The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.”

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Tuesday
Apr222014

The Commentariat -- April 23, 2014

Internal links, obsolete videos removed.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The Justice Department issued guidelines Wednesday adding new detail to President Barack Obama's plan to offer commutations to drug convicts serving prison terms longer than they would have received today. 'We are launching this clemency initiative in order to quickly and effectively identify appropriate candidates, candidates who have a clean prison record, do not present a threat to public safety, and were sentenced under out-of-date laws that have since been changed, and are no longer seen as appropriate,' Deputy Attorney General James Cole said at a news conference."

They Don't See Race. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In a fractured decision..., the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment that bans affirmative action in admissions to the state's public universities. The 6-to-2 ruling effectively endorsed similar measures in seven other states. It may also encourage more states to enact measures banning the use of race in admissions or to consider race-neutral alternatives to ensure diversity. States that forbid affirmative action in higher education, like Florida and California, as well as Michigan, have seen a significant drop in the enrollment of black and Hispanic students in their most selective colleges and universities.... Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the longest, most passionate and most significant dissent of her career, said the Constitution required special vigilance in light of the history of slavery, Jim Crow and 'recent examples of discriminatory changes to state voting laws.' Her opinion, longer than the four other opinions combined, appeared to reflect her own experiences...." ...

... ** Charles Pierce: "The decision was written by Anthony Kennedy, who lives in that wonderful world where the law is a pure crystal stream running through green meadows, unsullied by the grit and silt that piles up in the actual lives of actual human beings.... What we are seeing, over and over again, is what happens when you combine the inebriate effect of American Exceptionalism in the philosophy of the law. Race does not exist as an issue in our country anymore because we have overcome it, because we are America and, therefore, Exceptional." ...

... Emily Bazelon of Slate: "In another context -- gay rights -- Kennedy has worried a lot about how a majority's display of 'animus,' or prejudice, can hurt the minority. But he's not concerned that's what drove Michigan's voters to ban affirmative action. This time he sees only an entirely valid democratic process. The single point on which Scalia and Sotomayor agree is that Kennedy has reinterpreted the 1960s and 1970s rulings beyond recognition." ...

... Noah Feldman, In Bloomberg News, explains the convoluted logic of Anthony Kennedy's decision & deems Sonia Sotomayor's dissent "one for the casebooks and the ages."

Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court signaled on Tuesday that it was struggling with two conflicting impulses in considering a request from television broadcasters to shut down Aereo, an Internet start-up they say threatens the economic viability of their businesses." ...

... David Carr of the New York Times: "... the Aereo case ... has a little bit of everything: legacy media hanging on to cherished business models, an insurgent with a crafty workaround and perhaps most important, the first big test of who owns and has rights to things that are stored in the cloud."

Massimo Calabresi of Time: In hearing an Ohio case yesterday, "the justices appear ready ahead of the midterm elections later this year to knock down laws in 16 states that aim to prevent lying in political races, likely claiming they violate the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech."

Campaign Money & Junk Food. Mark Bittman of the New York Times: "... the majority of Supreme Court members don’t see it that way; they believe that campaign finance limits restrict 'free speech.' This is the same argument used to defend the marketing of junk food to children. It goes like this: 'Anyone can say anything they want, but if you can afford to say it louder and more publicly than anyone else, that's O.K.' It's clear that this is true even if it harms the general public."

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Science proves it: "... Supreme Court justices cannot be trusted with our Constitution, at least as long as they are selected by political officials with a strong motivation to ensure that the justices are themselves highly partisan." They just can't wrap their brains around information that conflicts with their strongly-held beliefs.

Jaime Fuller of the Washington Post: "Everything you didn't even think you wanted to know about Supreme Court retirements."

Jonathan Topaz of Politico: "Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday accused Harry Reid of violating Senate ethics policy, saying that he has used taxpayer money for political purposes. Calling Reid 'so dirty and so unethical,' Priebus charged that the Senate majority leader breached Senate rules by posting partisan attacks on the official Senate website and his official Twitter account."

