The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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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 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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May 13, 2023

Another GOP Show Hearing Goes Awry. Stephen Groves of the AP: "An ex-prosecutor who once oversaw Manhattan's investigation of ... Donald Trump declined to substantively answer questions at a closed-door deposition Friday of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a Republican lawmaker in the meeting. The prosecutor and his boss said he was merely abiding by grand jury rules. Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, exited the meeting after roughly one hour and said Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment that protects people from providing self-incriminating testimony.... Issa ... told reporters, 'This is an obstructing witness who has no intention of answering any questions.'... Pomerantz in a written opening statement called the committee's inquiry itself 'an act of political theater.' He also explained he was invoking the Fifth Amendment because the Manhattan District Attorney's office had previously warned him before he published a book on the investigation that he could face criminal liability if he revealed grand jury material or violated a provision of the New York City Charter dealing with misuse of confidential information."

Robert Legare of CBS News: "In the same Washington, D.C., courthouse where the Justice Department has been convening grand juries to investigate ... Donald Trump's actions around the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified documents, federal prosecutors managing a separate case were successful Friday in their request to delay a Trump deposition that had been scheduled for later this month in a four-year-old civil lawsuit filed by former FBI officials. Former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and a one-time attorney at the Bureau, Lisa Page, sued the Justice Department after they were both fired during the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In the course of the investigation, text messages exchanged by the two revealed anti-Trump sentiments.... In a minute order issued Friday evening, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in favor of the Justice Department's request that FBI Director Christopher Wray be deposed before Strzok has a chance to question Trump."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post notices how Republican lawmakers all over the country have suddenly become anti-business, Soviet-style economic planners.

** Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "The problem of the Supreme Court isn't that its members are mired in ethics scandals (although they are). It isn't that it's been captured by a network of conservative apparatchiks and right-wing billionaires (although it has). No, the problem of the Supreme Court is that it is a powerful and unaccountable branch of government whose traditional role has been to protect the rights of property and the prerogatives of the privileged above all other concerns. And on those rare occasions where the court has worked for the interests of ordinary Americans -- for workers, for Black Americans, for sexual minorities -- it has been to either reverse previous decisions (such as Brown v. Board of Education's reversal of Plessy v. Ferguson) or free Congress to enforce the Constitution as written.... If the court appeared liberal -- or at least friendly to liberalism -- in the first decades after the Second World War, it was because of the hegemony of New Deal liberalism over American politics, not because of any inherent quality of the Supreme Court itself.... [And] without court expansion or other serious reforms to the structure of the court -- and absent unforeseen circumstances like an inopportune death -- Republicans can expect to hold a majority on the Supreme Court until 2065, according to a recent [academic] paper...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Bouie's analysis may sound radical to you, but I think he's got it just right. And when you think about it, any institution that fairly demands its members come up through the ranks of Harvard & Yale Law School alumni is not likely to be egalitarian in nature.

No Surprise Here. Alex Griffing of Mediaite: "CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy was reportedly scolded by his boss Chris Licht, the chairman and CEO of the network, over his critical coverage of the network's Trump town hall on Wednesday night. Puck's Dylan Byers reported Friday that Licht 'summoned' Darcy 'and his editor to a meeting with himself and top executives in which they told him that his coverage of Trump town hall had been too emotional and stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate.'... 'Darcy stood by his work and pushed back on the "emotional" characterization, one source with knowledge of the meeting said. But afterward two sources who heard about the meeting described him as visibly shaken,' Byers reported.... Darcy took over Brian Stelter's Reliable Sources newsletter after Licht ousted Stelter at the network." MB: Licht fired Stelter and some other CNN personalities, supposedly because they were "too liberal." ~~~

~~~ Anderson Drinks the Kool-Aid, Passes Out Free Samples. Samantha Chery of the Washington Post: "CNN star Anderson Cooper defended his network's widely reviled town hall with ... Donald Trump, condemning 'ridiculous lies' Trump told at the event, but also admonishing critics who feel that CNN should have never held it.... Cooper said on his show late Thursday..., '...do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Anderson, do you think giving a platform designed to make the popular leader of a coup look good is going to make him go away? ~~~

