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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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Friday
Sep232022

September 24, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Adela Suliman of the Washington Post: "British singer Elton John was left teary eyed and 'flabbergasted' after being awarded a surprise national humanities medal by President Biden, following a concert at the White House on Friday night. John, 75, who was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, is a world-renowned singer, pianist and songwriter. He has also championed numerous charities and humanitarian causes, especially those tackling HIV/AIDS. Flanked by the president and first lady, John, wearing his signature red-tinted spectacles, looked visibly shocked as he first spotted the medal, covering his face with his hands in disbelief." ~~~

Losers, Losing. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, long entwined, continue on vile parallel paths: They would rather destroy their countries than admit they have lost. They have each created a scrim of lies to justify lunatic personal ambition. And while it should be easy to see through these lies, both cult-of-personality leaders are able to con and bully enough people to remain puissant.... Both thugs are getting boxed in, Trump by a bouquet of investigations into his chicanery and Putin by an angry public pushback against his bloody vanity war.... Both Putin and Trump are famous for accusing everyone else of their own sins.... It would be poetic justice to think the walls were closing in on Putin and Trump at the same time, because at some point, all this will become unsustainable. Losers, refusing to admit defeat." MB: Yes, I had to look up the meaning of "puissant."

Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "The most prominent forum for men who consider themselves involuntarily celibate or 'incels' has become significantly more radicalized over the past year and a half and is seeking to normalize child rape, a new report says. The report, by the Center for Countering Digital Hate's new Quant Lab, is the culmination of an investigation that analyzed more than 1 million posts on the site. It found a marked spike in conversations about mass murder and growing approval of sexually assaulting prepubescent girls. The report also says that platforms including YouTube and Google, as well as internet infrastructure companies like Cloudflare are facilitating the growth of the forum, which the report said is visited by 2.6 million people every month."

Maine Gubernatorial Race. Alyce McFadden & Michael Bender of the New York Times: "Making a comeback attempt now against his successor, Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, [former Gov. Paul] LePage [Rrrrr] is focusing heavily in his campaign on a push to phase out Maine's income tax. He argues that the change is needed to keep wealthy residents from moving to Florida for just long enough each year to take advantage of the Sunshine State's tax breaks. But Mr. LePage and his wife, Ann LePage, who have owned property in Florida for over a decade, have themselves benefited from that state's tax laws while living in the Maine governor's mansion, and again as he campaigns to return to the job. From 2009 to 2015, and also from 2018 through the end of this year, the couple received property tax breaks reserved for permanent Florida residents, public records show.... Mr. LePage's campaign defended the tax moves, saying that Mrs. LePage's mother had used the Florida home as her primary residence from 2009 until her death in 2015, when the couple removed the first homestead exemption.... A seldom-used provision in the Florida tax code allows homeowners to claim a homestead exemption if a dependent is residing on the property." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's not clear from the story that LePage had declared his mother was his dependent. Moreover, I don't believe that, as the story says, that the LePages realized only about $8,500 in tax breaks over the course of seven or eight years. As I recall, the taxes on my Florida home were reduced by more than that nearly every year I was eligible for the break. It said so right on my tax bills. The main reason for the substantial break is that under Florida's "Save Our Homes" law, homesteaded property taxes cannot rise more than three percent every year. So if the valuation of your property increases 100 percent in a year (it happens), your taxes would be 103 percent of what they had been the previous year, not 200 percent of the previous year.

