By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Bird Song of the Day
Eyebrowed Wren-Babbler, Ho Ke Go Reservoir, Ha Tinh, Vietnam. Lots of jungle noise!
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Early voting and October surprises.
(2) Trump and the Latino vote.
(3) Biden and the Latino vote.
(4) Mask warriors?
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
Biden Administration
“US officials don’t see clear path to ending war in Gaza as cease-fire talks stall” [Politico]. “‘No one is confident this deal is going to move forward in the way the administration had hoped,’ said one of the officials, who was briefed by the White House about the state of the cease-fire negotiations. ‘There are so many unknowns.’” • I was about to say “October Surprise,” but then I remembered early voting. Here is a table of early voting start dates, with the Swing States helpfully highlighted:
So maybe a mid-September surprise would be better, if it would help pick up Arizona and Georgia. OTOH, October might still work — depending on the deal — for Michigan (big Muslim population). And then of course there’s Ukraine. (I love that Pennsylvania, the key swing state, is “varied.” It would be. We’ll have to let the pros figure out where it falls on the calendar.)
2024
Less than a half a year to go!
Still waiting for some discernible effect from Trump’s conviction (aside from, I suppose, his national numbers rising). 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. If will be interesting to see whether the verdict in Judge Merchan’s court affects the polling, and if so, how.
* * * Trump (R): “Poll: Latino voters trust Trump on immigration over Biden” [Axios]. “Once reliably Democratic voters, many Latinos are increasingly identifying as independent, and working-class voters are leaning more toward the GOP. An estimated 36.2 million U.S. Latinos are eligible to vote in this year’s election. An Equis poll released Tuesday of 1,592 registered Latino voters in seven battleground states found 41% of Hispanic voters trust Trump on immigration compared to 38% for Biden. The problem for Democrats and Biden ‘is great uncertainty in support’ for the president among Latino voters, Carlos Odio, co-founder and senior vice president for research at Equis Labs, told reporters Tuesday. Democrats don’t hold the advantage they once did with Latinos on immigration, Oido adds.
Yes, but: Immigration has shown to be lower on the list of concerns among Latinos according to various Axios-Ipsos Latino Polls in partnership with Noticias Telemundo. The top issue has consistently been inflation or the economy. ‘Immigration has never been the top issue for Latino voters. But at various critical moments, it played a role in differentiating between the parties for Latinos, even among those who themselves are not immigrants.’…. Biden’s move this week to grant protection to half a million undocumented people with citizen spouses could ‘move the needle among Latino voters,’ per Odio. 72% of Latinos in the survey who said they do not currently support Biden said they would be more likely to vote for him if he put such a program in place.”
Trump (R): “Chemicals from East Palestine derailment spread to 16 US states, data shows” [Guardian]. • What people will remember is that Trump came right away, while the Democrats dithered.
Trump (R): “Trump’s Campaign Has Lost Whatever Substance It Once Had” [The Atlantic]. “Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was, among other things, one of the most impressive displays of branding on a large scale, in a short time, ever. There were hats. There were flags. And above all, there were slogans. ‘Make America Great Again.’ ‘Build the wall.’ ‘Lock her up.’ And later, ‘Drain the swamp,’ which Trump conceded on the stump that he’d initially hated. No matter: Crowds loved it, which was good enough for Trump to decide that he did, too. One peculiarity of Trump’s 2024 campaign is the absence of any similar mantra. At some recent rallies, neither Trump nor the audience has even uttered ‘Build the wall,’ once a standard. Crowds are reverting instead to generic ‘U-S-A’ chants or, as at a recent Phoenix rally, ‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!,’ which has a winning simplicity but doesn’t have the specificity and originality of its predecessors. In their place, Trump’s stump speech has become dominated by grievances about the wrongs he believes have been done to him and his promises to get even for them. It doesn’t quite create the festive atmosphere of eight years ago, when many attendees were clearly having a great time. Where the new, more prosaic feeling lacks the uplift of the past, though, it has still managed to generate enough enthusiasm that Trump leads in many polls and could return to the White House in a few months.” • I like this granular style of analysis very much, but I’m not sure I agree with it. For one thing, it’s also possible that MAGA and its paraphernalia are now so deep in the culture — 2024 – 2016 = 8, after all — that it doesn’t need to be reinforced at the rallies. Based solely on my admittedly hasty analysis of Trump’s Vegas speech (which I did at least read several times): (1) Trump, in my view, goes into the lawfare, but doesn’t swell on it; the speech pivoted on the border, not Trump’s grievances, (Trump also joked about his grievances, like the heat, the teleprompter, nobody caring about him, Rodney Dangerfield style); (2) “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit” seems like a totally warranted general indictment to me, though somebody who writes articles at David Frum’s place might not see it that way; (3) so far as I can tell, the audience in Vegas, especially given the heat, was having a great time; there was plenty of laughter and chanting, and Trump did a good deal of question-and-answer with them (though this would be better seen on video, and if anybody wants to correct me based on video footage, please do).
* * * Biden (D): “Biden courts Latino voters with ad blitz during Copa América soccer tournament” [NBC]. “President Joe Biden’s campaign is drawing up a new play to reach Latino voters in key battleground states during the Copa América soccer tournament, which starts in the U.S. on Thursday. The campaign is aiming to reach the millions of viewers expected to tune in through a seven-figure ad blitz and organizing effort, a Biden campaign official said. The re-election team hopes that — with international sensations like Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Brazil’s Vinícius Júnior starring in the tournament — it can score with a diverse and hyperengaged audience that may not be that dialed into politics or the 2024 race, the official said. A 30-second spot — titled ‘Gooaalll!’ — will air in swing states that are hosting matches over the next month, like Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina, according to the campaign. The ads will run in both English and Spanish, the campaign said.”
Biden (D): “Biden’s ads haven’t been working. Now, he’s trying something new” [Vox]. “President Joe Biden’s odds of reelection may be worse than they look. And they don’t look great…. It’s not surprising, then, that the Economist’s election forecast gives Trump a roughly 70 percent chance of victory in November. For anyone who doesn’t want an illiberal insurrectionist in the White House, these numbers are concerning enough on their face. But they are even more disconcerting when one considers an underappreciated piece of context: Trump hasn’t even begun to air campaign advertisements, while Biden has been blanketing swing-state airwaves. In other words: This is what the 2024 race looks like when the president enjoys a massive advantage on paid propaganda.” • True. It’s amazing that Democrat lawfare doesn’t seem, as of this writing, to have panned out (though in typical Democrat fashion, they’ve dilly dallied about starting to hammer on Trump’s “guilt” until long after the verdicts). That said, it behooves Trump supporters to avoid premature triumphalism. A close race can, by definition, go either way.
* * * Kennedy (I): “Kennedy Raises Just $2.6 Million, a Sign of Reliance on His Running Mate” [New York Times]. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign raised just $2.6 million in May, a paltry sum that speaks to how reliant his bid has become on his running mate, the wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan. The Kennedy campaign raised less in May than it had in any previous month in 2024, according to filings on Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. That was in large part because Ms. Shanahan, who has poured millions into their independent presidential campaign, barely contributed any additional money in May…. Mr. Kennedy and his allies have some unique costs associated with their campaign — primarily ballot-access work that can be expensive.
His campaign spent about $6.3 million in May, but almost half of that was routed through a limited liability company that focuses on ballot access. The money laid out was labeled “campaign consulting,” making his precise expenditures somewhat opaque.”
* * * MI: “The City That Will Determine Where Michigan—and the Country—Goes in 2024” [Slate]. “It’s not news that the voters in Michigan, that ever-powerful swing state and bastion of Midwest culture, will be a key determinant of the entire country’s democratic future come fall. What may be surprising, though, is where the Mitten’s locus of power seems to emanate from these days—as well as the types of Michiganders who are gaining national attention and power as a result. For the first time in my lifetime, the real center of my home state’s political influence lies not in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, or the serene forests and lake houses of Northern Michigan. Instead, it’s coming from the capital city: Lansing, the often overlooked, underfunded, landlocked municipal center of the state, home to the State Capitol and Michigan State University and Lugnuts baseball. (Also, lots of pre–Civil War buildings and potholed streets and abandoned factories and electric vehicle plants and scientific research facilities and arrays of solar panels.) It’s also coming from the suburbs and farms and professorial residences scattered throughout the lopsided district: the Greater Lansing Area, my flyover hometown situated within the borders of Ingham County.” And: “Within those big metanarratives, there’s a whole lot of Lansing. In the 2018 cycle, one of the many once red seats that fell to the blue wave was Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, which encompassed Greater Lansing. There, Democrat and CIA veteran Elissa Slotkin flipped a seat that had been held by a Republican, then-incumbent Rep. Mike Bishop. That same year saw the ascension of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Michigan State alum and former state representative for the area who took the governor’s mansion back from Republican hands.” • So, a CIA Democrat and the beneficiary of an FBI-instigated kidnapping plot are key figures in the key county of a key state. Hmm.
NY:
A new Siena poll says Biden has only an 8 point lead over Trump in New York. In a June 2020 poll, Siena said Biden had a 25 point lead. Biden ultimately won New York by 23 points. Trump has nearly *quintupled* his share of Black voters in New York — 2020: 6%, 2024: 29% pic.twitter.com/deGt1oaJBr
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 20, 2024
* * *
Our Famously Free Press
“The deceptive Biden G7 video was quickly debunked, but it kept going viral anyway” [NBC]. “The story revolved around Biden and other world leaders being greeted by a skydiving demonstration last Thursday at the Group of Seven meeting in Italy. Video shows Biden walking away from the leaders and toward a group of parachutists who had just landed, giving them two thumbs-up. But conservative media outlets and the Republican National Committee posted videos shot from angles that cut out the parachutists. Some of their posts said incorrectly that Biden ‘wandered off.’ Without the skydivers Biden was addressing included in those videos, viewers could be left with the impression that he was walking absentmindedly. The misleading videos were an example of so-called cheap fakes, in which low-tech editing or other minor changes to videos, along with incorrect context, can amplify false but convincing messages. The episode illustrated the dynamics of the new information ecosystem, in which tech platforms are hesitant to emphasize vetted, factual information during an election year for fear of appearing partisan — even as partisan operatives take advantage of the platforms’ attempts at neutrality.” • The real issue is the scale of the platforms; that’s what enables frictionless propagation (which is why we should return the blogosphere, sigh).
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, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: Covid
Surge anecdata:
How to Know There Is a Covid Surge:
Step 1 = Post something about it (eg “Covid is everywhere,” “There’s an uptick in Covid”)
Step 2 = Watch for the bot surge paid to swarm in and stifle messaging
— Dr. Sean Mullen (@drseanmullen) June 20, 2024
That and the cranked up denialism, here debunked, for a pleasant change–
“Think you have a summer cold? There’s a good chance it’s COVID: experts” [CTV News]. “‘We have to remember COVID is not gone. So, this is a little different than things like influenza where we see it nearly disappear in the summer. The last two summers, COVID has really hung around and as a result, we continue to see waves and upticks of virus throughout the year,’ said Craig Jenne with the University of Calgary’s department of microbiology, immunology, and infectious diseases. ‘There’s a good chance, as we see the numbers rise in the community, that summer cold might be a COVID infection.’” • The word seems to be “uptick.” Maybe if we had some data we could tell if that was the right word!
Maskstravaganza
Jury Duty – When I walked into the room of 400+ people and I was wearing an N95 and Stoggles, I felt proud and courageous. It was a dopamine hit for me. It felt like walking into a battlefield, but I was ready to kick ass. I felt love, not fear, not aggression. It was a bit fun.
— The CoVID Martian (a.k.a Mean Mr. Mustard) (@ravencallin) June 20, 2024
Rather like this:
And we know who wins, too….
Testing and Tracking: H5N1
“‘We’re Flying Blind’: CDC Has 1M Bird Flu Tests Ready, but Experts See Repeat of Covid Missteps” [KFF Health News]. “It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic, yet the U.S. has tested only about 45 people across the country. ‘We’re flying blind,’ said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. With so few tests run, she said, it’s impossible to know how many farmworkers have been infected, or how serious the disease is. A lack of testing means the country might not notice if the virus begins to spread between people — the gateway to another pandemic. ‘,’ said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s bird flu test is the only one the Food and Drug Administration has authorized for use right now. Shah said the agency has distributed these tests to about 100 public health labs in states. ‘We’ve got roughly a million available now,’ he said, ‘and expect 1.2 million more in the next two months. But Nuzzo and other researchers are concerned because the CDC and public health labs aren’t generally where doctors order tests from. That job tends to be done by major clinical laboratories run by companies and universities, which lack authorization for bird flu testing…. Greninger said the delays and confusion are reminiscent of the early months of covid, when federal agencies prioritized caution over speed. Test accuracy is important, he said, but excessive vetting can cause harm in a fast-moving outbreak like this one. ‘The CDC should be trying to open this up to labs with national reach and a good reputation,’ he said. ‘I fall on the side of allowing labs to get ready — that’s a no-brainer.’” • Read for the horrid detail. This after CDC completely butchered the Covid testing itself, which users who did the “vetting” discovered [bangs head on desk].
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. The numbers in the right hand column are identical. The dots on the map are not.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) FWIW, given that last week KP.2 was all over everything like kudzu, and now it’s KP.3. If the “Nowcast” can’t even forecast two weeks out, why are we doing it at all?
[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) A slight decrease followed by a return to a slight, steady increase. (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. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.
[7] (Walgreens) 4.3%; big jump. (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) 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. I’m leaving this here for another week because I loathe them so much:
[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.
[12] Deaths low, ED up.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US eased by 5,000 to 238,000 on the second week of June, above market expectations of 235,000, to mark the second-highest reading since August of 2023, only behind the upwardly revised 243,000 claim count from the earlier week.”
Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US remained positive but eased 3.2 points to 1.3 in June 2024, down from 4.5 in the prior month and missing market forecasts of 5. It marked the lowest reading in five months, indicating the second consecutive month of slowing activity.”
Housing: “United States Housing Starts” [Trading Economics]. “Housing starts in the US fell 5.5% to an annualized rate of 1.277 million in May 2024, the lowest since July 2020, from April’s downwardly revised 1.352 million and well below the forecast of 1.37 million. This unexpected decline shows that high interest rates started to weigh again on the housing market.”
The Bezzle: “Crypto analysts warn of Andrew Tate’s DADDY coin as signs of insider trading mount” [MiTrade]. “Several crypto analysts warned on Friday about the dangers of trading with the so-called ‘celebrity coins’, the current leading narrative in the meme coin space. Social media influencer Andrew Tate’s DADDY token, which is among the most popular ones, has been surrounded by accusations of insider trading activity. Caitlyn Jenner’s JENNER, Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER and TOPG are other tokens in the category, based on meme coins referencing famous personalities that tend to endorse these tokens. Bubblemaps, a crypto data tracker, evaluated the on-chain activity in addresses holding DADDY token and noted that Solana-based token’s 40% supply was sent to the celebrity Andrew Tate.” • Gad.
