2:00PM Water Cooler 3/29/2024 | bare capitalism

Trump (R): “Trump attends NYPD officer’s wake as he highlights crime on the marketing campaign path” [ABC]. “Former President Donald Trump on Thursday attended the wake of slain New York Police Division Officer Jonathan Diller, whom officers say was shot and killed whereas conducting a visitors cease earlier this week. ‘What occurred is such a tragic, unhappy occasion, such a horrible factor,’ Trump instructed reporters afterward. Briefly remarks, he reiterated his condolences for Diller’s demise and used the wake to deal with a frequent marketing campaign season message about crime and public security. ‘We now have to cease it. We now have to cease it,’ Trump mentioned. ‘We now have to get again to legislation and order. We now have to do loads of issues in a different way, as a result of this isn’t working.’” • Kennedy appears to have sucked all of the air out of the room, a brand new expertise, for Trump, albeit little question short-term.

Trump (R): “Trump’s RNC struggles in swing states as Biden’s workforce grows” [Axios]. “Lower than eight months earlier than the Nov. 5 election, important elements of the RNC’s get-out-the-vote operation in states prone to determine the election are enjoying catch-up after Trump’s workforce ousted 60 staffers in its latest takeover. A couple of third of these ousted staffers have been state administrators and regional political administrators, jobs which are key to recruiting, coaching and mobilizing volunteers far forward of Election Day. They’ve been in limbo for 2 weeks, after receiving an e mail telling them they have been being laid off however might reapply for his or her jobs.” In the meantime: “President Biden’s workforce has been bringing on skilled staffers to steer efforts in swing states — which additionally embody Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” And this nugget: “Many Republicans worry the RNC upheaval — and unrelated chaos in state events, notably in swing states Michigan and Arizona — is a setback for a celebration that for years has tried to get extra volunteers to recruit assist of their neighborhoods. That mannequin was the GOP’s model of the native organizing strategies that Democrat Barack Obama used to get elected president in 2008 and 2012.” • That mannequin, or one thing akin to it, can be how Fetterman gained PA, which is a pivotal swing state for Trump, but the state the place he’s weakest. OTOH, greatest to be doing a workers shake-up now!

Trump (R): “Trump Has a Huge Downside With GOP Voters” [Daily Beast]. “In a collection of state main elections held after Nikki Haley turned the final Trump challenger to drop out, cussed and sizable minorities of Republicans have continued to forged ballots in opposition to the previous president. In Kansas’ main on March 19, as an example, Trump secured 75 % of the vote—spectacular if he have been dealing with energetic competitors, however troubling given the competitors had all withdrawn. Haley obtained 16 % of the vote in Kansas, whereas 5 % voted for ‘not one of the names proven.’ In Arizona’s main on the identical day, Trump gained 79 % of the vote, whereas Haley gained 18 %. The previous president additionally did not crack 80 % of the vote in Ohio.” • Making swing states even swingier, and if the “sizable minority” of Republicans say, doubles in dimension, presumably presenting issues for a Republican governing coalition, if Trump wins.

Biden (D): “Say It Ain’t So, Joe: The Home Formally Invitations President Biden to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry” [Jonathan Turley]. “Home Oversight Committee chairman James Comer has despatched a seven-page letter (under) to ask President Joe Biden to testify within the Republican impeachment inquiry. The letter is the most recent, and greatest, discount of the obvious contradictions within the President’s previous statements on his household’s well-documented affect peddling operation. President Biden will not be anticipated to testify. Nonetheless, the media ought to be keen on his answering the questions introduced by the Committee. It’s now clear that the President lied throughout his marketing campaign and through his presidency on his lack of awareness of his son’s enterprise actions in addition to his denial of any cash gained from China. But, the White Home responded, once more, with mockery — a way of impunity that solely exists because of an enabling media.” • Quoting from the letter:

The Committee’s investigation has proceeded in phases. The investigation started with a overview of Suspicious Exercise Reviews (SARs) within the custody of the Division of the Treasury. The SARs offered the Committee enough info to find out which financial institution accounts to narrowly goal in issuing subpoenas. The second section of the investigation—the subpoenaing of sure third-party financial institution accounts—confirmed info from the SARs and revealed . Subsequent, . The Committee then proceeded to an interview section. This section consisted of transcribed interviews and depositions with witnesses who offered inconsistent testimony relating to your function in your loved ones’s enterprise. This section included a transcribed interview of your brother, James Biden, and a deposition of your son, Robert Hunter Biden.

