The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday is here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.”

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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Washington Post: “Hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, a spate of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes touched down across the state, flipping tractor-trailers and ripping off roofs. The twisters surprised anxious residents, even as the storm’s eye still loomed. Authorities said there had been 'multiple' deaths after the intense and destructive tornadoes.” MB: I'm still on Florida's emergency-call list, and I received several calls from Lee County, urging me to shelter in place.

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a 'life-threatening' storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here: “Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.... By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.”

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Sunday
Dec082013

The Commentariat -- Dec. 9, 2013

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "House and Senate negotiators were putting the finishing touches Sunday on what would be the first successful budget accord since 2011, when the battle over a soaring national debt first paralyzed Washington. The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators' primary target. After more than two years of constant crisis, the emerging agreement amounts to little more than a cease-fire." CW: Still up-in-the-air: extended unemployment benefits, but it doesn't look good. ...

... Erik Wasson of the Hill: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that he hopes extended jobless benefits will be part of the budget deal, but Democrats are not at this point insisting on it.... Durbin's soft position echoes that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who appeared last week to say no deal would be possible without the extension of jobless benefits expiring Jan. 1, but then walked the ultimatum back." ...

... Test Question. Explain Rand Paul's logic. Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Democratic attempts to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million workers were a 'disservice' to the unemployed, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday. Paul said a study had shown employers were less likely to hire the long-term unemployed like those who have been on 99 weeks of benefits." ...

     ... Paul Krugman takes a stab at the test question: "... the G.O.P. answer to the problem of long-term unemployment is to increase the pain of the long-term unemployed: Cut off their benefits, and they'll go out and find jobs. How, exactly, will they find jobs when there are three times as many job-seekers as job vacancies? ... Employment in today's American economy is limited by demand, not supply.... The odds, I'm sorry to say, are that the long-term unemployed will be cut off, thanks to a perfect marriage of callousness ... with bad economics. But then, hasn't that been the story of just about everything lately?" ...

     ... Digby: "It's this twisted Randroid sanctimony that really gets to me. It's bad enough that this creep thinks the unemployed are parasites and moochers. But he has the brass balls to adopt a disgustingly unctuous 'compassionate' tone to suggest that he's following Christian teachings by throwing them out on the street." ...

... Khalil AlJajal of Mlive: "Democrats responded in a variety of ways to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's Friday visit to Detroit. The Kentucky Republican was in town helping the GOP effort to start reaching out to minorities in Michigan and to introduce his 'Economic Freedom Zones' plan. Paul plans to introduce legislation next week that would turn zip codes with unemployment rates over 1.5 times the average into zones where federal income taxes would be reduced to 5 percent, capital gains taxes would be eliminated and other incentives would be offered to potential residents and entrepreneurs." ...

... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Is there anyone out there who honestly believes that Sen. Rand Paul wasn't going to continue his father's racket of pretending he actually wants to be president in order to raise lots of money from their gullible followers?"

"It's a Godsend." Abby Goodnough, et al., of the New York Times interview Americans who are glad to be getting insurance under the ACA. "... for all those problems, people are enrolling. More than 243,000 have signed up for private coverage through the exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and more than 567,000 have been determined eligible for Medicaid since the exchanges opened on Oct. 1. For many, particularly people with existing medical conditions..., the coverage is proving less expensive than what they had. Many others are getting health insurance for the first time in years, giving them alternatives to seeking care through free clinics or emergency rooms -- or putting it off indefinitely."

** Ta-Nehisi Coates: On Nelson Mandela, Newt Gingrich gets it right & challenges wingers who are attacking Mandela in death. And not for the first time. Here's Newt's full post. CW: This might be the first time I've embedded remarks by Newt Gingrich with which I agree:

... Worth keeping in mind, of course, is the point Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars makes: "... I might be more willing to accept [Newt's alleged shock at conservatives' hateful remarks about Mandela] if Newt didn't play into racist dogwhistles all the time."

Thomas McGarity, in the New York Times: "... there's a crucial dimension the president left out [of his speech on inequality]: the revival, since the mid-1970s, of the laissez-faire ideology that prevailed in the Gilded Age.... It's no coincidence that this laissez-faire revival -- an all-out assault on government regulation -- has unfolded over the very period in which inequality has soared to levels not seen since the Gilded Age." ...

