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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Monday
Nov292021

November 30, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected a request from Oklahoma's governor to exempt his state's National Guard members from the coronavirus vaccine requirement, the latest salvo in a showdown that could result in punishments -- including removal from the military -- for service members who refuse to comply with the Pentagon's mandate. Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), the only governor to enact such a policy, maintains that he possesses the authority to sidestep federal directives while troops are under the state's control, his office said, and is exploring legal guidelines on who can be punished for refusing the Pentagon's orders."

Meadows Puts His Own Future Before Trump's. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under ... Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to provide documents and sit for a deposition, the panel said on Tuesday, a stunning reversal for a crucial witness in the inquiry. The change of stance for Mr. Meadows, who had previously refused to cooperate with the committee in line with a directive from Mr. Trump, came as the panel prepared to seek criminal contempt of Congress charges against a second witness who has stonewalled its subpoenas. It marked a turnabout after weeks of private wrangling between the former chief of staff and the select committee over whether he would participate in the investigation, and to what degree." CNN's report is here.

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Three federal appellate judges appear likely to reject Donald Trump's effort to block Jan. 6 investigators from obtaining his White House records -- a big potential boost for lawmakers hoping to reveal the former president's actions as a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol. 'We have one president at a time under our constitution,' said Patricia Millett, one of the three judges on the D.C. Circuit panel that heard arguments Tuesday in the high-profile fight. 'That incumbent president ... has made the judgment and is best positioned, as the Supreme Court has told us, to make that call as to the interests of the executive branch.' As they questioned Trump's lawyers, the judges repeatedly expressed skepticism that a former president could override a decision by the sitting president -- in this case Joe Biden -- to release documents to Congress, particularly when the incumbent has decided it's in the national interest to release records to investigators."

Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Hours before the deadly attack on the US Capitol this year, Donald Trump made several calls from the White House to top lieutenants at the Willard hotel in Washington and talked about ways to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election win from taking place on 6 January. The former president first told the lieutenants his vice-president, Mike Pence, was reluctant to go along with the plan to commandeer his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress in a way that would allow Trump to retain the presidency for a second term. But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden's certification from taking place on 6 January, and delay the certification process to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress. The former president's remarks came as part of strategy discussions he had from the White House with the lieutenants at the Willard -- a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon -- about delaying the certification.... The former president's call ... is increasingly a central focus of the House select committee's investigation into the Capitol attack, as it raises the specter of a possible connection between Trump and the insurrection."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the notorious Mexican drug lord best known as El Chapo, was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in prison on charges of helping run her husband's multibillion-dollar criminal empire and playing a role in his escape from custody after he was captured in 2014. Ms. Coronel, a former beauty queen who married El Chapo -- whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera -- in 2007, on her 18th birthday, was arrested at Dulles International Airport, near Washington, in February, two years after her husband was convicted at a trial in New York City and sentenced to life in prison. She had been in the cross-hairs of U.S. authorities for months. She ultimately pleaded guilty in June to helping Mr. Guzmán smuggle drugs across the U.S. border and make his dramatic flight from a high-security Mexican prison...."

CBS/AP: "Dutch health authorities announced on Tuesday that they found the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus in cases dating back as long as 11 days, indicating that it was already spreading in western Europe before the first cases were identified in southern Africa. The RIVM health institute said it found Omicron in samples dating from November 19 and 23. Those findings predate the positive cases found among passengers who came from South Africa last Friday and were tested at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport."

Pennsylvania. Marc Levy of the AP: "Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV's Dr. Oz Show after rocketing to fame on Oprah Winfrey's show, announced Tuesday that he is running for Pennsylvania's open U.S. Senate seat as a Republican. Oz, 61, will bring his unrivaled name recognition and wealth to a wide-open race that is expected to among the nation's most competitive and could determine control of the Senate in next year's election. Oz -- a longtime New Jersey resident -- enters a Republican field that is resetting with an influx of candidates and a new opportunity to appeal to voters loyal to ... Donald Trump, now that the candidate endorsed by Trump has just exited the race." MB: Every character mentioned in this story -- Oz, Oprah & Donald -- is an iconic American crackpot. What a country!

~~~~~~~~~~

Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Marie: Maybe Joe Biden is showing his age, after all. Several times this afternoon, CNN posted a chyron -- actually, two different chryons -- that announced "Breaking News: Biden Addresses Duel Problems." In fact, watching Biden's press conference early this afternoon on the new coronavirus variant was comforting; it was as if a kindly elder statesman was explaining a serious problem to the kids. No suggestions about bleaching the virus; no telling reporters they were "a disgrace," or were asking stupid questions; no asking a Black reporter if she could set up a meeting between him & her friends in the Congressional Black Caucus, no lies for the sake of lying & rants for the sake of ranting. ~~~

