The Ledes

Thursday, September 12, 2024

New York Times: “Firefighters continued to battle three major wildfires burning through the steep mountains and brushy canyons of Southern California on Thursday. Cooler and wetter weather aided their efforts, but the destructive blazes remained worrisome enough to keep tens of thousands of people from returning to their homes. The three fires around Los Angeles, which together have charred 100,000 acres and destroyed dozens of homes, were among more than 65 large blazes burning across the United States on Thursday, mostly in the West.” This is a liveblog.

New York Times: “Jon Bon Jovi helped talk a woman off the ledge of a bridge in Nashville earlier this week, the police said. Mr. Bon Jovi was filming a music video on the bridge just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday.... In a video released by the police, Mr. Bon Jovi and another person, whom other news outlets have identified as a production assistant, slowly approach the woman, who is on the edge of the bridge, facing outward, on the far side of a railing. They are seen speaking to her for a minute or so, before she turns around to face them, and they lift her over the railing to safety. Mr. Bon Jovi then hugs the woman and the three walk together along the bridge, attended by law enforcement officials.” CNN's story is here.

Space.com: “SpaceX's private crew of four astronauts performed the world's first commercial spacewalk while soaring high above Earth on Thursday (Sept. 12) during the third day of a five-day trip to Earth orbit. 'SpaceX, back at home we have a lot of work to do, but from here it looks like a perfect world,' Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman, the American billionaire who financed the mission, said as he looked down on Earth while standing mostly outside the Dragon hatch.”

The New York Times: is live-updating developments in tropical depression Francine which flooded New Orleans when it hit as a hurricane and is now moving inland.

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
The Ledes

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Washington Post: “The peak of Atlantic hurricane season has arrived, and right on schedule, a hurricane is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Francine, upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane Tuesday night, is forecast to make landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday.” ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “Hurricane Francine struck Louisiana on Wednesday evening as a Category 2 storm that forecasters warned could bring deadly storm surge, widespread flooding and destructive winds on the northern U.S. Gulf Coast. Francine made landfall in Terrebonne Parish, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Morgan City, the National Hurricane Center announced at 4 p.m. CDT. Packing maximum sustained winds near 100 mph (155 kph), the hurricane crashed into a fragile coastal region that hasn’t fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021.” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has live updates here.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Sunday
Aug252024

The Conversation -- August 25, 2024

⭐The Biggest, Lyingest Buffoon in American History. Isaac Arnsdorf, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump came [to the border near Montezuma Pass, Arizona,] on Thursday to heap praise on the structure standing to his right -- 'the Rolls-Royce of walls,' he called it -- and lament the unused segments lying to his left. Joining him there, Border Patrol union leader Paul A. Perez called the standing fence 'Trump wall' and [the unused pieces] 'Kamala wall.'... Those labels were inaccurate. This section of 20-foot steel slats was actually built during the administration of President Barack Obama. Trump added the unfinished extension up the hillside, an engineering challenge that cost at least $35 million a mile. The unused panels of 30-foot beams were procured during the Trump administration and never erected."

Marie: You may recall Gail Collins' concerns about Mitt Romney's putting the family dog in a carrier on the roof of the car for a 12-hour drive to their vacation cottage on Lake Huron. The poor setter was so distraught, it got diarrhea, first detected when the kids noticed, ah, something, dribbling down the vehicle's back window. Collins mentioned the dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car at least 70 times during the 2008 & 2012 election cycles. Well, RAS has found a similar but BETTER! election-season story. Suddenly, you begin to appreciate Romney as the most "normal/not weird" GOP presidential candidate of the century.

Presidential Race

Marie: No one can credibly say that there is a problem with the Democratic nominee or her running mate. Therefore, the problem is with every voter who even thinks, "Maybe Donald Trump would be a better president* than Kamala Harris." This election should not be close.

Man Who Ushered in President* Trump Endorses Harris. Tara Suter of the Hill: "Former FBI Director James Comey is backing Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), in the 2024 presidential race, he said Friday morning. 'Kamala Harris made me feel like it's finally morning in America,' Comey wrote in a post on the social platform X.... ' Comey endorsed Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary. However, Biden's campaign pushed back against the endorsement. 'Yes, customer service? I just received a package that I very much did not order,' Andrew Bates, director of rapid response for Biden's campaign at the time, said when responding to Comey's endorsement. 'How can I return it, free of charge?'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Can't Handle ... the Campaign. Isaac Arnsdorf, et al., of the Washington Post: Trump "has fixated on [President] Biden's withdrawal: 'It feels like he's lost his mojo.'... [During the Democratic convention,] most of his allies offered little defense of his character. There was no rapid response operation to respond to Democratic criticism that he inspired a riot at the U.S. Capitol, paid hush money to an adult film actress or was found liable for sexual abuse."