Steve Benen: The CBO has found that Medicaid expansion is even a better deal for the states than it previously calculated, yet Republican legislators are using every arrow in their quiver to ensure that under no circumstances will the poorer residents of their state get health insurance.

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "After conducting an investigation, the Army inspector general rebuked [Maj. Gen. Michael T. Harrison Sr., the commander of U.S. Army forces in Japan] in August for protecting the colonel [from investigations of multiple accusations of bad conduct, including sexual assault,] and failing to take appropriate action. But the Army kept the results under wraps until this week, when it released a heavily redacted copy of the investigative report in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by The Post.... The Army suspended Harrison in June for mishandling the case involving the Japanese woman but only after she took her frustrations outside the chain of command.... The general's handling of the case provides a textbook example of the Pentagon's persistent struggle to get commanders to take reports of sexual misconduct seriously."

Maureen Dowd: "... next Sunday, in an unprecedented double pontiff canonization, Pope John Paul II will be enshrined as a saint in a ceremony at St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican had a hard time drumming up the requisite two miracles when Pope Benedict XVI, known as John Paul's Rasputin and enforcer of the orthodoxy, waived the traditional five-year waiting period and rushed to canonize his mentor.... Given that [John Paul] presided over the Catholic Church during nearly three decades of a gruesome pedophilia scandal and grotesque cover-up, he ain't no saint.... Perhaps trying to balance the choice of John Paul, who made conservatives jump for joy because he ran a Vatican that tolerated no dissent, the newly christened Pope Francis tried to placate progressives by cutting the miracle requirement from two to one to rush John XXIII's canonization." ...

     ... CW: While the entire notion of sainthood -- as defined by the Roman Catholic Church -- is nonsense, the "miracle requirement" is exceptionally absurd. Could we please, in the 21st century, dispense with the notion that anyone can perform a miracle, which by definition is a supernatural event? There is no such thing. I suppose it's "progress" that one so-called miracle will now suffice to affirm a person's sainthood. ...

... Well, There's Always Saint Tim. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Cardinal Timothy Dolan says that Christian businesses like Hobby Lobby should not be forced to obey government rules that require all health care insurance plans provide access to contraceptives because women can already buy birth control at 7-11."

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "You know, celibate, white, old men probably should just stay away from any discussion of lady parts and their health."

Senate Races

Jonathan Martin & Megan Thee-Brenan of the New York Times: "Four Senate races in the South that will most likely determine control of Congress appear very close.... The survey underscores a favorable political environment over all for Republicans in Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas -- states President Obama lost in 2012 and where his disapproval rating runs as high as 60 percent.... Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, a two-term incumbent who has been considered perhaps the most imperiled Democratic senator in the country, holds a 10-point lead over his Republican opponent, Representative Tom Cotton." ...

... New York Times: "Although the Democrats currently have a 51 percent chance [of holding onto their majority in the Senate], that doesn't mean we're predicting the Democrats to win the Senate -- the probability is essentially the same as a coin flip. The Republicans' chances have been declining in recent weeks, falling from a recent high of 54 percent. This is mostly due to some unfavorable polls in Arkansas and Iowa."

Beyond the Beltway

Academic Freedom, South Carolina Style. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The state's House of Representatives recently voted to cut $52,000 in funding for the College of Charleston as punishment for assigning students to read 'Fun Home,' the graphic novel [about a woman coming to terms with her closeted gay father;s suicide] that formed the basis for [a] play [performed on campus]. House lawmakers endorsed a similar budget cut for the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg for using a different book with gay themes in its reading program.... [There is] a worsening political battle between South Carolina's public universities and conservative Republican lawmakers, who argue that campus culture should reflect the socially conservative views of the state."

