2:00PM Water Cooler 1/29/2025 | naked capitalism

Bird Song of the Day

Brown Thrasher, Stipson Island Rd., Cape May, New Jersey, United States/

In Case You Might Miss…

1. The Rescinded OMB “freeze” memo: after-action reports and interpretations.
2. Beware the so-called “buyout” scheme.
3. Tulsi Gabbard nomination for DNI.

Look for the Helpers

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

Trump Administration

“Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions” [Just Security]. • Rather a lot. Worth a look (though it gives the creeps that the lawfare spooks are tracking the work they themselves inspire).

“The lawyers are getting louder – and they’re getting results” [Dan Froomkin, HeadsUp News]. The deck: “9 ways advocacy groups are trying to block Trump.” • Ah, the “groups.” Does anybody seriously believe that the NGOs will do the work that the electeds of the Democrat Party cannot rouse themselves to do? Not to mention that whatever reaches today’s Supreme Court is likely to bring about blowback.

* * *

“Did Backlash Really Kill the Trump Funding Freeze?” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “Why did Team Trump back off this particular initiative so quickly? It’s easy to say the administration was responding to D.C. district judge Loren AliKhan’s injunction halting the freeze. But then again, the administration (and particularly OMB director nominee Russell Vought) has been spoiling for a court fight over the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act that the proposed freeze so obviously violated. Surely something else was wrong with the freeze, aside from the incredible degree of chaos associated with its rollout, requiring multiple clarifications of which agencies and programs it affected (which may have been a feature rather than a bug to the initiative’s government-hating designers). According to the New York Times, the original OMB memo, despite its unprecedented nature and sweeping scope, wasn’t even vetted by senior White House officials like alleged policy overlord Stephen Miller…. [T]he funding freeze looks like a clear misstep for an administration and a Republican Party that were walking very tall after the 47th president’s first week in office, giving Democrats a rare perceived ‘win.’” Note my previously expressed strictures on sloppy drafting. But: “It’s far too early, however, to imagine that the chaos machine humming along at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will fall silent even for a moment…. . Democrats and Trump-skeptical Republicans will need to stay on their toes to keep up with this administration’s schemes and its willingness to shatter norms.” And: “But it’s true that the electorate that lifted Trump to the White House for the second time almost surely wasn’t voting to sharply cut, if not terminate, the host of popular federal programs that appeared to be under the gun when OMB issued its funding freeze memo.” • Hence footnote 2: Social Security and Medicare were “popular Federal programs” among voters of both parties, hence fenced off. Not so Medicaid.

“Trump’s First Big Fiasco Triggers Stephen Miller’s Rage—Take Note Dems” [The New Republic]. “White House adviser Stephen Miller is frantically searching for scapegoats to blame for the unfolding disaster around President Donald Trump’s massive freeze on federal spending.” That may be so, but the White House also cut its losses immediately. More: “All of which carries a lesson for Democrats: This is what it looks like when the opposition stirs and uses its power in a unified way to make a lot of what you might call sheer political noise. That can help set the media agenda, throw Trump and his allies on the defensive, and deliver defeats to Trump that deflate his cultish aura of invincibility.” And: ” nternal party debates suggest that many Democrats believe that Trump’s 2024 victory shows voters don’t care about the dire threat he poses to democracy and constitutional governance, or that defending them against Trump must be reducible to ‘kitchen table’ appeals. But the funding freeze fiasco should illustrate that this reading is highly insufficient. An understanding of the moment shaped around the idea that voters are mostly reachable only via economic concerns—however important—fails to provide guidance on how to convey to voters why things like this extraordinary Trumpian power grab actually matter.” • How in the name of sweet suffering Jeebus is cutting Medicaid not an economic concern?! (Also, I’m so, so tired of Democrats psychologizing things, whether in foreign or domestic policy. Miller’s rage, Putin’s fear…. It’s high school stuff. Provoking an enemy’s emotional reaction is the subtext of so many stories. It’s hardly strategic.)

“The Trump White House Wants A Court Challenge Over Frozen Funds” [HuffPo]. “The Trump administration’s federal government funding freeze instituted Monday and apparently rescinded Wednesday appears to be a part of the White House’s official policy to get courts to hand President Donald Trump the power to pick and choose which congressionally authorized funding he will spend, according to a confidential document obtained by HuffPost. The confidential Office of Management and Budget document outlining “regulatory misalignment” calls on Trump to issue executive orders blocking the release of appropriated funds in order to provoke a court challenge over the president’s power to impound such funds…. [The] confusing series of events and conflicting statements and actions [over the OMB memo] may be a fiasco, but the confidential OMB document makes clear that the administration intends on fomenting this very court challenge over the president’s power to not spend congressionally authorized funds.” • So the lawfare strategy could end up playing the Republicans game, culminating in blowback. How unfortunate there’s no other avenue for redress. And here is an even more Machiavellian theory:

I rather strongly suspect the funding freeze – revoked today – was simply an experiment to see where all the money was actually going by tracking subsequent screaming and panicked donation requests on social media.