Ukraine, et al. The Guardian's live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Blake Hounshell of the New York Times: "President Biden became involved in state legislative races for the first time, with an email Friday asking Democrats to each donate the modest sum of $7 to his party's campaign arm for statehouse elections. And, following his Sept. 1 speech lashing 'MAGA Republicans,' Biden is framing the stakes as a battle for American democracy, coupled with a bread-and-butter message about inflation, an issue that has bedeviled his presidency.... As my colleague Nick Corasaniti reported on Friday, one outside group working on winning statehouses for Democrats, the States Project, plans to spend $60 million across just five states. That would be a humdrum sum for a hot Senate race, but it's an astronomical amount in races where spending is often in the range of thousands of dollars...." ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Biden on Friday sought to dismantle the agenda proposed hours earlier by House Republican leaders should they take back the House, hitting Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for dodging key issues and warning that a GOP majority would try to strip away fundamental rights and government programs. Biden, in remarks at a Democratic National Committee event at the National Education Association (NEA), issued a point-by-point rebuttal to the agenda unveiled by McCarthy.... Biden, pointing to a proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that would ban abortion after 15 weeks, warned the GOP would attempt to block access to the procedure if they hold the House majority. He pledged to veto any such legislation if it passed, arguing a stronger Democratic majority could help codify abortion access.... He rebuked McCarthy's pledge to help Americans live longer, healthier lives by arguing some Republicans have called for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Biden cited a policy platform from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) that called for a vote every five years to determine the fate of those programs.... And Biden took aim at Republicans for wanting to restore faith in elections, noting dozens of GOP lawmakers still refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election." And so forth.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "At a manufacturing plant [in Monongahela, Pa., Kevin McCarthy], introduced the 'Commitment to America,' an innocuous-sounding set of principles he said would guide a G.O.P. majority, and which appeared aimed at uniting [GOP] members...: fighting inflation, securing the border and hiring more police.... The agenda was light on details and avoided certain topics that polls show are not favorable to Republicans' chances of electoral success: the abortion bans that most in the party have embraced, defunding the F.B.I., the Jan. 6 attack or Mr. Trump and his ongoing legal troubles.... But ... the agenda ... contained a reference to the party's commitment to enacting strict abortion restrictions.... It alluded to the G.O.P.'s continuing embrace of Mr. Trump's false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, promising that a Republican majority would 'increase accountability in the election process through voter ID.' And it hinted that Republicans would look to change the Affordable Care Act and roll back legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs...." ~~~

     ~~~ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "Today's rollout is the latest evidence of House Republicans' whole-hearted Commitment to MAGA: going all-in on an extremist agenda designed to greatly diminish Americans’ health, freedom and security. This alarming new extreme MAGA platform threatens to criminalize women's health care, slash seniors' Medicare and raise prescription drug prices, and attack our free and fair elections. These appalling proposals have long been advanced by right-wing politicians and are widely supported by the dark money special interests who call the shots in the GOP. But this extreme MAGA agenda is way out of step with Americans' priorities, who align with Democrats' vision of putting People Over Politics: with lower costs, better-paying jobs and safer communities." ~~~

     ~~~ Nancy Pelosi (September 21): "OOPS. Looks like Leader McCarthy fumbled his agenda rollout by accidentally posting the webpage of House Republicans' 'Commitment to America' -- and then scrambled to password protect the website again ... but not before we got screenshots. Screenshots that reveal that House Republicans are doubling down on an extreme MAGA agenda: to criminalize women's health care, to slash seniors' Medicare (including with the repeal of the lower drug prices for seniors in the Inflation Reduction Act), and to attack our democracy." Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: This press release also appears on Pelosi's website, but the Pelosi page does not include the screenshots, perhaps because of a glitch. Had RAS not linked the Wayback Machine page, I would never have found it. ~~~

~~~ Republicans Promise to Make America Great Again -- Just Like Russia & Ukraine. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "House Republican leaders on Friday unveiled their 'Commitment to America' agenda for 2023 ― and with it, an inspirational video full of scenes presented as exceptional imagery of America that were actually stock footage from Russia and Ukraine.... In another scene, a boy is seen smiling and running in a field with a toy airplane. The words 'Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' appear on the screen, a reference to the Declaration of Independence. This clip was also ... filmed in [Russia's] Volgograd region.... 'Democrats have led America off track,' the narrator [of another clip] says. The words 'Crippling inflation and rampant crime' appear on the screen, over a shot of a woman walking through a grocery store. But this is footage from a European grocery store, [likely in Ukraine]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So weird. Can't the GOP find any amber waves of grain in, say, Kansas or Nebraska? If they were going to steal footage, they could have copped clips from this fabulous 2016 closing ad for Bernie Sanders. ~~~

     ~~~ Republicans Confuse Lincoln with Lehman Brothers. Taegan Goddard of Political Wire. In another video, "The House Republican conference rolled out their platform for the 2022 midterm elections with words attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but the Daily Beast reports the quote is actually from a Lehman Brothers ad from the 1980s." The Daily Beast story is firewalled.

Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's attorneys are fighting a secret court battle to block a federal grand jury from gathering information from an expanding circle of close Trump aides about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter told CNN. The high-stakes legal dispute -- which included the appearance of three attorneys representing Trump at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon -- is the most aggressive step taken by the former President to assert executive and attorney-client privileges in order to prevent some witnesses from sharing information in the criminal investigation [of] events surrounding January 6, 2021.... Former Trump White House adviser and lawyer Eric Herschmann ... is not ... fighting the [grand jury] subpoena [he received]. Instead, Trump's lawyers are asking a judge to recognize the former President's privilege claims and the right to confidentiality around his dealings. Herschmann's grand jury testimony has been postponed." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "In emails reviewed by The Times, Mr. Herschmann complained that a letter from Mr. Trump directing him to assert privilege in front of the grand jury -- as other witnesses had -- was not enough to allow him to avoid answering questions. 'I will not rely on your say-so that privileges apply here and be put in the middle of a privilege fight between D.O.J. and President Trump,' Mr. Herschmann, a former prosecutor, wrote in one of the emails.... Mr. Herschmann repeatedly implored [Mr. Trump's attorneys Evan] Corcoran and [John] Rowley to go to court seeking an order from a judge 'precluding me from answering questions based on privilege assertions by President Trump,' according to the emails. They ignored his request for many days, before ultimately filing a motion under seal on Sept. 1, just hours before Mr. Herschmann was set to testify, the emails showed.... Attorney-client privilege ... can be swept aside in cases where crimes have been committed."

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Intelligence officials have resumed their national security risk review of top-secret documents that were seized at ... Donald Trump's Florida estate, according to a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The resumption, which has not been previously reported, comes after a federal appeals court delivered the Justice Department a decisive win, unanimously blocking elements of a lower-court ruling that forced federal prosecutors to seek a pause in the highly anticipated intelligence review."

Marie: I don't know if this is true, but if it is from a transcript of a hearing conducted by special master Judge Raymond Dearie, it is -- as Bill Lewis says -- "priceless":

Mark Follman of Mother Jones: "As the ex-president faces advancing federal and state investigations ranging from Mar-a-Lago to New York to Georgia, he has escalated an insidious form of political incitement, behavior that seems to signal a growing desperation over his legal predicaments.... Asked by [Sean] Hannity [on Wednesday] to comment on a new lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James..., the ex-president laid into the state's top lawyer and her staff: 'They were demeaning me constantly, these people,' he said. 'There's something wrong with them. I really believe they hate our country.'... Elsewhere in the interview, Trump declared that the federal judge who approved the search warrant to seize highly classified documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago 'took the case' because he 'hated Trump.' The ex-president also demonized leaders at the National Archives and Records Administration..., telling Hannity that the agency is run by 'a radical left group of people.' Regarding the federal agents who entered his residence, Trump said the FBI has 'attacked' and been 'so horrible to so many people' he knows, and further claimed the agents showed up for the 'raid' armed with AK-47s."

Keith Zubrow of CBS News: "Former senior technical adviser for the January 6 Committee, Denver Riggleman, said the White House switchboard connected a phone call to a Capitol rioter on January 6, 2021.... Riggleman, an ex-military intelligence officer and former Republican congressman from Virginia, oversaw a data-driven operation for the January 6 committee, pursuing phone records and other digital clues tied to the attack on the Capitol. He stopped working for the committee in April."

Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Career prosecutors have recommended against charging Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in a long-running sex-trafficking investigation -- telling Justice Department superiors that a conviction is unlikely in part because of credibility questions with the two central witnesses, according to people familiar with the matter. Senior department officials have not made a final decision on whether to charge Gaetz, but it is rare for such advice to be rejected...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) CNN's report is here. MB: Matt's Tip O' the Day for Lawbreakers: hang out with people too sleazy to be believed. It won't matter if they finger you.

How Hot Was It? On this Washington Post page, you can find out just how hot it was this summer in your home county (or any other county, of course). The page compares day & nighttime temp as well as rainfall to temps & precipitation prior years. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. Punishing Women & Abortion Providers Like It's 1864. Eliza Fawcett of the New York Times: "A judge on Friday ruled that a near-total abortion ban written before Arizona became a state must be enforced, throwing abortion access into question one day before the start of a 15-week ban that passed the Legislature this year. The stricter ban, which can be traced to 1864, was blocked by a court injunction in 1973 shortly after the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, determined that there was a constitutional right to abortion. On Friday, Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima County Superior Court lifted that injunction, noting that Roe had been overruled in June and that Planned Parenthood's request for the court to 'harmonize the laws' in Arizona was flawed. The 1864 law, first established by the state's territorial legislature, mandates a two- to five-year prison sentence for anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. In 1901, the state updated and codified the law.... Gov. Doug Ducey has said that the 15-week ban he signed in March would supersede the century-old ban, but Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a fellow Republican, has argued that the older ban should take precedence." The AP's story is here.

Colorado. Deon Hampton & Erik Ortiz of NBC News: "An amended autopsy report released Friday revealed Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after a confrontation with police officers, died because he was injected with ketamine by paramedics after being forcibly restrained. 'I believe this tragic fatality is most likely the result of ketamine toxicity,' the report said, adding McClain received a higher dosage of the sedative than he should have. 'Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose.'"

Georgia. Richard Fawcett of the New York Times:"Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, said on Friday that his office would replace voting equipment in Coffee County, where allies of ... Donald J. Trump and contractors working on Mr. Trump's behalf copied software and other data after the 2020 election. But in a statement, a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit contending that Georgia's statewide voting system is fundamentally insecure in the wake of the Trump allies' visit to Coffee County called the changes 'embarrassingly thin' and 'cosmetic.' The statement said the server for the county's election management system remained 'potentially contaminated.'... ... David Cross, a lawyer representing some of the plaintiffs in the civil litigation, has said the information that was copied includes the software used by all 159 of Georgia's counties.... The move by Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, comes after the plaintiffs complained that he was moving too slowly to address the security breach in Coffee County, which took place in January 2021.... One Trump supporter involved in the breach, Scott Hall, said in a recorded phone call that the team that traveled to Coffee County, roughly 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, had 'scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives and scanned every single ballot.'" An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, this is a hot mess. It seems likely that Trump operatives have the data they need to manipulate every damned voting machine in Georgia in any damned election they choose to do so. Georgia Democrats have every reason to mistrust the results of all election results that report a GOP win.

Maryland. Slum Landlord Kushner, et al., Settle. Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "An apartment management company partly owned by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of ... Donald J. Trump, has agreed to pay a $3.25 million penalty and make restitution to thousands of tenants who were overcharged fees and subject to leaks, rodents and mold infestations, the Maryland attorney general said on Friday. Westminster Management, the property management arm of Kushner Companies, and 25 affiliated businesses that owned nearly 9,000 units across the Baltimore area have agreed to settle a 2019 lawsuit over their rental practices. The companies violated consumer protection laws by charging tenants illegal fees and failed to adequately maintain the properties, the lawsuit said.... Under the settlement, former and current tenants at 17 properties can file claims to recover a host of fees that [state Attorney General Brian] Frosh [D] said the company had improperly charged them. They could also file claims with an outside arbiter ... who can return rental payments to tenants if they faced serious maintenance issues."

Michigan Gubernatorial Race. Because Plotting to Kidnap (and Murder) a Democrat Is Hilarious. Eric Bradner, et al., of CNN: "Tudor Dixon, the Republican challenging Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, made light of the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer on Friday, telling a crowd [at an event hosted by Kellyanne Conway] that ... 'The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you're ready to talk.... For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.'... After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr.... A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor."

Mississippi. Meghann Cuniff of Law & Crime: “A 23-year-old Mississippi man accused of burning a cross in his front yard to intimidate a Black family who lived nearby has been charged with a federal hate crime. Axel Charles Cox was arraigned Friday after prosecutors obtained a warrant for him to be brought into court from state prison, where he's serving eight years for drug and stolen property.... The charges allege he also 'used threatening and racially derogatory remarks' toward the victims, who are identified only by their initials in the indictment but were fully identified to the Southern District of Mississippi grand jury that returned it." MB: Burning a cross?? Mississippi is so backward, even its hate crimes are old-fashioned.

Way Beyond

Iran. Joyce Lee, et al., of the Washington Post: "It has been a week since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who fell into a coma after being detained by Iran's 'morality police.' But the anti-government protests she inspired are still raging across Iran. Demonstrators, many of them women, are burning hijabs and fighting back against police; they are tearing down posters and setting fire to billboards of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader.... At least 30 people have been killed, according to rights groups and news reports. Hundreds have been injured. The government has disrupted cellular service across the country, and has imposed significant internet outages in some regions.... Videos verified by The Washington Post show security forces opening fire on protesters. And a further escalation could be coming -- Iran's military warned Friday it would intervene if the demonstrations continued."

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, American officials said, including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson.... Such a retreat would be another humiliating public acknowledgment of Mr. Putin's failure in the war, and would hand a second major victory to Ukraine in one month.... Focused on victory at all costs, Mr. Putin has become a more public face of the war as the Russian military appears increasingly in turmoil...."

News Ledes

Weather Channel: "The former Hurricane Fiona is bringing a historic pummeling to parts of Atlantic Canada with widespread damaging winds, flooding rain and storm surge this weekend after hammering Bermuda. Fiona made landfall over eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday and is plowing through eastern Canada. A wind gust up to 100 mph was measured near Beaver Island. New low-pressure records have been set in Canada. Strong winds are hammering the coast of Atlantic Canada."

Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Ian is strengthening in the Caribbean Sea and may become a serious hurricane threat for the northwestern Caribbean and Southeast U.S. next week, including Florida." Shows projected track.

New York Times: "Donald Blinken, a financier, patron of the arts and Democratic Party donor who became an ambassador to Hungary, helping to inspire the career in politics and diplomacy of his son, Antony, the current secretary of state, died on Thursday at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 96. Secretary Blinken confirmed the death."

New York Times: "Louise Fletcher, the imposing, steely-eyed actress who won an Academy Award for her role as the tyrannical Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' died on Friday at her home in Montdurausse, France. She was 88."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

It seems MoDo has been reading Shakespeare, or perhaps Sir Walter Scott, based on her elegant employment of puissant. If I were her headline writer, based on this piece about Fatty and Uncle Vladya coming a cropper, I might suggest:

Pugilistic Pompous Puerile Puissant Pissants Pummeled per Present day Particulars. Prodigious Pique Prevails. Pity the Peckerheads.

September 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Bad advice

Fatty’s plan of demanding a special master seems to have backfired in a most hilarious way. Don’t know who suggested this wonderful plan, but if his lawyers are named Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, he couldn’t have gotten worse advice.

Speaking of Shakespeare, those two worthies are characters in “Twelfth Night” who conspire to take the mickey out of Malvolio, an authoritarian bully and all around wanker who thinks the world of himself. Malvolio, smitten with the countess Olivia, is advised by Andrew and Sir Toby (Olivia’s uncle who knows all about what she detests most) to don yellow stockings and crossed garters, and walk around grinning like an idiot (all particularly hated by the countess) in order to get on her good side.

Olivia, seeing this display, has Malvolio seized and tossed into the loony bin.

Can Judge Dearie do that? Please?

Well, no matter, Fatty couldn’t do worse with his own crossed garter plot.

I have to say, however, as much fun as this is in Shakespeare, at some point you really do begin to feel a little bad for old Mal.

No such outcome would prevail in any possible universe were the Fat Fascist to be similarly incarcerated.

Lock him up! Crossed garters and all.

September 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Salon has an article about capitalism
"Unregulated capitalism makes you poor, miserable — and short: New study
A new study reveals that the rise of capitalism has coincided with worse living conditions — unless regulated"
"Capitalists' opposition has always delayed and often destroyed working class efforts to improve their circumstances. The claimed improvements, when real, occurred despite and against capitalist's efforts, not because of them."

September 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

November 17, 2016
There have been a multitude of books written about Putin. One of the newer ones is "The Less You Know the Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship ..." by David Satter who says to understand today's Russia, "is actually very easy, but one must teach oneself to do something that is very hard––to believe the unbelievable ––because Russia is a universe based on a completely different set of values."

Angela Merkel arrived at a similar conclusion, says Satter, in March 2014 following a phone conversation with Putin in the midst of Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Merkel told Obama afterward that Putin was out of touch with reality, living "in another world."

If Donald Trump thinks he can be buddies with Putin he is believing the unbelievable––hey––maybe–-who knows? while Putin is clinging on to the scraps of Russia's imperial past, Trump is trying to "make America Great Again"–– so much in common–they could join forces and blow up the world together.

The serious side of this love fest has been the financial ties between the Trump camp and a range of Putin's allies. We still don't have the clear story on this. Cozy connections need to be outed!

September 24, 2022 | Unregistered Commenter`PD Pepe

@Akhilleus: Yes, the trouble is that Malvolio, for all his vainglory, is a nicer guy than Trump. And, in the end, as you say, he is a somewhat sympathetic character. In the wee hours this morning, before I got up to spend another day in which I knew the name Trump would come up, I lay in bed for a few minutes trying to think of something nice to say about Trump. I could not think of one good thing. Nothing. He is a totally reprehensible human being, with no redeeming graces.

The New York Times & some other major outlets write obituaries for prominent living people in case they suddenly croak. If obituaries are supposed to be largely positive but still vaguely truthful, my sympathies to the people who get stuck writing & updating Trump's. Even if an obit stuck to just a CV format where it listed his jobs as real estate developer, "Apprentice" star, "author" (ha ha) & POTUS*, the second half of any compound sentence would have to begin with "but..." followed by some admission of how he screwed up the job.

September 24, 2022 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Marie: as they used to say, no one is worthless, at least they can serve as a bad example. And so DiJiT can be the archetype of bad examples.

September 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

@Patrick: I am obliged to concede.

September 24, 2022 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns
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