     ~~~ Late yesterday in the Comments section, Akhilleus wrote a very good “and another thing' about CNN's The Trump Show disaster. One of the perps Akhilleus mentioned was this guy: "CNN is now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Discovery's largest shareholder, who now has a seat on CNN's board, is John Malone, a right-wing media billionaire who has publicly stated that his goal is to remake CNN in the mold of Fox News." Yes, you say, but maybe Malone is among those right-wing billionaires who don't like Trump. Well, whaddaboud this:

A frequent donor to Republican candidates and causes, [Malone] chipped in $250,000 to Trump's inauguration fund, tens of thousands of dollars to Trump's 2020 campaign and political committees focused on his reelection, and even 'contributed to Trump's "Save America" PAC, which funded the January 6 rally' at which Trump encouraged the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, as my former colleague Parker Molloy reported. -- Matt Gertz of Media Matters, a column worth reading in full

Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "Many audience members at CNN's town hall with ... Donald Trump on Wednesday were 'disgusted' and 'bewildered' by the spectacle, but were told to be respectful and not to boo, according to a report. 'The floor manager came out ahead of time and said, Please do not boo, please be respectful. You were allowed to applaud,' claimed Republican political consultant Matthew Bartlett in an interview with Puck News senior political correspondent Tara Palmeri on Thursday.... He estimated that while around half of the audience expressed vocal support for Trump, the other half sat in silence. Bartlett also alleged that Trump repeatedly 'lost the audience' when he spoke about topics like January 6 or the results of the 2020 election, despite the appearance on CNN that the audience was consistently on his side." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If it's true the show's floor manager went out of his way to make the audience look more Trumpish than they actually were, CNN looks even worse.

Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was willing to threaten lower-level company employees he felt were hurting the Fox brand by running critical stories about Donald Trump, newly-revealed text messages obtained by The Daily Beast show.... 'I'm happy to start threatening people individually,' [Carlson wrote in November 2020 in a text to his producer Justin Wells, whom Fox also terminated]. 'It's too much. And again, it will hurt us badly if we let it continue.'" The issue at hand was a print story about Trump's doing the annual turkey pardon despite being a lame duck president*.

Beyond the Beltway

Nevada. Gideon Rubin of the Raw Story: "A group of Nevada Republican electors who submitted paperwork that falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the Silver State's 2020 election will not face state charges, KLAS-TV Las Vegas reports. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, said Thursday that the fake electors won't face charges because the state doesn't have a statute under which they can be prosecuted. Former Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, oversaw the official certification of the state's six electoral votes for Joe Biden, who won the state by more than 33,000 votes. On the same day the election was certified, the Nevada GOP's six electors signed paperwork indicating their support for Trump in a symbolic ceremony. Nevada GOP Party Chair Michael McDonald and 2024 U.S. Senate candidate Jim Marchant were among those who signed on." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, I'll bet Ford could have found a state statute that would have worked. According to the KLAS story, "Upon receiving the fake electoral votes from the Nevada GOP, the U.S. Senate Parliamentarian noted the document contained 'no seal of the state' and 'no evidence votes were delivered by the executive of the state for signature by electors,' the committee's final report said." That is, Nevada's fake electors submitted their fake certification notice to the U.S. Parliamentarian. It's almost certain Nevada has a general statute outlawing the signing of false documents. Without it, people would be signing false statements whenever it was to their advantage to do so.

New York. Hurubie Meko & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who choked and killed Jordan Neely, a homeless man, on the subway last week, surrendered on Friday to face a charge of second-degree manslaughter. Mr. Penny, 24..., walked through the front doors of the Police Department's Fifth Precinct at around 8 a.m. Hands cuffed behind his back, Mr. Penny was led out of the precinct at 10:38 a.m. He was put into a waiting black police car to be taken to Manhattan Criminal Court, where he was to be arraigned later Friday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "Daniel Penny, who while riding the subway last week choked Jordan Neely, a homeless man, to death, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Friday on a charge of second-degree manslaughter, taking his first formal steps as a defendant in a case that has stunned New York City."

Way Beyond

Pakistan. Sophia Saifi, et al., of CNN: "Pakistan's former prime minister, Imran Khan, has been granted bail by the Islamabad High Court, days after his dramatic arrest over corruption charges set off a deadly outpouring of anger against the country's military. Khan left the court on Friday under police protection to return to Lahore. Before leaving, he predicted he could be arrested again, despite a court order barring authorities from arresting him on any charges until Monday."