Here in Southwest Florida, We Do Not Vote for Boring Sober People. Dave Breitenstein of the (Fort Myers) News-Press: "State Rep. Dane Eagle was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence early Monday in Tallahassee, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. Court documents show Tallahassee Police first spotted Eagle (R-Cape Coral) pulling out of a Taco Bell on West Tennessee Street. He then made a U-turn in his black SUV, and police said he nearly hit a curb outside Papa John's before running a stoplight. After pulling him over, the officer reported a strong odor of alcohol coming from the vehicle, and his eyes were bloodshot and watery.... Eagle's arrest marks the second Southwest Florida Republican politician to run afoul of the law in recent months. Former U.S. Rep. Trey Radel resigned in January following a stint in rehab sparked by his cocaine arrest in October."

News Ledes

Guardian: "The Oklahoma supreme court has dissolved its stay of the executions of two men who challenged the state's secrecy about its source of lethal injection drugs. The court reversed the decision of a district court judge who said the law that keeps the source secret is unconstitutional. The turnaround heads off a potential constitutional crisis sparked by the state's Republican governor, Mary Fallin, who had tried to override the stay by issuing an executive order to go ahead with the sentences.... The court's reversal on Wednesday came hours after a resolution by an Oklahoma House member to try to impeach some of its justices."

New York Times: "The latest accord between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization appeared more serious than past attempts, experts said, and came as hopes faded for a resolution to peace negotiations with Israel."

New York Times: "Russia continued Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on the government in Kiev, warning that events in eastern Ukraine could prompt a military response and again accusing the United States of directing events there."

Not All Fish Are Created Equal. Time: "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed President Barack Obama to Tokyo Wednesday by taking him to the greatest sushi restaurant in the world, the three Michelin star Sukiyabashi Jiro."

Reuters: "Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Tuesday they were holding an American journalist in the city of Slaviansk and the online news site Vice News said it was trying to secure the safety of its reporter Simon Ostrovsky."

AP: "When armed men seized the police station in this eastern Ukrainian city, mayor Nelya Shtepa declared she was on their side. She changed her story a few days later. Then she disappeared -- the victim of an apparent abduction by the man who now lays claim to her job. On Tuesday, she resurfaced, expressing support once again for the pro-Russia insurgents -- but possibly no longer as mayor."

AP: "A senior Canadian diplomat was expelled from Canada's embassy in Moscow in retaliation for Canada expelling a Russia diplomat as tensions grow over the Ukraine, Canadian officials said Tuesday."

AP: "A Moscow judge on Tuesday left open the possibility of jailing President Vladimir Putin's main critic for years, a sign of Putin's increasingly hard-line rule against opponents. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was fined $8,400 on Tuesday for slandering a lawmaker. His second trial starts Thursday, and prosecutors who previously secured his house arrest are widely expected to ask for jail for him pending trial, with Tuesday's verdict making him a recidivist. If there's a guilty verdict at that trial, he could get a prison term."

AP: "A Kansas judge will on Wednesday consider Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning's petition to legally change her name from Bradley, as she serves a 35-year sentence for passing classified U.S. government information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "An Army soldier convicted of leaking classified military and diplomatic records persuaded a Kansas judge Wednesday to legally change her name from Bradley Manning to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning."

Time: "President Barack Obama paid a visit to the small community of Oso, Wa., on Tuesday, exactly one month after a massive mudslide there claimed at least 41 lives. He promised survivors that the entire country will be on hand to help for 'as long as it takes'":

Comments Off

Reader Comments (9)

Naomi Klein has a very interesting piece relating the grave effects of climate change and the "mistiming" of the Reagan Revolution that has left us in our most important ecological moment in history with a skewered set of conservative ideals that are determined to resist any significant change.

It speaks not only of the biological mismatches that climate change is having on countless species across the globe but also the ideological and historical mismatch of the human species as we fiddle our thumbs hoping Mother Nature's fury won't inconvenience our cuddled lives too much.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/22-3

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered Commentersafari

@Marie; "Could we please, in the 21st century, dispense with the notion that anyone can perform a miracle, which by definition is a supernatural event? There is no such thing."
Hate to burst your balloon, Ms. Burns but this web site is a daily fuckin' miracle for those that like a shot of reality every morning.

