The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

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."

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Sep282024

The Conversation -- September 28, 2024

Presidential Race

Nicholas Nehamas, et al., of the New York Times: “On her first trip to the southern border as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered one of her party’s toughest speeches on immigration and border policy in a generation. Even as she did, she tried to paint ... Donald J. Trump as a feckless chaos agent without the ability to deliver the hard-line results he has promised. Ms. Harris vowed to carry on President Biden’s crackdown on asylum and to impose order on the southern border, demonstrating how much the politics of immigration have shifted for Democrats. Just one presidential cycle ago, Ms. Harris and most other candidates in the party’s primary race had promised to decriminalize illegal border crossings.” The Guardian's report is here.

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link. Via digby, who is of the view that the Orange Jesus is “The Greatest Embarrassment in American History.” ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: “As [Ukraine's President Volodymyr] Zelensky stood silently beside him, Mr. Trump presented the Russia-Ukraine war as one that both sides wanted to end, including its instigator, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Trump did not fault the Russian leader for the invasion or for the illegal seizure of territory or for the thousands of Ukrainians he has bombed out of existence. Instead, the former president described the situation as if it were a dispute between two parties operating in good faith that could be resolved in a 'fair deal,' but only if he returns to the White House.” MB: The reporters are kindly enough not to mention that Trump suggested that it was important for both parties to come to the table because it takes two to tango.” I just can't think why digby sez Trump is “The Greatest Embarrassment in American History.”

The Incredible Shrinking Trumplethinskin. David Moye of the Huffington Post: As people began walking out of a rally when Trump was speaking in Walker, Michigan, Friday, Trump insisted from the podium that the people who were leaving were not really leaving. Trump “became agitated during a Sept. 10 presidential debate when ... Kamala Harris bluntly said that 'people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.'” Trump said the rally-goers Friday were just lining up in the back of the hall in hopes of getting a photo with him. Right.

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: In a post on his failing social media site, “... Donald J. Trump threatened Friday to prosecute Google if he was elected to the presidency a second time, claiming that the tech company had been 'illegally' showing only 'bad stories' about him and only 'good' ones about Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the latest instance of Mr. Trump threatening to prosecute his perceived opponents should he return to office. This month, he called for the prosecution of lawyers, political donors and operatives if they engaged in 'unscrupulous behavior.' Mr. Trump said at a news conference on Thursday that the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted in connection with the security lapses by which a mob of his own supporters attacked the Capitol during the transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021. And on Friday, in Michigan, he called for an attorney general 'somewhere, like in a Republican territory' to investigate Ms. Pelosi and her husband over reports that Mr. Pelosi had sold Visa stock ahead of the Justice Department’s filing an antitrust lawsuit against the company.... Google said it did not manipulate search results to favor any candidate.” A CNBC story is here.

Marie: I have overstayed my nonpaying welcome at TPM, but Scott Lemieux in LG&$ has republished a portion of two of Josh Marshall's posts:

     ~~~JayDee Wants Goons to Monitor Your Periods, Ladies. Josh Marshall of TPM (republished in LG&$): “JD Vance is a major menstrual surveillance hawk. When the Biden administration pushed for updated HIPAA regulations to prevent sheriff’s departments and other law enforcement agencies from pulling women’s medical records for their menstrual surveillance programs (which they termed 'compassionate laws protecting unborn children and their mothers'), Vance was one of only 28 members of Congress (and only 8 senators) to sign a letter protesting the new regs, which, per the letter, 'interfere with valid state laws protecting life.' (You can see the letter here. It’s a doozy.)” ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux: “This should also be a reminder that Alito’s repeated assertions in Dobbs that the right to choose to have an abortion can be neatly separated from the entire well-established framework of personal autonomy rights is nonsensical on every level. And Dobbs did not return the country to the pre-Roe status quo; given the different surveillance capacities of the state and the greater fanaticism of the anti-abortion mob, it will be much worse.” MB: The purpose of the surveillance, of course, is chilling, but the methodology is downright creepy. I doubt even the church-lady president of the local Republican Women's Club would want sheriff's deputies rifling through her files at her OB/GYN's office. And, Dear, that's what will happen if JayDee gets his way.

Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: “Vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has a go-to explanation for his evolution from outspoken critic to impassioned defender of Donald Trump: He says he was converted by Trump’s achievements in the White House.... But ... in the direct messages — sent during Trump’s final year in office to an acquaintance over ... Twitter — Vance harshly criticized his future running mate’s record of governance.... 'Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),' Vance wrote in February 2020.... 'I’ve already turned down my appointment from the emperor,' Vance wrote ... after his interlocutor referred to the possibility of a government appointment by 'Emperor Trump.' Pressed by his acquaintance about what job he had been offered, Vance replied, 'I’m not going to say over twitter messenger.' Neither Trump nor Vance has ever disclosed that he was offered a role working [in the Trump administration.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm sure you're not surprised, but what we have in JayDee is not just a liar but a "practical politician," where "practical" means willing to roll over & repeatedly defend the indefensible if that is in his self-interest. JayDee is as trustworthy as Trump.

Mark Sherman of the AP (republished by Yahoo! News): “The Supreme Court on Friday refused an emergency appeal from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign seeking to have his name added to New York's ballot. Kennedy has been trying to get his name off ballots in key battleground states since he suspended his campaign in August and endorsed ... Donald Trump. But he has simultaneously tried to stay on the ballot in states like New York where his presence is unlikely to make a difference in the battle between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Ha Ha. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: “California Rep. Adam Schiff (D) introduced a bill on Friday that would prevent sitting presidents from dismissing criminal prosecution against themselves, including through coercion of an attorney general or anyone acting on the president’s behalf.The Investigative Integrity Protection Act seeks to require a three-judge court hearing before any charges against a president are dropped, according to a release.”

Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The special counsel, Jack Smith, has asked a federal judge to make public a substantial amount of the evidence that he and his deputies have collected during nearly two years of investigating ... Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a court filing unsealed on Friday. In the filing, Mr. Smith described the sorts of information about Mr. Trump that he would like to reveal in a public version of a lengthy secret brief that he submitted under seal on Thursday evening to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case in Federal District Court in Washington.... Mr. Smith told Judge Chutkan that the public version of his brief should include quotations and summaries of grand jury testimony from — and interviews with — several chief witnesses in the case, including top White House officials like former Vice President Mike Pence. But to protect lesser-known witnesses from harassment, Mr. Smith said the names of people not already identified in the indictment should be redacted.” An ABC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: “A federal judge [Tanya Chutkan] on Friday gave lawyers for Donald Trump four days to challenge the partial public release of a nearly 200-page special counsel filing on why the former president can be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”

Laurie Brookins of the Hollywood Reporter: “On Thursday, [Donald] Trump debuted a pair of watches available for sale: a dive model ... that is limited to 1,000 pieces and retails for $499 or $799 depending on style, and a seemingly high-end tourbillion design that is depicted as being crafted of 18-karat gold and embellished with diamonds on the bezel. Limited to 147 pieces, that model is listed for an astounding $100,000. All pieces display Trump’s name prominently on the dial.... Word quickly spread among the status-watch community, which was overwhelmingly unimpressed. 'This is cobbled together, patently unoriginal and vastly overpriced,' says Ariel Adams, founder and editor of A Blog to Watch.... A marketing director of a well-known Swiss brand..., [said], everyone [in my collectors' group chat] was laughing' ... [at] the more expensive piece. 'When you look at all of them, they scream Chinese-made watch. None of them is worth the asking price.'... '[The tourbillon watch] is as ersatz as the man himself,' added Adam Craniotes, founder ... of ... an international network of watch collectors....”

~~~~~~~~~~

Alabama. Hansi Lo Wang of NPR: “The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Friday against Alabama and its top election official, alleging a state program violated federal law by removing voters from its election rolls too close to this fall’s general election.... The National Voter Registration Act sets what’s known as a 'quiet period' before federal elections for most states. Alabama and other states covered by the federal law are not allowed to systematically remove names fewer than 90 days before a federal election. On Aug. 13, 84 days before this fall’s Election Day, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, announced an effort to 'remove noncitizens registered to vote' in the state. According to a press release, Allen identified and instructed county election officials to remove from their voter rolls 3,251 registered Alabama voters who had been 'issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security.'... But in a statement, the Justice Department characterized this process as a 'systematic voter removal program' that has ensnared U.S. citizens, both those born in the United States and those who were naturalized....”

New York. Dana Rubinstein, et al., of the New York Times: “A muted but defiant [New York City] Mayor Eric Adams, in back-to-back appearances inside a federal courthouse in Manhattan and outside its granite facade on Friday, professed his innocence of criminal charges including bribery and fraud and stood by as his lawyer railed against the evidence in a case that threatens to topple his embattled administration. 'I am not guilty, your honor,' Mr. Adams said at his midday arraignment before Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker in a 26th-floor courtroom in Lower Manhattan, as reporters looked on from the gallery and via livestreams in several overflow courtrooms.” ~~~

