WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - One in three Democrats think U.S. President Joe Biden should end his reelection bid following last week's debate against Republican Donald Trump, but no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Tuesday.

The two-day poll found that both Trump, 78, and Biden, 81, maintain the support of 40% of registered voters, suggesting that Biden has not lost ground since the debate. Election Day is Nov. 5.

Among the names of top Democrats put before respondents, only Michelle Obama, wife of former Democratic President Barack Obama, outperformed Biden and led Trump 50% to 39% in a hypothetical matchup. Michelle Obama, author of the best-selling 2018 memoir "Becoming," has said repeatedly she does not intend to run for president.

..

Biden has vowed to stay in the race. But should he exit, the Democrats whose names emerge as possible replacements perform only as well or worse than Biden against Trump in hypothetical matchups, according to the poll. Vice President Kamala Harris, for example, trailed Trump by one percentage point, 42% to 43%, a difference that was well within the poll's 3.5 percentage point margin of error, making Harris' showing statistically just as strong as Biden's.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/one-three-democrats-think-biden-should-quit-race-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-07-02/

Apparently some dem internal polling leaked and it looks hilariously bad for Sleepy Joe. Although this scenario is not likely, it’s within the margin of error of their data:

https://x.com/connoramulhern/status/1808206615964758179

YOU’RE NOT PUSHING ME OUT, FAT, I’M GOING DOWN WITH THE SHIP

Quentin Fucks

If you’ll vote for her, she’ll win: UK Edition

Can’t believe no one has yet commented on Gruesome Gavin’s ex-wife being Don Jr’s fiancé. The potential for the turbo-neoliberal to get dragged down into talking about his hog on a debate stage is real

On the plus side, Trump would likely redeploy his BOOT EDGE EDGE bit in a debate

Starmer accuses Sunak of 'Jeremy Corbyn-style' manifesto

Absolutely fucking rent free in Keith’s head. The Corbyn manifestos were fully costed and Keith der Sturmer stood on them as a member of the shadow cabinet.

Can’t wait for the look on his face when the press turns on him.

My company hired a bunch of lower cost engineers in Chile without considering local labor laws, and were upset to discover that the Chileans refused to respond to being paged out of hours when systems were failing…and there was nothing they could do about it

January:

ACLU Urges President Biden to Abandon Disastrous Immigration Proposals

May:

Think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble. Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants.

Tonight’s H5N1 posting

Some veterinarians working with dairies in Texas believe the virus is more active than current data suggest. Nick Schneider, a consulting dairy practitioner, is one of them.

“The thing is, when you get into the Panhandle of Texas, I’m not sure there’s anybody (dairy farms) that did not have it,” says Schneider. Texas is home to 335 Grade A dairies with an estimated 625,00 cows, according to information on the Texas Association of Dairymen website. More than 100 of those operations are in the Panhandle.

The virus likely is being under-reported by the dairy industry because the presence of the virus in dairy cows is new, and there are no reporting requirements, Russo says.

…

Petersen says she has worked with people infected by H5N1 who do not interact with dairy cows. “I'm talking owners and feeders who don't usually touch cows,” she says.

…

Moving forward, the U.S. livestock industry might operate in a new world – one where the H5N1 virus is endemic.

https://www.bovinevetonline.com/news/industry/message-ag-industry-about-h5n1

This comes after a lab at Ohio State University detected genetic material of the virus in 38% of retail milk samples they’ve tested, data that also suggests the current outbreak is being underreported.

https://www.bovinevetonline.com/news/industry/usda-now-requiring-mandatory-testing-and-reporting-hpai-dairy-cattle-new-data

“A colleague of mine, he told me, ‘You know what’s strange? I went to one of my dairies last week, and all their cats were missing. I couldn’t figure it out — the cats usually come to my vet truck,’ ” Petersen recalled. “And then someone called me and said half of his cats had passed away without warning, and so then all the alarm bells start going off in your head.”

The cats had died from swollen brains, a potential result of influenza. They didn’t have rabies.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/04/17/two-veterinarians-hundreds-of-miles-apart-solved-a-cow-sickness-whodunit/

All pilfered from this thread

Managed to post this in general mega instead of the news mega yesterday, but thought I’d repost here because it’s such sunny news:

• Influeza A is spiking in wastewater in Amarillo, in the middle of an area of very dense cattle factory farms
• There also appears to be a very recent steep uptick in Influenza A nationally

Meanwhile…

Only one human case linked to cattle has been confirmed to date, and symptoms were limited to conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. But Russo and many other vets have heard anecdotes about workers who have pink eye and other symptoms—including fever, cough, and lethargy—and do not want to be tested or seen by doctors. James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, says policies for monitoring exposed people vary greatly between states. “I believe there are probably lots of human cases,” he says, noting that most likely are asymptomatic.

— U.S. government in hot seat for response to growing cow flu outbreak

To quote from the first link I posted:

H5N1 is a strain of influenza A. It’s impossible to know at this time if this is what is driving this increase, but vigilance is warranted. Hopefully this is simply all a coincidence or just a statistical anomaly. I watch for early signals to monitor.

This could be nothing. But - we might be on the cusp of watching Joe Biden handle a new pandemic in a more dismissive way than Donald Trump, while liberals defend him.