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2:00PM Water Cooler 11/1/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Yes, I will do an Election Eve live blog. Enjoy your weekend. –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Common Nightingale, Santpoort, Noord-Holland, Netherlands’

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In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Friday’s RCP polling: Bad news for Trump.
  2. More Section Three fun .
  3. Epstein on Trump (last minute tape).
  4. Boeing to vote on new contract Monday (“slight improvement”).

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Look for the Helpers

Free dental clinics are wonderful:

Of course, dentistry should be free at the point of care, like all health care.

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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

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The Transition

“Trump, Harris camps prepare to ‘go to the mattress’ in election legal battles” [The Hill]. “Hours after Steve Bannon was released from prison Tuesday upon serving a four-month stint for evading a congressional subpoena, the onetime adviser to former President Trump sounded the alarm about the upcoming election. ‘The Democrats are not going to give up,’ he told reporters. ‘They just hired Marc Elias. And you only hire Marc Elias — who I think is the toughest election lawyer in the country — you only hire Marc Elias when you want to go to the mattress.’ Elias, a leader of Vice President Harris’s election litigation efforts, hit back: ‘My team of lawyers is better than the GOP’s. And we’re ready to beat them again in 2024.’ The exchange came just days until the nation decides who will next occupy the White House — and the expectation that a dramatic legal standoff awaits, which both the Trump and Harris campaigns are preparing for. Already, there are more than 200 voting and election cases pending across the nation, according to Elias’s tally, with many in key battleground states that could alter the trajectory of the election’s outcome. For weeks, lawyers for the Republican and Democratic parties have gone toe-to-toe in courtrooms on challenges to voter rolls, mail ballots and other election procedures.”

“That “Little Secret” Between Trump and Johnson? Here’s What It Could Mean” [The Nation]. Extremely complicated. “I think the plan is to steal the Electoral College outright by getting states Trump loses to refuse to certify the results of their election. That’s because the 12th Amendment provides that the president is the person who wins the majority of the ‘whole number of Electors appointed.’ That ‘whole number’ is supposed to be 538. But one potential reading of the amendment is that Trump doesn’t have to win 270 Electoral College votes but just a majority of however many electors show up. Trump’s goal, I believe, is to decrease the number of electors appointed until he wins…. The first step in such a process is to get Republicans in states Trump loses to contest the certification of their own elections. In 2020, Trump and his team illegally tried to get slates of alternate electors submitted in states where Republicans control the state legislatures. They could try that again, but for this scheme to work, they don’t even have to get ‘fake’ electors submitted but just to convince Republican state legislatures or Republican governors not to submit their valid slates of electors before statutorily imposed deadlines. All slates of electors are supposed to be certified by December 11. Those electors are then supposed to vote and submit their results by December 25. What this means is that Republicans just have to delay long enough to pass those deadlines. They don’t have to win; they just have to stall. There are currently 27 states with Republican state legislatures, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. There are currently 26 Republican governors running states like Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Virginia. If some of these people are able to delay certification past the deadline, the ‘whole number of Electors appointed’ would be diminished, lowering the number of electors Trump would need to hold a majority.” • But interesting!

“Dems say they will certify a Trump victory — even the ones who think the 14th Amendment disqualifies him” [Politico]. More on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment: “Democratic leaders are saying publicly and privately they want a drama-free transfer of power — even if it means setting aside some members’ views that Trump is ineligible to return to the presidency because of the Constitution’s bar on insurrectionist officeholders. The 14th Amendment prohibits any federal officeholders who have “engaged in” insurrection from holding office again, and Democrats have long suggested Trump ran afoul of it when he inflamed the violent mob that attacked the Capitol four years ago. At the time, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” Their leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has routinely called Trump the ‘insurrectionist-in-chief.’ … Aides say Democratic leaders hope to squelch potential calls by their rank-and-file to invoke the Constitution’s insurrection clause as a basis for trying to prevent a popularly-elected Trump from returning to office.” And importantly: “In its March opinion, the Supreme Court implied — though didn’t explicitly state — that Congress must pass legislation to lay out a procedure to determine whether a current or former officeholder has violated the insurrection clause. It’s a gap that leaves some uncertainty about what Congress’ obligations and options are in January. But most constitutional scholars say it would be improper for lawmakers to make a subjective judgment about Trump’s eligibility without a forum to fully air and debate the facts. ‘Congress does not have the capacity in the [Jan. 6] joint session to do so,’ said Derek Muller, a University of Notre Dame constitutional law expert. ‘Because Congress is not in a position to decide the matter, Congress should count the votes.'” • So that’s why Baude and Paulsen (see yesterday’s Water Cooler) wanted some state to pull the trigger? NOTE Amazing sign of the fecklessness of Democrats: They control both houses, but they didn’t codify any Section Three legislation, even though the Supreme Court said if they wanted the power, that was how to take it. So I guess all that “insurrection” foofra wasn’t important after all? (On the bright side, maybe they can fundraise off it, just like abortion.

2024

Countdown!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

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Lambert here: Bad news for Trump, as Kamala rebuilt the Blue Wall. But if you look at the results with the Toss-Up states turned red or blue… Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!.

The House from O.G. Cook Political Report:

So, one side or the other will win?

Senate:

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Kamala (D): “AP sources: White House altered record of Biden’s ‘garbage’ remarks despite stenographer concerns” [Associated Press]. ” White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by The Associated Press…. Biden, according to a transcript prepared by the official White House stenographers, told the Latino group on a Tuesday evening video call, ‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.’ The transcript released by the White House press office, however, rendered the quote with an apostrophe, reading ‘supporter’s’ rather than ‘supporters,’ which aides said pointed to Biden criticizing Hinchcliffe, not the millions of Americans who are supporting Trump for president… The change was made after the press office ‘conferred with the president,’ according to an internal email from the head of the stenographers’ office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. The supervisor, in the email, called the press office’s handling of the matter ‘a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.’ ‘If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,’ the supervisor wrote, adding, ‘Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.'” • I know I ran this in Links this morning, but it’s so utterly shameless I feel I must draw attention to it once more.

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Kamala (D): “Full transcript: Vice President Kamala Harris interviewed by NBC News’ Yamiche Alcindor” [NBC]. Yamiche. Of course. It’s all like this: “ALCINDOR: Former first lady Michelle Obama said she stays up at night wondering why this election is so close. Do you do that? What keeps you up at night? HARRIS: What keeps me up at night are the challenges that face the American family and my role and responsibility and my to-do list to address those issues. Whether it be on bringing down the cost of groceries, bringing down the cost of housing, what we need to do to make sure that child care is affordable for working families, what I will do to make sure that Medicare covers in-home care for seniors. Those are the things that keep me up, which is doing the work that will directly impact the people of America.” • I will say that Harris has her well-polished patter down cold, and moves her well-polished talking points as smoothly and swiftly as a three-card monte dealer. But this wasn’t really an interview; it was just Alcindor tossing softball after softball. And no, whatever keeps Kamala up at night, if anything: this ain’t it.

Kamala (D): “Conservatives in furor over Julia Roberts ad” [The Hill]. “‘In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know,’ Roberts says in the ad as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris. The voter winks at a fellow female voter as her husband asks if she made the ‘right choice.'” Vote for Common Good, the nonprofit organization responsible for ad, the responded to backlash. ‘The backlash from certain men who are horrified to think their wives might disagree with them actually proves our point.'” • At least in my mind, it’s not the disagreement, it’s the lying. Of course, lying for Democrats is very on-brand, if you remember how the entire party lied, vociferously and continuously, about Biden’s cognitive dysfunction until he actually slipped a cog where outsiders could see (on national television, too).

Kamala (D): “Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands?” [Rebecca Solnit, Guardian]. ” The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.” • So wait. Is Solnit saying that the party that pushed vote-by-mail as hard as possible didn’t have women’s safety as their first consideration?

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Trump (R): “Scoop: What Trump is being told” [Axios]. “The memo, addressed to ‘TEAM TRUMP,’ has the subject line: ;PRESIDENT TRUMP IS ON THE VERGE.” [Tony Fabrizio, chief pollster] draws on Real Clear Politics polling averages to argue that Trump’s ‘position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago. I point this out NOT to stoke overconfidence or complacency, but to illustrate just how close this election is and that victory is within our reach,’ the pollster adds. ‘But the fact remains that we still have a great deal of work to do. While the analysis of early and absentee vote returns in each state [is] promising, we know that the bulk of President Trump voters will vote on Election Day.’ Reality check: Polling is as tight as any presidential race ever, with the New York Times average showing Trump at 48% and Vice President Harris at 48%. The 538 average has Harris ahead by 1 point — well within polls’ margins of error. This remains a 50-50 election, folks, with polling from all seven swing states falling within the margins of error.”