Targeted action can be expected to follow later. https://t.co/SESzGTYhlt

— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) January 29, 2025

* * *

“Beware the “Deferred Resignation” Offer: A Legally Dubious Proposal for Federal Employees” [Just Security]. Skipping over the detail on statutes: “[A}gencies would still need a valid legal justification for prolonged administrative leave, and it is not clear that OPM’s offer would be sufficient….[I]t is not advisable that workers rely on the administration’s promise to honor the wishes of employees who elect to resign and then decide instead to stay…. Employees considering the deferred resignation offer should be aware that resignation acceptance is not guaranteed… Federal employees should not rush into accepting this offer without consulting their union representatives or legal counsel. ” And now the Machiavellian part: “[T]his plan has the potential to upend entire agencies and divisions if large numbers of employees take the deal. Without sufficient budget space to hire replacements, critical government functions could be severely reduced or even eliminated, leaving essential services that Americans rely on with no staff to carry them out. This lack of a transition strategy makes the proposal not only legally dubious but also highly irresponsible from a public policy standpoint…. There is possibly a deeper agenda at play as well. .” • Ingenious!

“I Just Got Trump’s “Buyout” Offer at My Job. Let Me Tell You How That’s Going” [Salon]. On the “fork in the road” mail: “This email, much of which was copied and pasted from a similar message sent to Twitter employees after Elon Musk—Trump’s pick to lead his effort to overhaul the civil service, otherwise known as the Department of Government Efficiency—took over that company, proclaims that the federal workforce will be undergoing significant changes. Anyone who didn’t want to participate in this new vision was invited to reply “Resign” to the flagged-as-external email address and collect six months’ salary, without having to perform any additional work, while they looked for a new job. The details of this offer are confusing, conflict with later OPM ‘FAQs’ about the program, and seem to run afoul of long-standing legal caps on severance packages…. This latest buyout directive is evocative of A.I. gobbledygook, beyond evidently being a copy-and-paste job from Musk’s Twitter exploits. When technologists assess a new A.I. language tool, the go-to metric is generally not the accuracy of its product, or even the consistency of its answers. It is engagement. Substance is pushed aside in pursuit of simply keeping human eyeballs trained on its messages for as long as possible. Once considered a proxy for content’s ability to be “valuable” or “worthwhile,” attention itself has become the commodity we’re after: looks, likes, clicks, play next episode. Unfortunately, one of the easiest ways to engage people is to enrage them.” • Interesting to imagine that the whole scheme is designed to extract data on how best to manipulate the Federal workforce via email…

Nominations

Tulsi Gabbard will bring sunlight to a rotten system” [The Spectator]. “Americans have understandably lost trust in our intelligence services. In choosing Lieutenant Colonel Gabbard, President Trump has picked a highly-qualified, reform-minded leader who can regain that trust. The fact that her nomination has engendered such blowback in the media, driven and organized by the failed leadership class of past administrations, is a sign of how much they fear her. They dread what she represents: sunlight and transparency, a bright light confronting a dark, rotten system ridden rife with liars and frauds. The intelligence services of the United States of America ought to be focused on serving our national interest. They ought to be focused on understanding the movements and intentions of the nation’s foes, anticipating dangers before they emerge and giving the commander-in-chief the information needed to stop those who would harm us. That is the reason they exist. Instead, in recent years, our intelligence services — the same people who swore to uphold the Constitution and defend us against dangerous threats — have time and again turned on the American people.” • John Brennan hates her, which is reason enough to confirm her.

2024 Post Mortem

“The Shrinking Electoral Relevance of PA’s Suburbs” [RealClearPolitics]. “Recent data released by the Pennsylvania Department of State indicate that Pennsylvania’s suburban voters didn’t decide the 2024 presidential election, as has been their customary role in the past. In fact, the data reveal that suburban voters were the election’s lagging indicator of a historic political realignment that has reshaped American politics for the foreseeable future. President Trump won Pennsylvania by more than 120,000 votes for two reasons. Compared to four years ago, a surge of nearly 115,000 voters came exclusively from outside of the suburbs. These voters were decidedly Trump voters. Meantime, remarkably, Philadelphia yielded Trump the largest raw vote shift of the election, with the president gaining nearly 50,000 votes in the city. In other words, rural and exurban anti-establishment voters, along with Philadelphia’s working class, handed the presidency to Trump and delivered a sweep for all statewide Republicans on the ballot….. As trust in institutions continues to erode, suburban voters stand at a crossroads, grappling with the shifting political, cultural, and economic landscape.Their preference for institutional stability is being challenged by a new majority demanding transparency, accountability, and reform. If suburban voters can reconcile these forces, they may reclaim their role as decisive actors in future elections and shape policy. Or, they may be left behind just as the working class was for generations at their expense.”