Michael Bender & Michael Gold of the New York Times: "Despite a carefully scripted week of campaign events aimed at counterprogramming the Democratic National Convention, [Donald] Trump undercut much of his messaging with a series of off-the-cuff remarks, rants and blunders that threatened to stoke the kind of Republican anxiety he has spent much of the past month trying to tamp down. On Monday in Pennsylvania, he struggled to clarify a previous comment that he believed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians, was 'much better' than the Medal of Honor given to military members. On Tuesday in Michigan, he claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris had won the Democratic nomination after a 'vicious, violent overthrow of a president' and called Chicago, which hosted the Democratic convention, 'a war zone that's worse than Afghanistan.' He openly rejected advice from allies to limit his personal attacks on Ms. Harris and other Democrats during a speech on Wednesday in North Carolina. He called the nation's first Black vice president 'lazy' during a stop in Arizona on Thursday afternoon and, that night, rambled during a 10-minute phone call with Fox News. The anchors ultimately cut him off and ended the interview, but Mr. Trump picked up where he had left off by quickly phoning into Newsmax. And on Friday, Mr. Trump concluded his week by embracing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in exchange for his endorsement, a move with an uncertain impact on tilting the race in his favor." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Victim. Kipp Jones of Mediaite: :... Donald Trump said this week he will decline to participate in routine intelligence briefings for presidential candidates because he said he believes Democrats will try to accuse him of leaking classified information."

JayDee, Too, Will Say Anything, Do Anything. Alexandra Marquez of NBC News: "Ohio Sen. JD Vance ... on Saturday said Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if a bill were to be passed by Congress. Asked on NBC News' 'Meet the Press' about GOP lawmakers like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham who would want to see Trump advocate for and pass an abortion ban, Vance told moderator Kristen Welker that Trump has 'explicitly' said he would veto a ban. 'I mean, if you're not supporting it, as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it,' Vance argued. The latest position from the Trump campaign comes as the former president has changed his position on abortion policy over the years." The article doesn't address whether or not JayDee said what he would do about an abortion ban bill if he took over the presidency, a not-unlikely possibility.

Melinda Newman of Billboard: "Donald Trump ... played the Foo Fighters' 1997 anthem 'My Hero to welcome [Bobby Kennedy, Jr.,] to the stage at a rally Friday (Aug. 23) in Glendale, Arizona.... [but] 'Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it,' a spokesperson tells Billboard of the unauthorized usage. Furthermore, 'appropriate actions are being taken' against the campaign, the spokesperson continues, and any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Harris/Walz campaign." (Also linked yesterday.)

In Saturday's episode, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times mocks Daffy Donald and his new sidekick Bobby Junior. (And of course she had to knock Kamala Harris a little bit, too, because equal opportunity.)(Also linked yesterday.)

That Was Then. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Santul Nerkar of the New York Times: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to suspend his presidential campaign and endorse ... Donald J. Trump was -- depending on where on the political spectrum the coverage came from -- treated with either outright glee -- or derision. Conservative sites primarily focused on the potential electoral boon to Mr. Trump, while liberal media outlets focused more on Mr. Kennedy's dysfunctional campaign, including by returning to several negative story lines.... Though polling suggests Mr. Kennedy's decision is unlikely to significantly shift the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Mr. Trump, many conservative commentators said the decision could swing the contest.... Here's how the news was covered by a selection of outlets[.]" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is one of probably hundreds of BS stories that convince consumers of right-wing "news" that Trump can't lose unless bad actors on the left rig the vote. Then the gullible are gobsmacked when Trump loses, and they think the only honorable way to respond is with revolution. Trump deserves the bulk of the blame for January 6, but his media apologists don't have clean hands.


Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: "Two astronauts who have spent months aboard the International Space Station will have to stay there months longer after NASA decided on Saturday that they could not return on Boeing's troubled Starliner space vehicle. They will return instead on a SpaceX capsule next year. That decision finally brings clarity to the saga of the two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who docked at the space station as part of a test flight of the Boeing vehicle. It also adds to months of difficult problems experienced by Boeing, a dominant aerospace company that has faced embarrassing setbacks in its much larger civilian aviation and defense divisions this year. 'A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,' Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference, 'and so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

City to Musk: Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Ass.... Heather Knight & Kate Conger of the New York Times: "Elon Musk is shuttering his social media company's headquarters in a gritty downtown neighborhood in the coming weeks and will move its last employees based there south to offices in Palo Alto and San Jose. New headquarters will be set up in Texas. But city officials are not lamenting the exit. X bears little resemblance to the company that San Francisco wooed with a tax break more than a decade ago, when it was Twitter, to help anchor a budding tech hub in a downtrodden neighborhood near City Hall known as Mid-Market. The pandemic, and Mr. Musk's 2022 acquisition of the company and subsequent gutting of its work force, reduced the headquarters to a ghost town."

Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Anthony S. Fauci was hospitalized with West Nile virus this month, according to a spokesperson for the nation's former top infectious-disease official.... Fauci, 83, was hospitalized for six days before he returned home.... West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne illness that can cause fever, body aches, diarrhea and rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are no vaccines or treatments for the virus." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday & Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "The Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon traded extensive fire early Sunday, marking their heaviest fighting since the current conflict began as the United States and regional countries struggle to contain it from erupting into a full-scale war. The IDF said it conducted strikes on 40 areas in southern Lebanon to preemptively foil 'an extensive attack' by Hezbollah. The militant group said it launched a swarm of drones and more than 320 rockets against Israeli military targets to avenge the killing of a commander, Fuad Shukr, in a Beirut suburb in July."

~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Saturday & Sunday are here.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (11)

Always more weird and this time whale juice.

Kennedy's daughter told a story about her dad hearing about a dead whale washed up on a beach nearby. So naturally he raced down there with a chainsaw, as one does, to chop off it's head and tie it to the roof of the car to take home.

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

@RAS: And this comment on Bobby Jr., by Mark Hennessy-Barrett, is pretty funny: "Finally, trump has a supporter who actually needs to take dewormer."

August 25, 2024 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Re: RFKjr. I'd like to know if it's normal to carry a chainsaw in your
car when you go to the beach just in case you run into a dead whale.
My chainsaw happens to be electric and it's about 2 miles to our
beach, so guess I'll need a looooong extension cord. We don't have
whales in Lake Michigan but occasionally a human body washes up.
Probably someone from Chicago who got on the wrong side of the
mob.

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterForrestMorris

@Marie: Maybe it's like the old hair club for men ad with Kennedy, "I'm not just the president [promoter], but I'm also a client." Something for the two of them to bond over.

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Tim's skeletons

"The “scandal” here, posted by a right-wing propaganda website and for some reason promoted by a journalist, is that 18 years ago Tim Walz said he got an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce but it was actually from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce."

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Jim Comey for Harris.

Hmmm…isn’t there a historical precedent for this?

Let’s see…

How about Benedict Arnold endorsing George Washington as president?

Bruce Ismay warns against going too fast through a field of icebergs.

Captain of the Exxon-Valdez sez take it easy on the booze when piloting an oil tanker.

George W. Bush lectures world leaders on planning invasions based on made up shit.

The Founders, from somewhere in the great beyond, send the message “Electoral College? Geeez. You guys still use that thing? We were only kidding.”

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Citizens Kneecapped

RFK, Jr. and TFG joining together in a paroxysm of conspiracy theories, selfishness, and narcissism, should come as no surprise to at least one guy. The guy who funds them both, as they share a far-right billionaire sugar daddy.

A sugar daddy, who like both of them, did nothing to become wealthy. He did it the old fashioned way. He inherited it.

Timothy Mellon—yeah, from that Mellon family—has, thanks to Citizens United and the Nazi Supreme Court, pumped a quarter of a billion dollars into right-wing groups and causes. He has funneled $165 million alone to the Fat Fascist.

As Bernie Sanders pointed out at the DNC, we are allowing shadowy oligarchs to buy elections, using their billions of dollars to ensure that their personal preferences and desires overwhelm the outcome of millions of votes.

"For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."

What he said.

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: Political campaigns, funded as they are largely by people who can afford to and who have financial interests in the outcomes, are yet more evidence against what Michelle Obama called "the affirmative action of generational wealth." Tax the rich, say I, and that definitely includes going back to the old taxes on inheritances.

August 25, 2024 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Newsweek

"The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) may slow down delivery times to some customers as it seeks to shave billions from its annual operations expenditure.

USPS said in a statement issued on August 22 that it is holding a pre-filing conference to discuss "plans to improve mail processing and transportation" across the country. While some customers will see improved delivery times—specifically those that live within 50 miles of its largest processing facilities, others who live more rurally won't be so lucky.

According to the USPS fact sheet regarding the proposed changes to the postal network, it would have no impact on 75 percent of first-class mail."

During this latest primary election here it was reported the 200 ballots arrived after the cut off date, three days after the election, even though they were post marked at least three days before the election. Another thing worth keeping an eye on. And how the hell has Dejoy lasted the entire Biden administration?

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Marie.

Yeah. The last thing the Traitors, their billionaire oligarchs, their Supreme Court, and their media shills want is a level playing field. Why shouldn’t the personal, social, economic, and political interests of an Elon Musk or a Timothy Mellon or a Peter Thiel count for orders of magnitude more than some poor blah momma working three jobs to take care of her kids? Does she have four vacation homes? Does she own a dozen luxury cars? Does she board her own private jet when she wants to visit Mar-a-Lardo to lay out her personal requirements for a $10 M check?

Of course not.

We want what we pay for!

August 25, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.