Confronted with contradictory testimony from most of the witnesses interviewed relating to your participation in your loved ones’s affect peddling, the Committee invited a number of witnesses—together with a witness of the Democrats’ selecting—to testify at a public listening to in an try to reconcile the discrepancies. : Mr. Tony Bobulinski and Mr. Jason Galanis. Mr. Bobulinski and Mr. Galanis agreed to offer testimony to the Committee in a public setting to reiterate these claims and have them evaluated by each Republican and Democratic Members of the Committee. Regardless of the Committee’s invitation, your son Hunter Biden—who has claimed you didn’t take part in these schemes and who beforehand demanded a public listening to—didn’t seem. The general public is left with two irreconcilable narratives. The primary—asserted by you—is that you just didn’t have interaction in affect peddling in alternate for funds to your loved ones. The second—asserted by witnesses and a physique of proof I’ll briefly overview under—is that you just have been certainly concerned in these pay-for-influence schemes and that you’ve got been repeatedly untruthful relating to a matter related to nationwide safety and your personal health to function President of the USA.

Definitely a greater narrative than Benghazi. The factor that will get me is that the sums concerned are so trivial. “[T]ens of 1000’s of {dollars} from China”? Not a whole lot? Not tens of millions? What’s Biden, some kinda piker?

Biden (D): “Three Presidents With a Complicated Previous Group Up in Effort to Defeat Trump” [Wall Street Journal]. “The relationships carry a level of complexity: Some members of Biden’s inside circle felt Obama’s workforce was dismissive of the then-vice president. Present White Home officers have privately chafed at feedback by a high-profile Obama alumnus questioning the president’s re-election prospects. And Obama’s encouragement of Hillary Clinton to pursue the White Home within the 2016 election—lengthy earlier than Biden had made his personal determination—was an irritant linking all three camps. Now, although, ‘they’re all united by the specter of Trump,’ mentioned James Carville, a former Clinton marketing campaign strategist. ‘Each politician has a historical past with one other one. That’s simply a part of life. However I do suppose they’re fairly unified by the risk.’” And: “One longtime Clinton adviser mentioned the fundraiser will possible mark the beginning of the deployment of main Democratic property, from Obama and Clinton, and key surrogates within the social gathering, now that Trump has develop into the presumptive Republican nominee. Obama is anticipated to carry fundraisers for the marketing campaign arms of Home and Senate Democrats, as he has accomplished prior to now, whereas Clinton expects to play a extra energetic function than in recent times—and can assist every time he’s requested.” • Clinton “expects,” eh?

Biden (D): “President Biden’s celeb-packed $25M fundraiser is the peak of Dem elitism” [New York Post]. “Thursday evening provided the possibility to have a glam photographer snap you slapping fingers with President Biden, or predecessors Barack Obama and Invoice Clinton, for a donation of a mere $100,000 to Biden’s re-election marketing campaign: Fairly posh for the supposed social gathering of the working class. The Radio Metropolis Music Corridor occasion featured a three-prez chat moderated by “The Late Present” host Stephen Colbert, plus performances from Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Lea Michele and extra. With tickets ranging as much as $500,000 a pop, the marketing campaign reportedly pulled in $25 million earlier than the doorways even opened, a pleasant addition to the $155 million the Biden-Harris effort has in hand, en path to possible elevating a billion or two whole (not counting tender, darkish and different off-the-record cash).” • Moderated by Stephen Colbert…. I’m so outdated I keep in mind when political comedians have been deemed to be gamers.

