The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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

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

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

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge.

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

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

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

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

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

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December 22, 2021

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Under intense pressure from criminal justice reform advocates, the Justice Department has reversed a Trump-era legal opinion that could have required several thousand federal convicts to return to prison from home confinement if the Biden administration declares an end to the pandemic-related national emergency. With the rise of the Omicron variant, such a milestone seems remote, but the new opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel meets demands from reformers and lawmakers that officials find a way to allow prisoners who;ve typically been living at home for a year or more under pandemic-related legal authorities to remain at home to serve out the remainder of their sentences."

A Lot of Crooks Are Living off Your Tax Dollars. Eamon Javers & Scott Zamost of CNBC: "Criminals have stolen close to $100 billion in pandemic relief funds, the U.S. Secret Service said Tuesday. The stolen funds were diverted by fraudsters from the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and a another program set up to dole out unemployment assistance funds nationwide. More than $2.3 billion in stolen funds have been recovered so far, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects who span the spectrum from individuals to organized groups, according to the agency. The government has shelled out about $3.5 trillion in Covid relief money since early 2020, when the pandemic began.... The Secret Service currently has more than 900 active investigations related to pandemic fraud, Dotson said."

The Anecdotal Excuse, Ctd. Marie: Yesterday I linked to a Huff Post story that claimed, "In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children." I wrote, "This is the perfect argument. No matter that there is statistical proof that the child tax credit has been a boon to American children, Joe can always point to cases of parents squandering the benefits on drugs or other things that are of no benefit to their children.' So, ~~~

