2:00PM Water Cooler 11/13/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Affected person readers, I apologize if this appears a bit skinny. I had a nasty case of the slows, and now I need to go take care of family issues. –lambert

Hen Track of the Day

Wooden Thrush, Parc du Sanctuaire, Drummond, Quebec, Canada. “a-a-iola tzzziiii, a-a-ioli tzzziiii, a-a-iola tzzziiii”. Reads like Joyce. Mrkgnao!

Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are the truth is a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“Nice Moments In The Worldwide Guidelines-Based mostly Order” [Eschaton]. Skipping Sullivan’s doublethinking doubletalk and going straight to Atrios: “This isn’t a protection of Russia. It simply isn’t my job to faux these folks don’t simply make up no matter occurs to be handy in the meanwhile, and faux it’s working in line with some noble ethical and authorized framework. Not the essential factor, however there’s this factor about these overcredentialed eggheads genuinely pondering folks can’t see what they’re doing. And, since they personal the microphones, will misrepresent your criticisms and get away with it.” • It has occurred to me that “Our Democracy” is quite a bit like “The Guidelines-Based mostly Worldwide Order.” This trope stays evergreen:

“The West Should Defeat Russia” [Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic]. “We have to begin pondering not nearly serving to Ukraine, however about defeating Russia—or, should you want totally different language, persuading Russia to go away by any means attainable.” • The plain which means of “by any means attainable” contains nuclear weapons.

“A Bitter Vindication for Ukraine Doves” [Branko Marcetic, Compact]. “By means of all of it, proponents of peace and restraint and lots of army consultants confused that an outright Ukrainian victory was extremely unlikely, given the imbalance of army energy between the 2 states and Russia’s stark benefits in a battle of attrition…. For his or her efforts, pro-peace and pro-restraint voices have been viciously attacked. They have been slammed with scurrilous accusations of carrying water for the Kremlin, smeared as propagandists and traitors, charged with secretly supporting Putin’s battle, and labeled appeasers no higher than Neville Chamberlain in ‘rewarding’ a Hitler-like aggressor. Simply recall the hailstorm of invective that rained down upon the group of Home progressives who final October issued what one congressional aide precisely known as ‘the world’s softest trial balloon about diplomacy.’ ‘Ukraine will win,’ was the incessantly repeated cry justifying this disgraceful habits, as escalation proponents seemed ahead to a counteroffensive they have been certain would justify this industrial-scale struggling. Nicely, it’s now 5 months for the reason that Ukrainians launched their counteroffensive, and what has been the outcome? Briefly, it’s been an unmitigated failure.” • One factor is certain: Precisely as with Iraq, all people who was flawed will probably be promoted.

2024

Lower than a 12 months to go!

* * *

“Oversight Chairman Comer: This Is Proof Of Biden Household ‘Laundering’ Cash From China; ‘Organized Crime’” [RealClearPolitics]. From November 5 as a result of I missed it on the time, and quoting at size:

REP. JAMES COMER: We traced the $40,000 verify that Joe Biden acquired all the way in which again to that WhatsApp message the place Hunter Biden claimed his father was sitting beside him the place he was shaking down the Chinese language operative. That’s the place that $40,000 was triggered.

We — only a few weeks after that textual content message, that $40,000 landed in Joe Biden’s pocket after the Bidens laundered it. However that cash got here from China, additional proof that Joe Biden benefited from his household’s affect peddling scheme….

.

We will join the dots, as a result of, as you confirmed on the display, with this sequence of transactions, that’s known as cash laundering. And this was a really organized legal enterprise by the Biden household. This wasn’t just a few drug addict doing concoctions and making wild transactions. This was very organized.

And the rationale they did these sophisticated transactions was to disguise the supply of the income and to deceive the IRS from paying taxes. So what you’re going to see within the coming weeks is numerous loans. Any time the Bidens have cash, they’re going to assert it was a mortgage, since you don’t need to report loans in your taxes.

When you’re the IRS and also you’re simply somebody’s taxes, you’ll by no means know that Joe Biden bought two checks for mortgage repayments, $200,000 and $40,000. You wouldn’t learn about all the cash that we’re going to point out that James Biden took in and Hunter Biden took in from loans.

Loans is a method — it’s an integral a part of cash laundering, the place you deceive from the IRS in regards to the income you’re taking in. [A]ll we see within the Biden transactions are loans, loans, loans, however you by no means see the place they made any curiosity funds on loans.