Trump (R): “CNN’s Enten: Three Signs That Point To A Trump Victory” [Harry Enten, CNN]. “Republicans have been registering voters in big, huge numbers. They have been gaining in party registration versus the Democrats in the swing states with party registration. We’re talking Arizona. I think it’s a five-point – they’ve expanded their lead from five points from where it was back in 2020. How about Nevada? Big Republican registrations there. They like the early vote. How about North Carolina? Big Republican registration gains. How about Pennsylvania? We spoke about it before a few months ago, big Republican Party registration gains versus where – where – from where they were four years ago. So, Republicans are putting more Republicans in the electorate. The Democratic number versus the Republican number has shrunk. And so the bottom line is, if Republicans win, come next week, Donald Trump wins come next week. The signs all along will have been obvious. We would look at the right direction being very low, Joe Biden’s approval rating being very low, and Republicans really registering numbers. You can’t say you weren’t warned. Stay tuned.”

Trump (R):

Visegrad 24 is a pro-Ukrainian venue from Poland, so it looks to me like they’re placing a bet.

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Trump (R): “Listen to Jeffrey Epstein Spill Intel on Donald Trump’s White House” (audio) [Daily Beast]. “It therefore had an impressive topicality, which at once, in Smiley’s eyes, made it suspect.” –John LeCarré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

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Trump (R): “Trump says Liz Cheney wouldn’t be such a ‘war hawk’ if she had ‘nine guns trained on her face'” [Bizpac Review]. The full quote: “[TRUMP:] Dick Cheney’s daughter is a very dumb individual. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face. They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouths of the enemy.’ But she’s a stupid person. And I used to have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people,’ he added.” • Now the spin–

Trump (R): “Trump Assails Liz Cheney and Imagines Guns ‘Shooting at Her'” [New York Times]. • Nonsense. Trump is doing, as it his way, an extended riff on an old trope. From Herbert Hoover: “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.” Now, of course, civilization has progressed, and older women — like Cheney — can send youth off to war as well. Commentary:

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AZ: “Why Arizona Is Looking Trumpier in 2024” [New York Magazine]. Yvonne Wingett Sanchez: “I think the vibe is definitely very pro-Trumpy. Even a lot of Republicans, including some McCain Republicans that I’ve talked to, who weren’t real big fans and really aren’t still big fans of Trump these days — they don’t like the way Kamala Harris was anointed, essentially. Between that and concerns over the economy, a lot of them are just sort of holding their noses and voting for Trump. I also think this effort to get out low-propensity voters is actually coming to fruition in a really big way. Not just by Turning Point, which is based in Arizona and knows the state probably better than it knows any other swing state in the country, but by all these political groups that have been working on the ground over the last couple of years. Most voters in Arizona vote early. It’s been that way for decades. We are a pioneer of early voting. If you just look at the returns and how heavily Republican they are, the pattern is very much a pre-2020 pattern where Republicans are dominating. No one knows how they voted, but you’ve got to think that a lot of those are going to be for Trump and down-ballot Republicans, and among the independent voters too. So just looking at the trend lines, Republicans are up, Democrats are down, independents are dramatically down. Those are going to be the deciders, and Republicans are feeling pretty good.”

ME: “The POLITICO race to watch: Maine’s 2nd” [Politico]. “Golden’s candidacy tests the proposition that voters are willing to split their tickets — and want to continue to reward those who push for bipartisan compromise. As one of the co-chairs of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, a loss by the incumbent would further erode the ranks of House dealmakers. Both men have compelling personal histories. Golden is a Marine Corps veteran, once worked for Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins and served in the Maine House of Representatives before coming to Congress. He’s also no stranger to competitive elections, having emerged victorious three times before. Theriault, just 30, is a former professional stock car racing driver who now serves in the Maine House of Representatives representing the far north community of Fort Kent. (It’s right on the Canadian border and about a five-hour drive from Portland.) He’s been endorsed by Trump and the entire House GOP leadership slate. Guns are an unusually potent issue in the contest. Golden called on Congress ‘to ban assault rifles’ after a deadly mass shooting in Lewiston that killed 18 people — a position Theriault has repeatedly hammered during the campaign.”

MI: “Trump will become first major 2024 candidate to visit majority-Arab Dearborn, Michigan” [Associated Press]. “Donald Trump is set to visit Dearborn, Michigan — the nation’s largest Arab-majority city — on Friday, according to a local business owner who first insisted the former president call for peace in Lebanon before hosting him. Metro Detroit is home to nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, with a large chunk of them living in Dearborn. The city — which President Joe Biden won by a 3-to-1 margin — has been roiled by political turmoil, with many upset with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. While Vice President Kamala Harris has been working through surrogates to ease community tensions, Trump’s visit will mark the first by either candidate, according to a local leader, Osama Siblani. Earlier this year, Harris met with the city’s Democratic mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, though their discussion took place outside Dearborn. Sam Abbas, the owner of The Great Commoner in Dearborn, told The Associated Press that Trump was set to visit his restaurant. ‘We expect some remarks around ending the war and bringing peace to the Middle East,’ said Abbas. ‘I’m not here to get political. I’m not here to tell people which way I’m voting. I am simply here because our family is being slaughtered and we just want to end the war. Stop the bombing.'” • Here’s the restaurant. “The Great Commoner” could refer to one of several politicians, including William Jennings Bryan and Winston Churchill, but I’d bet on Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps some clever staffer will check that out so Trump can leverage it.

PA: “Trump lagging in early vote with seniors in Pennsylvania, a red flag for GOP” [Politico]. “Donald Trump is lagging Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania early voting with a critical and once-reliably Republican constituency: seniors. It’s a warning sign for the former president that reflects early vote data and polling across the battlegrounds, after Republicans won the senior vote in each of the last five presidential elections. In Pennsylvania, where voters over the age of 65 have cast nearly half of the early ballots, registered Democrats account for about 58 percent of votes cast by seniors, compared to 35 percent for Republicans. That’s despite both parties having roughly equal numbers of registered voters aged 65 and older. The partisan gap is narrower than it was in 2020, when views of early voting were more partisan, and Republicans take that as a good sign. But the GOP still is counting on more of its older voters to show up on Election Day, while Democrats have more votes in the bank.”

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay safe out there!

Elite Maleficence

“Docs: Walking pneumonia cases up on Long Island, especially among very young” [Newsday]. “The CDC called the large number of cases in children between the ages of 2 and 4 “notable” because this bacteria, in general, is not the leading cause of pneumonia for kids that young. Meltzer Krief said typically, about 60% of pneumonia — a lung infection — in children tends to be caused by a virus, rather than a bacteria. But many children being tested in emergency rooms and pediatric offices are testing positive for Mycoplasma pneumoniae.” And why? Immunity debt, of course: “”We are seeing a fourfold increase from last year,” said Dr. Lynda Gerberg, lead pediatrician at Northwell Health GoHealth Pediatric Urgent Care, which has centers across Long Island, New York City and Westchester County. She said the surge may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were isolating and wearing masks. ‘We weren’t exposed to all these bacteria and viruses,’ Gerberg said. “Our immune system is just catching up [almost five years later???]. It left everybody a little more susceptible to these types of illnesses.'” • Not that Covid weakens the immunue system, oh no no no no. Can’t have that [bangs head on desk]. Meanwhile, CDC is pushing droplet dogma.

Social Norming

Hmm. We use euphemisms for some things that are normal. So what’s going on?

* * *

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Unemployment Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The unemployment rate in the United States was at 4.1% in October of 2024, remaining unchanged from the three-month low in the prior month, and aligned with market expectations. The number of unemployed individuals was broadly unchanged at 7 million.”

Manufacturing: “United States ISM Manufacturing PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The ISM Manufacturing PMI unexpectedly fell to 46.5 in October 2024 from 47.2 in September and below forecasts of 47.6. The reading pointed to the another contraction in the manufacturing sector and the worst since July 2023, as demand continues to be weak, output declined, and inputs stayed accommodative.”

