying a book as taking out an option….
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 ST:
ST writes: “Attached is a bloom of one of the many flowering plants that surround my house. As with most of them, I have no idea what kind of plant this is. Perhaps if you use this as an antidote, someone botanically minded among the readership could cure my ignorance. Thanks.”
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120 comments
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Tsundoku, now do magazine version ;)
Advanced courses: bookmark version, reading list version?
I like how they actually have a specific word for it!
Guilty here, but I consider it a retirement entertainment plan.
I think it’s really only a problem if you do so to look erudite with no intention to ever read them.
I sheepishly admit to having Robert Caro’s books on LBJ, mainly to use as a doorstop…
Thrift store in Visalia has a parking lot book sale once a year for 2 bits per, and judging from how many of her books I saw in the 40 odd bankers boxes full of goodies, the Central Valley loves Danielle Steele. Last time out, I bought $6.25 worth, oh more books.
The 1 score was a 3 volume set of Mencken’s The American Language, which I haven’t gotten around to reading, like so much Tsundoku.
I sheepishly admit to having read the Caro and they’re pretty good. But the last volume goes soft on Lyndon with the real dirt–the Vietnam period–likely never to come out. He also did an interesting book on Robert Moses.
My dad took us to see Lyndon give a speech from the state capitol steps–Confederate flag waving up above. The Kennedys called him Vice President Cornpone. Perhaps Trump can revive the daisy ad to use against Biden. A Biden imitator can do the countdown.
He always resented and hated the Kennedys for that.
And LBJ, not the Kennedys, got the civil rights legislation passed.
Let’s not forget the civil rights legislation was the first chance people of color ever had to receive public assistance. That, and the Great Society made AFDC available for them. Yahoo! News reports that 76% of those needing public assistance got AFDC. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich changed AFDC to TANF. 26% get TANF. But hey, Dems are the party of the poor!
Also guilty. I live up to my email handle. One of the few areas of my life where profligacy goes unchecked.
I do also use the library a lot. To add to Neutrino’s request, I would like a name for the very long list of books on my library reserve list – a virtual book pile.
Haha – sorry, just realized you don’t seem my email handle! Let’s just say it has the word book in it
Some buy games they never get to play (and also play games they never get to buy, but that has a different name).
Yup, guilty of tsundoku…but new books are so unappealing sounding nowadays that I feel justified in having built up a hefty stock of old ones to read in my dwindling days.
I am guilty, though at least my rate of accumulation has slowed.
re: Get a Grip and Stop Pretending
Now is exactly the time for this kind of content from trusted purveyors like the Washington Monthly and The Atlantic. They have to manufacture belief that Biden’s not totally out of the race. So long as there’s hope, they can steal the election with voting machines (again).
The thought of a landslide terrifies them. You cannot cheat your way past an angry electorate.
But the real horrorshow is that there is less than zero upside for Biden. Saturday maybe but now there’s an heir apparent who’s even less palatable than Trump. [OK, I’m srsly bwahaha’ing out loud right now]
No sane person wants the torch handed to them. My prediction: the party greenlights the 25th Amendment process and then sticks the torch up Kamala’s [family blog]. If I were still evil, that’s what I would do. If I had long COVID and took antidepressants? This is for sure what I’d do.
> No sane person wants the torch handed to them.
It does have a “feel” similar to the situation in UK. A D wipeout followed by R-flavored misgovernance for 4 or 8 years.
——
It’s time to replenish my N95 inventory. I intuit that people may soon be more willing to accept them.
I would be curious whether anyone has a theory about why 3M 9205+ in case quantity (440 per case) are so cheap. They aren’t as durable as the 9210+ (rubber band versus elastic cloth; I find the rubber band snaps after a few wearings, but an upside is that it isn’t as tight as the elastic cloth), but 80% discount seems a bit much.
One theory about that that I like is that the polarity of the static charge on the masks from that batch run is ‘reversed.’ From “static cling” to “static fling!” /s fer sure!
Seriously, any feedback on how well these work? I’m ‘in funds’ right now and am considering buying this and handing them out to family and friends once the “Super Covid Wave” starts.
Come on NC commentariat. You’re the best.
It looks to me like the trifold mask part of the (rubber band strapped) 9205+ is the same as the 9210+; the only difference is the strap material.
9210+ fits almost uncomfortably tight, but the strap relaxes a bit with time. 9205+ does not IMO feel like it fits tightly (the rubber is much stretchier than the elastic cloth of the 9210+), but the seal presumably is still up to N95 standard, provided that you are fit tested.
I have never fit tested 9205+ or 9210+, but with both, I detect no sensation of air leakage around the mask/face contact surface, and when inhaling the mask pulls in toward my face due to the pressure difference, which — along with the lack of air flow sensation on my skin — suggests to me that nearly all the air is passing through the mask material.
The issue I have with 9205+ is that it is not highly reusable due to the strap failing after a few donnings. WIth 9210+, I can wear it dozens of times without strap failure (I use an old one when doing yard work), and the nose bridge foam falls off from being perspired into before the strap fails.
But at $0.25/ea, 9205+ is essentially disposable, and on a per $ basis, you are getting more uses out of 9205+ per $ than you are likely to want to get out of 9210+.
—
One caution is that these do not fit every face equally well. It may be prudent, if new to this device, to purchase a smaller quantity for evaluation, before splurging on a case.
Thank you for the information. A ‘test run’ might indeed be in order.
Stay safe. Mask up.
I was sad to see that post came from Bill Scher, a blogger from the old days and a genuinely nice guy from whatever interactions I had with him. Some people are just unable to sever that connection to the D party.
Are you inviting me to believe that they stole the election with voting machines (before)?
Only in years ending in 0, 4 or 6. In this century.
Peony! And a nice one.
Yes, indeed. Paeonia lactiflora to be exact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paeonia_lactiflora
I understand they make their flowerbuds the previous summer before they bloom, so may enjoy some fertilizer at that time. Also they don’t like disturbance because of the buds.
Yes, peony. I believe this variety:
https://www.gardenia.net/plant/paeonia-rozella-peony
This is interesting. Posted on CNN at 2:05 today;
Secret Service ramped up security after receiving intel of Iranian plot to assassinate Trump; no known connection to shooting
The first paragraph (bold mine);
That’s only the first paragraph, and then I notice who the authors are, one being Natasha Bertrand. I don’t think she is the most trustworthy person to believe. But, are any of them?
***
Related, the head of the SS put out a statement (I can’t find the one I’m looking for right now) that said they didn’t put snipers or people on that roof the shooter was on because it was too sloped. Yet, the roof the snipers were on who shot Crooks was steeper than this one. There are pictures out there showing the difference in the two. Strange.
I don’t know if the security was just badly botched, or something more sinister, but they are not helping their case with statements like this.
It’s the same source that told them that Russians want to kill Rheinmetall CEO, and that North Koreans want to kill Seth Rogen.
Next, an ‘annonymouse source’ will present evidence that the late shooter was in an online “relationship” with an Iranian Mata Hari.
Think 4chan for apparatchiks.
And the various nations put bounties on US troops in Afghanistan (in a year when no troops died), And let’s not forget Havana Syndrome, which some people keep bringing back! (We must not allow an Air Loom gap!)
The same source that told them someone wanted to kidnap Whitmer.
And the same agency that swore Hunter’s laptop was a Russian plot.
And the same Secret Service that can’t find who left a bag of coke in one of the most secure buildings in the world.
This whole assassination attempt story gets squirrelier by the second.
3 snipers supposed to be on the rooftop but were inside. 2 snipers on the other roof. The sniper who finally took Crooks out can’t shoot because he might hit a cop who’s supposed to be up there but isn’t. The two snipers should have been able to see the three that were inside the building but couldn’t because they weren’t there. Didn’t they wonder where they were and ask somebody?
30 minutes and 3 appearances by Crooks before he climbs on the roof. A cop takes a picture of him and sends it somewhere. Crooks wasn’t brandishing a gun at the time. Why didn’t the cop just walk up to him and ask him what he was doing? Cops will pull people over for a broken taillight and no cop would walk up and just talk to the guy?
Seems like there’s some off the wall excuse every time someone could have engaged with Crooks for it not happening.
And the million dollar question is why, with all this uncertainty, did no one communicate with Trump’s body men to just hold him off or take him off the stage until things got sorted out?
I earned my living in DOD system acquisition offices.
Management standards of the F-35 come to mind. Systems I worked are too embarrassing to mention.
Erosion of commitment.
> Erosion of commitment.
Loss of executive function.
Which leads to “Loss of Executive.”
From covidementia?
https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-not-my-job-photos/
“Not My Job”: 50 Funny Times People Didn’t Even Try
“Why didn’t the cop just walk up to him and ask him what he was doing? Cops will pull people over for a broken taillight and no cop would walk up and just talk to the guy?”
Uh, because he wasn’t black?
I’ll take credit for calling it that the SS snipers were not sure if the guy on the other rooftop was a local cop but I would have never called that there were three cops in the actual building below. Can you imagine the looks on those cop’s faces when they heard gunfire coming from the roof above them? Oops.
Hey, who’s Driving?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxTe28OsK0
The plantidote is a deciduous peony, a glorious flower. The great writer Colette noted that the scent of peonies is slightly fetid. Yet I find that heavy fragrance alluring, even if it is true that there is something a tad “off” about it.
All truly great things are a little weird, I’d venture.
I love peonies. Both the flower and the fragrance. They are extravagant. There is nothing subtle about them.
I admit when people speak of heirloom roses, I sometimes imagine peonies instead.
Ants also love the peonies. Every year they are all over the buds of mine, but I’ve never bothered to find out why they do it.
This year I also had ants all over some red dahlias, which I’d never seen before. The peony ants generally crawl over the plant, but these dahlia ants were stationary on the stem near the buds/blooms, several at a time like they were standing guard. I got pinched a few times when I reached too near trying to do some trimming.
I believe they pretty common on the peonies, but never heard of them taking up residence on dahlias before. Has anyone else seen this?
I have no idea on the dahlias, but I was told that the appeal of peonies to ants has to do with the nectar that coats the buds. That in fact they help the peonies bloom by removing it.
I have a black thumb so can in no way confirm that, but I have seen it referred to in a couple of places. IOW if it isn’t true it is a myth that won’t die.
The ants on your dahlias are aphid ranchers. Aphids suck sap and produce sweet liquid poo. The ants collect it for transport to the nest by consuming it. Back home, the bounty is regurgitated for the fam. As you found, they can be quite protective of their ‘cattle’.
PS: Peonies will bloom in the absence of ants. They help the process, but are not required.
Pat, I agree and the varieties around here do smell like roses. To me the scent is heavenly.
> a glorious flower
I used to dislike them. Then I started photographing them when their petals began to fall. The colors were subtle and astounding, even white peonies!
They are the divas of the garden.
Lambert, not to create work for you, but it would be nice to see one of your photos sometime.
Taibbi/Kirn from last night at the convention. Interesting! It might have been Rubio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTSfKOcBGIw
If so, it shows that Trump still stinks at being an HR manager.
Rubio would have been a dud (Dan Quayle, the soft reboot) and helped Team DNC. Vance is a home run, and gives MAGA an heir, regardless of the election outcome.
Pagimg Bernie, who is your ideological heir?
They say Trump had already more or less decided on Vance but the national security goons among the Repubs were pressing Rubio yesterday morning and Trump didn’t make the final decision until that last minute. So if it was Rubio versus Vance then the choice of Vance may be a good thing.
Wonder if Morning Joe came back. The network had claimed it was pulled for one day. They tapdance on that development quite a lot.
They were back and Joe had a tantrum that they weren’t on, that it wasn’t breaking news all day, and other anchors had their show. I’m not sure how much of it was on the air but the story I read said “told viewers” so I’m thinking most of it.
lyman has the Yahoo story link below.
All the eastern media chatter about Rubio points up how stupid they all are, just assuming that, naturally, a Florida Cuban will appeal to Mexicans in the Midwest.
Maybe Vance was the last guy Trump interviewed. Because wasn’t that the real reason Trump chose Pence? Last one to bend his ear right before he was about to fly off to announce his choice (which was going to be Chris Christie, if my faulty memory is working today). Maybe if Rubio had arranged his conversation to be the last one, he would’ve gotten the nod.
I mean, so far, we haven’t seen great evidence for Trump making sound personnel choices. Maybe he will luck out with this one. Although many men are probably sighing in disappointment that it wasn’t Tulsi.
Cheatle had a different story for why nobody was posted on that roof:
She said the Secret Service was aware of the security vulnerabilities presented by the building Crooks took a sniper’s position on to aim at Trump. However, a decision was made not to place any personnel on the roof.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” she said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/secret-service-director-trump-rally-shooter-was-identified-as-potential-person-of-suspicion/ar-BB1q4PDI?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=c198d58100f3457389e4496682e24811&ei=9
Which doesn’t wash, because the roof behind Trump where snipers were posted had a steeper slope
Nobody talks about the water tower, either.
