The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

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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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Wednesday
Aug102011

The Commentariat -- August 11

I've posted a comments page on Reality Chex Annex again. Thee's some progress on Off Times Square, so I'm thinking tomorrow we can get back to normal. Maybe.

The Debt: a Symptom, Not a Cause. Bill Gross of PIMCO, in a Washington Post op-ed, gets this right: "It is not the debt ... but the lack of global aggregate demand that is at the heart of the crisis.... Fiscally..., an anti-Keynesian, budget-balancing immediacy imparts a constrictive noose around whatever demand remains alive and kicking. Washington hassles over debt ceilings instead of job creation in the mistaken belief that a balanced budget will produce a balanced economy. It will not. The president and Congress must recognize that an AA-plus country, to remain AA-plus, must focus on growth, not debt reduction, in the short term." CW: what Gross doesn't mention is that in the U.S., there will never be adequate "aggregate demand" as long as most wealth remains in the hands of a few -- a few like Gross. Gross is one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of $2.1BB. How many washing machines and lawnmowers will Bill Gross buy?

The president has shown himself unwilling to just dig in on a position. He’s for jobs. I’ve heard him say that. He’s for being the grown-up in the room. But beyond that, I’m not actually sure what his bottom line is. -- Dee Dee Myers, President Clinton's press secretary ...

... Karen Tumulty & Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "With President Obama’s reelection on the line, Democrats are increasingly anxious about what they see as his failure to advance a coherent and muscular strategy for addressing the nation’s economic ills.... More Democrats are saying it is time for him to scrap his more cautious, conciliatory approach and advocate bolder programs that would generate jobs and economic growth, even though many of those ideas would have no chance of passing Congress." His aides pretty much say faggedaboudit. ...

... AND Matt Miller of the Washington Post on "why the center-left is fed up with Obama" ... Yes, other forces may be 'responsible' for the bad news. But in the end a president has the most power to shape the debate. How could Obama have let the entirely foreseeable debt-ceiling standoff turn into a hostage drama? Why didn’t he have the spine to say 'send me a clean debt limit increase or I’ll raise it myself and see you in court''?" CW: Miller's complaint is great; his solutions need work. ...

... "It's Time to Go Blacker." Larry Wilmore solves Obama's debt problem. "If there's one thing black people relate to, it's credit problems":

OMG! Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: Boehner & McConnell lard super committee with right-wing loons -- worst choice: the deranged Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Toomey

used to lead the vehemently anti-tax Club for Growth. He voted against the recent debt-limit deal, which convened the super-committee in the first place and was heavily tilted toward Republican priorities. He also insisted that refusing to raise the debt limit wouldn’t be so bad, since it wouldn’t force default — merely a massive, immediate, uncertainty-inducing and economy-killing collapse in federal spending. ...

... Marin Cogan & Manu Raju of Politico: "... every Republican member of the deficit reduction committee has signed tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, making it increasingly unlikely that any real tax revenues will be on the table as the committee tries to meet a Thanksgiving deadline." CW: obviously Boehner & McConnell decided automatic cuts would be better than a "grand bargain."

... The Right Idea. Mike Lillis of The Hill: "Rep. John Larson (Conn.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, wants to amend the recently passed debt-limit package to establish a joint select committee on job creation to operate alongside the already mandated Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. In a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to House members earlier in the week, Larson argued that the nation's jobs crisis is only exacerbating its long-term fiscal problems and therefore demands Congress's immediate attention." ...

It is possible that something similar to what has happened in London could happen in America. Sometimes you never know what will spark such an incident. I think that unless we move and move very fast to help that segment of our society that has been left out and left behind ... then we’re really playing with fire. -- Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), civil rights hero ...

... Lessons from London. Profs. Richard Sennett & Saskia Sassen, in a New York Times op-ed: "The American right today is obsessed with cutting government spending. In many ways, [British PM David] Cameron’s austerity program is the Tea Party’s dream come true. But Britain is now grappling with the consequences of those cuts, which have led to the neglect and exclusion of many vulnerable, disaffected young people who are acting out violently and irresponsibly — driven by rage rather than an explicit political agenda.... The two countries today are alike in their extremes of inequality, and in the desire of many politicians to solve economic and social ills by reducing the power of the state." ...

... NEW. Meera Selva of the AP: "Britain is bitterly divided on the reasons behind the riots. Some blame the unrest on opportunistic criminality, while others say conflicting economic policies and punishing government spending cuts have deepened inequalities in the country's most deprived areas. Many of the youths themselves struggle to find any plausible answer, but a widespread sense of alienation emerges from their tales."

Karen Garcia on the "Dark Knights of the Business Roundtable." Garcia notes that S&P is owned by McGraw-Hill, "whose CEO, Harold McGraw III, is also chairman of the Business Roundtable." Coincidence? Hah! ...

... Dennis Kucinich doesn't think so. Peter Schroeder of The Hill: "Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is demanding detailed financials from Standard & Poor's parent company, accusing the firm of having an 'inherent conflict of interest' in its decision to downgrade the nation's credit rating.... He contended in the letter that if the company owns government debt, S&P's decision to downgrade could have an effect on McGraw-Hill's investment portfolio." ...

... AND what about this? Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "S&P’s parent company, McGraw-Hill, has spent more than $11 million on lobbying over the past 15 years, including at least $1 million on S&P-related legislation.... The firm’s employees have also given more than $500,000 in contributions to federal candidates since 1989, primarily to Democrats.... The numbers underscore the unusual political position occupied by S&P and the country’s two other top rating firms, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Each company issues judgments on government creditworthiness that can move markets while lobbying the government for policies favorable to its core businesses."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "While last month’s Congressional tangle over the debt ceiling suggested permanent partisan gridlock, signs are emerging that some House Republicans are opening the door to potential revenue increases, as Congressional leaders continued to name their members of a bipartisan committee charged with finding ways to tame the deficit."

Brad Plumer of the Washington Post: the Obama Administration has a plan (CW: I'd call it a proposal; doesn't sound like they know how to implement it) to have Fannie & Freddie sell off foreclosed homes to investors who would turn them into rental properties. Plumer provides a pretty good overview of the pros & cons.

Greg Sargent: "... SEIU is launching a $1.5 million campaign, including TV and radio ads and direct mail, that’s designed to shift the conversation to jobs, and away from austerity, in six key swing states where unemployment is running very high":

This Ratigan Rant is making the rounds, & everybody seems to love it. Personally, I think he's an irritating prima donna:

Jeffrey Gettleman, et al., of the New York Times: "Bancroft Global Development, an American private security company that the State Department has indirectly financed to train African troops..., plays a vital part in the conflict now raging inside Somalia, a country that has been effectively ungoverned and mired in chaos for years. The fight against the Shabab, a group that United States officials fear could someday carry out strikes against the West, has mostly been outsourced to African soldiers and private companies out of reluctance to send American troops back into a country they hastily exited nearly two decades ago."

Well, This Is Appropriate. James Barron & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: beginning October 29 of this year, the Statue of Liberty will close for a year for repairs, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says. CW: October 29, BTW, was the date of the 1929 stock market crash. Now there's symbolism for ya.

Linda Greenhouse remembers former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, "The Man Who Saved New York City." Greenhouse traveled with Carey during his first gubernatorial campaign.

Right Wing World *

Ben Smith: "Gov. Mitt Romney lobbied the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s in 2004 to raise his state’s credit rating in part because Massachusetts had raised taxes during an economic downturn two years earlier.... Romney’s case to S&P is a far cry from the anti-tax absolutism of the Republican Party he hopes to lead. Indeed, it bears a far closer resemblance to the right-of-center grand compromise rejected by House Republicans this year — dismissed because it would include new taxes and end tax breaks President Barack Obama described as 'loopholes' — or the more modest compromise that passed, than to the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan Romney 'applauded.'” ...

AND Stephen Colbert's Super PAC runs its first ad -- for Rick Perry Parry:

BUT, John McCain is back on the "Straighttalk Express." A hobbit is a hobbit is a teabagger & he won't back down:

* Where hypocrisy is a virtue.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas will formally enter the Republican presidential race on Saturday during a visit to South Carolina, an adviser said Thursday, a step that removes any ambiguity about his plans to seek the party’s nomination."

Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday filled out the final three slots on the joint deficit committee by selecting three members of her leadership team to the panel. Pelosi (D-Calif.) chose Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), giving the panel the highest-ranking African-American and Latino lawmakers in Congress with Clyburn and Becerra, respectively. Pelosi reiterated her call for Congress to consider 'the grand bargain' of major entitlement cuts matched with increased taxes."

Washington Post: "Elizabeth Warren is embarking on a listening tour of Massachusetts, a step towards a possible Senate run against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)."

Yo-Yo. New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street surged higher on Thursday, setting the stage for what could be another unpredictable trading session.... Even as new economic data was released on Thursday, showing, for example, that weekly jobless claims were lower at 395,000, there was hesitation to read too much into one scrap of information in the bigger economic picture."

Reuters (Via NYT): "The number of Americans claiming new jobless benefits fell to a four-month low last week, a sliver of hope for an economy battered for days by a credit rating downgrade and falling share prices.... Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 395,000, the Labor Department said, the lowest level since early April. Economists had expected a reading of 400,000."

President Obama toured Johnson Controls in Grand Rapids Holland, Michigan. He spoke this afternoon about jobs & Washington gridlock.

Guardian: British PM David Cameron has called a special session of Parliament on the riots. The Guardian's liveblog also has a livefeed of the Parliamentary session. ...

... NEW. New York Times: "Seeking to reestablish his authority after England’s worst rioting in decades, Prime Minister David Cameron told an emergency session of Parliament on Thursday that the authorities would consider curfews, constraining smartphones and social networking sites, and filling some police functions with soldiers to keep more officers on the street. He also said that he would consult a former New York City police commissioner, who presided over a record drop in crime there in the 1980’s, on ways to counter criminal gangs."

Republican presidential candidates will debate in Ames, Iowa at 9:00 pm ET. CNN will broadcast the debate live, & more than likely will livestream it, too. Here's a Politico story.

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