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Manufacturing: “Boeing Machinists to vote on new contract offer meant to end strike” [Seattle Times]. “The union announced the proposal Thursday afternoon and recommended members approve the deal. The 33,000 striking Machinists union members will vote on the proposal Monday. ‘It is time for our Members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory,’ the union wrote. ‘We believe asking members to stay on strike longer wouldn’t be right as we have achieved so much success.’ The offer includes a 38% general wage increase over the next four years, which compounds to roughly 43% over the life of the agreement, the union said in a statement Thursday. Wages would increase 13% in the first year, then 9%, 9% and 7% in subsequent years…. It does not restore the pension plan, something that many union members have said in recent weeks is a top priority….Union members who voted against the last contract proposal earlier this month said the deal did not offer a large enough wage increase and did not address other key issues, like paid time off and quicker progression steps for employees to move up in Boeing’s ranks. Other employees said they would not settle for a contract that didn’t restore the defined-benefit pension plan.” • Big if true:

Surely Boeing’s more likely to build any new planes in South Carolina? I’m not sure a “Boeing or I’m not going”-quality plane could be built by scabs, though Boeing management being what it is, perhaps they would like to try. And Ortberg was supposed to know the shop floor.

Manufacturing: “Boeing union backs sweetened contract offer that could end strike, sets vote for Monday” [CNBC]. “‘In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything that we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,’ the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said Thursday. ‘We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.'”…. President Joe Biden congratulated the union and Boeing for the new contract proposal. ‘Machinists at Boeing have sacrificed over the years and deserve a strong contract,’ he said in a statement on Friday, shortly after the jobs report was released.”

Manufacturing: “Boeing Reaches New Deal With Union in Hopes of Ending Strike” [New York Times]. The headline is wrong. There is no deal until the workers vote. “The new contract offer represents a slight improvement over the recently rejected proposal.” • Oh.

Manufacturing: “Vital Lessons From The Boeing Strike” [Forbes]. “Boeing is a cautionary tale of what can happen when the mindset known as ‘shareholder primacy‘ vanquishes the far healthier mindset of multi-stakeholder capitalism, which recognizes the interdependence of investors, employees, customers, the company itself and the public… 1) The strike is about much more than just money. The core of this strike clearly wasn’t money — it was broken trust…. [I]t’s clear that the primary emotion driving this strike is rage, not greed. Rage at being ignored and disrespected, year after year. Anyone who dismisses these strikers as greedy or ungrateful doesn’t grasp what’s really happening…. 2) The buck must stop with the board.… The company essentially lied about safety issues to its regulators, investors, employees, and customers, not just once but year after year. The directors were either complicit in those deceptions (which would be terrible) or so detached from their oversight role that they didn’t notice them (which is arguably worse). Either way, the Boeing board shows the consequences of extreme adherence to the shareholder primacy mindset…. 3) Recovery requires sincere deeds, not empty words.…. The strikers have no reason to trust Ortberg until they see tangible changes to the company’s priorities and day-to-day practices, as evidence of a true break from the past. He must show that he realizes this strike isn’t merely about money; it’s about saving Boeing before it’s too late.”

Manufacturing: “Airbus’ new plane is the answer to an aging, inefficient Boeing jet that airlines are scrambling to replace” [Business Insider]. “Boeing’s closest competing option is its yet-to-be-certified 737 Max 10, which is close in size but can’t fly as far. The planemaker has a potential “new midsize airplane” that could compete with the A321XLR, though that is still long away from taking flight. In August, United told Business Insider that its A321XLR fleet would replace almost all of its existing 757 routes and allow it to travel to new places, like France and North Africa.” • But the stock buybacks!

Tech: “Democratising publishing” [John O’Nolan]. “What confuses people most about all this, understandably, is that we’re a profitable non-profit organisation. Ghost earns over $7.5M per year and is completely self-sufficient, with no outside funding of any kind…. People often think that “non-profit” means that the company can’t make a profit. It actually means that the company doesn’t have any owners who can personally take the profits. Any revenue earned can only be reinvested. Non-profit structures are particularly well suited to companies that specifically want to serve public community interests, like schools, hospitals, local news orgs, and — yes — open source projects.” • Hmm.

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 60 Greed (previous close: 60 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 30 at 1:00:29 PM ET.

Gallery

High key (except for the man and the fireplace, one if which, if I were in Lightroom, I’d lighten up so they don’t merge):

Guillotine Watch

“What Sank the Bayesian Superyacht in Italy?” [New York Times]. “[T]he Bayesian was different. Its original buyer — a Dutch businessman, not the Lynches — insisted on a single, striking mast that would be taller than just about any other mast in the world, according to the Italian yacht maker and three people with detailed knowledge of how this boat was built. That decision resulted in major engineering consequences that ultimately left the boat significantly more vulnerable than many comparable superyachts, The Times investigation has found.” • The orginal buyer’s “big swinging dick,” in other words.

News of the Wired

“The 1600s Were a Watershed for Swear Words” [History Today]. Fun, but since this is a family blog, I can’t quote most of it. This caught my eye, being printable: “An early recorded use of the f-word was a piece of marginalia by an anonymous monk writing in 1528 in a manuscript copy of Cicero’s De officiis (a treatise on moral philosophy). The inscription reads: ‘O d fuckin Abbot’.”

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JN writes: “Still Life: Phase Transitions.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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139 comments

  1. Madison

    First time in my life I had to put items back on store shelf because we can’t afford to eat what we want.

    To protest the Gaza slaughter and general disgust with the idea that we Americans should just keep borrowing money from credit cards at usurious interest rates to buy groceries; Since consumers are 70% of the economy, except for food and gasoline, a National Buy Nothing Day, every single day, until the next president is sworn in.

    1. Screwball

      Yea, it’s not good. Yet today, I was told wages have outpaced inflation. Really? Who’s? Not mine. I refuse to buy things all the time due to price.

        1. Seeing Red

          We are in a street level recession in California.
          Meanwhile the Economy is Doing Great!™ DNC.

          Newsom’s appointees on the California Air Resources Board vote 3 days after the election to raise highest in the nation gas taxes, an additional~.50 a gallon. Next year, another ~.50, and the year after that.

          2 refineries closing, gasoline will have to be imported. Commuting will be impossible. Buy electric car? Newsom’s appointees on P.U.C. voted for fifth rate increase for electricity.

          “A growing share of middle- and higher-income families are spending virtually all of their paychecks on essentials and have little or nothing left over each month for discretionary purchases or savings, according to the Bank of America Institute.”

          https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/10/30/wealthy-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck/75811580007/

          1. Felix

            Seeing Red,
            ‘We are in a street level recession in California’.
            very apt expression. Yesterday I was passing thru a part of town where there are two very sold orgs who give out groceries and other necessities. Haven’t been here at that time of the morning in quite awhile. One place would typically have a line of people along the sidewalk. The other generally had passersby stopping for their needs.
            yesterday the first place had filled one side of the street with traffic badly backed up. The second had people who had been waiting patiently since seven am, they had gotten tickets for the noon grocery giveaway.

    2. Carolinian

      I went to Aldi today and there were lines of full baskets at the checkout. As the former manager once told me, this always happens on the first of the month when SNAP and other government payments deposit. If TPTB want to depend on bread and circuses then they better keep those food stamps going.

      1. amfortas the hippie

        i make my frederickburg, texas run on the first, as well.
        tiny teachers survivor pension comes in.
        real grocery store(HEB), lot cheaper than Mason…and the smoke shop, where i save lots on tobacco.
        i try to go as early as i can, because of the throngs that you mention…but bank here opens at 9am.
        lotsa old folks and obviously non-bougie crowding the aisles.

        Eldest is getting a pig, tho,lol…so maybe bacon wont be an issue going forward.
        hafta talk to the pizza thing in that convenience store in town(Wife’s cousin runs it) about leftover dough.

    3. IM Doc

      At our house, we grow most of our own food, and then preserve it in various ways. We have our own chickens, and eggs. And we buy meat and dairy from the neighbors farm…..the animals are there for me to inspect at any time. I look at them most every day – and spend much time helping the neighbors during calfing season in the early spring. All grass fed all the time. The only things we do not have growing here are tropicals – so coffee, chocolate, bananas, etc. We also do not do grains like wheat and corn; however, we make all of our own tortillas and bread etc from grain we get at very specialized places with certain criteria. So we are a bit immune from the inflation issues. We bulk buy the grain. We make things like kefir, yogurt and butter from all the dairy we get every Saturday – in big metal cans.

      That being said, I was in the grocery store the other day to get coffee and just took a look around – if this is a low inflation environment – you could sure have fooled me. It is just unbelievable what people have to pay for stuff, I just cannot even believe it. The labor used to generate all of the above in our family keeps us all healthy – and there is hard work, but no inflation going forward.

      We do a Buy Nothing Day every day – and are much healthier for it.

      1. amfortas the hippie

        “We do a Buy Nothing Day every day – and are much healthier for it.”
        Amen, Doc.
        i grow most of what we eat, too…and have the grandad-bod to prove it.
        only thing i cant do, yet…is like you say: tropical(i intend to put a couple of avacado trees in the big greenhouse, when its done…maybe a few dwarf bananas, as well),oils besides rendered animal fats(see: schmaltz…altho i do keep a hybrid of the big sunflowers with the pseudonative maximillians around for seed oil), and grains, altho i do grow winter wheat and rye and oats(and vetch!-i love vetch) in the raised beds in winter, i usually feed all that to the chickens in the spring, so they’ll till the beds.(we harvest and dry and grind mesquite beans…look into it,lol…no gluten, complex as hell sugars and other carbs…and stay close to the loo until ya get used to it(Ha!))

        more folks need to do this.
        i’d love to see people pooling their resources to buy even marginal land, out past the hoa’s and other rules-people.
        theres ways of reclaiming even marginal land for the cost of doing the labor.(ie: free manure)
        “cometh the hour…”

        1. Screwball

          I can’t be as independent as some, but I’m lucky enough to live in the middle of farm country I call Cornhole, Ohio. Rural area in the sticks, town of 15k. In the summer they shut a street down for farm markets ever 2 or 3 weeks. Wonderful thing. Flea markets at the county fairgrounds all summer as well. I feel lucky. Someone said a few days ago – don’t forget who where your food comes from. Here would be one…

          I like my chances if this gets ugly, and I do worry about that. If our food chain breaks down, due to things, all bets are off.

          1. amfortas the hippie

            i maintain a seedbank for when the wheels come off.
            ill give them away.
            as well as be a vital repository of how to do things when the wheels come off.
            enough people know of my resilience.

            Eldest and i argue frequently about my assertion:”when gengis khan shows up at yer door, offer him a beer”
            i’ll add to that, “and give him seeds”

            1. The Rev Kev

              When things fall apart, nobody wants to hurt the guy that knows how to brew beer, even Genghis Khan.

              1. Dermot O Connor

                I remember JM Greer writing that a few years ago, and it’s some very good advice. Beats the hording beans and bullets ‘plan’ some folks seem to think will get them through.

        2. Lambert Strether Post author

          > i’d love to see people pooling their resources to buy even marginal land, out past the hoa’s and other rules-people

          the @shagbark_hick account writes about this kind of abandoned land all the time (though he’s a tradcath so I dunno how he’d feel about pooling resources; sounds communist).

          That said, lots of land (arable) and houses (in good shape) and businesses (break even) “out there” for not very much money if you are willing to sacrifice amenities like brunch and get along with the locals (fentanyl…). Upstate New York is his example, but places in the Midwest, too. (I’m leaving out the Unorganized Territories in Maine it was never developed in the first place, and hence never abandoned.

          When I was growing up, we went camping in gently rolling Iowa, and we would drive past abandoned farms: leaning barns, houses with wood weathered grey, rusting farm equipment. I accepted that as natural, “how things are.” But even then, looking back, I now see that great and destructive tides were sweeping over rural America. Even then…

    1. NYMutza

      Don’t get too excited. The mask mandates are of limited scope and limited time. Don’t expect to see masks in use at Costco on weekends.

    2. Felix

      hadn’t seen that, thx. I appreciate seeing masked up people for that same reason. Mainly for Bart.

  3. urdsama

    The Boeing threat is an empty one.

    Any such attempt will destroy the company. And I doubt the US government will allow that to happen. Too big too fail has two sides…

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      If the management would rather destroy Boeing than settle equitably with the Union, the management will do that. It would be putting Class War Aggression first.

    2. Louis Fyne

      one can structure an executive compensation trust that survives in case of a company’s bankruptcy.

      Heads I win, tails I win.

      1. urdsama

        That won’t fix the underlying concerns – MIC and commercial airline consolidation.

        An actual manufacturing entity needs to exist.

        1. jsn

          Which, in a NeoLiberal economy, means the relationship needs to be mediated by plutocratic grifters who’s removal implies the prior removal of the NeoLiberal constraint.

          1. amfortas the hippie

            yeah, the more transactions, the better…so middlemen should be maximalised.
            that’ll fix everything.
            we just havent even tried neoliberalism, yet…not really…give it a chance, willya?!

            1. jsn

              NeoLibs are for economy what NeoCons are for war.

              There’s no reverse gear, no ability to recognize failure, only continuous escalation, the NeoLiberal ratchet.

              It works till it doesn’t, but it works a lot longer than you thought it could!

            2. GramSci

              Yeah, entrepreneur. In my folk etymology, that’s French for middle-taker. Paul Revere and the Middlemen to the rescue!

            3. Lambert Strether Post author

              > the more transactions, the better

              I think Stoller would argue that’s a consequence of monopoly capitalism, not finance capitalism; that is, if there were more than one major aircraft company, honesty (no middlemen) would win out over looting (rentiers). I’m not so sure.

    3. Glen

      Apparently, even Forbes has long ago agreed that 401Ks are no substitute for a pension plan:

      Why 401(k)s Have Failed https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2013/04/24/why-401ks-have-failed/

      A while back Peter Thiel was wondering why technological progress had apparently stopped:

      Technology Stalled in 1970
      https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/09/18/171322/technology-stalled-in-1970/

      Peter Thiel says he’s trying to get entrepreneurs to go after bigger problems than the ones Silicon Valley is chasing.

      Technological progress is mostly made by people that want to do research, make new things, not get rich. They would toil away a whole career in a lab working in small obscure areas which sometimes resulted in big breakthroughs, most often not. But they also were provided a comfortable middle class life with a good retirement at the end of it. Those jobs are mostly gone. Now, the best scientific minds graduating from top colleges go to Wall St where easy big money can be made, and that retirement can be guaranteed with a big pile of cash. There is no money in doing R&D. R&D has been eliminated.

      The same is true with having a career at a place like Boeing. To get good at it takes a long time in one company which is not what one is suppose to do now-a-days. The production lines, even the highly automated ones (not typically true at Boeing, lots of touch labor) that were most efficient had very experienced employees. That’s gone now, and now when Boeing creates an experienced employee, they can generally get a much better job because Boeing doesn’t pay that well, and there’s no pension plan.

      So the Boeing strike will end, but Boeing will never get back to what it once was because that Boeing is gone.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Ha. The solution is to mandate participation in 401(k)s, with the series of “Secure” acts!

        Section 101 requires new 401(k) plans to automatically enroll participants upon attaining eligibility. The initial automatic enrollment amount is at least 3 percent but not more than 10 percent. Each year thereafter that amount is increased by 1 percent until it reaches at least 10 percent, but not more than 15 percent. Plans established before December 29, 2022 are grandfathered. There is an exception for small businesses with 10 or fewer employees, new businesses (i.e., those that have been in business for less than 3 years), church plans, and governmental plans.

        Section 101 is effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2024

        A real surprise easter egg, to be sure!

      2. amfortas the hippie

        hell, i do research and development every frelling day…in permaculture, radical horticulture and being as far away from “Imperial Entanglements” as i can get.
        thats literally what ive been doing for 30 years.
        does Thiel have a pile to give me?

        some billionaire handing out cash to people like me….and i aint the only one!…would do wonders for climate and economy and even politics.
        an agrarian class might be what we’re missing.

        1. Glen

          Wish I could help but not I’m sure what Peter Thiel is doing to fix this problem.

          I was thinking more along the lines of something like Bell Labs which was applied physics and engineering. I’m not sure what labs there were for the work you’re doing – I’m sure there are some, but as an old geek engineer I’m not familiar with them.

        2. Lambert Strether Post author

          > an agrarian class might be what we’re missing.

          As long doesn’t mean a landowner/sharecropper agreement, yes (or slavery). Jefferson must be rolling in his grave at what we have now. Of course, this is the stupidest timeline….

    4. Big River Bandido

      I can’t find the link but in recent months (before the strike) Air Emirates CEO Tim Clark said his company wanted to purchase planes from Washington, not from South Carolina. He cited the quality and safety standards upheld by union labor.

      I’m sure he’s not the only airline exec who’s noticed. If Boeing tries to move operations like that, it’ll doom them.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Tim Clark

        Clark did say this in July:

        “The guys on the shop floor, the engineers, the machinists, they know what to do,” said Clark. “They can get it sorted.”

        “Don’t forget the workforce. Make sure they get a good deal. Make sure that you look after them,” he added. “Make sure you recognize the criticality of what they do.”

        Qatar Airways (not Clark’s Emirates) “stopped taking deliveries of the [787] from North Charleston due to lapses in quality control” in 2020, but they don’t have that choice any more, since post-Covid, the 787 is manufactured exclusively in Charleston.

    5. NYMutza

      When all is said and done the union will cave before Boeing does. All it will take are a few well placed threats to the union leadership and the union finances. See the east and gulf coast longshoremen for the template.

  4. Wukchumni

    Regarding tall masts and all that…

    Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana Jr. is a hellova read.

    There will be a quiz afterward, in regards to all of the names of sails in the tome.

      2. ambrit

        Flogged? Only flogged?! Sail ye with Cap’n Pissgums and his Pervert Pirates? It is the bastinado for real men!

    2. Carolinian

      I used to know them all….maybe still do. And I’ve read the Dana which suggests that being a jolly tar was a lot of work. Seems California was once all about the hides.

    4. RA

      It’s a great photo but I’m not a fan of the typical phone-induced vertical aspect.

      I prefer landscape for most things. On my desktop monitor, I find that I like this image best rotated 90 deg to the right.

      But I do like it. Rotated any of 4 ways it is still great.

  7. MaryLand

    This just came online today from Matt Taiibi and Paul Thacker at Racket News. It says it’s for paid subscribers, but I’m able to read it with no subscription.

    “Save Democracy From Informed Voters: Vote Censorship!
    The New York Times and Media Matters, along with the Washington Post and CCDH, align in a last-minute, tag-team blitz to silence Democratic Party critics.”

    https://www.racket.news/p/save-democracy-from-informed-voters

  9. AG

    re: Trump

    A serious question since it regularly comes up – what´s about the rape-accusation / verdict (“he is a rapist”) – is this justified or not? How is it to be judged in the context of US elections in general.

    Or was the trial a fiction?

    1. GramSci

      Trump was/is a pimp. A certain clentele frequents/ed his hotels more for the alternate Miss Universes than for the other creature comforts. Whether he family-blogged one or many individuals will not indict him much more in my book. Kamala also institutionally family-blogged lots of Untermenschen. That she’s a woman doesn’t redeem her in my book, either.

      1. AG

        What KH did or did not do is one matter.

        In this case I am particularly inquiring over DT and the rape issue/trial in NYC because in Germany – but also by DNC-media like THE NATION`s Elie Mystal – this comes up regularly.

        And in arguments it IS an issue when e.g. I am trying to make my point and lay out the case that DT might be the lesser evil – at least as some things are concerned. In others not. And in general trying to introduce a first basic line of understanding of what DNC really is.

        Anyway thanks for your above response. Time is scarce, I know!

        p.s. of course the next thing would be to unfold the complexities of Clinton´s involvement with trafficking of women/kids via Epstein – I have no info on such matters re: Harris, so far. But that´s because I am new to all this.

        1. GramSci

          One can’t put what KH did or did not do to one side: The genocide and the war are real. And Trump’s a real scuzbag. Is he worse than genocide? I have this debate with my sisters and my wife, who have their own stories of rape. Lucky us. We have democracy! We get to CHOOSE! Just not neither/nor :-( .

          1. AG

            “I have this debate with my sisters and my wife, who have their own stories of rape. ”

            Actually same here, which makes it an issue – even though we all agree that individual tales, anecdotal argumentation are what should NOT be of relevance in any meaningful political analysis.

            But sitting in Europe I really have the feeling – and extremely so since I have learned on this stuff after 2022 – that I am totally isolated information-wise. No German source to find out what is going on in US domestic politics. I would be lost without NC and Taibbi/Kirn and FOIA Undead, to begin with. It´s actually crazy how helpless one is.

      2. NYMutza

        How was Trump a pimp? Did he procure women for others? I haven’t heard that accusation made by anyone. Trump may be a slut, a womanizer, a cretin, an adulterer, and a sleaze, but none of this is illegal. Kamala played around in her youth, but like Trump her activities were not illegal. Perhaps you should step down from your high horse.

        1. GramSci

          C’mon, the man bought and ran the Miss Universe contest, to my mind only divesting from it when he started dreaming of the Presidency.

          https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/

          The fact that his Johns were all millionaires (and many multi- or billion-aires) doesn’t make him any less a pimp. Or do you maintain that the Miss Universe contest was all about “talent”??

          I concede, however, that unlike Epstein, the Miss Universe contest seems to have required that the, um, ladies, were eighteen years of age.

        3. AG

          How is that rape case to be judged?
          If this is a superfluous question because covered on NC forgive me.
          (But frankly the past 2 years were a roller-coaster in terms of information space and insight. Much I wasn´t able to dig into therefore adequately.)

    2. Pat

      In regards to E. Jean Carroll, while the jury found for her against Trump for sexual abuse and awarded her five million dollars for that, they did not find that he rasped and rejected that. Carroll continues to call him a rapist despite that, and Trump’s counter suit was rejected. The only other rape accusation I know of was from his wife Ivana. IIRC it was part of their divorce proceedings, and she denied it happened in later years.
      You can correctly say he has never been convicted of rape and that Carroll’s accusation was rejected by a jury in civil court, but quite honestly nobody who calls him one will accept that, the accusation is enough. This is one of those cases where you pays your money and you takes your choice, and your opinion has as much validity as the person who thinks the opposite. It ultimately doesn’t bar him from office.
      For the record Joe Biden was also accused of rape, but the law wasn’t changed in the state where the event supposedly occurred so the statue of limitations was eliminated for a period of time so the accuser could bring a civil suit as it was in NY. But hey

      (I am happy that a couple of people filed civil suits against Andrew Cuomo just before that moratorium ended. I appreciated that a cynical action that was likely largely about attacking Trump came back to bite someone that helped it occur. And I call it cynical because a one time moratorium doesn’t really address unfair statute of limitations issues for sexual harassment, abuse and rape cases)

      1. AG

        What was then the difference between sexual abuse and rape in this case?
        And if the jury rejected the rape accusation how then can reporters like Elie Mystal who call Trump out for lying etc. say that he is a rapist if the jury says otherwise.
        Of course its the showbusiness but I´d expect some professionalism which other THE NATION staff did have in the past in other instances. So, yes Mystal is a loud propagandist. But the question of rape or no rape still matters, as the official verdict goes.

        And, er, what do we know about the Biden case??
        Which in this context frankly would be extremely important.

        1. Martin Oline

          There were no witnesses, a typical ‘he said, she said’ situation. The accuser in the Biden assault, Tara Read, is now living in Russia. She said she was being harassed by government agents here as reason for moving. I recently read she has now been singled out by our government as a Russian propagandist.
          How did Joe put it? “No one f#x with a Biden.” As Mel Brooks put it “It’s great to be King.” Not so great if you are not.

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > In regards to E. Jean Carroll, while the jury found for her against Trump for sexual abuse and awarded her five million dollars for that, they did not find that he rasped and rejected that.

        From AP, “Jury finds Trump liable for sexual abuse, awards accuser $5M:

        jury found Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in a judgment that could haunt the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House.

        The verdict was split: Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped, finding Trump responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. The judgment adds to Trump’s legal woes and offers vindication to Carroll, whose allegations had been mocked and dismissed by Trump for years.

        However, from WaPo, “Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll“:

        “This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that — made other findings,” his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said outside the courthouse.

        A judge has now clarified that this is basically a legal distinction without a real-world difference. He says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.

        The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.

        Kaplan roundly rejected Trump’s motion Tuesday, calling that argument “entirely unpersuasive.”

        “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

        In the past, I would have regarded the Judge’s view as dispositive — Kaplan did, after all, preside over SBF’s trial, and those of a host of other prominent miscreants — except that Kaplan was appointed by Clinton, and more to the point, is tight with Paul, Weiss, who supplied Bragg with a lawyer on secondment. So, further research needed…

        Bottom line, worst case: The Sophie’s choice of rapist vs. a genocidaire….

        NOTE Interestingly, arguments over whether Trump acted as a private citizen or a Fderal employee (in this case, when he called Carrol a liar) have also come up in the Smith case.

