By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Common Nightingale, Taliouline, Morocco. 28 minutes of nightingale, so grab a cup of coffee.
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
Trump Assassination Attempt
“Grateful, defiant Trump recounts surviving ‘surreal’ assassination attempt at rally: ‘I’m supposed to be dead’” [New York Post]. “‘A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,’ Trump said. ‘They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.’ He added, ‘I just wanted to keep speaking, but I just got shot.’” • “Iconic.” Called it 🙂
“The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator” [David Frum, The Atlantic]. “Fascism feasts on violence… Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well.” • I admire war criminal David Frum‘s commitment to the bit. Never mind that we don’t even know the assassin’s motive; Carl Schmitt is the chef who served up the fascist smorgasbord from which both parties are feasting. If, as Schmitt has it, the central theme of politics is the friend/enemy distinction, Democrats, by loudly declaring Trump to be the next Hitler, have provided anyone sufficiently gullible with a motive for assassination. After all, if you can’t go back in time and kill baby Hitler, why not kill the real one in the here and now? The tendency of liberals to wish death on their enemies is well known (see Stoller, “On Mocking Dying Working Class White People“). As for example:
Granted, the Hampton’s aren’t the country, but “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Or:
Sitting at outdoor restaurant in Hamptons as waitress told us what happened , lots of comments from other tables from very well off people about ” What did Trump think would happen behaving like he does ? “
— GardinerIslandCapital (@GardinerIsland) July 14, 2024
“Both sides are right / But both sides murder / I give up / Why can’t they?” –X. I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
“BlackRock Says Gunman From Trump Rally Appeared in Firm’s Ad” [Bloomberg]. “Crooks was one of several students who appeared in the background of the 2022 ad and was unpaid, BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, said in a statement. The ad was filmed at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks graduated in 2022, and featured a teacher, the company said.” • If Crooks was indeed a “troubled loner,” he seems to be a socially competent one. Odd:
BlackRock pulls ad that featured Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks https://t.co/24ViyLsLGj pic.twitter.com/y6xCpp2wGk
— New York Post (@nypost) July 15, 2024
Blackrock certainly wasn’t on my Bingo card!
“‘BlueAnon’ conspiracy theories flood social media after Trump rally shooting” [WaPo]. The deck: “Researchers who track online conspiracies say liberals are increasingly vulnerable to — and generating — QAnon-like bursts of misinformation.” After RussiaGate? You don’t say. More: “Minutes after Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., liberals began flooding social media platforms with conspiracy theories. They claimed the blood on former president Donald Trump’s ear was from a theatrical gel pack; that the shooting was a ‘false flag,’ perhaps coordinated by the Secret Service in collaboration with the Trump campaign; that the scene of a bloodied Trump raising his fist under an American flag was ‘#staged.’ ‘When did the Secret Service start allowing the President under duress to tell them ‘to wait’, then stand up to be seen by the crowd fist-pumping?” one user posted on X. “Can you blame me for thinking this is fake?’ The shooting threw into overdrive a phenomenon dubbed ‘BlueAnon’ — a play on the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon — that refers to liberal conspiracy theories online. As more Americans lose trust in mainstream institutions and turn to partisan commentators and influencers for information, experts say they are seeing a big uptick in the manufacture and spread of BlueAnon conspiracy theories, a sign that the communal warping of reality is spreading well beyond the right. ‘The [Schmittian] good-versus-evil paradigm of QAnon has really taken hold of the anti-Trump movement and you’re seeing two sides that feel like they are fighting a battle between good and evil,’ said Mike Rothschild, author of “The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult and Conspiracy Theory of Everything.’” • Musical interlude.
Biden Administration
Good, decent, etc., etc.:
Since Biden took office, the Pentagon budget has grown by $212 billion and the budget for social & economic programs has shrunk by $30 billion: pic.twitter.com/tQEfVVH6LQ
— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) July 11, 2024
But not an issue, of course.
2024
Less than a half a year to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages: CTUTP
Second post-debate polling: No massive swing to Trump that I can see. It would be hilarious if the Biden Debate debacle had exactly the same effect as Trump’s 34 bazillion felony convictions, i.e., none, both parties are so dug in. Of course, the Biden “buzz” (yesterday) is bad, and may yet have an effect. And who, may I ask, is making the buzz? Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error.
* * *
* * * Unelecting Biden:
The Calendar
“Trump rally shooting upends Democrats’ Biden crisis” [Axios]. “Congressional Democrats’ all-consuming angst over President Biden’s candidacy has taken an abrupt backseat in lawmakers’ minds in the wake of an assassination attempt against former President Trump. Democratic lawmakers say their immediate focus is on their personal security and that of their staffs, not on their party’s political woes, helping to allow a crucial cooldown period for the embattled president. A second senior House Democrat told Axios that the Trump shooting has taken some of the heat off because it would ‘be bad form to make any statements against President Biden.’
