The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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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.”

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The Commentariat -- Aug. 16, 2013

Mark Landler & Peter Baker of the New York Times: " President Obama announced Thursday that the United States had canceled longstanding joint military exercises with the Egyptian Army set for next month, using one of his few obvious forms of leverage to rebuke Egypt's military-backed government for its brutal crackdown on supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Though the decision is an embarrassment to Egypt's generals, and will deprive Egypt of much-needed revenue, it lays bare both the Obama administration's limited options to curb the military's campaign against Islamists in Egypt and the United States' role as an increasingly frustrated bystander":

... Gene Robinson: "There may be little the United States can do to end the savage bloodletting in Egypt, but at least our nation can be loyal to its ideals by bearing witness and telling the truth. In this, President Obama has failed."

** Oops, Our Bad. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: "The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents. Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.... The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.... The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record." ...

We also have federal judges that we've put in place who are not subject to political pressure. They've got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they're empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren't being abused. -- President Obama, June 2013

... Even the Foxes Aren't Guarding the Henhouse. Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, "the leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government's vast spying programs, said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans. The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government's surveillance breaks the court's rules that aim to protect Americans' privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government's assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes." ...

... So, as Casey Chan of Gizmodo writes, "Basically, the NSA gets to do whatever it wants and no one can really check it." ...

... This Is Rich. Marcy Wheeler: as the NSA & Justice Department officials whined to the Washington Post's Walter Pincus that the media weren't publishing "their side of the story," the NSA was refusing to allow the Post's Barton Gellman to publish stuff they told him. ...

... Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the U.S. government's electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier than previously reported, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the matter.... Snowden has said he left Dell for a job at Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii around March of this year, specifically to gain access to additional top-secret documents that could be leaked to the media." ...

... Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: Ed Snowden denies that his father or his father's lawyers represent him: "Neither my father, his lawyer Bruce Fein, nor his wife Mattie Fein represent me in any way." Snowden complains that the media have "been misled by individuals associated with my father into printing false claims about my situation." He praises the lawyers & journalists with whom he's worked. CW: as I speculated some while back, Ed has always been a problem child.

Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "The Pentagon has unveiled a range of initiatives to curb sexual assault in the ranks and tackle what military leaders have described as a "crisis" of confidence which prevents victims coming forward. The new initiatives, to be implemented immediately, include greater protections of victims, including the expansion of an air force initiative to provide victims with a legal advocacy programme. Other changes include ensuring that pretrial investigations are conducted by judge advocate generals and improved tracking and follow-up of sexual assault cases."

Voters R Ingorant. Paul Krugman: A public poll conducted this week found that "a majority of those who replied said the deficit has gone up, with more than 40 percent saying that it has gone up a lot. Only 12 percent answered correctly that it has gone down a lot.... Do people like [Eric] Cantor or [Rand] Paul know that what they're saying isn't true? Do they care? Probably not... We have an ill-informed or misinformed electorate, politicians who gleefully add to the misinformation and watchdogs who are afraid to bark. And to the extent that there are widely respected, not-too-partisan players, they seem to be fostering, not fixing, the public's false impressions." ...

... Caveat Emptor. Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It's pretty simple. -- Rep. Tom McClintock (RTP-Calif.), arguing that Wall Streeters don't commit crimes & should not be regulated ...

... ** Congressmen R Ingorant. Charles Pierce on "your wingnut congresscritters." Pierce is looking for a successor to Michele Bachmann, & he finds three well-qualified candidates, not counting Louis Gohmert. The citation from Molly Ivins is priceless.

Peter Hamby of CNN: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie planted himself firmly in the Republican Party's establishment wing Thursday with a pugnacious speech calling on his party to focus on pragmatism rather than ideology and crippling internal debates.... Some of Christie's remarks ... were interpreted by many here as another jab at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a potential rival for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "The critical bulk of Republican caucus and primary voters are only going to tolerate Christie if he's the practical means to the ends defined by people like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan. If he has contempt for those ends, then all the favorable poll numbers in the world won't save him. But you get the sense that contempt is one emotion Chris Christie has a real hard time disguising, and that could be his undoing."

Scott Malone of Reuters: "Delegates to a summer meeting of the Republican National Committee are scheduled to vote Friday on a possible boycott of 2016 presidential debates sponsored by CNN and NBC if the networks go ahead with plans for special programs on Democrat Hillary Clinton." CW: Is this part of their "outreach" program or a wilful effort to keep non-Foxbots from seeing what a bunch of unhinged wingers the GOP contenders are? ...

... Be Careful What You Wish For. Steve M. of No More Mr. Nice Blog: "... there's talk in the Republican Party of bypassing mainstream journalists when selecting debate moderators, in favor of conservative media figures." RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer promoted radio winger Mark Levin as debate moderator. Steve reprises a few of Levin's derogatory remarks about likely 2016 GOP candidates for the presidency & notes that Levin likes Ted Cruz. "Yeah, go ahead, GOP -- try to get a fair, balanced debate with this guy acting as moderator."

Reince Sez Mitt Is a Racist. Brent Logiurato of Business Insider: " In condemning Rep. Steve King's incendiary comments on immigration, RNC chairman Reince Priebus swept in his party's presidential nominee, saying that talk of 'self-deportation' was 'horrific' and even 'racist.' Mitt Romney repeatedly used the term during the Republican primary campaign to talk about how his immigration enforcement policies would lead to unauthorized immigrants leaving the U.S. of their own accord, rather than needing to be deported. 'Using the word 'self-deportation' -- it's a horrific comment to make,' Priebus said, in a forceful rebuke. 'I don't think it has anything to do with our party. When someone makes those comments, obviously, it's racist.'" ...

     ... CW: look for an upcoming quote from Mitt, claiming he never used the term "self-deportation." Also, "I love Mexicans: my father was a Mexican; some of my best gardeners were Mexicans, & I was mighty sorry I had to fire them. I am not a racist."

Philip Bump of the Atlantic: "Now that the tedium of the 2012 campaign is over, President Obama is making good on his 2010 pledge to put solar panels on top of the White House. The panels (American-made, of course) will be the second set the building has ever seen. The first ones were removed when Ronald Reagan was president, which may not surprise you."

Local News

New York Times Editors: In the Detroit bankruptcy case, Detroit is giving bankers who sold the city derivatives precedence over city pensioners, many of whom do not get Social Security. "Detroit's problems are a reminder of broader challenges, identified but still unmet: protecting pensions; protecting municipalities from Wall Street; and, at long last, revoking the obscene privileges of banks that allow them to prosper on the failings of others.

Washington Post Editors: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell "has said he would propose measures to tighten the state's Swiss-cheese ethics laws but has not yet done so. He has refused to summon lawmakers to Richmond for a special session on ethics reform. And aside from apologizing for embarrassing Virginians, he has not spoken frankly about any of the particulars, what he and his wife did wrong and why they did it. He delivered the apology itself only after enlisting a veteran Washington political image-maker, suggesting that the governor regards the whole affair mainly as a public relations problem rather than what it is: a symptom of shabby and unprincipled governance."

Vogue profiles Texas state senator Wendy Davis. (Clink "Print" to read the whole thing.) CW: I'm glad to see Davis get media attention, & I get that Vogue is a fashion magazine (they picture Davis is designer dress & shoes, neither of which she could afford). But I wish Vogue would also see fit to profile powerful women whose actual profiles are not as svelte as Davis's. As I recall, they've profiled women like Sarah Palin, Kathleen Sebelius, Jill Biden & Michelle Obama, all beautiful women. What about, um, Sonia Sotomayor or Barbara Mikulski, who are very powerful women?

News Ledes

New York Times: Sgt. Kimberly D. Munley , a member of Fort Hood's civilian police force, testified today in the trial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the admitted Fort Hood killer. "Her testimony came at the end of the second week of Major Hasan's military trial. A jury of 13 senior Army officers has heard testimony from more than 70 witnesses called by the prosecution."

Politicker: Tomorrow New York City will begin its appeal of the judicial ruling that the city's stop-&-frisk practices are unconstitutional, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in an unrelated press conference.

AP: "Egypt is bracing for more violence after the Muslim Brotherhood called for nationwide marches after Friday prayers and a 'day of rage' to denounce this week's unprecedented bloodshed in the security forces' assault on the supporters of the country's ousted Islamist president that left more than 600 dead." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "Scores of people have been killed in Egypt after security forces opened fire on anti-coup protesters staging a "day of rage" against the military-led government. In the worst of the violence on Friday, at least 95 people were killed and hundreds injured in Cairo's Ramses Square as anti-coup protesters were fired on by government forces. A correspondent for Al Jazeera described lines of bodies in a makeshift morgue in the nearby Al-Fath mosque."

Reuters: " India's navy said on Friday divers had found the bodies of three sailors who were on board a submarine badly damaged by a fire and explosions and that it was unlikely any of 15 other missing crew members would be found alive. Eighteen sailors were missing after weapons stored in the forward section of the Russian-built INS Sindhurakshak exploded in the middle of Tuesday night, causing a fire as it lay berthed in Mumbai, the navy's worst losses in more than four decades."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (5)

Want proof there is no God--Molly Ivins is dead and five deferment, other priorities got a heart transplant!

August 16, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJacquelyn

Jacquelyn,

Molly died because she was a flesh and blood human being. Cheney the Chicken Hawk did not have a heart transplant. That was a rumor started by the wingnut press to make it sound like he's human. They only opened him up (nuts and bolts--emphasis on nuts) to add a fresh gallon of bile and adjust the sneer.

August 16, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Wingnuts rejoice!

Stacey Campfield is back! With more drooling stupidity. Now with new and improved stupidity.

You may remember this guy as the around the bend nutjob state senator from Tennessee (R-natch), who has filed bill after bill slavishly following the craziest of crazy wingnut ideological tropes: a bill that makes it a criminal offense to say "gay" in schools; another bill that takes food away from children whose families receive public assistance if they don't make straight A's; another one disallowing anyone on public assistance from collecting more than $600 from a lottery ticket, even if the ticket is worth a million dollars.

After all, those greedy poors, they're just out for themselves. Lucky duckies. This is also the guy who showed up at a Tennessee football game wearing a luchador (Mexican wrestling) mask, scaring the shit out of fans (cops had to remove him), and the guy who has issued a warning that anyone quoting from his blog will be fined $1,000 per word. He's also the guy who declared that his research determined that AIDS came from homosexuals having sex with monkeys.

Yeah, that guy.

Anyway, so what's new in the world of wingnuts? Well, it's like this. You see, evil liberals have been suing the shit out of poor, victimized Christians who dare to say "Merry Christmas" during the holiday season. I mean, it's gotten to the point where a poor Christian winger can't even get out the word "merry" without being slapped with a suit. What, you mean you haven't heard about this flurry of lawsuits, the latest barrage in the liberal War on Christmas?

Well neither has Campfield.

Or anyone else for that matter. It never happens. But a minor point, that. What self-respecting wingnut cares about facts anyway? Or the real world? In fact, a famous wingnut governor, Rick (Visit Beautiful Niggerhead!) Perry passed just such a law in Texas (Winger Paradise) just last spring. Campfield is hoping that every state follows suit in filing laws that address a problem that doesn't exist. Because...well....because.

Next thing you know, wingnuts will be passing laws protecting kids from gay Martians who want to beam them up to their spacecraft and re-program them with the Intergalactic Gay Agenda and teach them to care about clothes and hair products.

But as Charlie Pierce is wont to point out. SOMEbody votes for these donkeys. Enough somebodies to foist their idiocies upon the rest of us.

So Merry fucking Christmas to all of them.


Liberals will SUE you if you say Merry Christmas--we're all VICTIMS!

August 16, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Wingnuts are Everywhere!

Okay, that Campfield dude is stupid, but this lady is ES (Extra Stupid).

Just to prove that wingnuttery is not a purely American phenomenon and that wingnuts the world over can be jaw droppingly stupid and also way too concerned with gay sexy time, I offer one Ana Maria Ortiz, of the Mexican Frightened to Death by Gays Party.

According to Ms. Ortiz gays can't be married. Now most wingers call on the Bible to back up this sort of dumbassery. Not this lady. Why can't gays be married?

Answer:

Because they don't face each other during sex. You know, like all married straights do.

But hey, points for creativity, I'll give her that. And double points for Extra Stupidity.

Also, for good measure, she says that gays shouldn't marry because their children all turn out to be drug addicts.

But you knew that, right?

If it ain't missionary, it ain't marriage.

August 16, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Well, heck, Akhilleus, you unmade my day and just when I was trying really hard to divorce myself a bit from all these Hayzaboons (Arabic for ogres) and nincompoops that seem to pop out of their pods and show their true colors by coughing up those nasty fur balls that stink of stupidity and delusions. Your last example, I must say, takes the cake: Ortiz's mission on correct missionary positions is simply too delicious to ignore and should be cat nip for Colbert or the Daily Show. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll continue my reading of George Eliot and pretend I don't live in the 21st Century––at least for awhile.

August 16, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
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