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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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Tuesday
Apr192011

The Commentariat -- April 20

** Janny Scott, writing in the New York Times Magazine, profiles Barack Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham.

Jon Cohen & Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "... a new Washington Post-ABC News poll ... finds that Americans prefer to keep Medicare just the way it is. Most also oppose cuts in Medicaid and the defense budget. More than half say they are against small, across-the-board tax increases combined with modest reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits. Only President Obama’s call to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans enjoys solid support." A graphic illustration of the poll results is here. CW: now contrast this with traditional  Republic fear-mongering against raising taxes on the rich, as outlined by Steve Kornacki -- linked below under Right Wing World. ...

... OR, as Ezra Klein reads the number, "84 percent oppose Ryan's Medicare plan." CW: so wiith Republicans planning the destruction of the overwhelmingly popular Medicare program, how could Democrats lose in 2012? Let them show you the ways.

Jim Puzzanghera of the Los Angeles Times: "U.S. corporations have enjoyed a two-year bull run on Wall Street. They are sitting on a record amount of cash and are back to paying bonuses that are the envy of executives around the world. And the icing on the cake for many of them might be just around the corner: a tax cut that has bipartisan support in Congress. As part of their budget plan passed last week, House Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%. The Obama administration and many Democrats also are looking to slice the current rate, but not as much.... Yet ... U.S. corporations have been paying an increasingly smaller share of federal taxes over the last half-century. Nearly a third of all federal taxes came from corporations in 1952. Last year, they paid just 8.9%..., [thanks to] loopholes, credits and the ability to shelter earnings abroad."

Maureen Dowd must have been traveling lately, as she's just getting around to complaining about TSA pat-downs. The Off Times Square comments page for Dowd is up. (Comments on Brooks, BTW, are excellent.)

Karen Garcia is less than impressed with the Obama Administration's plan to charge pharmaceutical companies with instructing doctors on how to prescribe fewer meds. "Meanwhile, the Administration is 'absolutely committed to legislation that will make prescriber education mandatory,' R. Gil Kerlikowske, the Obama Drug Czar" said. Garcia has a few choice thoughts on Kerlikowske, too. ...

... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Democrats and Republicans are joining to oppose one of the most important features of President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, a powerful independent board that could make sweeping cuts in the growth of Medicare spending.... Under the law, spending cuts recommended by the presidentially appointed panel would take effect automatically unless Congress voted to block or change them. In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board’s recommendations." ...

... BUT Sometimes the King Is a Good King. Ken Vogel of Politico: "The Obama administration is considering a number of measures to compel disclosure of the kind of anonymous campaign contributions that helped finance millions of dollars of attack ads against Democrats during the 2010 elections. The White House last week began circulating a draft executive order that would require companies seeking government contracts to disclose contributions – including those that otherwise would have been secret – to groups that air political ads attacking or supporting candidates.... Taken together, the moves represent a broad administrative push to implement reforms that Congress failed to pass last year to blunt the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United vs. FEC in January 2010."

Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip who's negotiating with two other Democrats and three Republicans on a major deficit-reduction plan, broke from more liberal members of his party, who want to safeguard Social Security from any changes. Durbin said he wouldn't be signing on to a 'Sense of the Senate' resolution by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ... saying that benefits should not be cut. And he warned that revisions to the program, such as means-testing benefits for wealthier Americans, could be among the changes suggested by the negotiators."

This list of Congressional participants in President Obama's deficit panel at least gives us some hope that the group won't do anything. What do you think the likelihood is that Democratic leader James Clyburn will find a meeting of the minds with Republican Sen. Jon Kyl?

E. J. Dionne: "The decision by Standard & Poor’s to move U. S. government debt to a negative outlook is really a political intervention by a ratings agency into the country’s debt and deficit debate.... Unfortunately, the GOP took the S&P move as an indication that they are right to want to tie spending cuts to any increase in the debt ceiling. This is a willful misreading.... The real problem is that markets don’t believe Congress will raise taxes enough...."