Resistance

Lambert here: I changed the name of this category from #TheResistance (Neera Tanden’s et al.’s 2016 effort) to resistance generally.

“USDA inspector general escorted out of her office after defying White House” [Reuters] • More like this, please. Why comply?

“Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism Is Suddenly Viral” [404 Media]. “A declassified World War II-era government guide to ‘simple sabotage’ is currently one of the most popular open source books on the internet. The book, called ‘Simple Sabotage Field Manual,’ was declassified in 2008 by the CIA and ‘describes ways to train normal people to be purposefully annoying telephone operators, dysfunctional train conductors, befuddling middle managers, blundering factory workers, unruly movie theater patrons, and so on. In other words, teaching people to do their jobs badly.’ Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks.” • For example, the author begins:

And:

Republican Funhouse

“Watch: 14 Hours of Never-Before-Published Videos From Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy” [ProPublica]. “ProPublica and Documented obtained more than 14 hours of never-before-published videos from Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy, which are intended to train the next conservative administration’s political appointees ‘to be ready on day one.’ … But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy remains on track. Video trainings like these are one of the ‘four pillars’ of that plan, says Spencer Chretien, the associate director of Project 2025, in ‘Political Appointees & The Federal Workforce.’ For transparency, we are publishing the videos as we obtained them.” • Makes you wonder if the writer who butchered the OMB memo was a graduate of the putative academy. Even though there are no transcripts [snarl] no doubt some clever Democratic strategist is scanning these videos now, because they expose what Trump’s minions know about government — and what they don’t. Somehow, I don’t think 14 hours of training videos are gonna cut it.

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 (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, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Lambert here: Everything’s gone dark except for trusty New York State hospitalization (daily), Walgreen’s positivity (weekly), and the Cleveland Clinic? Readers, do you have any suggestions about alternatives at state level? Thank you! How I wish we had Biobot back….

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US sank by 16,000 from the previous week to 207,000 in the period ending January 25th, firmly below market expectations of 220,000 to mark a sharp pullback from the near two-month high last week and match the lower range of readings from recent weeks…. The result was consistent with the Federal Reserve’s statement that the US labor market has steadied near solid levels, adding leeway for rates to remain at the restrictive level for a longer period.”

Manufacturing: Boeing: a way out of the crisis or just window-dressing?” [MarketScreener]. “Boeing is also under fire from the engineers’ union, which is investigating possible job relocations to non-union regions. Despite these tensions, analyst Richard Aboulafia (AeroDynamic Advisory) remains pragmatic: ‘The path to increased production is mapped out, and the market wants its planes.’”

Manufacturing: “Elon Musk Wants Boeing To Rush Trump’s New Air Force One” [Jalopnik]. “Considering just how sketchy things have been at Boeing for a while now, I personally wouldn’t be to hasty to have the company rush a product.” • Indeed.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 47 Neutral (previous close: 45 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 45 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 30 at 12:42:01 PM ET.

Gallery

“Piled High: 17th-Century Dutch Banquet Scenes” [The Public Domain Review]. “The feast laid out is lavish, but the table is so overladen, there is no space to dine. This is the somewhat absurd scenario staged by the tablescapes of Dutch banquet still life paintings. Also known as pronkstilleven, or “sumptuous still lifes”, these scenes are a distinct subgenre of still life painting that gained fleeting popularity in the mid-seventeenth century. Mountainous jumbles of sensuous luxury commodities — luscious fruits; savory meats and seafood; ostentatious servingware of gold, silver, and porcelain; and exotic imported textiles — simultaneously mound upward and tumble toward the spectator. The tabletops in these scenes do not support static display but rather facilitate an aggressive spilling forth. As if to drive the point home, the efflux of pie filling in Adriaen van Utrecht’s canvas serves as a visual metonym for the overall scene in which an array of fragrant, piquant treats is about to breach the boundary of the picture plane.” • For example:

I love that Dutch has “pronk” and English has “sumptuous.”

Zeitgeist Watch

Not sure where this clip comes from, or why the racial subtext:

I agree that kicking the robot is stupid. What they should do is set it on fire.

News of the Wired

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From Wukchumni:

Wukchumni writes: “Saline hot springs.”

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