~~~ Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: “Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges of bribery, wire fraud and taking illegal campaign donations, even as state investigators seized the electronic devices of one of his top advisers at the airport — the latest indication of multiple, wide-ranging corruption probes related to City Hall.... The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York City Department of Investigation met Adams’s top adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, at an arrivals gate at JFK International Airport, Lewis-Martin’s lawyer said. The law enforcement personnel intercepted her electronics as part of a separate investigation, said a person with knowledge of the matter....” ~~~

~~~ The New York Times live-updated developments Friday in the NYC Mayor Eric Adams indictment matter: “Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday in a Lower Manhattan courtroom to five felony counts, including bribery and fraud charges. Mr. Adams is accused of accepting more than $100,000 in illegal gifts in exchange for using his political influence to help Turkey.” (Also linked yesterday.)

North Carolina. Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: “The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a lower court’s decision to accept the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s mobile One Card as valid voter identification. The ruling supported the plaintiff’s argument that the digital ID would make it easier for ineligible voters to cast ballots and violate a state law that prohibits mobile use during voting. An unnamed group of three judges approved the appeal from the Republican National Committee and the N.C. Republican Party unanimously today which can be appealed at the federal level. DNC attorneys say that preventing its use could confuse or even disenfranchise up to 40,000 people who work or attend the school so close to the election according to ABC.”

Virginia, et al. Hi, I'm Having a Fabulous Family Dinner with My Fake Wife & Fake Daughters. Annie Karni & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “... male Republicans struggling to appeal to female voters ... are unleashing their spouses to make the pitch on their behalf. Their ads often feature women in softly lit living rooms and pristine kitchens vouching for their husbands’ characters.... Other times, candidates film footage of a wholesome family gathering around the dining room table. In at least one case, such a gathering includes a candidate at the dinner table in a family-like tableau with a woman and children who are not related. The campaign of Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret who is running in a competitive race for an open seat in Virginia’s Seventh District, has posted footage of him posing with a woman and her three daughters in what looks like a photo that might be used for an annual holiday card. In another scene filmed for potential use in a campaign ad, Mr. Anderson is seated around the dining room table with the same woman and three girls, chatting and smiling. But the people ... are the wife and children of a longtime friend. Mr. Anderson, who announced this month that he was engaged, does not have any children of his own. His campaign website says he lives with his dog and does not display any of the photos.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Israel's wars are here. “Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime leader, in an airstrike on the organization’s underground headquarters near Beirut, hours after Israel said he had been killed in a major escalation of its rapidly expanding campaign against the Iran-backed group. After two weeks of back-and-forth attacks that have threatened to spiral into an all-out regional war, Israel said that Mr. Nasrallah was killed in a major airstrike on Friday, when its air force dropped more than 80 bombs on a group of residential buildings in the Hezbollah-dominated area known as the Dahiya.”

Bassem Mroue & Melanie Lidman of the AP: “Israel said Saturday that it killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, dealing its most significant blow to the Lebanese militant group after months of fighting. There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. If the claim is true, Nasrallah is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.”

Michael Crowley of the New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamiin “Netanyahu bulldozed his way through his visit [to the United Nations], castigating Israel’s critics and the United Nations itself, offering no diplomatic concessions, and ordering an airstrike in Beirut that may have killed Israel’s long hunted archnemesis, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The strike landed even as Mr. Netanyahu delivered defiant remarks to a U.N. General Assembly hall — largely emptied after dozens of diplomats walked out in protest — in which he triumphantly declared of Israel’s multiple conflicts: 'We are winning.'”

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Comment1 Comment

Reader Comments (1)

So much for the self defense canard.

The Party of Traitors and its Dear Leader Donald Trump have long cheered the actions of lying murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. At his trial, Rittenhouse claimed he simply had to shoot those people. It was “self defense”. But Oops! Turns out little Kyle had sent numerous text messages prior to that outing in which he promised to “fucking murder” someone.

He also, according to his former spokesman, spent hours “…patrolling the street for months with guns and borrowing people’s security uniforms, doing whatever he could to try to get into some kind of a fight”.

Sounds like self defense to me, right?

September 28, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

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