Very seldom do you see the place they even made a principal fee on the loans. I feel the Biden — the following large query the Biden household, together with Joe Biden, goes to need to reply to the American folks is, what precisely are the phrases of those loans? What kind of documentation do you’ve on these loans?

Have been you going to pay these loans again? Have been these forgivable loans? Have been these grants? In that case, along with affect peddling, which we have now clearly proved the Bidens have been doing, they’ve tax fraud implications with the IRS.

Comer presents a coherent principle of the case with out getting wrapped around the axle with rhetoric. Outstanding! The timelines must be attention-grabbing.

* * *

“Jen Psaki: Trump Would Finish Rule Of Regulation In America, However Positive, Biden Is Three Years Older And Often Journeys” [RealClearPolitics]. • I dunno. Perhaps some acid would mellow the dude out.

* * *

Cornel West on Gaza:

I’ve had my criticism of Cornel West, however this right here he channels the emotion of the overwhelming majority of not simply Individuals, however the whole world.

It’s not Islam vs. Judaism. It is not even Zionism vs. anti-Zionist. This battle is the imperial ruling class vs. humanity. pic.twitter.com/9vThklwH3c

— Unhealthy Socialism Takes (USSR state-affiliated media) (@BadSocialisms) November 13, 2023

(Nevertheless, a socialist ought to know that the category/humanity dichotomy is a class error. In spite of everything, capitalists are human, too; even world capitalists.)

* * *

“Opinion: A 3rd-party run is a danger we are able to’t afford” [James E. Clyburn, CNN]. “I’ve served in Congress beneath 5 presidents and have recognized all of them. President Joe Biden is among the many most interesting. He has guided this nation with extraordinary ability, deep foresight and abiding decency. His fatherly demeanor and compassionate tone don’t engender the engaging headlines and quotable sound chew for which many appear to yearn.” • I’ve gotta say, my very own father by no means sniffed my hair, though his demeanor was in any other case impeccable. I suppose I missed out. Maybe Clyburn’s mileage varies.

* * *

“Put up-Election Evaluation: Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi” [Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics]. An excessive amount of to excerpt (and the aptronymic Trende was, remarkably, a member of VA’s redistricting fee). My takeaway is, to coin a phrase, that “all politics is native”; regardless of the makes an attempt by the nationwide celebration apparatchiks to nationalize the elections simply previous, every state had its personal distinctive components. Nicely price a learn, if solely to listen to a peaceful voice.

Republican Funhouse

“In protests towards Israel, ‘American method of freedom’ is being ‘deeply challenged,’ says writer and historian” [FOX]. “‘As an admirer of this nation,’ says Guinness, a British nationwide, ‘I feel there’s no query most Individuals would agree [that] what Individuals love supremely is freedom. The American method of freedom popping out of the Hebrew routes in Exodus is a particular freedom. And but it’s been deeply challenged at this time…. Guinness warns that we’re at a vital time on this nation. The division, he says, stems from two competing philosophies: one based mostly on the American Revolution of 1776, the opposite on the French Revolution of 1789. In his guide, ‘The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Religion and the Way forward for Freedom,’ Guinness lays out the distinction and why we must be involved. On a latest episode of ‘Lighthouse Religion’ podcast, he mentioned, ‘Concepts like postmodernism, radical multiculturalism, the sexual revolution, the cancel tradition, crucial race principle, all that stuff — all of these come down from the French Revolution, not the American Revolution. And so that you’ve bought a deep division about what the nation stands for and is at this time. And it have to be resolved.’ Guinness says identical to earlier than the Civil Battle — we can not stand as a home divided.” • Extra sugar!

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, evidently individuals are really studying the back-dated put up! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are numerous updates. So I should do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Get together (“the Democrat Get together is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated put up, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Get together is, the truth is, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Get together is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Get together didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working elements of the Get together reinforce one another. Depart apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Get together (ka-ching, however not solely) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence group.

Notice, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

The Wizard of Kalorama™ weighs in:

Obama’s slowly growing presence in election 2024 offers me the creeps (and I’m certain Joe Biden hears footsteps, no less than metaphorically). After all, I is perhaps studying an excessive amount of into this; Obama is perhaps billing the DLCC for a nothingburger, not that there’s something flawed with that. Make hay whereas the solar shines!