~~~ Disappointing, though, that the backdrop for the presser was not the red plastic tinsel I had hoped for:

~~~ The White House published some photos of the decorated rooms here. Near the bottom of the page is a link to a downloadable pdf that elaborates on the meanings of the decor & includes instructions for making an ornament. ~~~

~~~ Jura Koncius & Jada Yuan of the Washington Post: Jill "Biden's first foray into holiday decorating at the White House was not glitzy or opulent, but rather an enhanced version of how many American families decorate their own homes, with lots of candles and twinkling lights."

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "The Federal Trade Commission on Monday ordered nine large U.S. companies, including Walmart, Amazon and Procter & Gamble, to provide detailed information about their operations, in a bid to unravel the causes of the supply chain disruptions that are clouding the economic recovery. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The commission order, approved by a 4-0 vote, came as President Biden met at the White House with corporate chieftains in the latest display of presidential concern over supply chain snarls. The president was scheduled to speak after the meeting with the chief executives of companies such as Food Lion, Mattel and Best Buy. But the White House rescheduled his comments for Wednesday, saying the president wanted to spend more time with the CEOs. While the FTC move will do nothing to ease the economy's current bottlenecks, it could shape future regulatory actions intended to maintain or increase the amount of competition in key industries, according to antitrust specialists."

Felicia Sonmez & Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) refused to publicly apologize Monday in a phone call with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for her Islamaphobic comments about the Muslim congresswoman and instead accused her of 'anti-American and anti-Semitic' rhetoric, prompting Omar to end the call. The exchange spurred more calls for Republican leaders to condemn Boebert's remarks and publicly address her behavior. Last week, House Democratic leaders denounced Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) 'repeated failure to condemn inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric' from fellow Republicans, including Boebert.... At the ... beginning [of a video Boebert posted on Instagram, she] said that as 'a strong Christian woman who values faith deeply, I never want anything I say to offend someone's religion.' But by the end of the video, Boebert was again making Islamophobic attacks against Omar." ~~~

     ~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "There's plenty to fault in the [George W.] Bush presidency and its wars, but his defense of Muslim Americans was the essence of moral leadership. 'Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger,' he said at the Washington mosque [days after the 9/11 attacks..., 'represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior." America 'is a great country,' he said, 'because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth.' Twenty years later, Boebert, Gosar, Greene and too many of their colleagues have abandoned those shared values. And Republican leaders, divesting themselves of shame, now tolerate the worst of humankind."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol moved on Monday to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official involved in ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, setting a vote this week on recommending criminal charges for his refusal to cooperate with a subpoena from the panel.... At the same time, the committee is considering what to do about ... Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump's former chief of staff, who has also refused to comply with a subpoena. The committee said that Mr. Meadows had refused to answer even basic questions, such as whether he was using a private cellphone to communicate on Jan. 6 and the location of his text messages from that day." (Also linked yesterday.)

Conservative law professor Charles Fried, once argued -- as Ronald Reagan's solicitor general, to uphold a Mississippi anti-abortion law. He has changed his mind. In a New York Times op-ed, he writes, "That Roe was a poorly reasoned extrapolation from [earlier-decided] contraceptive cases was a position taken by many constitutional scholars.... [But] the law had changed since 1989. In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a joint opinion of Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter reaffirmed the central holding of Roe and put it on a firmer constitutional basis: the dignity and autonomy of the pregnant woman and the equal rights of women more generally."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... At the very moment that Roe v. Wade could be overturned, the American right has become obsessed with bodily autonomy and has adopted the slogan 'My body, my choice' about Covid vaccines and mask mandates.... When it comes to themselves, many conservatives find any encroachment on their physical sovereignty intolerable, and arguments about the common good irrelevant.... As the feminist Ellen Willis once put it, the central question in the abortion debate is not whether a fetus is a person, but whether a woman is." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Where are these newly-minted libertarians when it comes to nudity laws? You can bet the lawyers who argue for the State of Mississippi will show up in standard -- if uncomfortable -- courtroom attire. On the hottest, most humid day in Mississippi it is unlikely they come to work nude because my body, my choice. Or -- less drastically perhaps -- during a day at the beach, will they get up a loud protest against a restaurant's "no shoes, no service" rule? Ir's very odd that they object to covering their cooties with masks but meekly obey laws that require them literally to cover their asses.

Amy Cheng of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pa., have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling by the state's top court earlier this year that vacated the sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby.... Cosby, 84, was found guilty of sexual assault in 2018. He spent nearly three years behind bars before his sentence was reversed in June by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled that Cosby had believed he was operating under an immunity agreement offered by a prosecutor when the entertainer provided testimony that was damaging to himself. Prosecutors have denied the existence of such a deal.... Though the case was widely followed in the media, it appears unlikely that the Supreme Court will review it.... By the time he was convicted in 2018, at least 60 women had accused Cosby of sexually assaulting or harassing them.... Cosby has always maintained his innocence..., [despite having acknowledged in a 2005 deposition that he intended] to use quaaludes, a sedative, on young women with whom he wanted to have sex.."

Kate Conger & Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Jack Dorsey is stepping down as chief executive of Twitter, the social media site he co-founded in 2006 and guided through the tumultuous years of the Trump administration. Twitter announced Mr. Dorsey's departure on Monday. He is being replaced by Parag Agrawal, the company's current chief technology officer. Mr. Dorsey's plans were first reported by CNBC." (Also linked yesterday.)

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

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

Laurie McGinley & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "As President Biden exhorts Americans to get coronavirus vaccines and booster shots to strengthen protections against the delta and omicron variants, another age group might soon become eligible for the boosters: 16- and 17-year-olds. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are expected to ask the Food and Drug Administration in the coming days to authorize its booster shot for that age group, according to two people familiar with the situation. The regulators are expected to sign off quickly, said the individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue." This report is free to nonsubscribers.

Jamey Keaten, et al., of the AP: "The World Health Organization warned Monday that the global risk from the omicron variant is 'very high' based on the early evidence, saying the mutated coronavirus could lead to surges with 'severe consequences.' The assessment from the U.N. health agency, contained in a technical paper issued to member states, amounted to WHO's strongest, most explicit warning yet about the new version that was first identified days ago by researchers in South Africa. It came as a widening circle of countries around the world reported cases of the variant and moved to slam their doors in an act-now-ask-questions-later approach while scientists race to figure out just how dangerous the mutant version might be."

Giulia Heyward of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccine mandate for health care workers in the 10 states that had filed a lawsuit against the government this month. The mandate requires all 17 million health care workers in Medicare- and Medicaid-certified medical facilities, which receive government funding, to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Jan. 4. The injunction, issued by Judge Matthew Schelp of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, prevents the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from enforcing the mandate while the case is in court.... The lawsuit was filed by the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming."

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "... some red states are paying people not to get vaccinated, by cutting checks to workers who quit or are fired because they refuse covid-19 shots.... At least four states -- Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee -- have recently extended benefits to workers who are fired or quit over their employers' vaccine requirements.... Workers who are fired for cause or who quit voluntarily are usually not eligible to receive unemployment benefits.... Why are Republicans doing it [when it goes against their purported principles]? A recent report from Axios argues that these policy changes are primarily about building 'loyalty with unvaccinated Americans': 'Republicans see a prime opportunity to rally their base ahead of the midterms,' Axios reports.... These policies also undermine federal efforts to get the pandemic under control, which the right then blames [President] Biden for not controlling."

Beyond the Beltway

Alabama. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "A regional office of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday ordered a new union election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, upholding a union challenge to a vote that the company won decisively. The decision was widely expected after a hearing officer recommended in August that the results be thrown out and that a new election take place. The company declared after the August decision that it intended to appeal to the labor board in Washington if it did not prevail at the regional level, but it did not say Monday whether it would follow through.... The union filed a formal objection to the election shortly after the results were announced in April, arguing that Amazon had undermined the conditions for a fair election by pressing the Postal Service to install a collection box at the warehouse, among other complaints. The union said the box, which was not authorized by the labor board, created the impression that Amazon was monitoring which workers voted." NPR's story is here.

Florida. Matt Dixon of Politico: "Democrats and Republicans in Florida had reached an uneasy truce over redistricting, avoiding a major public conflict even weeks after the GOP-led state Senate had released its preliminary maps. That ended Monday. Democrats teed off on new draft congressional maps published by the Republican-led Florida House, accusing the opposing party of playing political games with the redistricting process. The public friction comes after the Republican-led state Senate earlier this month released maps that gave the GOP an additional congressional seat, but faced more criticism from Republicans than Democrats because it was seen as not aggressive enough.... One seat getting specific attention is the 7th Congressional District, an Orlando-area seat held by Democrat Stephanie Murphy.... [The new map] leaves Murphy, who is Vietnamese-American, with the choice of running in a seat that is now slightly Republican-leaning, or a Democratic seat whose demographic makeup is tailor made for a Black candidate."

New York. Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "CNN host Chris Cuomo used his sources in the media world to seek information on women who accused his brother Andrew Cuomo, then the governor of New York, of sexual harassment, according to documents released Monday by the New York Attorney General's Office. While Chris Cuomo has previously acknowledged advising his brother and his team on the response to the scandals, the records show that his role in helping the then-governor was much larger and more intimate than previously known. Chris Cuomo was actively in touch with Melissa DeRosa, who was the then-governor's top aide, about incoming media reports that detailed alleged sexual harassment by Andrew Cuomo, according to exhibits from the Attorney General's probe and a transcript of his interview with the state's investigators. He also lobbied to help the governor's office as it sought to weather the storm of accusations, and he dictated statements for the then-governor to use.... CNN issued a comment hours after the publication of this article, saying the news organization would be reviewing the documents." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Nicholas Fandos, et al., of the New York Times: "Thousands of pages of new evidence and sworn testimony released on Monday show the extent to which former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo relied on a group of allies, including his younger brother, the CNN host Chris Cuomo, to strategize how to deflect and survive a cascade of sexual harassment charges that eventually engulfed him. Beginning last December with the first public accusation by a former aide, Lindsey Boylan, the records lay out in unvarnished detail how the tight-knit group of advisers discussed a series of increasingly drastic steps to manipulate the press, discredit his accusers and retain a grip on power that became less and less tenable. After debating the legality of the move, they agreed to pass Ms. Boylan's personnel file to reporters, portraying her as politically motivated and unhinged. They sought -- and failed -- to rally dozens of former female aides and supporters to pen an op-ed defending him. Chris Cuomo pressed to take on a greater role in crafting his brother's defense.... At one point, he even ran down a secondhand tip that another woman accusing the governor of unwanted advances at a wedding was lying. (She was not.)"

Way Beyond

Barbados. Ross Urken of the Washington Post: "In Barbados, it’s out with the queen, in with a president as the Caribbean island nation becomes the first Commonwealth realm in nearly three decades to declare itself a republic. The move, debated for years, gained momentum amid the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and growing demands for reparations for slavery on the island. Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced last year that the nation of 300,000 would become a republic by Tuesday, the 55th anniversary of its independence. That means removing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, a break with nearly four centuries of history in the former British colony. Prince Charles, who has long used the island dubbed 'Little England' as his polo playground, plans to join the celebrations in Bridgetown. The heir to the British throne will be the next head of the Commonwealth, the association made up almost entirely of former territories of the British Empire. Barbados, the easternmost island of the Caribbean, known for cricket, rum and the international pop star Rihanna, plans to remain a member of the group." (Also linked yesterday.)

New Zealand. Gina Harkins of the Washington Post: "Julie Anne Genter planned on getting to the hospital by bike ahead of her daughter's birth, but she didn’t know she would be the one pedaling. The member of the New Zealand Parliament was already having contractions when preparing to bike to the hospital early Sunday morning. Genter, an avid cyclist and member of New Zealand's Green Party, planned to make the 10-minute trek riding in the front of a cargo bike driven by her partner, Peter Nunns. When they realized it would be too much weight with her hospital bag, she told the New Zealand news outlet Stuff she 'just got out and rode.' It's not immediately clear what kind of bicycle she took to the hospital, though she has talked about owning an electric cargo bike. Less than an hour after arriving at the hospital, the 41-year-old Genter gave birth to a baby girl." (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Three people were killed on Tuesday when a student opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun at a high school in Oakland County, Mich., north of Detroit, according to the authorities, who said that they had taken a 15-year-old student into custody. The dead were all believed to be students, Michael McCabe, the Oakland County undersheriff, said at a news conference." The story is being updated.

Reader Comments (13)

As Marie says, logic and judgment have entirely fled, perhaps replaced by simple spite-- or is the Right now just plain nuts?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/29/florida-iowa-kansas-tennessee-unemployment-benefits-fired-covid-vaccine-requirements/

Anything to own those libs, I guess. Death, bankruptcy, public displays of stupidity, the pursuit of abject humiliation? Whatever it takes.

This morning I'll go with spite. Or the old tale of how anger killed my brain.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

HOW TO HANDLE THE WOMBATS :

James Carville, that wily coyote of all things political, tells Democrats exactly how to tackle the Republican extremists, otherwise known as bat-shit- crazy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-carville-advice-dealing-gop_n_61a5f0bbe4b044a1cc19c75c

Ignoring these fruitcakes and concentrating on your own message is something one could certainly try to do out on the campaign trail–-"Let them swim in their own slop" says James, yet meanwhile these swimmers are causing great harm to our country. I go back to one of the best ways to bring someone down is to humiliate them–-the "Springtime for Hitler" mechanism. SNL does a great job of making fun of many but humiliation in a different form is needed.

Tomorrow the S.C. will be in session and MSNBC will be covering it starting at 9.45 A.M. 'How to Handle a Woman', a song once sung in Camelot will be on display for many days and who knows how these handlers will decide but if wrongly, a great hue and cry will be heard throughout this land. If the Dems in Congress hadn't stalled getting this decided once and for all we wouldn't be in this mess.

Ken: "Sometimes am I wound with adders, who with cloven tongue do hiss me into madness."
You betcha!

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe

PD,

Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics for that “Camelot” song, “How to handle a woman”, provided a much different answer to that question than the one currently offered by confederates and their misogyny-minded pals.

How to handle a woman. Lerner and Lowe answer: Simply love her.

R answer(s): Control her, keep her barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, shout Bible quotes at her, deny her a choice in how to live her life, and the most popular…Hate her.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

AK: Yup! and Richard Burton would say––"simply love her" was "pretty to think so" in a world of "keeping women in their place" plus he would rail against the stupidity of man and his ties to religion.

Just finished reading this article on Jake Sullivan, Biden's advisor. "a figure of fascination and schadenfreude", that I thought well done so if you want to get into the weeds give it a go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/us/politics/jake-sullivan-biden.html

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe

Saturday is my customary Picking on Douthat Day. Today is an exception.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/opinion/abortion-dobbs-supreme-court.html

Do wish that those who would elevate all human life to sacred status followed their urging to its logical end and put all their efforts and resources into ending war, poverty and the in-built economic inequality of a juiced up capitalist system that uses the majority as capitalist chattel.

But I know that's just a wish. Instead, what we get from pro-lifers like Ross is the same old easy path to virtue that shouts look how moral I am, while heedlessly creating more victims in the name of their self-righteousness.

Our Civil War killed 600,000 people because slaveholders insisted their slaves were more animal than human, and later justified the slaughter that self-serving insistence brought in the name of a retrospectively and wrongly dubbed Noble Cause.

Now pro-life is conservative's Noble Cause. And in its name, men like Ross are willing to sacrifice the dignity of women, sometimes even their lives, in its name.

It's a common strain in contemporary conservative thought. Like so many other conservatives, Douthat's idea of freedom is limited to what makes him feel good.

What others wish or need matters not a whit.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Ken: why do you read Douthat? I quit him years ago. I know sometimes there are surprises (Kathleen Parker was a bit "liberal" the other day--but I had quit her too--)but mostly, NOT. Just give him up. You will feel better. Very few of these jackals are on "our" side. I much appreciate some, including Michele Goldberg's quote from Ellen Willis-- yeah, sometimes I forget they aren't really talking about fetuses, or protoplasm, they are simply putting women where they belong, STILL... Even though we women reject their notions... Slavery will never be over and women will never have the rights enjoyed by men and the results of their demands for sex. Especially when half the country thinks it is okay to be brutal and wrong. Ugh.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

Good question, Jeanne.

I sometimes wonder about that myself.

