The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

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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Wednesday
Jan252023

Some Are Seized, Some Are Found

Reality Chex commentators have been complaining -- some subtly (unwashed), some not so subtly (Akhilleus) -- that the "liberal" New York Times is devoted to both-sider-style reporting, which inevitably leans right.

Unwashed noted (Reality Chex Comments, January 22) that the Times headline describing recovery of classified documents at President Biden's (D) Wilmington home read, "Investigators Sieze More Classified Documents From Biden's Home." Reporters Michael Shear & Katie Rogers' lede for the story: "Investigators for the Justice Department on Friday seized more than a half-dozen documents, some of them classified, at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del., after conducting a 13-hour search of the home, the president’s personal lawyer said Saturday evening." (Emphasis added.) In their next sentence, Shear & Rogers write that this "dramatically escalated the legal and political situation for the president." OMG! FBI agents "dramatically" "seized" (synonyms: "grabbed," "snatched") ill-gotten classified documents from President Biden's home!

Well, it turns out that, according to Biden's personal attorney Bob Bauer, as related by said Shear & Rogers, "the president’s lawyers had offered to provide access for a search 'in the interest of moving the process forward as expeditiously as possible.' Justice Department investigators coordinated the search with Mr. Biden’s lawyers in advance...." Doesn't sound quite so "dramatic," does it?

So Then. Days later, FBI agents took about a dozen classified documents from former Vice President Pence's (R) new Indiana home, too. The headline in Maggie Haberman's story about the discovery of the pence papers: "Classified Documents Found at Pence’s Home in Indiana." Not "seized," but "found." According to Haberman, pence's lawyer Greg Jacob (you may remember him from the January 6 committee hearings) "wrote that despite having a conversation with archives officials on Jan. 19 about procedures for obtaining records from former presidents and vice presidents, the Justice Department that evening 'bypassed the standard procedures and requested direct possession' of the documents.... Mr. Jacob also wrote that there were two boxes in which the records with classified markings had been found, as well as two additional boxes with copies of administration papers. He said he would personally bring those boxes to the National Archives on Jan. 23," according to Haberman's report.

It turns out that "requested direct possession" was a little more aggressive than a mere polite "request." Though Haberman doesn't say so, CNN's updated report says, "Agents from the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis picked up the documents from Pence’s home, [a Pence] lawyer said. On Monday, Pence’s legal team drove the boxes [absent the "found" classified docs] back to Washington, DC, and handed them over to the Archives to review the rest of the material for compliance with the Presidential Records Act." And these agents carried out their "request" with some dispatch. CNN reports that as soon as they found the classified docs, "Pence’s lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, the sources said. In turn, the Archives informed the Justice Department. A lawyer for Pence told CNN that the FBI requested to pick up the documents with classified markings that evening, and Pence agreed." (Emphasis added.) But, as Marcy Wheeler notes, pence's lawyer wasn't pleased with the the late-day knock on the door: "Jacob complained [it] was against standard protocol."

Why, it sounds like the FBI immediately "seized" those classified docs Pence was storing at his home in a manner than annoyed -- if not pence -- his attorney. Further, it is odd that pence's lawyers didn't tell the FBI about the classified documents. The FBI found out only indirectly, through a tip from the National Archives. Moreover, it was days or even months before the FBI got around to "dramatically" "seizing" President Biden's classified documents. But FBI agents insisted on picking up pence's classified documents right away, and they rushed to pence's home the same day the Archives told them that pence was holding the documents.

Plus. According to on-air reporting, pence had previously stored these documents and other papers at a rented home where he and Mother lived after January 20, 2021, while they were house-hunting. I will note that when you rent a residence, the landlord and her handyman, plumber, and other agents have access to the home. The landlord and/or the rental management agency of course have keys so they can enter the house while the tenants are away on househunting excursions or whatever.

AND here's the front-page headline of an "analysis" by Peter Baker of the Times: "Biden’s Handling of Secret Documents Complicates the Case Against Trump." The headline, by the way, appears in larger typeface than the headline for Haberman's story about pence's "found" documents. And Baker's "analysis" is placed in this morning's Times online main page above Haberman's report. Now, I'm sure Baker started "analyzing" before news of the Purloined Pence Papers broke. But he knew about it before his "analysis" was published, and he incorporates the pence papers discovery into his "analysis," then discounts it as an "everybody does it" boon to Trump."

OR, as Scott Lemieux puts it in LG&$, "In related news, Peter Baker has already been admitted to the Both Sides Do It Hall of Fame on the first ballot but he feels compelled to keep adding to his resume[.]... 'What Trump and Biden [did] isn’t the same, or even remotely similar really, but close enough that Democrats cannot criticize Trump' is the Platonic ideal of the form...."

You might just think the New York Times has two standards of reporting: one for Democrats and one for Republicans. And somehow that works out well for Republicans.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

I’m going to say right now that Fatty will NOT be held liable for stealing and refusing to return highly classified documents. Our would be Caesar’s Wife AG, Neville Chamberlain Garland, will not bring charges against the Fat Fascist unless he brings similar charges against President Biden, which, now that I think of it, HE MIGHT! Of course the half-pence will escape any responsibility because that might look like Neville is piling on.

This is like a DA refusing to charge a clearly guilty suspect with armed robbery because his pal was caught jay walking and he doesn’t want to appear biased for not also throwing the book at his buddy.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Garland, by mishandling this mess AND by appointing a lifetime confederate who put shoulder to the wheel for the traitor Trump, to go after Biden, could very well have greased the skids for a GQP victory in 2024, by either Trump (who will declare himself completely absolved) or the even worse authoritarian racist, DeSantolini.

Fox and the thugs in the traitor controlled house will be jumping with both feet on Biden’s neck because of those “seized” documents, Covid response, the laptop, M&Ms, “weaponization” of the Justice Department, and who knows what the fuck else. The BS Times will keep everyone abreast of the work of the brave R’s going after the evil Biden.

This will be Benghazi, the Blue Dress, and the Tan Suit on anabolic steroids, with regular shots of nitrous.

January 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: Garland the Reluctant is hardly alone. It has long irritated me that Democratic presidents think they have to pick Republicans for the "manly" jobs. Ergo, Clinton picked William Cohen as Defense Secretary; Obama stuck with Robert Gates. Obama also kept on Robert Mueller as FBI director; then followed with the odious Jim Comey. Republicans all.

Democrats seem to think Republicans will "trust them more" if they choose Republicans for the "boy's" jobs. Well, ha ha ha ha ha.

And the idea that only a Republican can be trusted to be special counsel to examine anyone, Democrat or Republican, is a special failing of attorneys general. Ken Starr. Robert Mueller. John Durham. 'Nuf said.

January 25, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

And you know if the Republicans take the White House that Biden will quickly be getting a trial date from whatever toady AG gets appointed by those traitors. If they get enough MAGAts on the jury to convict they will show everyone how corrupt Democrats are and if he gets off then that will show TFG was innocent too and treated unfairly by us awful liberals. Win win. And the news will amplify whatever message they decide to go with.

January 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Thank you. I have been fussing forever about the bothsideserism of the NYT and in particular Peter Baker. It is also a real problem about Dems appointing Rs in their administrations. Just yesterday I commented on Charlie's piece that our brand-new governor (formerly the AG of PA) is busily appointing Rs occasionally for the very reasons you all list, plus in the name of "bipartisanship", when it is a fantasy when Rs are in charge...note the s***canning of Swalwell, Schiff and soon to be the woman from Minnesota whose name just escaped me...Supposedly they aren't "fit to serve" according to the REAL monsters who are NOT fit to be in office.

Government right now is so thoroughly broken that we begin to feel we are people without a country. We/they can't even work a system for hiding high-profile pieces of paper that are probably already online somewhere and represent secrets and plans. No one is driving the boat, and it's taking on water rapidly, probably purposely. What a mess.

January 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne
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