Indeed. You’d have thought someone would definitely have been posted on the highest ground in the entire area.
My memory may not be 100% accurate, but when Slick Willie came to Seattle for the AIPAC conference 30 years or so ago and there were snipers all over the rooftops on the route his motorcade took through downtown. I also saw Poppy Bush’s motorcade go through downtown Athens 30+ years ago and there was a spook talking into their wrist stationed every 50 feet or so on both sides of the street. My better half had occasion to do an event with Jill Biden recently and she reported that security was extremely heavy although I didn’t witness that personally.
The lapse is odd to say the least. Sort of similar to how some capitol police ushered protesters onto the grounds a few years ago.
Events with both Hillary Clinton (after leaving office and losing) and Laura Bush at a place where I worked had plainclothes throughout the venue. A sweep the day before, a sweep the day after and some poor low man on the totem pole even got assigned to stay by the garbage dumpster.
Good point. I measured it on Google maps – only about 750-800 feet away from Trump, and about 450 feet from the shooter on the roof. Great angle to see the guy on the roof too, and much higher.
So the SS is not OK with a potential sprained ankle while guarding the POTUS? That really doesn’t make sense at all considering they are supposed to use their own bodies as shields if necessary, as several of them did.
> So the SS is not OK with a potential sprained ankle
Makes no sense. Crooks did just fine.
I don’t get why there weren’t several drones covering those buildings if they didn’t want to risk someone being on them. The video you get from there is pretty amazing these days. And it isn’t as if they couldn’t tell if there was a rogue drone.
So much of this just doesn’t make sense. But then I think that about most things anymore. Usually it is about laziness or cheapening out or both. I suppose the real question is whether the SS had adequate man power to cover that building or operate and watch the video feeds of drones to determine what it was.
(Not for nothing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the SS funding is inadequate and that the only full complement of coverage is, or now was, for Mr and Mrs Biden, doctor of education not MD.
Crooks was seen by the secret service snippers at least 3 minutes before shots were fired but were not given permission to take him out until after Crooks fired. Spectators saw Crooks with his rifle and tried to alert the authorities but nothing was done. This according to the following YouTube links. I don’t think the former CIA intelligence officers are spreading misinformation. Check the links and judge for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOyKXbhzU-8 Ray McGovern on Dialog Works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXdx2y0eCS0 Judge Napolitano with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA3ueMsAcTM Larry Johnson with former FBI HRT sniper Chris Whitcomb.
If the SS snipers were not certain of Crooks’ intent, why couldn’t they have just shot Crooks’ rifle? Crooks’ presence was not the threat, but his firearm.
I keep seeing “the one” photo of Crooks, where he looks like a fourteen year old, bullied loner …… narrative forming?
All of Crooks’ other photos and social media have just “disappeared”.
June retail sales were released this morning, so economic stats appear to move the market since the headline was better than estimated. Okay the number was flat but that’s a projection to decline during the month.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/retail-sales-come-in-better-than-expected-in-june-123446812.html
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/economy/retail-sales-june/index.html
Whoops, I added them. So that is the source of the Greed bump, I suppose.
41,000 (!)….tonight we’re going to “party like it’s 2029..”
I was dreaming of higher prices,
So sue me if I go too fast
But life in the markets is a party,
And parties were meant to last
Trees can grow to the sky maybe ? Borrowing a quote from an older long ago era, when Goldman was a simple partnership. And yes, the firehose of updating news on politics and election year news is at 105%.
I have added orts and scraps mostly about Covid and bird flu, but scattered throughout politics, too (IOW, if you have a moment, please rescan).
There really is too much going on!
That’s a peony. A gem of a flower.
RE: New Yorker readers were my people…And now…What a sad mess.
Might I suggest Harpers? I’ve subscribed for a few decades now and they haven’t lost their mojo. There was a brief period several years ago after Trump was elected when Rebecca Solnit was still writing the monthly editorial and caught the TDS. Easy Chair was insufferable for a few months with her on the job and I was afraid the whole magazine would go that way. But they came to their senses, got rid of her, and they’ve been back to their usual, well written, eclectic, long form articles ever since. Their book review column is also excellent and I’ve gotten many of my recent recommendations from them, with the rest coming from NC.
I remember when a British woman whose name I forget was brought in to run the New Yorker. Essays and articles started getting shorter, cartoons started getting more simple minded and less funny, etc.
I gather she is considered to have created the vacuum into which David Remnick got sucked.