        1. Pat

          Purely seat of the pants here, but perhaps the reason the jury split hairs was because while part of Carroll’s narrative was credible part of it wasn’t. Especially if like me there was anyone on that jury familiar with the location in that time period.
          I have always said the rape couldn’t have happened as Carroll said because the location was not private, and more importantly the store was very stodgy. Some of their shoppers might have been partying at Studio 54 private rooms regularly, but not all. Far richer and more important clientele than Trump would have had people fired if they discovered Trump had been allowed into a dressing room at all. He would have been stopped before he got in. And that store had an huge amount of floor security. They had plain clothes security on all the floors, discrete as it may have been, who would have been very aware. The only way Trump is in a dressing room alone with Carroll in that store is if they had a private shopper and were in that specific area. There would have been oodles of proof of that. It is only because of the decades that have passed that bit didn’t fall apart immediately.
          I cannot say for certain that the flirtatious encounter that she describes didn’t happen or that he didn’t assault her. I can fully believe that there were crossed signals and subsequent date rape. But it only works if they left the store. If there was a different location, even his limo. But now, much less then, that would have made her more culpable in the situation. At the time most would respond what did you think was going to happen. She appears to have made herself more innocent and naive in the retelling.
          Where my bias comes in on this is that at the time this was to have occurred Carroll would have had the platform, and yes the resources, to have pursued this. Even if she chose not to legally pursue it she could have used her “advice column” to blind item it. To address the situation and the decisions she made, about how it could happen to anyone, how women were faced with horrible possible cons for speaking up or not and how the system makes date rape so difficult to address at a point. Doing it then would have been a general good for advancing change to the system rather than this circus decades later which frankly hasn’t made things better.

          1. AG

            Thanks for both clarifications.

            p.s. I did make a search on NC with Carroll´s name. But that left a few matters unclear. As did Wikipedia.

  10. AG

    “The 1600s Were a Watershed for Swear Words”
    Love that.
    Thanks!
    Some decade ago a German scholar wrote about swearing internationally and singled out particular languages which were better at this than others.

    1. The Rev Kev

      The building blocks for swearing were already there and I see how they have been extended. So as far as the election in the next few days are concerned, you could call it f***-f*** circus which is a term I believe that originated in the US military. But it is an apt description. After all, you can’t have a f***-f*** circus without the clowns.

  12. ChrisRUEcon

    #Election2024 #AllThingsTrump

    Here’s my 270-To-Win math:

    TrumpMI > TrumpPA

    “Trump will become first major 2024 candidate to visit majority-Arab Dearborn, Michigan” versus “Trump lagging in early vote with seniors in Pennsylvania, a red flag for GOP”

    ‘Twould seem to me that someone in the Trump campaign has figured out that PA won’t be critical if Trump can win Michigan. Or at the very least, he doesn’t need to win both. I think MI is more easily deliverable. If Trump wins MI, GA, NC & AZ, then PA does not matter.

    1. ChrisRUEcon

      #Election2024 #AllThingsHarris

      Women And Their Husbands

      Somewhere between fear and sanctimony lies this really odd appeal. Let me share a real life example that shatters that nonsense. Among our family’s many friends are at least two couples that are politically a “mixed marriage”, and not just ideologically – but also tangibly, as in: one spouse fundraises for Dems, the other does the same for the GOP; and it’s all out in the open, and accepted. If any Democrat wants to recoil in horror at that, they’re being disingenuous. They need look no further than their über-strategist James Carville who is still married to Mary Matalin! Quelle Horreur!!!

      1. AG

        Actually such realities should be reported on much much much more everywhere.
        This used to be normal in the USA I used to know yeah long time ago.

        Granted, I found them all odd, Dems and Reps, but hell life IS odd.

        And it tells you everything if those media clones today act as if life was going according to plan and NOT being odd at all, instead like pre-designed – obviously for them PMC off-spring.

      2. amfortas the hippie

        sounds like a healthy relationship, to me.
        open, honest, able to argue about important things without descending into abuse(one way or the other)….
        i did hafta(very patiently) teach that to Tam…because how would she learn, otherwise?*
        it made us stronger, in the end.

        (*given family history, poverty,no access to alternative information, etc.
        she ended up,literally, thanking me for that endeavor. but i just wanted less drama)

        1. ChrisRUEcon

          > it made us stronger, in the end

          … and I am heartened to see you say this. Siempre hay esperanza.

      3. GramSci

        Caville and Matalin are easy. It’s an intramural DC competition. They’re both neocolonialists.

        I’m for Stein/Dela Cruz and my wife and my sisters are for genocide and war. As I mentioned in a comment above, they prefer genocide and war to their personal fears of rape. This is the kind of “mixed marriage” that is the curse of our times.

        1. ChrisRUEcon

          > [Carville] and Matalin are easy. It’s an intramural DC competition. They’re both neocolonialists.

          … which is a function of the current duopoly uni-party masquerading as two battling entities.

          > This is the kind of “mixed marriage” that is the curse of our times.

          If I may, on rare occasion, offer some optimism – they are blessed to have you as a counter to decades-long consent manufacturing, and they will come to see this in the course of proximate events.

          #Solidarity

      4. Acacia

        A: “… and then I found out he hid his vote for Trump from me…”

        B: “Wow. That’s bad. You can’t trust him. Divorce?”

        Oh wait…

      5. ChrisRUEcon

        #MoreFromMichigan

        Rania Khalek covering Trump’s visit to Dearborn on X/Twitter

        Between votes to Trump, votes to Jill Stein and non-votes, if Michigan is as close as polls indicate, Harris is going to lose. All of it, self inflicted by Democrat blind fealty to Israel.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Or at the very least, he doesn’t need to win both. I think MI is more easily deliverable. If Trump wins MI, GA, NC & AZ, then PA does not matter.

      I’ve been playing around with 270toWin, which is great fun. Here is that map:

      I have priors on this. To me, the conservative play is PA, with Republicans crawling over ground glass over Butler, PA + weak Democrat ‘burbs in Pittsburgh > Philly ‘burbs + Center City and North Philly Blacks + Zionists (big in PA). Nothing like Muslims voting down a Democrat Presidential candidate has ever happened before! Then again, there’s first time for everything. From a local:

      Harris is in a deeply precarious position vis-à-vis Michigan’s Muslim and Middle East/North Africa, or MENA, electorates. Without a doubt, these groups will have an outsized impact in deciding how Michigan’s 15 electoral college votes will be cast. According to political scientist Youssef Chouhoud, Michigan is home to more than 200,000 Muslim registered voters. Over the past year, Muslims’ support for the Democratic Party has plummeted. In a recent poll fielded between Aug. 25 and Aug. 27, the Council on American Islamic Relations found that Jill Stein is leading Muslim voters in Michigan; 40% of Muslims surveyed in that poll supported Stein, 18% supported Trump and only 12% supported Harris. And, as Harris’ support for Israel remains steadfast while Israel continues its assaults on Gaza and now Lebanon, she has arguably alienated these voters who could have been a reliable source of electoral support for her

      40 + 18 + 12 = 70%. From the survey (which is out of synch with the above quote) the remaining 30% is either undecided or not voting.

      200,000 registered voters * 66% turnout = 132,000. Of that

      132,000 * 40% = 52,800 for Stein
      132,000 * 18% = 23,760 Trump
      132,000 * 12% = 15,840 Harris.

      I haven’t seen how Stein’s vote games out, but I’m not sure 23,760 – 15,840 = 7940 will be enough to put Trump over the top. We’ll see! Maybe if this combines with low Black turnout in Milwaukee again? (I also don’t like that this polling is CAIR. Polls are editorial products, after all.)

      1. ChrisRUEcon

        > Maybe if this combines with low Black turnout in Milwaukee again?

        That’s my feeling as well. It’s not one thing … it’s several that can potentially siphon enough votes away from Harris.

  13. Tom Stone

    I think we should have held the election yesterday and that in the future Presidential elections should be held on October 31st.

    I think that Stein and De La Cruz will do better than most expect and barring intervention by the spooks Trump will win.
    Whoever “Wins” is going to face 4 very tough years and with HPAI now affecting pigs the jump to Humans is very likely to happen this ‘Flu season.
    Since we have a population with Covid degraded immune systems the outcome could be dire.

    3. Jason Boxman

      Yep on call today. One coughing the other clearing throat. A third, doctor, said crazy week at the NICU this week. 5 admissions instead of normal two. FAFO

    4. Screwball

      Great idea!

      What a better event for a bunch of people to pretend to be someone they are not – and be scary at the same time.

      I would dress as a politician. So many choices…

  14. A.B.

    To add to the whole “women hiding who they voted for from their partners” thing: I’m a lesbian and while I’ve basically discussed every other vote with my partner (including voting against one particularly obnoxious Democratic senator in my state who is a fellow Jew and terribly supportive of Israel at a time when I can’t countenance that), I didn’t tell my partner that I voted for Trump. I’ve never voted Republican in my life and have no desire to ever do so again, but the Democrats have gotten so out of hand and Kamala is such a bad candidate that I just had to do something to end the madness.

    I would have voted Green, but Democrats pulled some completely disgusting, downright unconstitutional shenanigans to deny Stein ballot access this year (you can guess which swing state I’m in lol) and that really left me with no other option for a protest vote. I’m a Jewish woman and what the U.S. and Israel are doing are utterly horrifying and will lead to a revival of real antisemitism as well.