Perhaps a form of self-abuse but I think not. I don't always read Douthat. Depends on the subject, and this time his take on abortion (made timely by arguments on the subject heard by the SCOTUS and its cadre of Catholic men) caught my eye.

Since Douthat is smart enough to form sentences and doesn't rely on the atavistic grunts and name-calling of most "conservative" speech, this morning I gave him a whirl to see how he'd present a case for something that fundamentally makes no civilized sense.

Of course his argument, stripped of its fine words, took him back to the place I expected: a phony moral high ground dependent on placing others below his perch.

And as you rightly say, those others would be women, whom many men--Douthat apparently among them-- would like to keep as slaves.

Probably a waste of time, but sometimes just firing off a missile brings its own satisfaction, even when it doesn't hit the target.

I do a lot of that.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

...and I appreciate your heat-seeking missiles all the time. Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Especially when I go all crazypants...

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

Jeanne,

Fuggedabout “on our side”.

I don’t care if someone doesn’t agree with me as long as they make a cogent point and back it up. In my family, growing up, we had rousing arguments of all kinds (to the point where my brother’s then girlfriend, now wife, used to say “Why do you all yell at each other!?!”), but the coin of the realm was well thought out positions. “Because I say so” or “You’re an idiot” (which these days pass for righteous ripostes by confederates) didn’t work. You have a position? Great. Back it up. And not with made up bullshit.

It’s been ages since any screamers on the right (Douthat included) have ever been able to come up with anything beyond “I know you are, but what am I” or “Because Jesus sez so”.

Fuck Douthat and the cheap-ass blow-up doll he rode in on.

And shame on the Times for giving this squealing, misogynistic charlatan prime real estate to spew his twaddle.

More on Douthat later…

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Oh, and Ken…

What Jeanne said.

You’re too smart (and nice) a guy to waste your eyesight on what amounts to truck stop poop wall graffiti.

Although, hang on…”For a good time call 222-342-0000” scrawled above a toilet roll dispenser is probably far and away more believable than anything Douthat might invent.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Akhilleus,

You give me too much credit for good sense I don't possess.

I am often curious about what Douthat will do to the Catholicism that nurtured me but seldom recognize in his hands, because his reasoning often stops short of laying out its consequences. As I said, a typical shortcoming of conservative thought.

But thanks.

November 30, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

@Ken Winkes, et al.: Okay, you caused me to skim Douthat. There's a certain irony, I suppose, in (sort of) reading an article on the right-to-life that inspires me think about taking the life of the writer. If you parse most of Douthat's prissy arguments, what you'll find is that he takes extreme pro-abortion arguments & presents them as the "usual" arguments, which he then knocks down or attempts to knock down. It's a debater's trick, but I imagine Douthat believes that stuff. But is central premise is this: "We know from embryology, in other words, not Scripture or philosophy, that abortion kills a unique member of the species Homo sapiens, an act that in almost every other context is forbidden by the law." To Douthat, from the moment the sperm squiggles into the egg, any act that busts up that union is murder. So a number of forms of contraception, morning-after pills, early abortions -- those are all morally reprehensible & contrary to human rights -- no matter under what adult circumstances the sperm found its way to the target egg. The rights of the woman, destined by natural law to carry the zygote to term, are subsumed to the zygote or embryo.

From a strictly analytical point-of-view, this seems extreme -- and nonsensical -- to me. How can a two-cell "organism" have more rights than a living, breathing, independent human being?

Personally, I don't think I would have had an abortion once I was aware I was carrying a fetus that was approaching viability. But that's just me. Even in distressing circumstances, I had the confidence that I would be able to take care of myself &, to a great extent, fulfill my responsibilities. Other young women might correctly believe that they could not survive whatever circumstances an inconvenient child would impose upon them. So "viability" sounds like a sensible "cut-off" point for all but extraordinary cases, such as cases in which the pregnancy suddenly threatens the life of the mother or when severe birth anomalies are indicated.

One thing I'm certain of is that five old men and one strident woman should not decide what millions & millions of American women should do about their early pregnancies. And neither should Republican state legislators, who are uniformly thoughtless idiots. Laws on abortions, like laws on all medical procedures, should be flexible. Yes, even with the best of intentions, mistakes will be made: doctors & patients are fallible. But, on the whole, they're less fallible than, say, Clarence Thomas & Sam Alito.

November 30, 2021 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns
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