     ~~~ Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post: "Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has refused to support Democrats' Build Back Better Act, partly because he worries the bill's continuation of monthly child tax credit payments would subsidize drug use among some parents. Manchin's concern about the benefits may stem from complaints he heard from constituents, including a grandmother who he said complained to the senator's office that her daughter wasn't using the monthly payments to support her child.... JoAnna Vance, an advocate for the child tax credit, attending a meeting with Manchin, According to Vance,] 'He said he's gotten phone calls from one grandmother specifically talking about her crackhead daughter ― he used the word crackhead three times ― talking about her crackhead daughter running around using the child tax credit to buy drugs and get high instead of it going where it needs to go.'..." ~~~

~~~ Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Amid the swirl of recriminations and second-guessing that followed the announcement by Senator Joe Manchin III that he would not support President Biden's signature domestic policy plan, one point of contention stood out: their differences over an expansion of the child tax credit." Cochrane digs into Manchin's objection to this aid to families but doesn't mention that alleged "crackhead" mom. MB: There's nothing obviously wrong with Cochrane's and the NYT's style of reporting, but you can see how what you might call "elevated style" also elevates Manchin by making his objections to the tax credit seem more reasoned.

Matt Egan of CNN: "A day after the West Virginia Democrat appeared to kill Build Back Better, America's largest coal mining union put out a statement lauding the legislation's provisions and pushing Manchin to take a do-over.... The 131-year-old UMWA called out several items that it believes are crucial to its members and communities, including extending the fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of black lung." Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Joseph Choi of the Hill: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said on Tuesday she is open to discussing proposals to overhaul an expanded child tax credit included in President Biden's American Rescue Plan that is set to expire in the next few days.... If the expanded child tax credit is allowed to expire then monthly payments would end for the families of about 60 million children.... Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued that there is still time to work out a deal for the tax credit. McConnell echoed Collins' concerns about the lack of a work requirement tied to the credit."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Two allies of ... Donald J. Trump took steps on Tuesday to try to stonewall the House committee investigating the Capitol attack as Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump's former national security adviser, filed a lawsuit against the panel, and a House Republican [-- Scott Perry of Pennsylvania -- ] who played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election refused to meet with investigators.... The House committee has said it wants information from Mr. Flynn because he attended a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the false idea that the election was tainted by widespread fraud. That meeting came after Mr. Flynn gave an interview to the right-wing media site Newsmax in which he talked about the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to 'rerun' the election.... Mr. Perry, the incoming chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, called the committee 'illegitimate.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, the Constitution requires a 2/3rds vote of the House to expel a member, and that isn't going to happen. So the next worst thing is censure, which requires only a majority vote. The House should censure Perry.

GOP Perpetuates the Big Lie. Daniel Dale of CNN: "Five Republican candidates for governor of Minnesota were asked at a forum last Wednesday whether they thought President Joe Biden won a 'constitutional majority in the Electoral College.' None of them was willing to utter a plain 'yes.' Their responses, which ranged from explicit inaccuracies to feeble dodges, made national news. But they weren't unusual.... A refusal to endorse the legitimacy of Biden's victory has become a key requirement in Republican primaries across the country. From conservative Alabama to the swing states of the Midwest, numerous Republicans trying to win party nominations in 2022 have joined ... Donald Trump in refusing to publicly admit that Trump just plain lost. Some candidates are aggressive, turning the lie that Trump was the rightful winner into a central part of their campaign pitches. Other candidates are evasive, straining to sidestep a direct answer on the question of Biden's legitimacy." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Danger They Pose. Gina Harkins of the Washington Post: "As Donald Trump began contesting the presidential election results in November 2020, CNN's chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, received a text from a man describing Stelter's mother's home, 'implying he was there.' It wasn't the only threatening message Stelter said he received from the man.... Stelter detailed the threats Monday night after testifying at the sentencing hearing for Robert Lemke, a California man who federal investigators say threatened about 50 people over their truthful 'statements expressing that then-President Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election.' On Monday, Lemke, 36, from Bay Point, Calif., was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty in October to threatening an unspecified journalist's New York-based family.... 'We are nearby, armed and ready,' [a] text message [from Lemke to a journalist's family member] said, according to court documents. 'Thousands of us are active/retired law enforcement, military, etc. That's how we do it.' That day, the brother of an unnamed congressman representing New York received a similar message from Lemke." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AND there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ A Standing O for a Killer. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Weeks after Kyle Rittenhouse said he wanted to 'lay low' when he was found not guilty of homicide, attempted homicide and other charges related to last year's fatal shootings that rocked Kenosha, Wis., the teen was welcomed Monday at a conservative conference to music, pyrotechnics and a standing ovation from thousands of attendees.... Those in attendance chanted 'Kyle! Kyle! Kyle!' in the moments before he walked onstage, the Arizona Republic reported.... 'You're a hero to millions,' Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk told Rittenhouse during the group's AmericaFest gathering in Phoenix. 'It's an honor to be able to have you.'... Rittenhouse ... suggested Monday that lawsuits could be filed against media outlets for how they covered his murder trial.... In a 45-minute panel discussion..., Rittenhouse said he was a scapegoat in an alleged government effort to take away people's guns. 'My trial was an example of them trying to come after our Second Amendment rights, our right to defend ourselves and trying to take our weapons,' he told the crowd." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah, vigilante Rittenhouse carried an illegally-obtained semi-automatic rifle to a city & state where he didn't live for the purpose of taking on protesters against the police shooting of a Black man. If I were the "government," I definitely would take away his gun.

** By Any Means. Linda So & Jason Szep of Reuters: "A member of Donald Trump';s 2020 presidential campaign arranged and participated in a meeting at which a Georgia election worker says she was pressed by a Chicago publicist to falsely admit voting fraud. The revelation directly ties a senior figure in the former president's political operation to an extraordinary late-night Jan. 4 meeting in which a $16-an-hour election worker faced pressure to implicate herself in a baseless conspiracy theory, stoked by Trump himself, as he sought to overturn his Georgia election loss. Harrison Floyd - who was executive director of a national campaign coalition called Black Voices for Trump in 2020 - told Reuters on Monday that he asked Chicago publicist Trevian Kutti to visit the Atlanta area to speak with 62-year-old temporary election worker Ruby Freeman. Floyd said he then participated by phone in a meeting Kutti held with Freeman at a police station in Georgia's Cobb County. Kutti was accompanied at the meeting by another Trump campaign figure: Garrison Douglas, who was a Georgia leader in Black Voices for Trump during the campaign and now works as a Republican Party spokesperson in the state.... Floyd said he recruited Douglas and Kutti because he was unable to attend himself."

Tatum Hunter & Gerrit De Vynck of the Washington Post: "On Dec. 9, word of a newly discovered computer bug in a hugely popular piece of computer code started rippling around the cybersecurity community. By the next day, nearly every major software company was in crisis mode, trying to figure out how their products were affected and how they could patch the hole. The descriptions used by security experts to describe the new vulnerability in an extremely common section of code called log4j border on the apocalyptic.... Log4j is a chunk of code that helps software applications keep track of their past activities.... A few weeks ago, the cybersecurity community realized that by simply asking the program to log a line of malicious code, it would execute that code in the process, effectively letting bad actors grab control of servers that are running log4j.... Experts say it's the biggest software vulnerability of all time in terms of the number of services, sites and devices exposed. The fact that log4j is such a ubiquitous piece of software is what makes this such a big deal.... The best thing regular computer users can do is make sure the apps they use are updated to their most recent versions...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Congressional Races

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican and a potential future leader, is seriously considering retiring after next year, a prospect that has set off an intensifying private campaign from other Republicans urging him to seek re-election. Mr. Thune is only 60, but a combination of family concerns and ... Donald J. Trump's enduring grip on the Republican Party have prompted the senator, who is in his third term, to tell associates and reporters in his home state that 2022 could be his last year in Congress.... That Mr. Thune would even entertain retirement with the chance to ascend to Senate Republican leader illustrates both the strain of today's Congress and the shadow Mr. Trump casts over the party."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Veteran Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) plans to retire at the end of his eighth term, bringing to 23 the number of Democrats who have said they won't seek reelection during next year's midterms, in which the party risks losing control of the House.... Sires, who plans an official announcement of his retirement early next year, told local media that he is backing Robert Menendez Jr., the son of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), as his successor for his northern New Jersey district."


AP: "A Harvard University professor charged with hiding his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program was found guilty on all counts Tuesday. Charles Lieber, 62, the former chair of Harvard's department of chemistry and chemical biology, had pleaded not guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of making false statements, and two counts of failing to file reports for a foreign bank account in China." The New York Times story is here.

The Pandemic, Ctd., Brought to You by the Unvaccinated

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here.

Andrew Jeong of the Washington Post: "President Biden on Tuesday outlined plans to expand coronavirus testing sites across the country, distribute a half-billion free at-home tests and deploy more federal health resources to aid strained hospitals, as the omicron variant drives a fresh wave of infections.... The president said Americans have an obligation to get vaccinated, calling it a 'patriotic duty,' and pointed to former president Donald Trump's comment that he got his vaccine booster shot. Biden stressed that while the number of covid cases have soared to levels not seen since 2020, the outlook was far different with vaccines and other treatment. 'This is not March of 2020. Two hundred million people are fully vaccinated. We're prepared. We know more,' he said." ~~~

** Mike Schneider of the AP: "U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation's founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday. The United States grew by only 0.1%, with an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population from July 2020 to July 2021, bringing the nation's count to 331.8 million people, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The U.S. has been experiencing slow population growth for years but the pandemic exacerbated that trend. This past year was the first time since 1937 that the nation's population grew by less than 1 million people."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Samantha Pell of the Washington Post: "The NHL will halt its season Wednesday amid a spike in coronaviru cases and the rise of the omicron variant, the league announced Monday night, becoming the first major pro sports league in North America with plans to halt play entirely, albeit briefly. Team facilities will be closed from Wednesday through Saturday, and players will return Sunday for coronavirus testing and practice. Games are in line to resume Monday, Dec. 27. The league's previously scheduled holiday break was Friday through Sunday." (Also linked yesterday.)

Quint Forgey of Politico: "Anthony Fauci ... on Tuesday called on Fox News to fire host Jesse Watters for targeting him with violent rhetoric at a conservative conference earlier this week. '...The guy should be fired on the spot.' Speaking on Monday at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest conference, Watters encouraged attendees to rhetorically 'ambush' Fauci with dubious questions about the National Institutes of Health allegedly funding 'gain-of-function' research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 'Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn't see it coming,' Watters said.... Fox News declined to comment on the record on whether it endorses Watters' remarks or plans to take disciplinary action against him. Fox News also did not respond to a request for comment on Fauci's critique of the network.... Lara Logan, a Fox News personality and host on its streaming service, compared him to the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele earlier this month.... Fauci rebuked Fox News for not taking disciplinary action against Logan...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Watters made his name on Fox ambushing public figures and others with stupid questions when his was a regular on Bill O'Reilly's now-defunct Fox show. ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Emma Goldberg of the New York Times: "Fox Corporation, the owner of Fox News, told employees on Friday that those working in New York City would have to show proof they'd had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine by Dec. 27, removing the option to get tested weekly instead. The new policy was in keeping with New York City's vaccine rule, which Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in early December and which is more stringent than a contested Biden administration rule requiring vaccine mandates or weekly testing at larger employers. The New York City mandate, which requires on-site workers at all businesses to be vaccinated, is the country's most sweeping local vaccine mandate and affects some 184,000 businesses. 'Our policy reflects the guidelines of the mandate,' a spokesman for Fox Corporation said in an email on Monday. More than 90 percent of Fox's employees are vaccinated, the company said." (Also linked yesterday.)

New York. Emma Fitzsimmons of the New York Times: New York City Mayor-elect Eric "Adams, who takes office on Jan. 1, canceled [his inauguration] ceremony on Tuesday, one of several developments that underscored how the latest wave of coronavirus cases has thrown New York City's recovery into doubt and shifted priorities as the year ends. The number of reported cases in the city has surged in recent days to more than 15,000 on Monday, the highest level since at least January and about four times the number of cases recorded just one week earlier."

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. Susan McCord of the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle: "Lincoln County is trying to close all but one [of seven] polling place[s] for next year's elections, a move opposed by voting and civil rights groups.... The move was made possible after the Georgia General Assembly [MB: controlled by Republicans] passed legislation earlier this year disbanding the Lincoln County Board of Elections. The chief sponsor of Senate bills 282 and 283 was Sen. Lee Anderson, R-Grovetown, whose district includes Lincoln County.... Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, said the move is an extension of Senate Bill 202, which tightened restrictions on voting and gave the state the authority to take over elections boards.... With multiple voting changes from Senate Bill 202 already underway, adding the precinct closures in a county that lacks a public transportation budget -- and attempting to pass them over the holiday season -- is too much, Dennis said."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (6)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/the-truth-about-joe-manchin-and-build-back-better.html#comments. Sarah Jones does a pretty fair takedown of Man-chin. The fact he announcing his doings on Fox is who he thinks his bosses are and what his people respond to. I'm reminded of the images of Margaret Bourke White and Doris Ullman; technology and the velocity of change has accelerated and the people not so much.

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625

I's have to think that these Democratic congressmen and women that are retiring in the expectation of Democrats losing the House majority are well on the way to making it a self fulfilling prophecy.

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

Try, try, try again...


Some bedtime reading for SCOTUS Catholics:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/14/upshot/who-gets-abortions-in-america.html?

Might help them refine their aim...whatever their object.

If they're worried that the population is not growing fast enough they might want to know that in the U. S. there were approx. 640,000 abortions in 2018, about twice the number by which our population grew last year. Those fetuses forcibly brought to term might have helped.

But who knows what's on their mind?

I couldn't find a count on miscarriages (not of justice) or of the untold numbers, in the millions I'm sure, prevented by (horrors!) contraception.

Seems those Catholic justices who seem firmly attached to the Eleventh Commandment--if that's what's really on their collective minds--have a whole lot of work to do.

If they just told me what they're up to, tho’ my age could be a barrier, I might be glad to help.

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Pfizer covid pill approved. KA-CHING!

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed

I listened in the car to NPR (WAMU) around 1030 this morning, host was interviewing pandemic "experts" and topic was President Biden's exhortation yesterday. One of the experts (Ed?) went on and on about how President Biden was alienating rather than persuading the unvaccinated, by threatening them with disease and death if they don't take the vax. Expert considered this to be poor tactics, rather than "meeting the resistant where they are."

Wow. So President Biden says if you walk in the rain without an umbrella you'll get really wet -- and that's like threatening to make someone wet.

I am really getting tired of this BS.

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Patrick: tired? I am trying–––so hard–- not to get mired into their obsessive singularity of purpose which smacks of–--once again---both sides syndrome. I find myself unable to be cheerful and optimistic in the greetings I'm sending out this year. The ubiquitous "Merry Christmas" "Happy New Year" cheer. Not this year–-it's dour and distant and full of anxiety.

But we carry on, don't we? Tomorrow we make the squid and the spinach bread to bring to the feast on Friday and we'll laugh and enjoy ourselves and forget–-for a little while––-how things are falling apart.

December 22, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe
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