Another Biden-skeptical Democrat, asked about lingering questions around the president’s candidacy, told Axios: ‘I don’t think that’s the focus right now.’…Most lawmakers who spoke to Axios said it is too early to say whether the cessation in tensions will last until the Democratic National Convention next month. But the second senior House Democrat offered one reason for why it might: ‘We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.’” • Not with a bang but a whimper? Because the stakes, objectively, are exactly the same after Trump’s assassination as before.
The DNC
“Democrats’ Foremost Expert on Party Rules Explains How Biden Could Be Replaced” [Politico]. Elaine Kamarck is a longtime member of the DNC’s rules committee and a scholar at the centrist Brookings Institution. “‘The reason people tear their hair out is that people don’t realize that the business of nominating a presidential candidate is ultimately party business,’ Kamarck said. And .” From July 13, though it seems like a week ago: “I think if [Biden] was inclined to get out, he should do it as soon as possible before the convention so that the party can sort out who wants to run. And at this point, I don’t think there’s a lot of people who want to run. I think that if he wants to get out, he should do it soon and let the party come together around Vice President Harris or perhaps somebody else, and do it in time for there to be a good convention. Remember that the convention planning is going on. They’re writing a platform, they’re already choosing speakers.” • If replacing Biden with Harris were easy, it would have already have happened. So, who else? When? How?
Electeds
CBC, Black Women
Donors
The Spooks
* * * Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “Judge dismisses Trump’s Mar-a-Lago classified docs criminal case” [Politico]. “Under Cannon’s view, the Justice Department lacks a legal basis to bring private lawyers into the department to head up special counsel investigations. Her conclusion would have nixed the appointment of Robert Mueller, named in 2017 to examine allegations of ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, as well as that of Robert Hur, selected last year to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified records. Some other special counsels named from the department’s existing ranks of prosecutors, though, would not have been impacted. Smith’s team argued that the history of such appointments over the past quarter century meant Congress had blessed such arrangements, but Cannon disagreed.” • No great loss. Was it Mueller liberal Democrats were naming their dogs after? Here is Cannon’s opinion (PDF):
Here is the Appointments Clause, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and , shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The Legal Information Institute’s interpretation:
By default, the Appointments Clause requires that all “Officers of the United States” be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.1 However, the Clause authorizes Congress to vest the appointment of “inferior Officers,” at its discretion, “in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” 2 Because of this language, the Supreme Court has recognized two classes of officers: (1) principal officers, who must be appointed by the President with the Senate’s advice and consent; and (2) inferior officers, whose appointment Congress may assign to the President alone, the courts, or a department head. This dichotomy has led to questions about whether there are constitutionally significant differences between principal and inferior officers.
I don’t understand why Smith isn’t an “inferior officer,” but apparently that’s not Cannon’s view. Perhaps legal mavens in the commentariat can comment.
Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “Judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump” [Financial Times]. “Cannon’s ruling echoed misgivings about the DoJ special counsel expressed by Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, who wrote in a concurring opinion in the presidential immunity case that he had ‘serious questions’ about the constitutionality of the appointment. Smith is one of several special counsels appointed in recent years to manage politically sensitive investigations. A special counsel oversaw the probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents, while another was named to investigate the conduct of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who was later charged with gun and tax offences. The ruling from Cannon could jeopardise both federal criminal cases. Meanwhile, two other criminal cases pending against Trump in state courts are also hitting hurdles.” • Cannon’s ruling can be appealed.
Trump (R) (Smith/Cannon): “Judge dismisses Trump’s federal classified docs case” [Axios]. “Trump, who at one point was staring down four criminal cases, is now unlikely to face another trial before Election Day.” • So the lawfare strategy crashed, and now the Democrats don’t seem to have another.
* * * Kennedy (I): “Calls grow for RFK Jr. to get Secret Service protection” [The Hill]. “Shortly after the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., where the former president was injured and one attendee was killed, political figures from both sides of the aisle emphasized the need for Kennedy to receive Secret Service protection.” • This would not be hard to do, and even the molasses-brained Biden administration should have done it by now.
Kennedy (I): “Ballot Access HQ” [Kennedy Shanahan]. An impressive effort with some weaknesses. Petitioning is complet in purple states. But that doesn’t mean the ballots are approved and Kenney is on the ballot. Handy map:
I have gone through the swing states to see where ☑️
Our Famously Free Press
“‘Morning Joe’ pulled from air Monday because of Trump shooting” [CNN]. “The decision by MSNBC to leave one of its most recognizable programs on the sidelines amid a seismic politics-driven news cycle, with the Republican National Convention getting underway in the wake of the Saturday shooting at Trump’s campaign rally, is certain to raise eyebrows. A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision was made to avoid a scenario in which one of the show’s stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and network as a whole. Given the breaking news nature of the story, the person said, it made more sense to continue airing rolling breaking news coverage in the fraught political moment.” • Anyone on Morning Joe from the Hamptons?
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Lambert here: CDC claims (albeit with an exculpatory footnote) to update its vaunted National Wastewater Surveillance System data every Friday by 8pm. It has not updated the data since June 24. If it’s not updated by Monday, I can only conclude that the data is really, really ugly. Stay safe out there!
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Worse than two weeks ago. New York is a hot again, and Covid is spreading up the Maine Coast just in time for the Fourth of July weekend, in another triumph for Administration policy.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) LB.1 coming up on the outside.
[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Now acceleration, which is compatible with a wastewater decrease, but still not a good feeling .(The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation, which in fact shows that Covid is not seasonal. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[7] (Walgreens) Still going up! (Because there is data in “current view” tab, I think white states here have experienced “no change,” as opposed to have no data.)
[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads.
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index declined to -6.6 in July 2024, slightly below market expectations of -6. New orders remained stable, while shipments saw a slight increase. Delivery times improved and supply availability stayed the same. Inventories decreased, reflecting ongoing challenges.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 57 Greed (previous close: 51 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 52 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 12 at 12:26:44 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 186. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Not what the climate coverage implies.
Zeitgeist Watch
“A Deal With the Devil: What the Age-Old Faustian Bargain Reveals About the Modern World” [Literary Hub]. “The legend of the Devil’s contract is the most alluring, the most provocative, the most insightful, the most important story ever told. It concerns a humanity strung between Heaven and Hell, the saintly and the satanic; how a man could trade his soul for powers omnipotent, signing a covenant with the Devil so that he could briefly live as a god before being pulled down to Hell…. [T]he Devil’s hoof-prints can be found across the wide swatch of history, in our willingness to embrace power and engage in exploitation, to summon self-interestedness and to conjure cruelty…. Marlowe staged [Doctor Faustus] at the very beginning of what is increasingly being called the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which humanity was finally able to impose its will (in an almost occult manner) upon the earth. There are costs to any such contract, as the wisdom of the legend has it… It may be appropriate to rechristen this age the Faustocene. Because whether or not the Devil is real, his effects in the world are.” • Hmm.
The 420
“Congress Accidentally Legalized Weed Six Years Ago” [The Atlantic]. “rive through durham, north carolina, where I live, and you might get the impression that marijuana is legal here. Retail windows advertise thc in glittery letters and neon glass, and seven-pointed leaves adorn storefronts and roadside sandwich boards. The newest business near my house is the Stay Lit Smoke Shop, where an alien ripping a bong invites you to use the drive-through. In fact, neither medical nor recreational marijuana is legal in North Carolina. Technically, we’re getting high on hemp. This is probably not what Congress had in mind when it passed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, commonly called the 2018 Farm Bill, which made the production of hemp—cannabis’s traditionally nonpsychoactive cousin—legal for the first time in nearly a century. Lawmakers who backed hemp legalization expected the plant to be used for textiles and nonintoxicating supplements, such as CBD oil and shelled hemp seeds (great on an acai bowl). They didn’t realize that, with some chemistry and creativity, hemp can get you just as high as the dankest marijuana plant. The upshot is that although recreational marijuana use is allowed in only 24 states and Washington, D.C., people anywhere in the U.S. can get intoxicated on hemp-derived THC without breaking federal law. These hemp-based highs are every bit as potent as those derived from the marijuana available in legalization states.’ • Finally some good news….
Class Warfare
News of the Wired
“How Virginia Woolf’s list-making paved the way for her literary experiments” [Financial Times]. “Each day followed a pattern. Woolf noted the weather; any insects or birds seen on her walk (“3 perfect peacock butterflies”); her daily tally of mushrooms or blackberries (“A record find”, “Enough for a dish”); gardening or domestic activities (“Made chair cover after tea”); what was happening in the fields (“German prisoners cutting wheat with hooks”); what she had for supper (“Eating our own broad beans — delicious”); and the price of rationed goods (“Eggs 2/9 doz. from Mrs Attfield”). Adhering to a structure in her diary gave shape to her convalescence. Woolf rarely used “I” and yet we catch sight of her out walking, or sewing on the terrace in a straw hat. It’s not by chance that she wrote the laundry list on the inside cover of this notebook. During this period, listmaking and diary-keeping became part of the same practice of paying attention to small things and of setting down her experience, sparely and without flourish, on the page. To biographers, this slender diary has appeared inconsequential compared with the weightier stuff of her later longhand diaries and letters.” • Well worth a read, especiallly if you write. I love lists!
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CH writes: “Fritillary on milkweed, Asheville, NC.” At least I think it’s a fritillary (from my high school butterfly collecting days). Readers?
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