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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
Apr262011

The Commentariat -- April 27

By popular request, I'm running an open thread comments page in Off Times Square today. Comments on Brooks yesterday were, well, lively.

A Bizarro Moment in American History. President Obama releases his long-form birth certificate:

... Okay, Birthers, here it is.

     ... Click on the certificate to see a slightly larger image. To examine the certificate in any size you want, go to this White House page. A pdf of the President's & his counsel's correspondence with the Hawaii Department of Health is here. ...

... Trump responds in Trump fashion: "Today I am very proud of myself...."

     ... "An Embarrassment to the Country." Adam Serwer in the Washington Post: "... those who fostered doubts about the president’s citizenship are unlikely to relent in the face of factual proof, because birtherism was never about the facts. For its most ardent proponents, it was and is about the inability to accept the legitimacy of a black man in the White House. Nothing about the decision to release the president’s birth certificate can change that." ...

     ... Ali Weinberg of NBC News has some more blogger reactions, many of which are predictably ridiculous. For instance, winger-blogger & CNN contributing correspondent (or whatever the hell CNN calls him) Erick Erickson now demands to see the President's college transcripts. Loons!

** New York Times Editors: "Less than a year before the 2012 presidential voting begins, Republican legislatures and governors across the country are rewriting voting laws to make it much harder for the young, the poor and African-Americans — groups that typically vote Democratic — to cast a ballot. Spreading fear of a nonexistent flood of voter fraud, they are demanding that citizens be required to show a government-issued identification before they are allowed to vote. Republicans have been pushing these changes for years, but now more than two-thirds of the states have adopted or are considering such laws. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights lawyers, correctly describes the push as 'the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.'”

Michael Shear of the New York Times offers five reasons Republicans are opting out of the 2012 presidential race. CW: my reason -- why work so hard only to be an also-ran?

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Ben Bernanke ... will hold a news conference" at 2:15 pm ET. In the spirit of democratic accountability, [the media] should ask hard questions — and we shouldn’t let him get away with the evasions and half-answers that members of Congress too often allow Fed chairmen during their appearances on Capitol Hill. One question more than any than other is crying out for an answer: Why has Mr. Bernanke decided to accept widespread unemployment for years on end, even though he believes he has the power to reduce it?" Washington Post story by Neil Irwin here. ...

... Annie Lowrey in Slate: "... the press conferences hardly imply the bank is headed for Oprah-type revelations. It remains an opaque, tealeaf-manufacturing institution. In fact, the press conference itself seems designed to not make news. It is mostly a symbolic gesture.... Expect non-answers, for the most part...." CW: ironically (or on purpose), at the moment Ben Bernanke poses as the Non-Oprah, President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama wil be sitting on Oprah's couch. (see today's President's Calendar near the bottom of the right column). ...

     ... Paul Krugman Update: "Bernanke wimps out."

... "Private Gains, Public Losses." Economist Simon Johnson: "... the banks blew themselves up at great cost to the American people, with major negative global implications. Most of the public-debt increase in the US and elsewhere is not due to any kind of discretionary fiscal stimulus; it’s all about the loss of tax revenue that comes with a deep recession. (And the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest, unfunded Medicare prescription benefit, and debt-financed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have severely weakened the long-term fiscal outlook.) Finally, the cost of the crisis is millions of homes lost and lives damaged, some permanently."

Jennifer Steinhauer & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies." ...

... A Preview of the Summer of 2011. Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Record crowds of supporters and opponents flooded town hall meetings throughout southeastern Wisconsin on Tuesday to hear Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) defend his plan to trim government spending — including controversial changes to the Medicare program. In the district’s Democratic stronghold of Kenosha, at least 200 people were left outside once the 300-seat auditorium filled to capacity. The people in the crowd largely opposed the Ryan plan, holding signs such as 'RyanCare = Dying Bare,' 'Leave Medicare Alone' or simply, 'Save Medicare!'" Here's a brief video from the Kenosha meeting:

... Mark Schlueb of the Orlando Sentinel: "A town hall meeting held in Orlando by U.S. Rep. Dan Webster degenerated into bedlam Tuesday, with members of the crowd shouting down the freshman Republican congressman and yelling at one another.... Webster beat Democrat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson last year. But the 8th Congressional District has a Democrat majority, and the party hopes to take the seat back in 2012." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. Here's video that is part of a related article by Scott Keyes of Think Progress:

     ... WFTV 9 Orlando has more video here.

... "We just feel like sitting ducks."Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: In New Hampshire, constituents are polite to Republican Rep. Charles Bass, but they're not favorably impressed with the Ryan/Republican budget. With video. ...

... Rachel Maddow has a great segment on citizen reaction to the Ryan/ Republican budget:

... Say What? David Nather of Politico: "Speaker John Boehner has given an interview in which he said Ryan’s plan was an idea 'worthy of consideration' and that he wasn’t 'wedded to it.' Democrats and liberal groups said Boehner’s comments to ABC News, in an interview posted Tuesday afternoon, make it sound like he’s backpedaling from the House vote two weeks ago in which all but four Republicans voted for Ryan’s budget plan [emphasis added] — including the Medicare overhaul that’s raising so many questions at their town hall meetings. Here's the interview:

      ... The whole interview is interesting. The part where Boehner backs off the Ryan budget he got his Caucus to vote for en masse comes about 2:45 min. in. ...

... AND as Brian Beutler of TPM points out, in the ABC News interview, Boehner "admitted what few members of his own party will admit...: that the GOP's Medicare privatization plan is similar in many key respects to the health care law they have spent the last two years demonizing." ...

... Economist Mark Thoma, in the Fiscal Times, explains why the voucher system, which the Ryan plan mandates to replace Medicare, would lead to rising, not falling, healthcare costs. ...

... Economist Dean Baker in TPM: "Twenty five million people are unemployed, underemployed or out of the workforce altogether..., millions of homeowners are underwater in their mortgage and facing the loss of their homes..., tens of millions of baby boomers are at the edge of retirement and have just lost their life savings," but all Washington is talking about is the deficit. And they're not serious about that; if they were, the Congressional Progressive Caucus's budget proposal "would be very much at the center of the debate." Thanks to Trish R. for the link.

Steve Benen: "It's important to appreciate the evolution of House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) rhetoric when it comes to raising the debt ceiling. This matters because, as we get closer to a crisis of Republicans' own making, Boehner is become more reckless and irresponsible, not less."

New York Times Editors: "If there was any lingering doubt, the latest data confirm that housing is still in a deep and broad recession. In the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price report for 20 large cities, house prices in February fell to a level last seen in April 2009 — their lowest point in the bust. In a Census Bureau report, new home sales in March remained near their lowest levels since records were first kept in 1963.... How much worse they will need to get before regulators, lawmakers and the Obama administration make an all-out effort to fix the problem."

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The nation’s main firefighters’ union, long a strong supporter of Democratic candidates, announced on Tuesday that it would indefinitely suspend all contributions to federal candidates out of frustration with Congressional Democrats who, union officials say, have not fought harder against budget cuts and antiunion legislation. The union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, said it would focus its contributions and energies on state and local races because many legislatures have sought to curtail collective bargaining or otherwise weaken public-sector unions." CW: this is what happens when Democrats act like Republicans.

** CW: As Karen Garcia and I have been say for months, President Obama is a moderate Republican. Now Ezra Klein has taken note: "... the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans staked out in the early ’90s — and often, well into the 2000s.... It appears that as Democrats moved to the right to pick up Republican votes, Republicans moved to the right to oppose Democratic proposals." Klein gives numerous examples of Obama policies that mirror those of Republican leaders.

Make Medicare Itself a "Death Panel." Ezra Klein: one way to substantially cut Medicare costs -- require every recipient to sign a living will mandating that doctors not prolong our lives by extraordinary (and very costly) measures. CW: I have a living will, my husband has a living will, but I don't think a single politician in today's political climate would make Medicare benefits contingent on living wills. ...

     ... Update: What Klein really says is that the Medicare-required living will could include any instructions. Klein is betting that most people would choose not to ask for extraordinary measures. It was Andrew Sullivan, whom Klein quotes, who suggested, "If everyone aged 40 or over simply made sure we appointed someone to be our power-of-attorney and instructed that person not to prolong our lives by extraordinary measures if we lost consciousness in a long, fatal illness or simply old age." Sullivan suggests the living will be completely voluntary. Thanks to reader Trish R. for catching my error.

If you read this article in the New York Times, by Trip Gabriel, you will be left with the impression that Jeb Bush is a marvelous advocate for education reform. Well, he isn't. Jeb Bush is a marvelous advocate for taking public money out of public schools & putting it into private education. He's into teaching to the test, too. And his very favorite cause of all is to break teachers unions, something he tried to do while Governor of Florida, & tried to do again after he left office. The article tells you that Bill Gates is among the Bush foundation donors. It doesn't mention that his biggest backers are for-profit schools. Jennie Smith of the Miami Examiner has some of the story here and here.

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "On Monday, hours after ... WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing the documents online, the Justice Department informed Guantánamo defense lawyers that the documents remained legally classified.... Because the lawyers have security clearances, they are obligated to treat the readily available files 'in accordance with all relevant security precautions and safeguards' — handling them, for example, only in secure government facilities, said the notice from the department’s Court Security Office. It is only the latest absurdist challenge posed by the flood of classified material obtained by WikiLeaks over the past year...."

Roy Barnes of the AP: "Being against a president over his policies is one thing, but being petty over everything Obama says and does reflects the mean-spiritedness of many in the conservative movement."

Right Wing World *

I went to work at 11 years old. I became governor. It’s not a big deal. Work doesn’t hurt anybody. -- Gov. Paul LePage, Maine, on why child labor laws should be rolled back

Putting Kids to Work! Here's Maine Republican/Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage trying to justify his plan to gut child labor laws, a plan which is probably the most oppressive idea I've heard among all the oppressive ideas state Republicans have dreamed up this year:

     ... One problem with LePage's argument: it ain't true. Daily Kos: "He describes the bill affecting 14 and 15 year olds, when in fact it lowers wages for people up to 20 years old and eliminates the limit on hours a 16 year old can work on a school day."

(... Missed this one from April 23: Tom Bell of Maine Today (okay, Maine a Few Days Ago) "A federal judge ruled Friday that Gov. Paul LePage did not violate the free speech clause of the First Amendment when he ordered a mural removed from the headquarters of the Maine Department of Labor.")

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Fatah and Hamas, the rival Palestinian movements, announced an agreement in principle on Wednesday to end a years-long internal Palestinian schism." Haaretz story here.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a press conference at 2:15 pm ET. Related stories in today's Commentariat. Post-presser New York Times story: "The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, defended his management of the nation’s economy on Wednesday, arguing that the central bank was doing all it could to increase employment without unduly risking higher inflation." Update: what Bernanke said, via Reuters:

NBC News: "Eight American troops and a U.S. contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at Kabul airport — the deadliest episode to date of an Afghan turning against his coalition partners, officials said. The Afghan officer, who was a veteran military pilot, fired on the Americans after an argument, the Afghan Defense Ministry said."

In a letter to Congressional leaders yesterday, President Obama wrote, "I ... urge you to take immediate action to eliminate unwarranted tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, and to use those dollars to invest in clean energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." Here's the Washington Post's story on the President's letter.

National Journal: "Vermont is on the fast track to becoming the first state with universal health care with the passage of a single-payer health care bill on Tuesday. The Vermont Senate approved the bill 21-9 to offer government-funded health insurance to all state residents. The bill will now go to a conference committee, where the House and Senate will hash out the differences in the bill before sending it to Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat. Shumlin will have to obtain approval from the Obama administration before he could begin to implement the single-payer system, which would begin in 2013."

Washington Post: "President Obama is expected to announce long-anticipated changes in his national security team this week, including a new ambassador to Afghanistan.... The officials said that Ryan C. Crocker, a five-time ambassador who retired in 2009 after wartime service in Iraq, is likely to be named to take over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul...." AP story here.

     Politico Update: "... President Barack Obama has chosen a consummate Washington insider, CIA director Leon Panetta, to guide the Pentagon through what promises to be a turbulent period of transition and given Panetta’s old job to Gen. David Petraeus.... Talking to reporters this morning, White House press secretary Jay Carney would not discuss the appointments, which were confirmed by a source familiar with the decision, and said the White House will have be no personnel announcements until Thursday." Update: New York times story here.

AP: "The Syrian army sent more tanks and reinforcements into Daraa on Wednesday as part of a widening crackdown against opponents of President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime, and gunfire and sporadic explosions were heard in the tense southern city.... Security forces conducted sweeping arrests and raids elsewhere in the country, witnesses said."

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