Kennedy (I): “Meddlers for RFK Jr.” [Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal]. “However dread is now constructing amongst Democrats that these third-party campaigns are dangling in entrance of Republicans a ripe and tempting new tactic—one Democrats know all about, having perfected it. For greater than a decade, left-wing teams have interfered in GOP primaries, boosting the candidates they take into account most beatable in a basic election. Solely this month, a gaggle related to Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer dumped tens of millions into highlighting the ‘too conservative’ Ohio businessman Bernie Moreno, who gained the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. Modify this technique for a basic election and a third-party marketing campaign. How lengthy earlier than GOP tremendous PACs are operating adverts in swing states highlighting, say, Mr. Kennedy’s proposal to ban fracking (one thing Mr. Biden hasn’t accomplished), labeling him an ‘excessive environmentalist’? What number of younger local weather activists may just like the sounds of that label? Think about an advert reminding younger voters—annoyed by Mr. Biden’s collapsed guarantees on faculty debt—that Ms. Stein was for student-loan forgiveness earlier than it was cool. And people are the delicate eventualities. Why not a GOP-funded advert on city radio stations that immediately slams Mr. Biden for his failure to assist minorities and touts Mr. West? A latest article in Mom Jones posited such a ‘sneaky’ and ‘weaponized’ transfer by the GOP, below the headline: ‘Will RFK Jr. and Different Third-Occasion Candidates Assist Doom Democracy?’ The piece someway failed to notice that it was the Democrats who mainstreamed such ways.” • Two can play the “Pied Piper” recreation….

Kennedy (I): “Will RFK Jr.’s Help for Israel Restrict His Attraction on the Left?” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “The RFK Jr. campaign is primarily centered on his relentless perception within the ‘company seize’ of presidency on each entrance, from protection to well being care to scientific analysis to agriculture to his unique coverage discipline, the setting. Pharma and Huge Ag and the medical career and the military-industrial advanced and chemical firms are the preeminent villains of his lurid story of American Carnage (related in ferocity however not in precise content material to Donald Trump’s). Any voters with even a imprecise dedication to free markets and company advantage couldn’t put up with a lot publicity to RFK Jr.’s message. The extra you hearken to the candidate and his supporters’ intense anger over processed meals and weight problems and overdevelopment, the much less you possibly can think about any widespread floor with the fast-food-chomping real-estate developer of Mar-a-Lago. This was evident at Kennedy’s March 26 rally in Oakland, California, the place he introduced fellow ex-Democrat Nicole Shanahan as his operating mate. The Bay Space setting bolstered the sensation of a left-wing insurgency. When Kennedy spoke fondly of his father’s cozy relationship with the Oakland-based Black Panther Occasion, you knew you have been distant not solely from the Republican Occasion however from the type of centrist unbiased motion represented by No Labels.” Extra: “Nonetheless, there’s an enormous impediment between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and any hope that he might develop into 2024’s pied piper of progressive youth, a lot as his dad turned 56 years in the past. It’s his intensely pro-Israel place in its struggle with Hamas…. In Oakland, Shanahan known as RFK Jr. the ‘solely anti-war candidate immediately, [the] solely peace candidate.’ Nonetheless, Kennedy opposes a cease-fire within the Israel-Hamas battle.” • Yep. It might even be, nevertheless, that Kennedy’s positions usually are not that coherent or rigorously thought by.

Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. threatens to play 2024 spoiler as No Labels struggles to construct ticket” [Washington Examiner]. “‘[Kennedy’s] numbers are so small in the long run that statistically, it’s truly actually exhausting to inform for certain who they’re going to be taking extra votes for,’ [Bernard Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University] mentioned of third-party candidates. ‘So, although it seems to be proper now prefer it hurts Biden extra, no one truly is aware of that, which I believe explains why Trump can be attacking RFK Jr.’ Trump attacked Kennedy in a Reality Social submit early Wednesday morning, calling him the ‘most Radical Left Candidate within the race’ and claiming that ‘he’s Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine. I really like that he’s operating!’ [political consultant Nachama Soloveichik] cautioned that ‘some folks might keep residence. Some folks might exit and vote for down-ballot races like Senate and issues like that and simply go away the presidential poll clean. It may very well be a spread of issues.’ ‘[Kennedy’s] a chaos issue,’ [Lee Drutman, senior fellow in the political reform program at New America] mentioned. ‘Partially as a result of it appears fairly clear that he’s going to get some assist from a form of unpredictable slice of the citizens, and I believe he has the potential to trigger some actual uncertainty.’” • Volatility!

Kennedy (I): “Neglect Kennedy Democrats. Right here Comes the 2024 Kennedy Voter” [Politico]. “The brand new Kennedy voters scattering by the cavernous venue have traveled a good distance from Camelot. Speaking to them, it’s clear their misgivings about highly effective establishments — what they see as a panoply of venal politicians, an untrustworthy media, Huge Ag, Huge Pharma, Huge Tech — has led lots of them to embrace fringe theories. A shared aversion to vaccines hardened in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. They fear about chemical compounds and monoculture crops eroding public well being. They’re weary of grinding international wars. They admire Kennedy’s historical past of difficult highly effective firms. However above all else, they imagine the American political system is essentially damaged and that each President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will perpetuate its disrepair. They’re ex-Democrats, former Republicans and newly energetic independents — they usually all discuss feeling each a profound disillusionment within the state of the nation and a deep optimism that Kennedy would cause them to one thing higher. ‘The opposite two candidates promote the division that’s plaguing our nation,’ says Sarah Morris, a former ‘party-voting Democrat’ who felt ‘ostracized by the left’ for not desirous to get the Covid-19 vaccine [which is absurd, because ‘the left’ has been nowhere through the entire pandemic]. Some folks ‘weaponize the concept of being a conspiracy theorist,’ she says, so she determined to ‘put on it as a badge of honor.’ Actually: She confirmed up sporting a grey baseball cap with the phrases ‘Tin Foil’ written on it.” • The treachery of photographs, eh? In reverse?

Kennedy (I): “The Memo: RFK Jr. set to harm Biden greater than Trump — nevertheless it’s difficult” [The Hill]. “There may be an obvious contradiction on the coronary heart of polling on Kennedy. Regardless of his seeming capability to extend Trump’s edge, he’s seen way more favorably by Republicans than Democrats. In a brand new Economist/YouGov ballot launched Wednesday, for instance, Kennedy was considered favorably by 52 % of Republicans however by solely 25 % of Democrats. A number of attainable causes might clarify this. Firstly, Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism resonates extra powerfully with conservatives than with liberals. The identical is true, not less than to a point, about his views on the struggle in Ukraine. Extra typically, his critiques of Biden and willingness to run in opposition to him, in addition to his rhetorical assaults on the shady forces of the political, media and medical institutions clearly have not less than some overlap with the MAGA worldview. Democrats and Biden allies have stepped up their efforts to neutralize the risk from Kennedy in latest weeks. Trump, in the meantime, blasted him in a social media submit Wednesday morning as ‘essentially the most Radical Left candidate within the race, by far.’ However the former president went on to make considered one of his forays into election punditry, musing, ‘I suppose this may imply he’s going to be taking votes from [Biden], which might be a terrific service to America.’”

Kennedy (I): “Nicole Shanahan is a Mama Bear Outsider with Empathy. That’s a Good Factor” [The Kennedy Beacon]. “Shanahan has set a excessive bar for us, organizing walkouts in highschool to protest the Iraq Conflict, serving to victims of civil struggle in El Salvador, determining what might have triggered her daughter’s well being to tank, producing documentaries about what would assist our society get wholesome once more, and calling boldly (whereas many in “science” shout, “Nothing to see right here!”) for analysis into each attainable factor that may very well be making Individuals chronically unwell. Like Kennedy, her life speaks inspiration into existence. The lesson I’ve taken from a cursory peek into her backstory: do no matter you possibly can.” • So that they’re going with “Mama Bear”?