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

Some of you may remember Father Guido Sarducci who regularly attempted to explain the vagaries and more recondite aspects of the Church to both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. For instance he once commented on the decision of the Vatican to allow fast food restaurants to be built next to St. Peter's. It had come down to a battle between McDonald's and Bob's Big Boy. Fr. Sarducci let the cat out of the bag by hinting that it seemed like the Pope was pro-Bob.

On another occasion he covered the subject of canonization, complaining that Blessed Mother Seton was being made a saint without the requisite number of miracles purely because she was an American.

"We gotta whole buncha Italians with forty, fifty, sixty miracles to-a their credit. But do they get in? No. But this-a lady she gets in with-a two miracles, even though one of them was a card trick."

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

For those interested in the developments in Eastern Ukraine, the abduction of Vice News Simon Ostrovsky correspondent is a sad turn of events although certainly predictable when considering the situations he had gotten himself into during his regular dispatches posted on YouTube. I've been following his updates since he first arrived in Ukraine and he's been able to get a camera into places mass media have completely neglected to cover.

I highly recommend checking out his dispatches he uploaded to YouTube (there's 28) if you're interested in a different perspective on the conflict. In dispatch 26 he actually went into one of the police headquarters as it was being ransacked by the Pro-Russian militants and was casually speaking in English while chaos erupted all around him. He definitely had some courage while operating around that environment. I hope nothing happens to him but I'm afraid his ability to cover the conflict is probably finished.

This link has most of the videos except for his last few dispatches where things really start heating up.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw613M86o5o7DfgzuUCd_PVwbOCDO472B

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered Commentersafari

The conservative Supremes can try to couch their hyper partisan rulings any way they wish in an attempt to camouflage their true goal of moving things ever rightward, stepping on or over precedent, and ignoring practical considerations of the legal landscape they've set about restructuring to suit their ideology.

What's clear is that one more vote on the side of darkness will throw open the door to the complete orientation of this country in favor of far right policies and ideological goals.

There is an excellent chance that, with 5 solid votes for all things wingnutty, Kennedy's infamously fickle swing vote will no longer matter.

I read the Post article about SCOTUS retirements. It was pretty innocuous except for one bit of trivia that won't be very trivial if the Senate succumbs to wingnut control.

No Democratic president has been able to get a Supreme Court nominee approved by a Republican controlled senate since Grover Cleveland. Not one. 1895. The century before the last one.

Republican presidents, I'm sure you're not surprised to hear, have been able to get a dozen nominees approved by Democratically controlled senates in that same period. We give but never get.

So retirements (and by that, most people mean Ginsburg) don't matter until they do.

But elections always matter, and in many ways mid-term elections matter more than ever.

With one more reliably wingnutty vote on the court, the conservatives won't have to worry about trying to make excuses for their outrageous rulings. They'll be too busy doing their version of an extreme legal makeover for the entire country.

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Yesterday over on Krugman's blog he wrote: "Larry Bartels produces the ultimate anti-Santorum argument. Santorum, you may recall, declared that we have no classes in America — even the term middle class, he says, is “Marxism talk“."

See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ for details.

Oh, Rick (otherwise known as my favorite sobriquet from Charlie Pierce: "...have I mentioned lately what a colossal dick Santorum is?") speaking of classes, you're in a class of your own. It's called déclassé.

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/22/blow_up_the_times_op_ed_page_and_start_again_why_friedman_brooks_and_dowd_must_bgo/

Alex Pareene in "Salon": I'm sure most RC'ers will agree with Alex in that the NYT opinion page is an embarrassment.

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

It's good to be the king, the king said, raising the skirt of the wench ahead, doing what he liked and whatever he said...

Here's the piece from the NYRB on Piketty's book reviewed by Krugman––our new Gilded age in full flower. The King is most pleased.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/?insrc=toc

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

By the way––Jon Stewart on Monday nailed Hannity to the wall over his stance on cows on federal land business and then on Tuesday managed to embarrass the hell out of all those manly men on the right side of Fox and god who chastised Hillary for getting a little teary eyed during her campaign by showing videos of MEN crying in the public forum. My favorite is McConnell blubbering on the senate floor.

April 23, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.