Mark Bittman of the New York Times: "... when it comes to wrecking our oceans, the accidental BP spill was small compared with the damage we do with intent and ignorance." Bittmann discusses CO2 emissions, which -- among other ills -- lead to "ocean acidification, which might be thought of as oceanic global warming and is a greater catastrophe than any spill to date," and on overfishing.

CW: We know Republicans are always swimming against the tide of change, but here's a stunner from The Economist: "RISING debt and lost output are the common measures of the cost of the financial crisis. But a new global opinion poll shows another, perhaps more serious form of damage: falling public support for capitalism. This is most marked in the country that used to epitomise free enterprise. In 2002, 80% of Americans agreed that the world’s best bet was the free-market system. By 2010 that support had fallen to 59%, only a little above the 54% average for the 25 countries polled. Nominally Communist China is now one of the world’s strongest supporters of capitalism, at 68%, up from 66% in 2002. Brazil scores 68% too. Germany squeaks into top place with 69%." ... So as Paul Ryan, with the backing of most Republicans, touts his Ayn Rand-inspired capitalist manifesto realized in the form of his "Path to Disparity," Americans are increasingly just not that into capitalism.

Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is receiving accolades from the New York Times editors for vetoing the state legislature's birther bill. But Jan Moller of the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Louisiana "Gov. Bobby Jindal would sign a bill requiring presidential candidates to provide a copy of their birth certificate to qualify for the Louisiana ballot if it reaches his desk, a spokesman said Monday.

Right Wing World *

Forget History. Steve Kornacki of Salon: today's GOP dire warnings of the economic woes that would rain down upon the nation if the federal government raised taxes on the rich are pretty much word-for-word the same argument they used in 1993 (see video) when President Clinton & the Democratic Congress -- raised taxes on the rich. The results, of course, were the opposite of what Republicans predicted:

... the tentative recovery turned into a full-fledged recovery and economic growth eventually exploded.... What's more, with the higher rates in place thanks to the Clinton budget (and the Bush budget, for that matter), Uncle Sam benefited from an unprecedented infusion of revenue. By 1998, the country was running surpluses and rapidly paying down the debt.... By any measure, the Clinton tax increases had worked -- spectacularly.

"A Contemporary P. T. Barnum." Michael Isikoff, now of NBC News, reports:

     ... Here's a related print item.

The Daily What brings you the Celebrity Endorsement of the Day: "Much sought-after kingmaker Gary Busey has officially thrown the immeasurable weight of his support behind his former boss Donald Trump, in what is undoubtedly a major coup for the potential Presidential candidate":

"Donald Trump Is Running for President of Your Bathroom." John Cook of Gawker: "On April 6, Donald Trump learned that he had come out of nowhere to tie for second place in the GOP nomination race. The next day, he did what any bona fide contender would: He filed a trademark application for a new Trump-branded line of bath salts.... Trump filed to trademark the phrase 'SUCCESS BY TRUMP' for use in selling 'cologne; perfume; fragrances; after-shave lotions; skin moisturizer; shampoo; conditioner; deodorant; soaps for hand, face, and body; body powder; bath oil; bath gel; bath salts; [and] bubble bath.' ... So yeah, he's definitely running for president. Everyone knows the only way to punch through the news cycle and get voter attention these days is through a fragrance line." ...

... Trump Was Against Reagan before He Was For Him. Evidently reconizing that the Cult of Reagan, which includes every voting Republican, would require him to glorify Ronald Reagan, fake presidential candidate Donald Trump suggesed to Sean Hannity that Reagan was his Favorite President Ever. But this evidently wasn't so when Trump was writing his book The Art of the Deal. In the book, Trump compared Reagan unfavorably with Jimmy Carter, whom Trump sometimes chooses as the World President Ever. Judd Legum of Think Progress reports. Here's Trump on Reagan ca. 1987:

Ronald Reagan ... is so smooth and so effective a performer that he completely won over the American people. Only now, nearly seven years later, are people beginning to question whether there's anything behind that smile.