    I didn’t tell my partner simply because she’s not Jewish and wouldn’t understand. The Democrats have filled her head with fantasies that a second Trump term would lead to anti-gay pogroms, but the reality is if that stuff happens it will be bipartisan, just like abolishing Roe has been bipartisan. But she’s too scared right now to understand that. The Dems are playing on people’s trauma – whether it’s Jewish people or gay people – to get us to support genocide, and it’s sick.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > The Dems are playing on people’s trauma – whether it’s Jewish people or gay people – to get us to support genocide, and it’s sick.

      Yep. (Please understand I’m not looking into particular relationships and judging. I just think that Democrats shouldn’t be normalizing lying in marriage, at the population leve, as a matter of social engineering, and for political purposes, as they are clearly doing.)

  15. ambrit

    Zeitgeist Report North American Deep South Department.
    Weaseling about recently, I noticed several signs on the grounds of the Library saying: “Vote Tuesday as if Democracy depended on it. (It does.)” Otherwise, only a few Harris/Walz signs and no Trump signs. I don’t know how the exurbs are for signage. Our very reliably Vote Blue neighbour has no signs on her lawn this cycle. I am also not seeing any of the giant Trump flags flying from the backs of pickup trucks this time. That was common in both previous Trump campaigns.
    The University has been extremely quiet this cycle. No demonstrations at all of a political nature.
    A sudden uptick in visibly mentally disturbed people wandering the streets lately; as in homeless and impaired.
    One local thrift store slash homeless shelter support team manager remarked recently that food contributions for Thanksgiving and Christmas “Feed the Homeless” campaigns are a lot lower than this time last year. “We are going to have to do some ‘creative’ menus this year.”
    More “distressed” homes have been torn down over the last six months or so. The town is beginning to look like one of those much fought over hamlets in the Ukraine. Lots of empty spaces between the older single family houses.
    More later but have surprise chore to do. Such is life.
    Stay safe.

    1. amfortas the hippie

      ill inquire(and give) with the foodbank lady.
      the only trump signs…and theyre all really Displays…are the same ones who supported him the most last 2 times.
      all of them rich…they can afford to maintain a display like that for 8 years.
      almost zero political signs aside from those few in my county….and i saw my first harris/waltz:obviously sign just south of the square.

      fredericksburg, some 38 miles to the south(a days ride,on horseback, like all these little towns) was, covered in both sides signage.
      im guessing 60-40 for trump.
      driveby anecdata.

  16. Mark Gisleson

    Taibbi and Kirn sent out their link a few hours late but by then it was just piling on. The last-minute barrage is upon us, the stuff that stinks so bad you can’t give people time to factcheck it and say, anyone else experiencing unusual internet problems of the WTF kind?

    The fake ballot busts in Pennsylvania and the linking of that to a group working Arizona is perfect timing for negating Friday the October surprises. All the “stuff” I’m seeing that’s meant to target voters is fatally flawed: they’re targeting red state women based on their propaganda about red state people.

    This isn’t playing out like an election at all. It’s going to take a national effort to sheepdog Democrats off their ledge and back into mainstream society especially if Trump wins big. Seeing most people smiling on Wednesday will drive the cog diss to epic levels.

    This isn’t politics, this is a religious war that can only end badly. Not a time for “I fold you so”‘s*.

    *OK, I really should have dug up my Chicago Manual of Style to sort out whatever I just did there but I felt a need to excessively punctuate myself. I’ve made an appt to see someone about this. I think it’s related to my love of putting parenthetical remarks within parenthetical remarks which is all tied somehow into my penchant for abusing footnotes.

    1. Jason Boxman

      I’ve adopted run on thoughts when I post here. Sometimes you gotta break the rules. (Except Oxford comma)

    3. AG

      As far as Patrick Lawrence is concerned we seem to know nothing for sure about Pennsylvania.
      But Lawrence is not a national reporter. Others ARE. Others should know SOMETHING.

      I don´t get any of this.

      ahem, NYT:
      As Trump Sows Doubt on Pennsylvania Voting, Officials Say the System Is Working
      Donald Trump is using reports about suspicious voter registrations to cast the election as already flawed. County officials say the episodes are being distorted.
      https://archive.is/eFZ3R

      1. Mark Gisleson

        I was sloppy in my description but whatever’s being caught is irrelevant. If a paid canvassing group is behaving badly, it’s because the parties both pay independent canvassers to do what the parties cannot do (break election laws in obvious ways).

        The real concern of genuinely honest election officials would be to have every county check for signs of similar fraud. “Oh it was minor and already handled” is what you say when some of your folks got caught, but not most of them.

        Expect more of this. Trump seems to have put actual spotters in place and they’ve caught people in at least three or four states already.

        1. IM Doc

          I am equally concerned about the numerous videos coming out today of Bucks County PA –
          It appears the lines are overwhelmingly long – as in 6 hours – and there are reports of 2 poll workers, etc.

          This is not canvassers or operatives – this is actual attempts for one side to make voting miserable for the other side via the polling areas themselves.

          It is there for all to see.

          1. lambert strether

            Bucks County is about 50/50 thanks to Republican registration.

            I would want to know where the long lines are (for example, in Ohio 2004, Democrat-leaning districts, like colleges, under a Republican administration, had the long lines)

            1. Juneau

              Levittown is one region in Bucks that normally has a democratic majority. I found this quote from a Phillyburb article about the voting divide in Bucks County to be revealing

              “I’m a boomer. Who wasn’t a Democrat in Levittown? We were all Catholic, we grew up on the Kennedys. I spent years voting with my heart instead of my brain,” he said.
              Then came COVID, the lockdowns and the vaccine.
              “That was tyranny,” he said. “They told us take the jab or your fired. They talk down to us.”
              He’s not sure if that’s even close to turning Levittown Trump-y red, but he understands why so many people who’ve kept quiet are posting Trump signs, banners and flags in their yards.
              “Levittown is saying it’s had enough,” he said.”

              I grew up in Bucks. This article rings true to me. There are crossover voters that are being forced to consider Trump because the last 2 democratic presidents really let them down….imo.

              https://www.phillyburbs.com/story/news/local/2024/10/31/bucks-county-swing-state-voters-levittown-pa-democratic-kamala-harris-donald-trump-2024-election/75925433007/

        2. AG

          Someone should be collecting that evidence in a transparent non-partisan environment so noone can question it afterwards re: “three or four states already.”

        3. marym

          “The real concern of genuinely honest election officials would be to have every county check for signs of similar fraud.”

          In this case it appears that’s what happened.

          “On Friday afternoon, the [PA} Department of State issued a statement praising the actions by the Lancaster County officials. “…The Department applauds the efforts of the election staff for their diligent work in spotting this potential fraud and bringing it to the attention of law enforcement. The Department guidance in cases like this is for counties to immediately contact law enforcement, which is exactly what Lancaster County officials did,” the statement said.
          https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/lancaster-county-da-commissioners-link-fraudulent-voter-registrations-to-paid-canvassing-update/article_5132ce60-92dd-11ef-9ec2-d32918af4f5b.html

          “An investigation is underway in Pennsylvania after election workers in York and Lancaster counties received thousands of voter registration forms that were flagged for potential fraud. Other counties were alerted to look for similar problems.”
          https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/local/2024/10/25/york-county-investigates-drop-off-of-thousands-of-voter-registration-forms-as-election-nears/75845475007/

            1. marym

              The organs (and organists) of state security investigating in this case seem to be the York County District Attorney and a current candidate for PA AG, the York County President Commissioner, the Lancaster County District Attorney, the Lancaster County Commissioner, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all Republicans. Maybe we’ll soon see some indication of how they’ve done the job.

        4. Lambert Strether Post author

          > Trump seems to have put actual spotters in place and they’ve caught people in at least three or four states already.

          The Trump campaign has training for this, IIRC. In an ideal world, this would be good. The videos would be attested and people wouldn’t be waving guns about.

  17. Jason Boxman

    So consider this. Democrats think women are at risk for voting as they see fit. I.e. for Democrats. So they’re encouraging women to put themselves at risk in abusive relationships. Classy. Just like Biden telling people in 2020 to risk COVID and vote in the primary.

    That’s our Democrats.

    And mind you, this just helps Democrats. It does not help these women even if Democrats win. Disposable voters.

    1. Jason Boxman

      Wow. Obama on Twitter inviting women to risk violence to vote D

      Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from making your voice heard in this election. If you have any questions or concerns, call a voter protection hotline. These folks are standing by to make sure your vote is counted. So make sure you vote!