Russia. Welcome to Trumpingrad! Tim Hume of Vice: "Plans are underway in Russia to build a settlement for conservative American and Canadian immigrants seeking to leave the West 'for ideological reasons,' at least according to a Moscow-based immigration lawyer. Timur Beslangurov, a partner in the law firm VISTA Immigration, claimed that construction would begin next year on a village in the Moscow region for about 200 families from North America, financed by the immigrants themselves.... VICE News contacted Beslangurov asking for further information on the reported project, and to speak with some of the hundreds of potential Western immigrants he said existed to help verify his claims, but he replied that he wasn't able to provide further information 'at this stage.' Russian President Vladimir Putin has wooed Western right-wingers and conservatives by positioning himself as a staunch defender of a traditionalist, Christian European identity, resulting in pro-Russian narratives about the invasion of Ukraine becoming widespread in far-right and conspiracist networks."

Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Rome Saturday, where he will hold meetings with Italy's president and prime minister. He is also set to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican. It is the first time he is meeting the pontiff since Russia's invasion, though ultimately Francis' influence over the conflict may be limited. Ukrainian officials announced air alerts throughout the country early Saturday, reporting multiple injuries."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

That the Court is overwhelmingly Catholic is more dangersous than it being Harvard/Yale-centric.

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterTerence

@Terrence: A little over 20% of Americans are Roman Catholic. Six of the justices, or 67%. So yeah. However, I don't see how that is particularly dangerous inasmuch as Roman Catholics have various political views. Pope Francis himself is pretty liberal, as is Justice Sotomayor. Meanwhile, Thomas & Alito, both Roman Catholics are reactionary bastids, but in ways that often don't align with Roman Catholic doctrine.

Also, I'm not sure how "dangerous" the Supremes' historic and ongoing elitism is. It's just bad for the country in general and specifically for those of us who are not rich and/or otherwise privileged. And one thing a job for life -- a job from which it's almost impossible to get fired -- makes you is privileged.

May 13, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

The comment by Terence is relevant and right and is something Fintan O'Toole has taken up many times.

One of the highlights among the lowlights of so much of our news is that Buddy Holly has come back as a Petit basset griffton vendeér. Yowza!

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterP.D.Pepe

@P.D.Pepe: For those of us not in the know, that was the

Westminster Kennel Club dog show, and a dog named Buddy Holly

won best in show. Had to look it up.

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris

So I logged on for one comment but news of the Westminster Kennel Club winner deserves a moment. As Buddy Holly (the original) might have said, “Well, All Right”.

I’d just remind the furry version to stay away from planes. Woof!

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Republican contempt for judicial processes and the parts of the Constitution that don’t, by their interpretation, allow for mass murder, just oozes from their pores like sweat in a sauna.

Here’s Darrell Issa (whenever I see his name in print I think to myself “Is that asshole still around?”) whining about his lack of success In helping the out the Fat Traitor:

“This is an obstructing witness who has no intention of answering any questions.”

They left out the “harrumph”.

Darrell, it’s called the Fifth Amendment. Schmucko. It’s the part of the Constitution that Fatty and his criminal idiot spawn are most familiar with.

So you invoke your Constitutional rights and you’re an “obstructing witness”. Yeah. Obstructing your bullshit.

And hey, ol, Darrell must know all about being an obstructing witness. Isssa “…was himself indicted for stealing a car, accused of stealing at least one other car, arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and twice suspected of insurance fraud – and once extensively investigated by authorities for arson, because his former business associates accused him, on the record, of burning down a building to collect the insurance payout.”

Think he considered the Fifth at any point?

A schmuck with that kind of rap sheet is now demanding that anyone connected with holding his dear leader to the rule of law be hung out to dry. Marie is right. IOKIYAR doesn’t really fit anymore. These people are so far around the bend on everything they’re coming up fast on their own asses.

https://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_farce_that_is_darrell_issa/

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

May 13 is World Cocktail Day.

It must be 5:00 P.M. somewhere in the world.

Why does this orange juice remind me of a former president*?

May 13, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris
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