... In Right Wing World, you can pretend you never wrote what your wrote. ...

... Or You Can Just BE Delusional. Dana Milbank: Judge Roy Moore, "who was removed at chief justice of Alabama in 2003 for refusing to remove his stone pillars [carved with the Ten Commandments] from the courthouse," and who came in 4th in a Republican primary for Alabama governor, has formed an exploratory committee for a run for president. His Website proves he's qualified: it includes a facsimile of his Born in the U.S.A. birth certificate.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg asked Wednesday for a statewide recount -- the first in 22 years -- to check the results in the April 5 state Supreme Court race she lost to Justice David Prosser. That recount will start next week, at taxpayers' expense, the state Government Accountability Board said."

Washington Post: "The United States and its allies have entered a new stage of involvement in Libya, sending assistance and advisers directly to opposition military forces, which have been unable to break Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s stranglehold over much of the country despite help from NATO airstrikes. France and Italy said Wednesday that they would join Britain in dispatching military advisers to assist the inexperienced and disorganized rebel army, primarily in tactics and logistics. President Obama authorized sending $25 million worth of nonlethal equipment, including body armor, tents, uniforms and vehicles."

New York Times: "Tim Hetherington, the conflict photographer who was a director and producer of the film “Restrepo,” was killed in the besieged city of Misurata on Wednesday, and three photographers working beside him were wounded." Story has been updated: "... three photographers working beside him were wounded, one fatally, when they came under fire at the city’s front lines. Chris Hondros of the Getty photo agency died within a few hours of devastating brain trauma. The third photographer, Guy Martin, suffered a severe pelvic wound, according to Andre Liohn, a colleague who was at the triage center where the photographers were rushed by rebels after they were struck." ...

... The News York Times' Lens has a tribute to Hetherington which features his photographic work.

New York Times: "The Syrian government tried to placate protesters with declarations of sweeping reform on Tuesday while also issuing harsh threats of reprisals if demonstrations did not come to an end, as one of the Arab world’s most repressive countries struggled to blunt the most serious challenge to the 40-year rule of the Assad family."

Los Angeles Times: "Misurata, the only rebel-held city in western Libya, has asked that NATO troops be sent to fight alongside the rebels holding off Libyan forces, a local government representative said Tuesday." ...

... New York Times: "Britain’s decision to send experienced military officers to Libya, to advise rebels fighting forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, marks the latest development in the international community’s search for a means to end a bloody military stalemate that has killed hundreds in the contested cities of Misurata and Ajdabiya and left the rebels in only tenuous control of a few major coastal cities."

AP: "Federal officials are expanding a tarmac-delay rule to prohibit airlines from holding passengers on stranded international flights for longer than four hours. The change stems from a late-December debacle in which several planes loaded with international travelers were stuck for up to 10 hours on snowy New York runways."

The New York Times has more on the incident that forced Michelle Obama's plane to abort its landing at Andrews AFB: "... the controllers in the tower at Andrews ultimately ordered the Boeing to 'go around' because they were concerned that the cargo jet [in front of it] would not have time to touch down, decelerate and exit the runway on a taxiway before the passenger plane crossed the runway threshold. That problem occurs dozens of times a day with airliners at civilian airports around the country, according to aviation experts. The incident occurred just after 5 p.m. on Monday, the F.A.A. said in a statement, adding that 'the aircraft were never in any danger.' The agency did not say in its statement that the problem was controller error."

And more from the Times on the President's meeting yesterday re: immigration law reform: "President Obama told a gathering of business, labor, religious and political leaders at the White House on Tuesday that he remains committed to an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws and wants to try again in the coming months to push Congress to pass a bill. Here's the White House readout of the meeting.

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