The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
The Ledes

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the progress of Hurricane Helene. “Helene continued to power north in the Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a hurricane Wednesday morning, on a path that forecasters expect will bring heavy amounts of rain to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and western Cuba before it begins to move toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.” ~~~

~~~ CNN: “Helene rapidly intensified into a hurricane Wednesday as it plows toward a Florida landfall as the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in over a year. The storm will also grow into a massive, sprawling monster as it continues to intensify, one that won’t just slam Florida, but also much of the Southeast.... Thousands of Florida residents have already been forced to evacuate and nearly the entire state is under alerts as the storm threatens to unleash flooding rainfall, damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.... The hurricane unleashed its fury on parts of Mexico’s Yucátan Peninsula and Cuba Wednesday.“

Help!

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

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, 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.

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

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

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

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."

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links

Constant Comments

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Sunday
Aug202017

Reality Chex Names New Editor

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie.The board of directors of RealityChex.com has named Mrs. Bea McCrabbie as the Website's new managing editor. Mrs. McCrabbie, who is new to fake journalism, is married to Medlar McCrabbie. In her first remarks upon assuming her new position, Mrs. McCrabbie said, "If readers thought the Constant Weader was a bitch, they are going to miss her milquetoast manners. I don't know if the board chose the Weader for her good looks or her good intentions, but I assure you, I have neither."

Mrs. McCrabbie will not be in the office on her first official day at the helm. She and Medlar are traveling to Santee, South Carolina, to watch the solar eclipse from the I-95 bridge over Lake Marion. "You people aren't exactly the sun and the moon, you know," she told the Reality Chex board.

In an interview, Mrs. McCrabbie said that @Nancy -- who hastened the departure of the Constant Weader -- on Sunday provided further evidence of her already-obvious malicious intent. Late Sunday morning, Nancy tried to break into Reality Chex. Fortunately, Reality Chex' security system not only caught the attempt but also prevented Nancy from sabotaging the site. "Donald Trump was right about one thing," Mrs. McCrabbie said. "There are some nasty-assed liberals out there. But they've met their match in Bea McCrabbie."

Comments have been disabled. Mrs. McCrabbie said she would not be taking any crap from readers today, what with having to rub shoulders with a bunch of ignorant, drunken rednecks in their sweaty muscle shirts & greasy MAGA caps loafing on the Santee bridge. 

Comments Off
Sunday
Aug202017

The Commentariat -- August 21, 2017

Afternoon Update:

William Booth & James McAuley of the Washington Post: "The Moroccan-born man who authorities say was the driver of the van that plowed down pedestrians in a crowded tourist zone in Barcelona last week was shot dead by Spanish police Monday afternoon. Police confirmed that officers shot and killed Younes Abouyaaquob, 22, in the small town of Subirats, about an hour's drive west of Barcelona. Abouyaaquob has been the subject of a massive manhunt since he escaped on Thursday night after the van attack. Police said Abouyaaquob was wearing what appeared to be a suicide bomb vest when he was confronted by officers. Bomb squad officers deployed a robot to get near the prone body, only then learning that the suicide vest was a fake, they said."

Kevin Johnson of USA Today: "The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission -- in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump's family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast. Secret Service Director Randolph 'Tex' Alles ... said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandate caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.... Agents must protect Trump -- who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia -- and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas. 'The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,' Alles said.... Alles said the service is grappling with an unprecedented number of White House protectees. Under Trump, 42 people have protection, a number that includes 18 members of his family. That's up from 31 during the Obama administration. Overwork and constant travel have also been driving a recent exodus from the Secret Service ranks, yet without congressional intervention to provide additional funding, Alles will not even be able to pay agents for the work they have already done."

Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday applauded evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell Jr. for defending Trump's controversial response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.... 'Jerry Falwell of Liberty University was fantastic on @foxandfriends. The Fake News should listen to what he had to say. Thanks Jerry!' Trump tweeted. The president then responded to a Twitter user who said the media is trying to 'take you down,' claiming 'the very dishonest Fake News media is out of control!'... With other Republicans refusing to publicly defend Trump, the White House is relying on Falwell as a top surrogate for the president." ...

... Samantha Schmidt & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "After Trump's equivocation about neo-Nazi groups following the violence in Charlottesville,Falwell tweeted that he was 'so proud' of Trump for his 'bold truthful' statement on the tragedy. Falwell appeared on 'Fox & Friends' Monday morning to reiterate his support for the president.... In response to Falwell's unwavering support of Trump, Liberty University graduates are calling on fellow alumni to take a stand by returning their diplomas. They are also writing letters to Falwell's office and to the Board of Trustees, calling for his removal. More than 260 people have joined a Facebook group titled 'Return your diploma to LU.' By publicly 'revoking all ties, all support present and future,' the graduates hope to send a message to the school that 'could jeopardize future enrollment, finances and funding,' according to the Facebook group."

Politico: "... Donald Trump on Sunday called the collision between the U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and a tanker that left at least 10 sailors missing 'too bad' before tweeting support for the sailor's families."

Mr. & Mrs. Trump view the eclipse from the Truman balcony. More proof you cannot be dumber than Donald.

*****

... To find out what time the eclipse can be viewed in your area, go here. This page is set for Boston, Massachusetts, but you can plug the name of a city near you into the search box. Local times appears in the upper right corner of the video. ...

... Here's a still map of the path of the eclipse across the U.S. ...

... If you don't have NASA-approved solar-viewing glasses, here are a few ideas -- (1) and (2) and (3) -- on how you can view the eclipse through a do-it-yourself device. Remember, you face away from the sun using these methods & looking at a projection of the eclipse on the ground or inside your homemade projector. ...

... Andy Borowitz: "Attacking the media for its 'very unfair' coverage of Monday's solar eclipse, Donald J. Trump said on Saturday that the sun was equally to blame for blocking the moon." Mrs. McC Note: This is satire, you lunkheads. Don't write in complaining about fake news & asking why other media didn't cover Trump's lunatic tirade. Speaking of the Big Loon & the lunar, nobody could moon you like Trump. I told Medlar if he accidentally gets behind the Beast on I-95, I'm putting on my eclipse glasses right then & there. I wouldn't let Medlar scrape the Hillary! & faded Barack stickers off the bumpers, so you know Trump will "reply." Only hope for Medlar is the rear window of the Beast isn't big enough to cover the whole show.

 
NEW. Andrew Roth of the Washington Post: "The United States Embassy in Moscow announced Monday it would temporarily stop issuing all non-immigrant visas in Russia and then severely curtail visa operations as it slashes its staff to comply with the latest salvo in Washington's diplomatic standoff with Moscow."

Carol Morello & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Monday night will announce a 'path forward' on military strategy in Afghanistan, the White House said, offering his imprint on the longest-running war in U.S. history. Trump is scheduled to address the military and American people from Fort Myer in Arlington, Va., White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a brief statement Sunday afternoon." Trump will make a primetime address at 9 pm ET. ...

... Michael Gordan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump, who has been accused by lawmakers of dragging his feet on Afghanistan, has settled on a new strategy to carry on the nearly 16-year-old conflict there, administration officials said Sunday. The move, following a detailed review, is likely to open the door to the deployment of several thousand troops. 'The president has made a decision,' Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on an overnight flight that arrived in Amman, Jordan, on Sunday. 'I am very comfortable that the strategic process was sufficiently rigorous.'"

Max Greenwood of the Hill: "White House officials were notably absent from the morning news show lineups on Sunday, as President Trump capped off a turbulent week in his presidency. 'To give you a sense of how reluctant Republicans are to talk about President Trump this week, not one member of the current Republican leadership in Congress agreed to come on the broadcast this morning,' Chuck Todd, host of NBC's 'Meet the Press,' said. 'In fact, even the White House was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide a guest, right down to the White House press secretary.'"

You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill. -- Unidentified White House Official ...

... Mike Allen of Axios: Top White House officials explain -- off the record, of course -- why they're not quitting. ...

... Brian Beutler: "The notion that Donald Trump's presidency constitutes an open-ended, moment-to-moment crisis for the United States and the world is no longer a contested one. If there's one thing his staunchest allies and opponents agree on, it's that Trump is dangerous.... It speaks volumes about the precariousness of the situation that the most powerful senior officials in the executive branch, other than the president himself, spend so much of their time justifying their continued service.... It is extraordinary that members of this president's braintrust say they're sticking around only because they think they can save the president (and through him, all of us) from himself.... Nobody who claims to be protecting the public from even worse outcomes can credibly claim that their influence will last, or that they'll be in the right places at the right times whenever Trump's unbridled instincts tell him to do awful things. Their efforts to extend the Trump presidency expose the public to greater risk, not less."

John Wagner: "Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that he sees 'some serious issues' with President Trump's capabilities that aren't likely to get better but that it's premature to consider invoking a constitutional provision to force him from office.... Schiff ... said he does not agree with some fellow Democrats who have argued that it's time to invoke the 25th Amendment, which gives the vice president and eight Cabinet members the authority to unilaterally force the president from office if they deem him 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.' 'I think for that reason at a minimum, we need the very best people around him in the White House,' Schiff said of Trump." ...

... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that he and his colleagues are increasingly concerned about ... Donald Trump's mental fitness. 'There are some serious issues,' Schiff said on CNN's 'State of the Union,' adding that 'the pressures of the job may only get worse.'" ...

... Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "... interviews with his associates and documents reviewed by The New York Times indicate that [Rinat] Akhmetshin..., [a lobbyist who met with Donald Trump, Jr., & other Trump campaign officials last summer,] has much deeper ties to the Russian government and Kremlin-backed oligarchs than previously known. He has an association with a former deputy head of a Russian spy service, the F.S.B., and a history of working for close allies of President Vladimir V. Putin.... Mr. Akhmetshin's meeting with Trump campaign officials is of keen interest to [special counsel Robert] Mueller.... Of all the visitors who attended the June 2016 session at the Trump Tower, he appears to have the most direct ties to Russian intelligence." ...

... Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Countless amateur sleuths are on [Donald Trump's] case, from a short-order cook in Belfast, Northern Ireland, whose research was recently cited by The Daily Beast to a Florida art teacher who tells Politico he is applying his pattern-recognition skills to Trump's sprawling business empire. Undaunted by a lack of subpoena power or search warrants, and the government's vast legal and technical expertise, countless people like these are poring through Trump's personal and business records, as well as overlooked 2016 campaign clues. They share their findings through email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and even tips to reporters and the FBI. Most labor in obscurity, but all are motivated by the lottery-like odds of a discovery that has eluded journalists and prosecutors but which just might bring down a president.... This may sound like the pointless industry of conspiracy theorists, but some legal experts, and history itself, suggest they could make a difference. Among the 15,000 pieces of mail and 6,000 telegrams the Watergate special prosecutor received during his first year on the job, according an official report, an average of three or four 'substantial allegations' each month merited a deeper look.... The notion that the public could strike pay dirt is the reason [the FBI] maintains a website at which incoming tips are taken seriously."

Jeremy Peters & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "John F. Kelly, the new White House chief of staff, told Stephen K. Bannon in late July that he needed to go: No need for it to get messy, Mr. Kelly told Mr. Bannon, according to several people with firsthand knowledge of the exchange. The two worked out a mutually amicable departure date for mid-August, with President Trump's blessing. But as Mr. Trump struggled last week to contain a growing public furor over his response to a deadly, race-fueled melee in Virginia, Mr. Bannon clashed with Mr. Kelly over how the president should respond.... By Thursday, after Mr. Bannon undercut American policy toward North Korea in an interview published by a left-leaning magazine, Mr. Trump himself had concluded that Mr. Bannon was too much of a liability. By Friday, when he was forced from his job as Mr. Trump's chief strategist, Mr. Bannon had found himself wholly isolated inside a White House where he once operated with such autonomy that he reported only to the president himself."

Max Greenwood: "Breitbart News, the media outlet helmed by President Trump's former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, published an article on Sunday casting national security adviser H.R. McMaster as soft on Islamist extremism and terrorism." ...

Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair: Steve Bannon, back at the helm of Breitbart & planning to challenge Fox "News" for a slice of cable, is about to go ballistic on Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Gary Cohn & administration hawks.

Julia Manchester of the Hill: "President Trump blasted the news media ahead of his return to Washington on Sunday after a 17-day working vacation. 'Heading back to Washington after working hard and watching some of the worst and most dishonest Fake News reporting I have ever seen!' the president said."

Dara Lind of Vox: "... the ACLU is going to have to make some very quick decisions about when and how it will defend the far right in 2017.... In the days before the Unite the Right rally, it became clear that Charlottesville would be a gathering point for both right-wing rallygoers and left-wing counterprotesters. The city of Charlottesville attempted to defuse the situation by moving the Unite the Right rally away from its original location ... to a location farther away from the center of the city. The city argued it was trying to prevent confrontation. But to free-speech activists -- including the ACLU of Virginia -- it was a pretty standard attempt to use a rally permit to marginalize unpopular speech. So the organizers of the rally sued, with the ACLU's support, and won the right to keep the rally downtown.... [After the melee,] ACLU of Virginia board member Waldo Jaquith resigned, alleging on Twitter that the organization ignored signs that rally organizers were encouraging violence -- and that 'what is legal is not always right.'... On Thursday, the national organization appeared to [change its position] -- and draw a new line that would have prevented them from defending Unite the Right. ACLU director Anthony Romero told the Wall Street Journal: 'If a protest group insists, "No, we want to be able to carry loaded firearms," well, we don't have to represent them. They can find someone else.'... In practice, freedom of speech isn't exactly absolute: 'Government may not censor speech because of its viewpoint,' says former ACLU director Nadine Strossen, 'but it may censor speech because of its effects.'" ...

... Julia Manchester: "The Vice News reporter who followed white supremacist marching in Charlottesville said they were chanting about Jews, not the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. 'Once they started marching, they didn't talk about Robert E. Lee being a brilliant military tactician. They chanted about Jews. Like, they wanted to be menacing. It's not an accident,' Elle Reeve told CBS News' John Dickerson on CBS's 'Face the Nation.'" ...

... Alex Pareene in Splinter News: "Charlottesville Was a Preview of the Future of the Republican Party.... I'm not merely being glib: Racial resentment has been a driving force behind College Republican recruitment for years, but at this point it's really all they have left to offer.... Everything that has happened in American life since the election of George W. Bush, the last point at which the generation currently entering its 30s was 'up for grabs,' has only served to drive young people away from the Republican Party.... Meanwhile..., the alt-right absolutely comprises the only effective and successful youth outreach strategy the GOP currently employs.... The pool of people the Republican Party will be drawing from when selecting candidates a generation from now will contain these men and hardly anyone else.... This will be the legacy of Trumpism: It won't be long before voters who reflexively check the box labeled 'Republican' because their parents did, or because they think their property taxes are too high, or because Fox made them scared of terrorism, start electing Pepe racists to Congress."

Matea Gold & Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "The Republican National Committee paid the Trump International Hotel in Washington $122,000 last month after the party held a lavish fundraiser at the venue in June, the latest example of how GOP political committees are generating a steady income stream for President Trump's private business, new Federal Election Commission records show. At least 25 congressional campaigns, state parties and the Republican Governors Association have together spent more than $473,000 at Trump hotels or golf resorts this year, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign finance filings. Trump's companies collected an additional $793,000 from the RNC and the president's campaign committee.... The nearly $1.3 million spent by Republican political committees at Trump entities in 2017 has helped boost his company at a time when business is falling off at some core properties.... The RNC is among 19 federal political committees that have patronized the [Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.,] this year.... Trump's other signature properties also have drawn GOP fundraising events." ...

... Shannon Donnelly of the Palm Beach Post: "And then there were two. Or maybe four, depending on what happens when a couple of boards meet this week. Today, the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society and MorseLife both announced a change of venue for their annual Palm Beach fundraisers, from the Mar-a-Lago Club to -- well, not the Mar-a-Lago Club. That brings to 19 the number of charities that have decided to leave Mar-a-Lago in recent months, many in the past week. The defections leave only the Palm Beach Police Foundation's Policeman's Ball and the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Vets 'Spirit of America' holiday gala as remaining at the presidential retreat."

Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Labor leaders, once courted by President Trump, are stepping up their campaign to turn workers against the White House if it does not deliver more on jobs and trade -- and if it does not stop undoing Obama-era regulations. The most visible effort, which starts in Indianapolis on Monday afternoon, is a two-week tour organized by the coalition Good Jobs Nation that ropes in labor-friendly politicians. The coalition, launched in 2013 to pressure Barack Obama's White House on trade and wage issues, is organizing rallies throughout the Midwest through Labor Day. 'Trump ran as a working-class hero, so let's look at the results,' said Joseph Geevarghese, Good Jobs Nation's executive director. 'We're seven months into his administration, and wages are flat. People are still getting pink slips.'... The Trump administration has undone or walked away from a number of regulations that labor lobbied for, and won, under Obama...."

Comments Off
Saturday
Aug192017

The Commentariat -- August 20, 2017

Counter-protesters in Boston, Mass., August 19. ... Julia Jacobo, et al., of ABC News: "One week after violent protests rattled Charlottesville, Virginia, a scheduled free speech rally in Boston today was met with thousands of counterprotesters, but the day went off mostly smoothly, police said, with 33 arrests but few injuries. The free speech rally was deemed 'officially over' by police ahead of its official end time, but thousands of counterprotesters continued to spread out in the city throughout the afternoon, with some protesting peacefully but others confronting officers and people. A total of 33 arrests were made today, mostly from disorderly conduct and a few assaults on police officers, the Boston Police Department announced. Police Commissioner William Evans said at a news conference this afternoon that some urine-filled bottles were thrown at officers, and police indicated on Twitter that some demonstrators were throwing rocks at police.... Evans said that '99.9 percent of the people here were for the right reasons -- that's to fight bigotry and hate.'" ...

... Tara Golshan of Vox: "The Boston Free Speech rally, which many feared would draw a violent crowd of white supremacists Saturday, was instead overshadowed by thousands of counter-protesters denouncing bigotry and racism. The dueling demonstrations on Boston Common showed a shocking disparity in size. As Vox’s Alex Ward reported from the scene, the Free Speech rally, scheduled to begin at noon, was only permitted for 100 participants.... Meanwhile, counter-demonstrators ... filled the grounds outside a security perimeter, drowning out the speeches at the Free Speech rally. More anti-racism protesters, led by the Black Lives Matter chapter, marched through Boston Saturday from the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center to join the counter demonstration at Boston Common. Police are estimating roughly 15,000 people in the march, according to ABC News." ...

... Tyler Kingkade of BuzzFeed: "A right-wing event in Boston that billed itself a 'Free Speech Rally' attracted only a few dozen supporters on Saturday, while an estimated 40,000 counter-protesters turned up to demonstrate against racism." ...

... Brandon Patterson & Jamilah King of Mother Jones: "One week after a bitterly violent protest in Charlottesville, Va., that left one woman dead and 19 injured, tens of thousands of counter-protesters marched in at least 30 cities, including New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. to demonstrate their opposition to white nationalism. The largest protest by far was in Boston, where an estimated 30,000-40,000 counter-protesters showed up, according to the Boston Globe. Only a handful of people attended the planned 'Free Speech' protest, and they were quickly overwhelmed." ...

... The New York Times report, by Katharine Seelye & others, is here. ...

... Sarah Betancourt of the Guardian: "Donald Trump described anti-fascist and anti-racist demonstrators who converged on Boston as 'anti-police agitators' on Saturday, in a tweet that seemed destined to revive the still simmering controversy over his remarks equating the far right and anti-Nazis in Charlottesville last weekend.... But he later seemed to back the right to demonstrate....” ...

     ... Kevin Drum: "Nonviolence isn’t the answer to everything, but it is here. The best way to fight these creeps is to take their oxygen away and suffocate them. Fighting and bloodshed get headlines, which is what they want. So shut them down with lots of people but no violence. Eventually they’ll go back to their caves and the press will get bored. Of course, all of this depends on our president not doing anything further to support their cause. If that happens, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks." ...

... AP: "Duke University removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee early Saturday, days after it was vandalized amid a national debate about monuments to the Confederacy. The university said it removed the carved limestone likeness early Saturday from Duke Chapel where it stood among 10 historical figures depicted in the entryway.... '"I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university,' [Duke President Vincent] Price said in the letter. Durham has been a focal point in the debate over Confederate statues after protesters tore down a bronze Confederate soldier in front of a government building downtown. Eight people have been charged with tearing down the statue during a protest on Monday. Hundreds marched on Friday through downtown Durham in a largely peaceful demonstration against racism, leading to an impromptu rally at the site where the bronze statue was toppled." ...

... Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times: "... during a rally earlier this week to show solidarity in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., a [University of Southern California] campus group linked the name [of the university's mascot Traveler] to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, whose favorite horse was Traveller.... [Richard Saukko, who owned the first Traveler -- a movie horse -- & rode it in what was to be a one-off at a 1961 USC football game, has said the horse was already named when he purchased it.] The earliest mention of a connection between Lee and USC’s Traveler appears to have come in [Richard] Saukko’s four-paragraph obituary in The Times. 'Saukko's first horse was half Arabian, half Tennessee walker and was named Traveler I, after the horse of Civil War general Robert E. Lee,' the story said."

David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have elected not to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors in December amid a political backlash among those who will be feted at the event. The first family will not participate 'to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,' White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Saturday morning. The announcement comes as three of the five honorees — television producer Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade — said they would boycott the traditional White House reception related to the celebration. As for the other two, rapper LL Cool J had not said whether he would attend, and Cuban American singer Gloria Estefan said she would go to try to influence the president on immigration issues.... This is the first time in the awards' history that the White House portion of the festivities has been canceled."

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "During [a campaign] speech in Charlotte[, North Carolina, in early November 2016, President] Obama warned that no one really changes in the Presidency; rather, the office 'magnifies' who you already are. So if you 'accept the support of Klan sympathizers before you’re President, or you’re kind of slow in disowning it, saying, "Well, I don’t know," then that’s how you’ll be as President.'... [Afterwards, in a private conversation, Obama said,] 'We’ve seen this coming.... Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails.' For half a century, in fact, the leaders of the G.O.P. have fanned the lingering embers of racial resentment in the United States. Through shrewd political calculation and rhetoric, from Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” to the latest charges of voter fraud in majority-African-American districts, doing so has paid off at the ballot box.... The imperative is to find ways to counteract and diminish his malignant influence not only in the overtly political realm but also in the social and cultural one.” ...

... New York Times Editors: Donald Trump has changed the subtext of the GOP's "Southern strategy" into text. "For reasons of ineptitude and ideological complicity, the [Republican] party’s leaders did almost nothing to counter the Trump phenomenon, nor did they seek in any sustained fashion to temper his worst excesses, beginning with his false claims about President Barack Obama’s birth and proceeding onward through his demagogic Inaugural Address."

Mike Allen of Axios: "At the end, Trump was beyond fed up, viewing Bannon as a self-aggrandizer who had built a personal narrative as the grand puppetmaster. 'Who the f[uc]k does this guy think he is?' Trump has said incredulously to associates." ...

... digby: "Bannon is a self-professed chaos agent who is happy to use Trump's simple-minded vacuousness for his own purposes, one of which is obviously to 'let Trump be Trump.' But they are not on the same page, not really, and the fact that people still think that Trump is some kind of an economic populist or an isolationist in any way is frustrating. He has no philosophy, he has domination impulses. That's it." ...

... Ryan Lizza: "... in the Trump White House there is no Trump agenda. There is a mercurial, highly emotional narcissist with no policy expertise who set up — or allowed his senior staffers to set up — competing ideological fiefdoms that fight semi-public wars to define the soul of Trumpism.... The lasting legacy of Bannonism is the xenophobia and hostility to nonwhites that emanates from the White House and has remained a political fire that this Administration is constantly fanning. But, as we learned this week, Trump doesn’t need Bannon to keep those flames alive." ...

... Josh Marshall notes that Trump just fired the one guy who does not seem to have been implicated in the Russia scandal. But Marshall has a feeling Bannon knows a lot about Trump & other Friends of Vlad. 

Maureen Dowd tells a story about the time her Irish cop father quashed the local KKK. "There will be a lot of pain while this president is in office and the clock will turn back on many things. But we will come out stronger, once this last shriek of white supremacy and grievance and fear of the future is out of the system. Every day, President Trump teaches us what values we cherish — and they’re the opposite of his.... He’s no tough guy if he can’t stand up to the scum of the earth. He followed the roar of the crowd to dark, violent places, becoming ever more crazed and isolated and self-destructive, egged on by the egotist and erstwhile White House strategist Steve Bannon but really led by his own puerile and insatiable ego."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who faced calls from his Yale University classmates to resign in the wake of President Trump’s controversial comments about last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, defended the president Saturday and said he intends to stay in office. 'While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways,' Mnuchin, who is Jewish, said in a statement released by the Treasury Department."

Russ Feingold in the Guardian: "The lesson from Charlottesville is ... the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend’s horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants.... Words mean nothing if the Republican agenda doesn’t change.... Gerrymandering, strict voter ID laws, felon disenfranchisement are all aimed at one outcome: a voting class that is predominantly white, and in turn majority Republican.... Even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing."

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning. The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting administrator, Ben Friedman, informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel.... But NOAA communications director Julie Roberts said in an email Saturday that 'this action does not impact the completion of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which remains a key priority.'”


Faith Karimi, et al., of CNN: "North Korea warned Sunday that the upcoming US-South Korea military exercises are 'reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.' Pyongyang also declared that its army can target the United States anytime, and neither Guam, Hawaii nor the US mainland can 'dodge the merciless strike.' The messages in Rodong Sinmun, the official government newspaper, come a day before the US starts the Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises with South Korea."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Ten U.S. Navy sailors are missing and five have been injured after the USS John S. McCain destroyer collided with an oil tanker near Singapore early Monday morning. This is the second time in two months that a Navy destroyer based at the 7th Fleet’s home port of Yokosuka, Japan, has been involved in a collision. Seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a tanker south of Japan in June."

New York Times: "Jerry Lewis, the comedian and filmmaker who was adored by many, disdained by others, but unquestionably a defining figure of American entertainment in the 20th century, died on Sunday morning at his home in Las Vegas. He was 91."

New York Times: "... a team led by Paul G. Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, announced that it had found unmistakable wreckage of the Indianapolis [-- a U.S. Navy cruiser sunk by the Japanese during World War II --] 18,000 feet deep in the Philippine Sea, rekindling memories of the Navy’s worst disaster at sea."

Comments Off
Page 1 ... 880 881 882 883 884 ... 1740 Next 3 Entries ยป