Realignment and Legitimacy

“3.2-The Damaged Regime” (podcast) [Mike Duncan, Revolutions]. I lastly brutalized Apple’s iPad podcast app into letting me play a single podcast so as (use “Stations”) and so I began listening to Revolutions once more. This episode units the scene for 1789 in France by describing the jurisdictional dysfunction of the Ancien Régime, which can remind readers of our personal day. The podcast begins (to personalize) with Cromwell and ends with Lenin (and Duncan’s therapy of the Russian Revolution may be very level-headed and truthful). One high-level conclusion I draw is that revolutions are usually not that rare. I actually can’t suggest this podcast sufficient. (No substitute for works like The Coming of the Third Reich, as a result of the bandwidth of a guide with full scholarly equipment is a lot better, however for what it’s? Excellent.)

#COVID19

“I’m in earnest — I cannot equivocate — I cannot excuse — I cannot retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Assets, United States (Nationwide): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; contains many counties; Wastewater Scan, contains drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, however nationwide information). “An infection Management, Emergency Administration, Security, and Basic Ideas” (particularly on hospitalization by metropolis).

Lambert right here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To replace any entry, do be at liberty to contact me on the handle given with the crops. Please put “COVID” within the topic line. Thanks!

Assets, United States (Native): 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 experiences); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Assets, Canada (Nationwide): Wastewater (Authorities of Canada).

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

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

Keep secure on the market!

Covid is Airborne

When you can’t measure it, you possibly can’t handle it. Or “reside with it,” for that matter:

“Individuals are taking these sensors into their workplaces, favourite espresso outlets, airplanes, and all over the place else and infrequently sharing the outcomes on social media, generally publicly shaming house owners of venues the place the readings are dangerous. It is a transformational change.” #covidCO2 https://t.co/iFXA6p3zTD pic.twitter.com/yCHOvCrXg7

— Maarten De Cock (@mdc_martinus) November 10, 2023

Allen’s views on masks are craven, however he’s proper on this.

Transmission

“‘Scent it down the hallway’: Cruise from hell hit with mixture of Covid and gastro” [Newstalk ZB]. “A cruise ship has lastly reached port in Australia after its passengers and crew have been subjected to 2 weeks aboard a floating Petri dish of Covid and gastroenteritis…. A 57-year-old passenger advised the Advertiser they believed a number of hundred folks might be affected…. If the uncooked numbers weren’t horrifying sufficient, a number of passengers gave graphic descriptions of the environmental situations aboard the Grand Princess. ‘We had a person two doorways down from us who had Covid and gastro and we didn’t learn about it, and you might odor it down the hallway, one passenger advised 9’s The Right this moment Present.” • I don’t know why HICPAC desires to make America’s hospitals like cruise ships, however they do. (Oh, and the article mentions cleansing. Nothing about air flow, which is odd, since #CovidIsAirborne).

“One thing Terrible”

Lambert right here: I’m getting the sensation that the “One thing Terrible” is perhaps a sawtooth sample — variant after variant — that averages out to a completely excessive plateau. A number of exceptionally nasty sequelae, almost definitely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we’d add mind harm, together with character modifications therefrom.

* * *

Elite Maleficence

“Suggestions for HICPAC” [People’s CDC]. “Over 900 occupational security, aerosols science, public well being, and medical consultants have written to new CDC Director Mandy Ok. Cohen, MD, MPH, informing her that CDC’s Healthcare An infection Management Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) should right their evaluate on COVID an infection management measures to replicate the science of aerosol transmission by way of inhalation and their decision-making course of should embody affected person advocates, infectious illness transmission scientists, aerosols scientists, healthcare personnel (suppliers and different frontline staff akin to cleansing crews), union representatives, and occupational security and well being consultants. HICPAC is a CDC committee that oversees insurance policies and protocols on the prevention of infectious illnesses in healthcare settings.” • Nicely price a learn.

“Is Nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 Nonetheless Price Stopping?” [JAMA]. • Mistaken query. The correct query is: “Is An infection Management Price Preserving as a Career?”

Case Information

From BioBot wastewater information, November 6:

Lambert right here: Circumstances up, simply in time for Thanksgiving (and tinfoil hat time: That is the, er, inflection level CDC was attempting to hide after they gave the contract to Verily and didn’t guarantee a seamless transition).

Regional information:

In all places!

Variants

From CDC, November 11:

Lambert right here: High of the leaderboard: HV.1, EG.5 a robust second, with FL.1.15.1 and XBB.1.1.16.6 trailing. No BA.2.86 (though that has confirmed up in CDC’s airport testing). Nonetheless a Bouillabaisse…

From CDC, October 28:

Lambert right here: I certain hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart relies upon, don’t all transfer on the inexperienced fields and pastures new (or have their entry to services lower by directors of in poor health intent).