... Case on Point. Matthew Goldstein & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Even as five regulatory agencies prepared to vote Tuesday on a regulation that seeks to rein in risk-taking on Wall Street -- an effort known as the Volcker Rule -- lawyers and lobbyists were gearing up for another round of attacks against it. In recent letters and meetings with financial regulators, lobbyists for Wall Street banks and business trade groups issued thinly veiled threats about challenging the Volcker Rule in court, people briefed on the matter said. The groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are hinting that they could use litigation to either undercut or clarify the rule, which is intended to bar banks from trading for their own gain and limit their ability to invest in hedge funds."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies conducting criminal investigations collected data on cellphone activity thousands of times last year, with each request to a phone company yielding hundreds or thousands of phone numbers of innocent Americans along with those of potential suspects. Law enforcement made more than 9,000 requests last year for what are called 'tower dumps,' information on all the calls that bounced off a cellphone tower within a certain period of time, usually two or more hours, a congressional inquiry has revealed. The little-known practice has raised concerns among federal judges, lawmakers and privacy advocates who question the harvesting of massive amounts of data on people suspected of no crime in order to try to locate a criminal.... The inquiry, by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), into law enforcement's use of cellphone data comes amid growing scrutiny of the bulk collection of geolocation data overseas and of Americans' phone records in the United States by the National Security Agency." ...

... Mark Mazzetti & Justin Elliott of the New York Times: "American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents.... The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while also collecting data and contents of communications between players, according to the documents, disclosed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden." ...

... Edward Wyatt & Claire Miller of the New York Times: "Eight prominent technology companies, bruised by revelations of government spying on their customers' data and scrambling to repair the damage to their reputations, are mounting a public campaign to urge President Obama and Congress to set new limits on government surveillance." The Guardian story, by Dan Roberts & Jemima Kiss, is here. ...

... Ryan Lizza has a lo-o-o-ng piece in the New Yorker on NSA overreach. CW: The bit of it I've had time to read is excellent. ...

... NSA-Speak. Amy Davidson of the New Yorker gives a short lesson on how to tell when NSA leaders are lying.

Saymour Hersh, in the London Review of Books, points to intelligence evidence that the Syrian government was not necessarily responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21. "... in recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the [Obama] administration's assurances of Assad's responsibility a 'ruse'."

Andrea Elliott, in the New York Times, explores the life of Dasani, an 11-year-old Brooklyn girl, whose family is homeless. With photographs. This horror story has received some extra attention because the Las Vegas Sun, apparently inadvertently, ran it before the Times uploaded it on its own site.

Katherine Boyle of the Washington Post: "This year, the Kennedy Center honored actress Shirley MacLaine, opera singer Martina Arroyo, musician Carlos Santana -- who beamed while sitting next to first lady Michelle Obama -- and two piano men: Herbie Hancock and Billy Joel. If the honorees had performed together, it would have been a dream collaboration -- but as is the 36-year custom, they sat, smiled and watched others pay tribute to lives lived on stages and screens." ...

... The Post has extended profiles of the recipients: MacLaine, Arroyo, Santana, Joel and Hancock. There's a photo gallery here and short videos here. ...

Now, when you first become President, one of the questions that people ask you is what's really going on in Area 51. When I wanted to know, I'd call Shirley MacLaine. I think I just became the first President to ever publicly mention Area 51. How's that, Shirley? -- Barack Obama, at the reception for Kennedy Center honorees

... White House: "President Obama delivers remarks at a reception celebrating the 2013 Kennedy Center Honorees":

CW: This is predictably awful, & therefore smile-inducing. And at least it's accurate:

Local News

Gallop Asian Bistro, Bridgewater New Jersey: Dayna "Morales and Gallop Asian Bistro have made a joint decision that Ms. Morales will no longer continue her employment at our restaurant. We wish her well in the future." CW: The comments are withering.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Bill Porter, an Oregon door-to-door salesman who plied his trade for decades despite having severe cerebral palsy, and whose story inspired an Emmy-winning television film starring William H. Macy, died last Tuesday in Gresham, Ore. He was 81."

Washington Post: "Eleanor Parker, an actress of patrician beauty nicknamed 'the woman of a thousand faces' for the range of parts she played, from a terrified prisoner in 'Caged' to the icy baroness in 'The Sound of Music,' died Dec. 9 at a medical facility near her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 91." ...

     ... Update: The New York Times obituary is here.

Reuters: "China expressed 'regret' on Monday that South Korea had extended its air defense zone to partially overlap with a similar zone declared by Beijing two weeks ago that has raised regional tensions."

Reuters: "Cuba has temporarily reopened consular services in the United States after its bank postponed closing the accounts of its diplomatic missions in Washington and New York, it said in a statement released to media on Monday."

AP: "A plodding storm that dumped heavy snow on the unsuspecting Mid-Atlantic region threatened to make roads dicey in the northeast corridor for Monday's commute while travel disruptions continued to ripple across the country days after the same system first began wreaking havoc in the skies. The seemingly never-ending storm that coated parts of Texas in ice struck with unexpected force on the East Coast, blanketing some spots in a foot of snow and grinding highways to a halt." ...

     ... Reuters Update: "A deadly winter storm kept a tight grip on much of the United States on Monday as cold, snow and ice spread across the East Coast, snarling traffic and knocking out power to thousands. As much as 5 inches of snow were forecast for Monday night into Tuesday as much of the area from Virginia to coastal New England were under winter weather advisories...."

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the country's top military officer Monday, hoping to improve one of Washington's most complicated relationships -- one marked by agreement on the dangers of terrorism but also by deep differences over how to counter the threat."

Reuters: "Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved parliament on Monday and called a snap election, but anti-government protest leaders pressed ahead with mass demonstrations in Bangkok seeking to install an unelected body to run the country. Police estimated about 160,000 protesters converged on Yingluck's office at Government House, but there was none of the violence and bloodshed seen before the demonstrations paused last Thursday out of respect for the king's birthday."

Guardian: "Cordons of riot police moved into central Kiev early on Monday afternoon in what appeared initially to be preparations by the Ukrainian government to regain control of Independence square and Kiev city hall, occupied by anti-government protesters for the past week."

Santa Cruz Sentinel: American Merrill Newman said he was well-treated during his North Korean detention.

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Saturday
Dec072013

The Commentariat -- Dec. 8, 2013

** David Simon, creator of "The Wire," on the "horror" of "two Americas." An extract, published in the Guardian, of a speech he delivered on the growing divide between rich & poor. CW: His take jibes perfectly with my own views.

Ezra Klein: "Obamacare’s real promise: if you lose your health-care plan, you can get a new one." Klein goes thru the list of ways Americans are vulnerable to losing their plans. "Virtually the only people whose health coverage is reasonably safe are those on fee-for-service Medicare and some forms of veterans insurance. And even there, enrollees are only safe until the day policymakers decide to change premiums or benefit packages." Thanks to contributor Ken W. for the link. ...

... BUT/AND. This is refreshing. Spero News: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said universal health care should be available to all Americans [sic.]. He was speaking at a charity event for prostate cancer survivors in Seattle. Powell told the audience that countries in Europe, Canada and South Korea offer universal, single-payer health care and said he often asks why the United States has not implemented the same system. 'Whether it's Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don't care,' Powell said. 'As long as we get it done.'" ...

... Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Times: "Raising concerns about consumer privacy, California's health exchange has given insurance agents the names and contact information for tens of thousands of people who went online to check out coverage but didn't ask to be contacted." ...

... Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval ... is the only Republican governor whose state is both running its own health insurance exchange this year and expanding its Medicaid program under the health law. He's arguably doing more to put the Democrats' signature law into place than any other Republican.... Even after sticking his neck out on Obamacare -- which few others in his party would consider amid fear of a conservative backlash -- Sandoval is overwhelmingly popular in Nevada. State lawmakers backed his Obamacare approach on a bipartisan basis, and he's cruising toward reelection next year with no formidable opponent in sight." ...

Donkey Hotey.... Robert Farley of FactCheck.org: "House Speaker John Boehner says his premiums will double, and his deductible will triple, under the Affordable Care Act. That's true, but it is misleading to compare Boehner with the 'many Americans seeing their costs go up,' as his spokesman Brendan Buck has put it. Boehner's experience with the Affordable Care Act is extremely atypical compared to most Americans. His rates -- which include the cost of insuring his wife -- are doubling because of the couple's age and high income, and a special provision in the law that forced members of Congress out of their employer-sponsored plans.... Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas -- who is 25 years younger than Boehner -- will pay about half of what he is now paying."

Another Big Pharma Rip-off. Peter Whorisky & Dan Keating of the Washington Post explains how pharmaceutical company Genentech, a division of the Roche Group, is raking in more than $1 billion a year for a drug that is nearly identical to one of their own drugs that sells for 1/40th of that price. "Roughly 80 percent of U.S. sales are paid for by Medicare and its beneficiaries."

** Alec MacGillis of the New Republic: "Those media hysterics who said Obama's presidency was dead were wrong. Again.... this has been an especially inglorious stretch for Beltway hyperventilators. First came the government shutdown and the ensuing declamations about the crack-up of the Republican Party. Then, with whiplash force, came the obituaries for the Obama presidency. The Washington press corps has been reduced to the state of the tennis-watching kittens in this video":

Bradley Klapper & Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Barack Obama said Saturday he believed the chances for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran are 50-50 or worse, yet defended diplomacy as the best way to prevent Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons."

AP: "The National Security Agency on Friday said its tracking of cellphones overseas is legally authorized under a sweeping U.S. presidential order. The distinction means the extraordinary surveillance program is not overseen by a secretive U.S. intelligence court but is regulated by some U.S. lawmakers, Obama administration insiders and inspectors general."

Maureen Dowd reflects on President Woodrow Wilson, sexy lover & confirmed racist.

Thomas Bishop of Media Matters has an excellent rundown of right-wing criticisms of Pope Francis. Many are likening him to Satanic cult leader Barack Obama. Can't get worse than that. The ever-tasteful Rush Limbaugh shrieked, "The pope, ripping Ronaldus Magnus. The pope, ripping trickle-down economics. And Obama's having an orgasm. Jeremiah Wright is beside himself. Jeremiah Wright thought he was Obama's preacher, now [the] pope somehow has co-opted Obama." ...

... Steve Benen: "In the larger context, note that when the Obama administration moves the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See closer to the Vatican, the right deems it 'anti-religion.' When conservative[s] slam the pope's economic views, that's fine."

Senate Race

Separation of Church & State? Not in Arkansas. This is perhaps the most cringe-worthy ad ever by a major Democratic candidate -- beating out Joe Manchin's shot at the cap-&-trade bill:

... The National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized Pryor by pointing to a remark he made last year: "The Bible is really not a rule book for political issues. Everybody can see it differently." The NRSC asks, "So is the Bible Mark Pryor's compass...? Or is it really not a good rule book for political issues and decisions made in the Senate? Guess it depends on which Mark Pryor that you ask." Via Tal Kopan of Politico. ...

... CW: In a humorous twist, the spokesman for GOP senatorial candidate Tom Cotton shot back: "That is an incredibly bizarre and offensive email from the NRSC's press secretary. We should all agree that America is better off when all our public officials in both parties have the humility to seek guidance from God." Yeah, it's always a good idea to argue about religion. ...

... Frank Bruni: "... while it's tempting to attribute this silliness to a Southern politician's need to appeal to the Christian fundamentalists prevalent in that region, the Arkansas episode is indicative of how thoroughly Americans from coast to coast let religion permeate public life."

News Ledes

 

New York Times: "Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city's main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich's turn away from Europe."

AP: "A powerful storm system that spread hazardous snow, sleet and freezing rain widely across the nation's midsection rumbled toward the densely populated Eastern seaboard on Sunday, promising more of the same. Forecasters said the potent system already blamed for numerous power outages and thousands of weekend flight cancellations elsewhere, has Virginia and other Mid-Atlantic states in its icy sights before the Northeast is up next."

New York Times: "Atomic experts representing the United Nations nuclear watchdog landed in Tehran on Saturday to inspect a plant recently opened to them, after access was denied for years."

AFP: "South Korea Sunday declared an expanded air defence zone that overlaps with one announced by China and covers a submerged rock disputed by the two countries, as tensions rise over competing territorial claims."

AFP: Israeli "Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday proposed that Israel annex parts of the West Bank under its full military control where most Jewish settlers live."

AP: "Thailand's main opposition party resigned from Parliament on Sunday to protest what it called 'the illegitimacy' of a government with which it can no longer work. The move deepens the country's latest political crisis one day before new street demonstrations that many fear could turn violent."

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Friday
Dec062013

The Commentariat -- Dec. 7, 2013

"In this week's address, President Obama shames the Party of Scrooge:

Gene Robinson makes a strong case for raising the minimum wage: "President Obama should specify a number --- at least $10 an hour -- and go out on one of his barnstorming tours. Democrats should make the issue a central theme of the 2014 campaign. I believe the public would respond, which means that, ultimately, Republicans would respond. The president has a long agenda. This is where he should start."

Charles Pierce has a fine tribute to Nelson Mandela. ...

... Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast: "In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela's African National Congress on America's official list of 'terrorist' groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his 'vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.' As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America's terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S." ...

... Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "... William F. Buckley -- intellectual founder of the modern right -- effectively worked as a press agent for apartheid.... Apartheid would ultimately draw some of America's most celebrated conservatives into its orbit. The roster includes Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff, Jesse Helms..., Jeff Flake..., Jerry Falwell ... [and] Pat Robertson.... When you see a Tea Party protestor waving the flag of slavery in front of the home of the first black president, understand that this instinct has been cultivated. It is still, at this very hour, being cultivated." ...

... Jamelle Bouie of the Daily Beast: "In 1985, William F. Buckley Jr. voiced his support for South African President P.W. Botha.... In the same column, he declared, 'Where Mandela belongs, in his current frame of mind, is precisely where he is: in jail.' ... You can find George Will writing in opposition to sanctions and Jerry Falwell leading a 'reinvestment' drive to counter the push to divest assets from South Africa. The conservative movement was so invested in opposition to Mandela that decades later it has become a problem for the latest GOP generation, which represents a constituency that still hates Mandela.... To wit, when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) paid tribute to Mandela on his Facebook page, he was met with a stream of angry condemnations." ...

... ** Adam Serwer of NBC News: "... Remember that sometimes the radicals are correct, that in the heat of the moment, movements for justice can be easily caricatured by those with authority as threats to public safety, and those seeking basic rights and dignity as monstrous villains. And then after the radicals win, we try to make them safe and useless to future radicals by pretending our beloved secular saints were never radical at all." ...

Rick Santorum -- Still an Ignoramus

He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives -- and Obamacare is front and center in that. -- Rick Santorum, on Mandela ...

Mandela enshrined in the new South African constitution a fundamental right to health care for all citizens, and introduced a government-funded public health care system to help cover those who could not afford the private system already in place. That was the foundation for a new universal health care system the country unveiled two years ago, which is now expanding to cover the entire country by 2026. -- Adam Peck, Think Progress

... Igor Volsky & Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress provide a timeline of how the right campaigned to undermine Mandela. And, yeah, some of those apartheidchiks are still "representing" us. ...

... Very late last night I caught a bit of a BBC conversation (they do this a lot on this show) wherein they said that Raygun said that one of the reasons he supported the white guys running the place (my words) was because they were our friends and supported us during WWII. The BBC guys said Raygun, of course, was wrong. Those white guys had been collaborators. I'm gonna try to find something on this so Marie doesn't get mad at me. -- Haley Simon, in yesterday's Comments

Mr. Botha sided with the [Nazis], joining the right-wing Afrikaner nationalists in the Ossewabrandwag, or Ox Wagon Fire Guard, which was closely related to Daniel F. Malan's Reunited National Party. A paramilitary group within the Guard, modeled after the Nazi Brownshirts, agitated against the pro-Allied government of Jan Christian Smuts." Some time later, "Mr. Botha publicly condemned the Ossewabrandwag" but he remained active in the party that sided with the Nazis till 1944. -- Joseph Gregory, New York Times obituary of P. W. Botha, 2006

Despite a growing international movement to topple apartheid in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan maintained a close alliance with a South African government [led by P. W. Botha] that was showing no signs of serious reform. And the Reagan administration demonized opponents of apartheid, most notably the African National Congress, as dangerous and pro-communist. Reagan even vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa, only to be overruled by Congress. -- Justin Elliott in Salon, 2011

Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have and so forth? I just feel that, myself, that here, if we're going to sit down at a table and negotiate with the Russians, surely we can keep the door open and continue to negotiate with a friendly nation like South Africa. -- Ronald Reagan, speaking in support of Botha's apartheid regime, 1981

Reagan said, you know, these people supported us in World War II. I said, Mr. President, your history is bad. These guys you're talking about -- the South African apartheid regime [which Botha led] -- most of them supported the Nazis. -- Bishop Desmond Tutu, on a private conversation he had with Reagan

Yeah, Haley, I did have to do some Googling on this, but I'm not mad. And the BBC commentator was right. -- Constant Weader

... Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews: F. W. De Klerk & other South African apartheid leaders were more patriotic than Mitch McConnell & the GOP are:

The New York Times Editors write

"Some Bankers Aren't too Big to Jail." Danielle Douglas of the Washington Post: "Since 2008, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program [SIGTARP] has pursued criminal charges against 107 senior bank officers, most of whom have been sentenced to prison. Created to supervise the government bailout of the auto and financial industries, the agency has found dozens of cases of bank executives who misused bailout funds. SIGTARP has a staff of 170, a budget of $41 million and an enforcement track record that rivals agencies twice its size. The agency's work has resulted in $4.7 billion in restitution paid to the government and victims. Lawmakers are holding SIGTARP up as a model and questioning why other agencies are not producing similar results."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times profiles Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

John Wagner & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "The Maryland official who directly oversaw the rollout of Maryland's health insurance exchange resigned Friday amid continuing technical problems that have hampered the state's online enrollment efforts. After an emergency session Friday night, the board of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange accepted the resignation of Rebecca Pearce, its executive director, and thanked her in a statement for working 'tirelessly and with tremendous dedication' for more than two years." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "The ObamaCare error rate has fallen dramatically." ...

... CW: Yesterday, I linked to a piece by a right-wing writer named Peter Schweitzer who claimed -- based on White House logs & Politico's daily calendar -- that President Obama had no one-on-one meetings with HHS Secretary Sebelius between July 12, 2010, & November 30, 2013. ...

... BUT. Dylan Byers of Politico: "The White House on Friday criticized as misleading a report in Politico Magazine claiming that President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met just once since the signing of the Affordable Care Act more than three years ago. 'The published report that was written by an advocate is based on a ridiculously false premise,' White House press secretary Jay Carney said during a press briefing. 'Cabinet secretaries don't regularly get entered into the White House visitors logs, [though] they come frequently. Kathleen Sebelius comes frequently, and she meets frequently with the president.'"

Senate Races

Scott Brown, a potential GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, who has also explored a presidential run, briefly confuses New Hampshire with Massachusetts, which he did serve as Senator. Via Aaron Blake of the Washington Post:

     Don't worry, Senator; it happens to all the best presidential candidates:

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican who was first elected to the Senate in 1978, set up a generational and ideological clash in the state's Republican primary when he announced Friday that he would seek a seventh term in 2014.... While Mr. Cochran, who turns 76 on Saturday, has the support of many leading Republicans in the state, he is already facing opposition from Chris McDaniel, 41, a state senator aligned with the Tea Party...." CW: Yes, because a guy who voted to support the South African apartheid regime, even as most Senators from his own party voted to impose sanctions against the racist South African government, is totally too liberal for Mississippi.

News Ledes

AP: "About 50 survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor paused Saturday at the site to honor those killed and remember the moment that plunged the U.S. into World War II."

New York Times: Merrill Newman, "an American veteran who had been held prisoner in North Korea for more than a month, landed in the United States on Saturday after his release by the government, which cited his 'sincere repentance' for his acts during the Korean War as the reason for letting him go."

New York Times: "Flying aboard a nondescript Air Force cargo plane under the cloak of secrecy, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel landed [Afghanistan] on Saturday.... Mr. Hagel was scheduled to meet with American commanders to discuss the status of the war, with troops to offer holiday greetings and with Afghan officials to see if he could press for a breakthrough in finalizing a bilateral security agreement."

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