      1. GramSci

        Not “inviting women to risk violence” by voting, but reinforcing their fear of violence, even when voting. That Obama, he’s good.

  18. fjallstrom

    So section three is back in play?

    Congress doesn’t have to pass a new law, when this is already on the books (my bold):

    18 U.S. Code § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection
    U.S. Code

    Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

    Just drag him before a jury and lay out the evidence that he incited an insurrection. If they convict: Boom he is incapable of holding office!

    Oh, they couldn’t because no jury would convict? Well, there’s your problem.

  19. none

    There is no question that vote by mail compromises the secret ballot. I used to oppose it because of that, though its supporters were loud enough that I acknowledged the trade-off, and (these days) I want to stay away from in-person voting because superspreader. Vote by mail (absentee voting) in the old days was limited to people who were literally away from the district, medically prevented from voting in person, etc. That was for good reason. Voter intimidation is not anything new. It goes back to ancient times.

    Another annoying point is that people keep talking abut voter privacy, but privacy and secrecy are different things. The secret ballot is supposed to be SECRET, not private. Privacy is something like your sexual orientation, which you can disclose or keep to yourself, at your own discretion. Secrecy is something you cannot or must not disclose, like Valerie Plame’s job description (CIA spy) when she was doing that. If she revealed her job she would have gone to jail. There is no discretion involved.

    The idea of a secret ballot is to make it impossible to reliably disclose how you voted. You go in the booth and cast your vote behind a curtain. You aren’t allowed to let anyone in the booth with you (exceptions for disabled people’s assistants etc.) or take photos in the booth (hard to enforce these days with phone cameras, but old school cameras were big and noisy). Poll workers are supposed to enforce the secrecy.

    Of course you can TELL your coercive boss or spouse how you voted, but there is no receipt or record that proves it to them. So safeguarding the possibility of lying about your vote is a fundamental and intentional feature of ballot secrecy, which in turn is supposed to be a cornerstone of democracy. People just don’t seem to get this. (You could say the secret ballot means that the secrecy is imposed on the voting system itself, by not giving a mail-in ballot that someone else could look at).

    In IT security we have the idea of “receipt-free” electronic voting to preserve this feature. It’s mostly an academic topic area though, of clever mathematical ways to implement electronic voting with various properties. Electronic voting is inherently compromised no matter how you do it. But receipt-freeness is a recognized desirable property that people spend time trying to make work.

    1. hk

      People have gotten so hung on the idea of “privacy” that they think it applies everywhere. Next up, “top privacy documents…which I guess applies if younare Joe Biden, or, indeed, most presidents (but not Trump).

    2. fjallstrom

      How do the mail in votes compromise the privacy of the vote?

      This is a genuine question from a non-USian. Where I live a mail in vote consists of:
      * Outer envelope with adress to correct polling station
      * Card with which voter it is
      * Inner envelope
      * Ballot

      On election eve, after the voting has closed, the poll workers go envelope by envelope and:
      1 Open outer envelope
      2 Check that the person on the card hasn’t voted today (if the person has voted, the inner envelope is discarded unopened)
      3 Tick of vote
      4 Place inner envelope in ballot box

      When this is done for all outer envelopes, ballot box is emptied and the counting starts. Unless the envelopes has been tampered with, there is no breach of privacy.

  20. AG

    re: election & Gaza

    ‘Anti-war’ Trump trying to outflank Harris at critical moment
    It may be a cynical strategy, but he seems to have read the room while she has chosen a more confused, if not hawkish path

    by Branko Marcetic
    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/harris-trump-2669557195/

    Trump “(…) and his team are more or less openly planning to harshly repress anti-war, pro-Palestinian activists should he win. As president, he not only instituted the Muslim ban, gave Israel practically everything it wanted, and nearly started war with Iran, but was also responsible for many thousands of Arab and Muslim deaths via his support for the Yemen war, his war on ISIS, and the sharp increase in drone attacks during his administration. (…)

    So then what exactly is going on here?

    A clue can be found in a New York Times report from last week about the campaigns’ respective closing strategies. According to the report, the Trump campaign’s research found that undecided voters in battleground states were six times as likely to be motivated by their views on Israel’s war.

    (…)
    Both campaigns, in other words, are using foreign policy to make major alterations to the voter coalitions that brought their parties to power in previous elections. But it’s Harris and the Democrats who are making the far bigger gamble. The success or failure of the strategy won’t just potentially decide the election — it may well shift the course of U.S. foreign policy.
    (…)”

    Well I have no clue why he wrote the last sentence.

    1. NYMutza

      Despite Trump’s past no-limits support of Israel my feeling is that there is a limit to how much blood Trump wants on his hands. Unlike many Democrats and Republicans Trump doesn’t come across to me as being a war monger. Harris, on the other hand, will be perfectly happy to bathe in blood if that will make her politically popular. One other thing to consider regarding a Trump victory. His will be a second term as POTUS. Historically, second terms rarely accomplish much, either good or bad. All of the fear mongering regarding a second Trump term is likely way overblown. So we should all relax and sit back and enjoy the shit show that comes our way every four years. Stock up on your favorite beverage and herb.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > there is a limit to how much blood Trump wants on his hands.

        IIRC from his comments on Iraq (?), it was the destruction of buildings that gave him pause, which makes sense for a real estate developer. But I don’t care about the motive that stops the bombs from fallings, and buildngs are a proxy for their inhabitants, after all.

  22. Acacia

    Mycoplasma pneumonia in Tokyo (chart):

    https://x.com/dizsqMGBPgF0DT4/status/1851893124215300594

    And yet every time I take a train (masked, natch), I see and hear unmasked people coughing repeatedly. Many others are masked, but only around 50%.

    I thought(?) the rule in Japan was that if a person feels even slightly ill, they wear a mask for the sake of others, but that seems to no longer be the case.

    1. SocalJimObjects

      It’s always been an informal rule, but last November I was in Tokyo for 8 days, and one day I decided to take the bus in order to go to Shinjuku from somewhere in Minato-ku. On the way, a couple of kids boarded the bus and one of them coughed up a storm throughout the journey, unmasked. He was blowing whatever he was having straight on the faces of his friends, the passengers, etc. Minato-ku is one of the top 2 most affluent areas in Tokyo, so you would think that kids going to school there would have better manners, but no.

      Now, I am not saying it’s the end of the world for Japan because at the end of the day, there’s going to be rude, selfish people in any country, Japan not excepted.

  23. The Rev Kev

    “Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands?”

    Actually there is a flip side to all this. For the Democrats a lot of their supporters are women and this really came to the fore big time back in 2016. I would go so far as to say that women are a power base for the Democrats. So what happens in ‘mixed’ marriages where the husbands may not be Republicans but are totally not on board with the Democrats because of the economy alone much less tens of billions to the Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza? How many husbands will be telling their insistent wives that yes dear, I will vote for Harris but once in the booth will punch for Trump or Stein or anybody else. They may even resent being told by their wives and others that voting for Harris is now a mandatory litmus test for their marriage.

    1. hk

      That’s almost certainly the case in a lot of couples I know. In the average couple in US, I don’t think the power dynamics work the way Dem leadership seem to think. In the other cases, assuming people vote at any readonable rate, they talk all that much about how they voted at all (or care thst much.)

      *”Almost” based on educated guesses. They obviously don’t tell me what they are up to.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > In the average couple in US, I don’t think the power dynamics work the way Dem leadership seem to think.

        It seems to me that the power dyanamics in the marriages (if any) that portion of the political class that approved this advertising campaign must be quite odd.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > How many husbands will be telling their insistent wives that yes dear, I will vote for Harris but once in the booth will punch for Trump or Stein or anybody else.

      Good question!

  24. John k

    Dem pollsters say they learned their lessons from 2016/20 of den bias in the 3-5% range, and this time they’ve fixed it. But there’s a reason to bias the polls if there is any chance/hope/need of stealing the election…. If polls show a big trump win they’d never get away with a steal, gotta keep it looking close. And some seem to me to be pretty clearly biased, like Bloomberg/quinnipiac, just these 2 are enough to bias the average. And there’re more dem msm polls than rep. My guess is the real tossup is the national vote, imo trump might get 300 ev’s.

  25. Lunker Walleye

    Vuillard

    >High key (except for the man and the fireplace, one if which, if I were in Lightroom, I’d lighten up so they don’t merge)
    Maybe he couldn’t quite figure it out and thought he’d come back later to fix it;)
    When I enlarge the image it looks like a tapestry.

  26. Jeff N

    “Going to the mattresses” means for everyone to hide after their side has done something that will guarantee a response. Nothing to do with fighting to the death like they are talking about here.

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