The Bezzle: “This Judge Made Houston the Top Bankruptcy Court. Then He Helped His Girlfriend Cash In” [Wall Street Journal]. The deck: “Law firm Kirkland & Ellis brought multibillion-dollar cases to David R. Jones’s court, aided by a local attorney who lived with the judge; ‘Why did no one look into it?” • I can’t imagine…
Tech: “iOS 18 could ‘sherlock’ $400M in app revenue” [TechCrunch]. “Every June at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the iPhone maker teases the upcoming releases of its software and operating systems, which often include features previously only available through third-party apps. The practice is so common now it’s even been given a name: “sherlocking” — a reference to a 1990s search app for Mac that borrowed features from a third-party app known as Watson. Now when Apple launches a new feature that was before the domain of a third-party app, it’s said to have ‘sherlocked’ the app…. With the release of iOS 18 later this fall, Apple’s changes may affect apps that today have an estimated $393 million in revenue and have been downloaded roughly 58 million times over the past year.” • One for Stoller. I’m sure whatever agreement with Apple the developers were forced to sign with Apple allowed Apple to steal their intellectual property.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 42 Fear (previous close: 42 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 45 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 18 at 8:59:52 PM ET.
The Gallery
More wallpaper:
#Inners #WagnerTonight #Maddow #LastWord #11thHour @SRuhle #Tuesday This & That
Pre Art Break 2
Edouard Vuillard-“Misia At The Piano”(c1895/early 1896’s)
Oil on cardboard
The METPost Impressionism
Example of his Les Nabis Interior style pic.twitter.com/k0pxgORHSR— JRYZNER (@jeryzner) November 29, 2023
And gorgeous it is, too. (There’s surely a scholarly paper here to discover whether these patterns were real, from a catalog, or not. Either way, those fin de siecle Parisians really knew how to live!
News of the Wired
“The Hacking of Culture and the Creation of Socio-Technical Debt” [Schneier of Security]. “Culture is increasingly mediated through algorithms. These algorithms have splintered the organization of culture, a result of states and tech companies vying for influence over mass audiences. One byproduct of this splintering is a shift from imperfect but broad cultural narratives to a proliferation of niche groups, who are defined by ideology or aesthetics instead of nationality or geography. This change reflects a material shift in the relationship between collective identity and power, and illustrates how states no longer have exclusive domain over either. Today, both power and culture are increasingly corporate. Blending Stewart Brand and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, McKenzie Wark writes in A Hacker Manifesto that ‘information wants to be free but is everywhere in chains.’ Sounding simultaneously harmless and revolutionary, Wark’s assertion as part of her analysis of the role of what she terms ‘the hacker class’ in creating new world orders points to one of the main ideas that became foundational to the reorganization of power in the era of the internet: that ‘information wants to be free.’ This credo, itself a co-option of Brand’s influential original assertion in a conversation with Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak at the 1984 Hackers Conference and later in his 1987 book The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, became a central ethos for early internet inventors, activists, and entrepreneurs. Ultimately, this notion was foundational in the construction of the era we find ourselves in today: an era in which internet companies dominate public and private life. These companies used the supposed desire of information to be free as a pretext for building platforms that allowed people to connect and share content. Over time, this development helped facilitate the definitive power transfer of our time, from states to corporations.” • Right. If information weren’t free, it wouldn’t be free to be rented. And speaking of hackers–
“systemd 256.1: Now slightly less likely to delete /home” [The Register]. “Among the issues fixed in version 256.1 are that even as long as five years ago, systemd-tmpfiles had moved on past managing only temporary files – as its name might suggest to the unwary. Now it manages all sorts of files created on the fly… such as things like users’ home directories. If you invoke the systemd-tmpfiles --purge command without specifying that very important config file which tells it while files to handle, version 256 will merrily purge your entire home directory. That fun little nugget of info broke over on Mastodon and has attracted considerable attention.” And: “[I]f your command can potentially do something really dangerous, then don’t let people just run it without warning them and checking.” • Like capitalism….
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