There’s a Derecho hitting the Midwest with high winds, centered around the 2nd City.
https://www.newsweek.com/destructive-derecho-seen-space-1925963
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My buddy from Tucson was in Cedar Rapids in 2020 at his brother’s house when a Derecho came calling, and Cedar Rapids had prided itself on being a city of trees, a good many of which came down, including one that totaled his brand new truck in the driveway.
He said it more or less paralyzed the city for 3 to 4 days of being able to drive around and a few weeks of getting things back up to snuff.
During Derecho in 2020, we were without power for at least three days. Here in the first city, we had what we thought was a Derecho last night. Now they say it was a tornado. There was hardly any warning. Our neighborhood was spared. We drove around looking at some of the damage this evening. This is a heavily-treed city.
The New Yorker has long since jumped the shark, as Lambert notes. The odd worthwhile article for an educated person is surrounded by editorial aimed primarily at people half my age or less, who apparently have disposable income up the wazoo and a profound interest in Korean restaurants and newfangled forms of annoying music. It’s my last active print subscription, and I may not renew this time. It costs a bundle, and it’s easy enough to read online with a paywall blocker or the savvy to delete your cookies once your free-article limit is reached. One thing about it I still appreciate (because Remnick can’t get at it) is the access to the mag’s full archives that comes with a paid sub. Do you miss John McPhee? He’s still accessible.
Amateur radio. No license required for Citizens Band radio. That is why it was created. Or family radio. Both have lower transmitting power and less frequencies to operate on.
At one time you had to know Morse code to be a ham operator. No longer the case. The theory part of electronics is pretty minimal now too. I was a CBer in middle school and went to to ham radio in high school. It’s is a fun hobby and the option to do important community service in the event of an emergency. — . —. — — . —
Joe Scarborough threatens to do everybody a favor.
He really does remind one of a toddler who needs a nap and a time out doesn’t he.
“Scarborough had committed murder”
I’ve never seen the show but even I have heard about that…..something to do with the death of a Congressional aide he was involved with?
Don’t get cable….
They should replace them both with a sack of potatoes resting in each chair, and run the full NBC news channel feed.
Everyone can become too big or great in their own mind, often to their very detriment. Shut up awhile and go sit around the fire with Keith Olbermann. Keith can say “hold my beer” when it comes to being a petulant, child like employee of a media network.
wandered around from that tracingwoodgrain tweet…and apprently into a hive of market fundies, griping about how Vance means we now have 2(TWO!) socialist parties.
…which, of course, i take as a sort of reverse endorsement…meaningf, if they dont like him, i should prolly not discount him.
lol.
several linked to our buddy Oren’s take:https://x.com/oren_cass/status/1813007630966636942
see the replies,lol…market fundies havin kittens is always a good thing, me thinks.
Yes, whatever gets up the nose of market fundamentalists is usually a good thing.
Regarding the “Traveler’s Guide” posted by The Anarchist Library, the opening section regarding Workers World Party is utter bullshit. I worked in coalition with WWP for a couple of years in Denver, moved to NYC to become an active cadre, served 5-6 years in various capacities. I began to distance myself when I recognized I was burning out. A bit later on, AIDS activism consumed my energy, and then it was just AIDS.
I was dismayed when the WWP/PSL split came about. I was never able to get any insight into the politics of the split. I was afraid that the party wouldn’t be able to hold together after Sam Marcy died, followed by those the founding generation of comrades. I thought that the party had done a pretty good job training up cadre for leadership. Both WWP and PSL are fairly effective organizers, so that part of their training worked. I have no insight into the political basis for the split, but I can see how some of the personal dynamics could have only heightened the centrifugal impetus of losing the ‘Old Guard’.
I can’t speak with personal knowledge of much of anything Nim Thorn cites from these “[c]lassic examples of ‘tankies’ or ‘campists’ in the 21st century. The part concerning the time in which I was intimately involved is nothing but a fevered, tendentious excrescence. It has no relation to the reality of events I experienced. This makes me unwilling to credit the rest, much less delve into the other sections of ranting. I lack appropriate BSL4 PPE. Yellow waders, even full wet suit, won’t cover it.
For all the author’s critique, explicit or implied, of left sectarianism, the piece itself was incredibly sectarian.
And, man, those anarchists just can’t let Kronstadt go!
I cannot possibly recommend Parable of the Sower enough, especially as things continue to decay. It is absolutely one of my favorite books of all time.
From Jessica Wildfire: What We All Need to Know About J.D. Vance
He didn’t outlaw masks really, but he did outlaw (phony) vaccine mandates, so it’s a wash in my book. You can’t make fools wear masks, unfortunately, and like my friend says, it’s America, what are you gonna do?
Besides, Trump will win, so better just get used to VP JD. Maybe he’ll cause some CEOs to lose some sleep.
I recently read Butler’s dystopian “parable of ” works and found them a compelling portrait of a world gone wrong. Unfortunately, the deus ex machina ending of redemption through spaceflight was so disappointing it overshadowed all else. Also found the MAGA quote amusing at the time.
Taibbi’s latest. no paywall.
The Surrender
In the wake of a fatal shooting and attempted assassination of Donald Trump, a series of reversals may mark the beginning of a new political era
https://www.racket.news/p/the-surrender
Okay, one for the zeitgeist monitor …MLB does the same thing every July since like, forever; All Star game is preceded by a Home Run Derby. And this year apparently there was a singing rendition that impaired the listener. Hear the singing of the US national anthem at your own risk(!).
The singer whom I don’t know from Adam, Eve, Jack or Jill….says she was a bit tipsy. Oh, it is so bad.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/who-is-ingrid-andress-home-run-derby-national-anthem-singer-draws-harsh-criticism-after-performance/
Lotsa quality time in the Great Indoors, so i’ve been watching more MLB than usual… last year I saw my first game of the year during the 2nd game of the World Series, some fan I am.
Anyhow, I’ve watched a few dozen games and they did away with ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ for the 7th inning stretch and replaced it with ‘God Bless America’ when I wasn’t looking, would Jesus be ok with a suicide squeeze play, or wanton theft of bases?
I’m thinking Jesus would have some words for those evangelist influencers using his name and His Father…in the gain for and unto themselves of holy roller personal Gulfstream planes and super expansive real estate holdings. Jesus likely had a very different opinion on how some are set to reign on earth and command millions in tithes and offerings. Joel Osteen, I’m looking at you, and some others who live quite well. Walk into their high temple, and throwing a few tables around might garner some necessary attention.
Now, I do wish they or the MLB had dropped all the singing during the 7th inning…say after Mission Accomplished (!). I also find the military sponsored “shows for patriotism” during routine, regular season NFL games over the top. That’s just me…I didn’t serve since the draft era had ended, but granddad did during WW2…countless uncles served which I concede is not highly unusual.
One thing MLB has gone overboard on is the players celebrating after every hit, goofing off on 2nd base after a ground-rule double with a careless swaying of one’s hips and swaying of arms, or a display of celebration after winning a meaningless regular season game that would rival that of a world series game in 1974.
Country funny-song writer Ray Stevens once wrote a song called ” Would Jesus Wear a Rolex”.
Here is a you tube video of Ray Stevens singing that song on the show Nashville Now from the TNN ( Tennessee News Network) cable channel. I used to watch that channel till at some point it decided to rename itself The National Network and I kind of sort of stopped watching it. I don’t really remember what kind of stuff it had once it became The National Network. It went extinct shortly thereafter.
Anyway, here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZaxRNJIj4
I rather do appreciate the satirical question he raises in that tune. Most of the small town, small time Baptist preachers I knew growing up were decidedly decent, good families and not ones with a fleet of Cadillac sedans or that brand of watch. This prosperity gospel is a special flavor for the ones who drink it up, but it’s just not for me, and isn’t reflecting the New Testament if you will.
Of no real importance but I haven’t seen anyone mention that when that cop interrupted the Trump shooter, the shooter presumably understood right away that the jig was up, even though the cop backed down for the moment. So the shooter squeezed off some shots immediately and under “duress”, rather than taking more time to aim and prepare. That might be why he missed. So the spectator intervention and the cop may have in fact saved Trump.
Fwiw I saw the pic of Trump at the RNC with the bandaged ear. My reaction: if I hadn’t known about the shooting I’d have wondered if Mike Tyson had bitten him.
Or maybe Trump had become a ‘fauve.’
Railroads welcome opportunity to explain growth efforts to federal regulators Trains magazine
There are NO growth efforts! The industry has been in shrink mode since Carter era deregulation. The customers and public suffer with poor or expensive service and the environment suffers with more trucks on the highways. Hopefully JD Vance remembers East Palestine.
Everything you need to know about the greedfest of the railroad’s PSR opium are two facts:
Data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows the decline of rail freight volume over the past decade. FRED
CSX long term debt is only 70 basis points over risk-free treasuries (ie, virtually no risk premium of CSX free cash flow funding buybacks over treasuries)
Maybe when they say “growth”, what they mean is “growth of stock share price”. Maybe they think that is what “growth” refers to nowadays and don’t know why anyone would think differently.
Maybe federal regulators can extort from the railroads an answer to the question: ” growth” of ” what” exactly? And be specific, please.
Maybe those of us near train tracks are relieved at this knowledge. Having 20 years in this location I can say that it used to be heavier overall in the 1st decade, so my experience matches the data. I can say I don’t enjoy the increase in trucks one bit.
Or maybe they’re trying to tell the “authorities-that-be” what they’ve decided to demand in support if those ATBs ask them to grow in service provided. . . .
It is so interesting how narratives fall apart – we were just informed that there is but one dose of Paxlovid left in the whole community in the pharmacies. There is no info on when more is coming. Just amazing.
I have multiple patients who are on medications that cost them thousands upon thousands of dollars every month. They are literally struggling to eat. And they are fully “insured”.
And then stories like this come over the wire.
These kinds of things are becoming more and more common. This one possibly killed people. Depending on the source – this scheme has been ongoing for 16-36 months. An average general internist is going to be billing Medicare at the very most 40-50K a month in claims. And yet these stories happen constantly detailing providers and companies billing literally millions a month…..This one scheme alone billed almost a BILLION dollars – and received 350 million or so in payments. The CMS system just pays this out month after month after month. No oversight. It is almost designed to perpetuate fraud. And it goes on for months/years before anyone is caught. I would like to say this is rare, it is not. How does this happen? Who is watching the watchers? It should be obvious and require investigation frankly after one month of this level of billing.
I see this kind of stuff going on all around me – and then I go back into the patient room with the young father of 3 literally struggling and busting his gut to pay for his 700/month insulin on his obamacare insurance. Remember – Biden said he took care of that – WINK WINK. Over and over and over again all day long.
Meanwhile, all I hear from the media is that the deplorables should just shut up and be happy – we are doing such a GREAT job with the economy. Why, Biden is the best president since FDR. Just look at all his achievements in the past 3 years. ( I really struggle to name just one). How dare you say a word. These people are going to get what is coming – and they are going to get it good and hard.
https://english.news.cn/20221229/732b4fe4cd0c47f3890296d3907bf844/c.html
December 29, 2022
Chinese oral COVID-19 drug equally effective with Paxlovid: study
BEIJING — An oral antiviral agent called VV116, which is a potent anti-COVID-19 drug, is just as effective as Paxlovid in increasing the speed of clinical recovery, according to a scientific study * published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The China-developed anti-coronavirus drug has shown improved performance during the early onset of Omicron infections. Its developers include several institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Previously, a preliminary small-scale study showed a shorter viral shedding time in patients with COVID-19 who received VV116 within five days after the first positive test than in those who received regular care.
Those in the treatment group, who received VV116 within five days of their first positive test, had an average viral shedding time of 8.56 days, while those in the control group had an average time of 11.13 days.
In the new study published Wednesday, in a phase-3, randomized trial during the outbreak caused by the Omicron variant, the median time to sustained clinical recovery for the VV116 group was four days, compared to five days for those taking Paxlovid.
Among adults with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were at risk of progression, at seven hospitals in Shanghai, VV116 was not inferior to Paxlovid or nirmatrelvir-ritonavir and showed fewer safety concerns, according to the study.
As the global supply of Paxlovid is currently falling short of demand, VV116 can be considered a better option, said the researchers.
* https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208822
I remember reading/hearing years ago that the Medicare system over-seers were very carefully and deliberately starved of money and positions strictly allocated to fraud-hunting and fraud-stopping. I can’t remember which President is supposed to have begun the substantial standing-down of Medicare’s fraud-hunting and fraud-stopping ability. But it was supposed to have been done deliberately and on purpose with the intention of creating the opportunity for this kind of fraud to be carried out.
Hilariously on Twitter I’m seeing all the great things he’s gonna do when reelected. All things he failed to do with a Democrat Congress. It’s laughable.
Not to worry–tomorrow Joe will promise you a pony carrying baskets full of Paxlovid. Today he promised to expand the Supreme Court and put in term limits and a constitutional amendment to undo the recent immunity decision. Yesterday it was national rent control. Pathetic and sad, really.
Well he can get in line because I will fight any new constitutional amendment until we have that makes it clear that corporations are not people, that they have no Constitutional rights except for those explicitly given in the Constitution, but they have constitutional recognized responsibilities to their customers, their employees and the communities they operate in in America. Shareholders are passive investments gambling on the sales price, which is not the company’s concern as it is no longer based on the legitimate value of the company. The the only responsibility the company has to stockholders is to provide a regular honest assessment of the state of the company.
Unless and until the atrocity that was Citizen United and most of our corporate malfeasance is shredded as stated the President can remain immune to an avenging partisan DOJ headed by a fearful opponent.
IM DOC,
Notice that in the Chinese article on a substitute for Paxlovid, mention is made of a lack of supply of Paxlovid. This, in December 2023. Obviously, production of Paxlovid has been purposely limited for so long a while:
“As the global supply of Paxlovid is currently falling short of demand, VV116 can be considered a better option, said the researchers.”
From your lips to God’s ears, IM Doc …
Yeah, given all the praises Biden is getting, one wonders when he’s going to give himself the fifth star of the Hero of Soviet Union. Oh, wait, wrong senile “leader”…
griffen had a dream and so did MLK. Mine isn’t as uplifting. Sorry Van.
They found the roof was just too hot
Twas much better in the shade.
That guy who keeps coming ‘round
We took a picture, he went away.
This jacks or better to open bets
Is really crampin’ our play.
Didn’t see or hear when Crooks
Slid on by us the other way.
Mmmm, these dreams of you
So real, could be true.
These dreams of you,
Substantially rings true.
Crooks was up there on the roof
And the police just walked away.
They never really heard the crowd
When they cried out that way.
He’s on the roof out in the sun
They pointed out for us to know.
And they said we were the ones
Who had to reap what we did sow.
Mmmm, these dreams of you
So real, could be true.
These dreams of you,
Substantially rings true.
Now hush-a-bye don’t ever talk about it.
Zip your lips don’t ever say one word.
Close your mouth or the death angel comes down from above.
And then Trump was shot down
But he got up, he was all right.
The scrum of agents gathered round
But he cried out “Fight, fight, fight!”
Reports were ringing in the air
As return fire came at our place.
We knew we’d beat fate by a hair
But would our story give is grace.
Mmmm, these dreams of you
So real, could be true.
These dreams of you,
Substantially rings true.
Now hush-a-bye don’t ever talk about it.
Zip your lips don’t ever say one word.
Close your mouth or the death angel comes down from above.
For a melody try These Dreams Of You
Glenn Greenwald. utube, ~37+ minutes.
Who is J.D. Vance and What Does He Really Believe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDNeEusa9oA
Re: Crooks the gunman
What are the odds that the parents had their son on some strong meds?
Something to ensure “academic achievement” in view of putative “mild dyslexia” or somesuch.
Nimrata looks like she has a new hairstyle. Also, I can’t tell if it’s the lighting or she got some skin bleaching, too. Goin’ MJ?
I know it’s petty and untoward to criticize a woman for her looks, but since it’s war machine Nikki, I don’t care.
She was ready for her closeup, Mr.DeMille. Leftover campaign money spent on a major makeover?
I had the sound off so don’t know if she said “finish them.”
Pro Vance from Lee Fang.
https://scheerpost.com/2024/07/16/j-d-vances-populist-anti-corporate-record-may-surprise-you/
I am curious if it’s possible to see where the dividing line is between pro and anti Vance commentators. A very unscientific hunch I have is that this is along the age/establishment line, and this can only reinforce the tendency people have been seeing in the polls for some time. “Likely” voters, people who tend to show up election after election, are strongly pro Biden while less likely voters are strongly pro Trump, and this goes beyond the usual tropes of ideology and ethnicity (although age is strongly correlated with “likely voter” status.)
I thought Hillbilly Elegy was a decent book, if this is the same man.
Rudy Giuliani falling over (drunk?) at the RNC convention
https://x.com/JustinAHorwitz/status/1813331276348412149
Poor old Guiliani…like his career as a practicing lawyer. Hard to get back up. Adding, I don’t actually have much sympathy for him. He had a tremendous advantage as NYC mayor, in the wake of and following the events of 9/11/2001. Now these many years later, that’s long gone.
He was always a nasty piece of work. New Yorkers were quite sick of him by 9/10/2001, but the attacks of the following day gave him a short-lived bump in popularity, most of it outside the city.