CDC: “As of Could 11, genomic surveillance information will probably be reported biweekly, based mostly on the supply of constructive check specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring each two weeks. 2. occurring twice per week; semiweekly.” Seems like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to fret about. Time will inform.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, November 4:

Lambert right here: Nonetheless flattening. Solely per week’s lag, so this can be our greatest present nationwide, present indicator till Verily will get its home so as (and dealing class-centric, since I’d doubt the higher crust goes to the ER).

NOTE “Charts and information supplied by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the previous 12 months, utilizing a rolling 52-week interval.” So not the whole pandemic, FFS (the implicit message right here being that Covid is “identical to the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week interval” is suitable for each_{MR SUBLIMINAL I hate these folks a lot}. Discover additionally that this chart exhibits, no less than for its time interval, that Covid is not seasonal, although CDC is attempting to get us to consider that it’s, presumably to allow them to piggyback on the prevailing institutional equipment for injections.

Hospitalization

Bellwether New York Metropolis, information as of November 13:

A particular lower. Ought to be up in two weeks, although! (I hate this metric as a result of the lag makes it misleading, though the hospital-centric public well being institution loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the one metrics that matter [snort]).

Right here’s a distinct CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, however with a date, no less than. November 4:

Lambert right here: “Maps, charts, and information supplied by CDC, updates weekly for the earlier MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Division Visits, Take a look at Positivity) and weekly the next Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So the place the heck is the replace, CDC?

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, November 6:

-1.4%. However bouncing round. (It could be attention-grabbing to survey this inhabitants typically; these are individuals who, regardless of a tsunami of official propaganda and large peer stress, went and bought examined anyhow.)

NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, November 4:

Lambert right here: Slight enhance. I do know that is simply Ohio, however the Cleveland Clinic is nice*, and we’re starved for information, so…. NOTE * Even when hospital an infection management is attempting to kill sufferers by eliminating common masking with N95s.

From CDC, traveler’s information, October 23:

Down, albeit within the rear view mirror. And listed here are the variants for vacationers, nonetheless from November 2:

Sudden large BA.2.86 look. This variant chart has not been up to date, which makes me surprise if CDC is gaming the info, and BA.2.86 is worse than we expect.

Deaths

Whole: 1,181,872 – 1,181,863 – 1,181,620 = 9 (9 * 365 = 3285 deaths per 12 months, at this time’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “residing with” Covid (fairly a bit increased than the minimizers would love, although they’ll speak themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I may need to determine that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of dying and illness). 

Extra Deaths

The Economist, November 12:

Lambert right here: Based mostly on a machine-learning mannequin.

Stats Watch

Financial Optimism: “United States Financial Optimism Index” [Trading Economics]. “The RealClearMarkets/TIPP Financial Optimism Index rose to 44.5 in November 2023, the very best in seven months, from a twelve-year low of 36.3 in October. Nonetheless, the index has now been in unfavourable territory for 26 consecutive months.”

Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 41 Concern (earlier shut: 42 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 41 (Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Nov 13 at 1:52:13 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Report Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 187. (Keep in mind that bringing on the Rapture is good.) NOTE on #42 Plagues: “The coronavirus pandemic has maxed out this class.” Extra trustworthy than most! • The goat sacrificers are going to defile the Al Aqsa mosque, and the Rapture Index is down? I hardly had them within the contrarian field! UPDATE I suppose the indexing lags. I can’t recall a bounce of two, and if Date Settings hadn’t been down one, it might have been three!

Information of the Wired

“Terry Pratchett and the Maggi Soup Adverts” [Stuffed Crocodile]. Pratchett: “There have been a lot of causes for switching to Goldmann, however a deeply private one for me was the way in which Heyne (in Sourcery, I feel, though it might have been in different books) inserted a soup advert within the textual content … a number of black traces after which one thing like ‘Round about now our heroes have to be fairly hungry and what higher than a nourishing bowl’… and so forth, and so forth. My editor was fairly sick about it, however the firm wouldn’t promise to not do it once more, in order that made it very simple to go away them. They did it to Iain Banks, too, and apparently at a con he tore out the offending web page and ate it. With out croutons.”

Contact info for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a verify if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of crops. Greens are wonderful! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you’d like your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it firstly of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From WB:

WB writes: “Grasses emergent in a cloudy pond.”

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not lined by the annual NC fundraiser. So should you see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see wherever else, please don’t hesitate to precise your appreciation in tangible kind. Bear in mind, a tip jar is for tipping! Common constructive suggestions each makes me really feel good and lets me know I’m heading in the right direction with protection. Once I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get nervous. Extra tangibly, a continuing trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I consider that trickle when setting fundraising targets: