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.”

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday
Jun292023

But What About This?? June 29, 2023

Both the New York Times and Washington Post ran stories this week about how investigators were concerned that Donald Trump was hiding classified documents in his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. Other than new details the reporters added to the story about Trump moving boxes and Justice mulling over searches, it is an old story. Any reasonable person who has followed at least parts of the story suspects or is sure that Trump is still hoarding classified material somewhere.

For instance, one document that has never surfaced: the Iran war plan Trump apparently was waving around to impress the kids. Maybe Trump burned it in a roaring fire, but more likely it's in his socks drawer. After all, this is a guy who used a "classified evening summary" folder as a lampshade in his Mar-a-Lardo bedroom. He likes to keep this stuff. He likes to use this stuff. The FBI and the DOJ have plenty of evidence and reasonable suspicions that Trump is still holding many classified documents.

We can all be shocked at how cavalier Trump is with the nation's secrets. Keeping them in a publicly-accessible bathroom. Keeping them in a Mar-a-Lardo ballroom. Keeping them in an unlocked desk drawer. Moving them around the country in trucks, planes and limousines.

But what about this? What about the documents themselves? Aren't CIA officials and operatives terrified that Trump is still holding onto -- and maybe sharing -- documents that would compromise their operations? Why isn't there a huge push to retrieve all of the documents Trump is hiding? Why pussyfoot around worrying it would be unseemly to raid Bedminster and Trump Tower and the Doral Golf Club and all the other properties Trump owns or controls?

Our national security remains at risk every day Trump has those documents. Operatives' lives remain at risk. And we're worried about making a bad impression if we take measures to collect the documents? That does not make sense.

If I were Joe Biden, I would call a meeting of the National Security Council and work out a plan to retrieve the nation's secrets from the thief who stole them. Now. That's not interfering with law enforcement, Mr. President; that's not making a political decision. That's upholding your duty to protect the nation from an enemy within. Get out in front of this. And once the operation has been executed, own it. Keeping an arm's-length distance has not worked. You are the "leader of the free world" but for more than a year, you have left decisions about our own security to Merrick the Unready and a squad of chin-pullers. The stakes are high. The meek may some day inherit the earth, but in the meantime, they will not beat the bully. It takes a leader to do that.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (3)

Given how reckless Trump appears in the Bedminster audio tape, waving around a top secret war plan to giggles from his audience, showing off, doing his usual “I’m so wonderful”
stand-up routine, who would be so naive as to believe that this was the only time he’s done this sort of thing. I’m betting dozens of people have been given a look at top secret documents, all in the interest of boosting the Fat Fascist’s ego. And that’s not counting the dozens who may have taken a peek on their own into boxes stored out in the open for over a year.

It’s more than likely this treasonous bastard has more boxes full of this stuff stashed who knows where, maybe next to the bar in one of his golf resorts where he can pull them out to show off for the duffers who pay an arm and a leg to join his tinhorn country clubs.

Garland is not doing his job if he allows this rat bastard to get away with hanging on to this stuff for his own benefit.

June 29, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

The meek may inherit the earth but they tend to inherit small chunks on the order of six feet long by three feet wide by six feet deep.

June 29, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

Reading this made me see red again this morning. It's simply unacceptable that people are still tiptoeing around the fee-fees of this bull in a china shop who breaks everything he touches, AND his staff an admirers. There is no excuse for the DOJ to be as laid-back as it has been for so long. OF COURSE he has more, since he is a moron AND sociopath borderline psycho...I no longer want him perp-walked in an orange jumpsuit. I am basically against the death penalty, but am thinking more and more firing squad or Gitmo.

June 29, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne
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