Kennedy (I): “RFK Jr. Is Gold-Digging With His VP Choose” [The Nation]. “Selecting Shanahan helps Kennedy in not less than two methods. Twenty-three states require an unbiased candidate to decide on a operating mate earlier than searching for poll entry. Plus, Shanahan can use her wealth to fund the difficult authorized maneuvering and signature-gathering that course of requires. Kennedy is at present on the poll solely within the state of Utah, although his marketing campaign claims to have the signatures to get there in a number of swing states. ‘,’ Third Method’s Matt Bennett instructed The New Republic’s Greg Sargent—which means she will contribute limitless {dollars}, which may very well be used for just about any authorized marketing campaign exercise.” • As I speculated, now Kennedy doesn’t need to kowtow to the Libertarian Occasion for entry to their poll line (although I do need to do some analysis on how a lot cash Shanahan has, herself, personally, versus cash she may increase).

“Democratic committees are out fundraising GOP committees this election cycle” [Open Secrets]. “President Joe Biden and the Democratic Occasion now have about $155 million money available of their joint accounts after elevating a mixed $53 million in February, sustaining an edge over the GOP. The Republican Occasion raised $32 million final month and entered March with an $81.3 million warchest throughout the RNC, Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee and Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee…. Republicans’ monetary woes observe infighting on the RNC, which culminated in a triumvirate of former President Donald Trump loyalists taking up the group…. The RNC entered 2024 with $8 million in cash-on-hand — the worst begin to an election yr in nearly a decade — whereas the DNC began the yr with greater than $21 million.”

“The battle to flip the Home simply obtained tougher for Dems. They usually have New York accountable” [Politico]. “Whereas there’s an out of doors probability of one other last-minute redistricting earlier than November, after two important court docket rulings this week the Home panorama is basically locked in place — and the GOP is respiratory a sigh of reduction that this mid-decade spherical of redistricting went its approach…. The GOP got here out forward because of the redistricting aggression of North Carolina Republicans — and the timidity of New York Democrats…. However essentially the most consequential post-midterm redistricting passed off in New York — the place strains drawn by the Democratic legislature solely made pretty small tweaks to the state’s map. It was a surprising flip of occasions after years of authorized wrangling. The state has an unbiased redistricting fee cut up evenly between the 2 events — however finally, the Democratic-dominated state legislature will get the ultimate say. And in 2022, when Democrats in Albany handed a gerrymander so aggressive that Republicans known as it the ‘Hochulmander’ — a portmanteau with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s title — the GOP sued. The bombshell authorized victory Republicans gained earlier than the midterms resulted in a hypercompetitive, court-drawn map being utilized in 2022. The GOP practically swept the entire contested seats, key to Republicans’ slim Home majority. However Democrats needed one other shot. After the midterms, they finally gained a procedural court docket ruling permitting them to start out the entire course of over — the fee with the primary crack, and ultimate approval to the Democratic legislature. Pursuing one other probability at a redraw led to rampant hypothesis that Democrats needed one other shot at a gerrymander — although maybe not fairly as ruthless as final time. Nevertheless it was to not be. The state’s unbiased fee got here to a bipartisan settlement on a map that solely made modest adjustments. The Democratic-dominated state legislature signaled it was sad with that map and would make adjustments of its personal — however then solely made minor tweaks on strains that finally obtained bipartisan approval.” • I dunno. New York Democrats appear to be nice at lawfare, not too good at the rest. Readers?

“Three years in the past on this present day ASHRAE acknowledged that Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is critical” [David Elfstrom, ThreadReader]. “Immediately, WHO lastly launched a mannequin () of #CovidIsAirborne danger by consultants within the discipline.” • The hyperlink is: https://iris.who.int/deal with/10665/376346 and I get a 403 forbidden when I attempt to learn is. Even when the standard suspects don’t appear to have blessed it: