To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.
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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."
Readers appear to have found a fix for a problem some of you who were having seeing the whole width of the Reality Chex page:
Change the zoom. If you change the zoom from 100 percent to something else, then change it back to 100 percent, the page reads properly. Some of you have browsers that allow you to do this from the lower right-hand corner; others may have to go to "View" on the tool bar & click on "Zoom." Doug R. wrote, "I can click and drag the bottom right corner of any page and expand or contract it." Different readers have used different steps, but they all manipulated the zoom.
I still don't know what's causing the problem because I can't replicate it here, so I can't test for it, but I suspect there's something in my embedded content that's throwing off the zoom.
Many thanks to the readers who wrote to tell me about the problem and to all of you who told me how you fixed it. -- Constant Weader
What Happens when a Whole State Turns into Right Wing World
Steven Elbow of the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times looks into what else the state's Republican legislators have been up to: "Bills have been coming down the pike that would add to union woes, make it harder to vote at the polls and allow charter schools to proliferate. And Republicans haven’t even gotten to the social issues yet." Elbow provides a partial list:
Requiring voters to produce photo IDs from the state DOT at polling places "Critics say [this] will stifle tens of thousands of votes, mostly those of Democratic-leaning groups like students, the elderly and the poor."
Scaling back the state’s family and medical leave law, signed in 1998 by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson
Preventing municipalities from adopting their own leave laws
Rescinding laws the help prevent racial profiling
Rescinding laws that mandate clean drinking water (because rich people drink Evian)
Rescinding a law that allows university faculty and academic staff to join unions
Allowing universities to assign staff to nonclassified positions so they can’t organize
Allowing the state to mandate charter schools & eliminating caps on funds the state can take from general school aid to fund charter schools. "Critics see the move as a giant step toward privatizing education in the state."
Eliminating the state’s farmland preservation program
Repealing 2009 legislation that authorized the creation of regional transit authorities (because rich people don't ride the bus)
On Wisconsin (Yes, UW Badgers, That's a Double Entendre)
Ed Kilgore of The New Republic: Gov. Scott Walker is following the Southern "Moonlight & Magnolias" strategy for attracting business to Wisconsin -- "It is based on a theory of economic growth that is ... aggressively pro-corporate: relentlessly focused on breaking the backs of unions; slashing worker compensation and benefits; and subsidizing businesses in order to attract capital from elsewhere and avoid its flight to even more benighted locales." ...
... Scott Walker Is Not a Constitution-Loving Republican. Clay Barbour & Dee Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal: "Capitol Police kept more than 1,000 protestors at bay Monday, locking down the statehouse and allowing only a few dozen inside to meet with lawmakers.... The decision seemed to run counter to Capitol tradition and the spirit of the state Constitution, which says officials cannot prohibit individuals from entering the Capitol or its grounds." ...
Prohibiting protestors on either side of the debate from entering the Capitol during normal business hours or during legislative hearings or sessions, while allowing others with 'business' in the Capitol to enter, is manifestly content-based and, hence presumptively unconstitutional. -- American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, in a letter to state administration Secretary Michael Huebsch ...
I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin, and isn’t acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another. -- Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor, in response to President Obama's call for respect for union members
... Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "... if voters in [Wisconsin] could do it over today they'd support defeated Democratic nomineeTom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin. The difference between how folks would vote now and how they voted in November can almost all be attributed to shifts within union households. Voters who are not part of union households ... [who] report having voted for Walker by 7 points last fall and they still say they would vote for Walker by a 4 point margin. But in households where there is a union member voters now say they'd go for Barrett by a 31 point margin, up quite a bit from the 14 point advantage they report having given him in November.... Walker seems to have severely hurt his party's chances of building on their gains from 2010 next year." ...
... Greg Sargent: "The reason this matters is that in the days ahead, Dems and labor are going to intensify pressure on Republican state senators to break with Walker and support some kind of compromise route out of the current impasse. Walker himself seems to recognize this is a potential problem: On his call with the fake Koch, he acknowledged that Republicans in swing areas would need to be propped up by aggressive messaging." ...
... Masquerade. Eric Schroeck of Media Matters: "This morning [Monday], Fox & Friends hosted an 'upset Wisconsin parent' to discuss her objection to Wisconsin public schools' teaching of labor union history. Left unsaid during the segment: The parent, Amber Hahn, is also a local GOP official.... This is now the second time Fox has masqueraded a GOP activist as a concerned parent to attack unions." ...
Jon Stewart on Greedy Teachers. Unfortnately, Comedy Central has changed their video system, & I can no longer embed individual segments, so here's the Whole Show. It's all pretty good up till the Howard Stern interview:
... Bob Herbert: "This most recent assault on labor is part of an anti-worker movement that has been on the march for decades. Jobs have been shipped overseas. Workers have been denied their rightful share of productivity gains. Wages have been depressed and benefits in many, many instances have disappeared." ...
... Michael Cooper & Megan Thee-Brenan of the New York Times: "As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."
Bryan Zepp Jamieson: "If America had a free press at the mainstream level that was worth a damn, then the Republican Party would be finished by now. As it is, the Republicans have to spend millions and millions of dollars on their vast right wing echo chamber. But all that would be for naught if it were not for the complicity of the mainstream media, which obediently adopts their talking points and their framings, and thus presents news as seen from the viewpoint of the GOP – and nobody else." Read on! Thanks to reader Bruce B. for the link.
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday. The report, by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, offers fresh ammunition to Democrats seeking block the Republican plan.... His report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy." You can read Zandi's report, titled "A Federal Shutdown Could Derail the Recovedry," here.
"Billions in Bloat." Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development. These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.... The report ... recommends merging or consolidating a number of programs to both save money and make the government more efficient."
Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "A group of House Democrats is calling on Republican leaders to investigate a prominent Washington law firm [Hunton & Williams] and three federal technology contractors, who have been shown in hacked e-mails discussing a 'disinformation campaign' against foes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In a letter to be released Tuesday, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and more than a dozen other lawmakers wrote that the e-mails appear 'to reveal a conspiracy to use subversive techniques to target Chamber critics," including "possible illegal actions against citizens engaged in free speech.' ... The e-mails ... show HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies and Palantir Technologies teaming up with a sales pitch to undermine chamber opponents.... The chamber has denied knowledge of the proposals."
It's increasingly imaginable that there would be some kind of international intervention in Libya, and I think the U.S. would be active in shaping that. -- James Dobbins of the Rand Corp.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors may use victim statements given at the crime scene even if the victim dies before testifying at trial, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.... The 6-to-2 ruling drew a withering dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, the court's most outspoken advocate for the Sixth Amendment's requirement that the accused 'be confronted with the witnesses against him.' The majority's reasoning, Scalia wrote, 'is so transparently false that professing to believe it demeans this institution.' Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote for the majority, shot back, accusing Scalia of 'misreading' the rules the court set for when statements could be admitted as evidence.... Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Scalia but declined to join his caustic comments. Justice Elena Kagan was recused from the case because she had worked on it as President Obama's solicitor general." You can read the majority opinion & dissent here (pdf). Adam Liptak of the New York Times has a report here.
Kim Severson of the New York Times: "George Holding, the United States attorney in Raleigh..., as well as a Justice Department lawyer and agents from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service are looking at a number of campaign accounts and the records of a nonprofit group connected to [former Sen. John] Edwards.... Those who have been subpoenaed include dozens of former campaign workers, top aides, friends and [Rielle] Hunter," a woman with whom Edwards had an extramarital affair and a child.
Rep. Darrell Issa, who promised to open a new investigation every week, is now investigating his own aide. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "... the congressman will look into 'concerns' raised by Politico's editor-in-chief. In the meantime, press secretary Kurt Bardella remains on staff and is expected to report for work Tuesday...." ...
... Update: here'sPolitico's story -- by Jake Sherman & Marin Cogan -- on Issa's investigation of Bardella. Bear in mind wen you read it that, according to Sonmez, Politico initiated the complaint against Bardella.
News Ledes
Hurrah!New York Times: "In a lively decision that relied as much on dictionaries, grammar and usage as it did on legal analysis, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that corporations have no personal privacy rights for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act." Update: here's the ruling (pdf).
Not the Education Governor. New York Times: "Gov. Scott Walker, whose push to limit collective bargaining rights and increase health and pension costs for public workers has set off a national debate, proposed a new budget for Wisconsin on Tuesday that called for deep cuts to state aid to schools and local governments, provoking a new wave of fury.... Walker sets aside nearly $200 million for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Walker's public-private hybrid replacement for the state Department of Commerce" ...
... Wisconsin State Journal: "Education and local government bear the brunt of Gov. Scott Walker's first budget, a reform-minded plan that cuts about $1 billion in state aid and prevents officials from raising taxes to make up the difference." ...
... Not the Health Care Governor. Related: "Wisconsin would cut Medicaid spending by $500 million over the next two years, with much of the savings coming from Family Care, under Gov. Scott Walker's budget released Tuesday. But state Medicaid spending still would go up overall because the state must pay $1.3 billion over the two years to replace federal stimulus money that has been supporting the program. That money ends this year." ...
... Not the Environmental Governor. Related: "State-mandated recycling, in place in Wisconsin since 1995, would be eliminated under Gov. Scott Walker's budget. And payments to local governments to run those programs — a total of $32 million this year — would be halted." ...
... The Tough on Nonviolent Crime Governor. Related: "A program allowing some nonviolent offenders to petition for early release from prison, which some Republican critics had derided as 'catch and release,' would be ended under the budget Gov. Scott Walker introduced Tuesday."
New York Times brief: "An anti-gang dragnet has led to the arrest of 678 gang members and their associates, most of them immigrants, in 168 cities, federal officials announced Tuesday."
Washington Post: "The House on Tuesday approved a stopgap measure that would keep the federal government funded through March 18 and cut $4 billion in spending by targeting programs that President Obama has already marked for elimination."
... Washington Post: "In a six-hour battle, rebels armed with tanks, anti aircraft guns and automatic weapons repelled an overnight attack by government troops using the same weapons in the town of Zawiya, 30 miles west of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported."
... Politico: "Showing the first signs of coming off the sideline, the White House made a late bid Monday to extend the life of a stopgap government funding bill to a full month and thereby allow more time for the administration to become engaged in the House-Senate talks."
AP: "China appears to be rolling back some press freedoms, barring foreign journalists from working near a popular Shanghai park and along a major Beijing shopping street after calls for weekly protests in those spots appeared online."
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