The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”

Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday, leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued into Wednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

     ~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

Help!

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

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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.

INAUGURATION 2029

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Friday
Dec092011

The Commentariat -- December 10

President Obama's Weekly Address (the transcript is here):

Via Salon.Rebecca Traister of Salon Is My Hero of the Day: "... as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of 'Father Knows Best' reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang." ...

... Akiba Solomon of Color Lines: "I can count four ways this decision sucks for colored girls who have considered ‘the morning after pill’ when their first-line birth control wasn’t enough." ...

... Katha Pollitt of The Nation: "Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? Would he really rather that Sasha and Malia get pregnant rather than buy Plan B One-Step at CVS? And excuse me, Mr. President, thanks to your HHS, acquiring Plan B is prescription-only not just for 11-year-olds but for the 30 percent of teenage girls between 15 and 17 who are sexually active, and is a cumbersome process for all women, who have to ask a pharmacist for it and, as many news stories have reported, be subjected to fundamentalist harangues and objections. Apparently, it’s okay with you if Michelle is treated like a sixth-grader. I’m trying to think if there are any laws or regulations affecting only men in which unfounded fears about middle-school boys deny all men normal adult privileges. Needless to say, no one suggests that underage boys get a prescription if they want to use condoms, or that grown men have to ask the pharmacist for them and maybe get a lecture about the evils of birth control and promiscuity." ...

... Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post on "Plan B the danger of extreme examples." ...

... Michael Herper of Forbes: the medical community -- including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg -- is enraged. "Although the HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, was within her legal authority under the 1938 law that created the FDA, this is the first time a presidential administration has ever publicly overruled the FDA in this manner."

CW: In case you were under the misapprehension that Republicans run for the U.S. Senate in hopes of going to Washington to make the federal government work better, Gail Collins' column today will disabuse you of that happy notion. "The Ghost of Boyfriends Past" is Collins at her best.

Sarah Lyall & Julia Werdigier of the New York Times: "Prime Minister David Cameron’s fateful decision to veto the idea of renegotiating the European Union treaty on Friday has left Britain as isolated as it has ever been in postwar Europe and effectively left out of future European decisions." ...

... Paul Taylor of Reuters: Nicolas Sarkozy, "the French president, emerged as one of the big winners of a European Union summit on Friday which ended with up to 26 member states agreeing to move forward in economic integration around the euro zone, and Britain alone in staying out.... By obstructing the wish of the other EU members to amend the bloc's governing Lisbon treaty to allow closer fiscal union among the 17-nation single currency area, British Prime Minister David Cameron managed to unite Europe against him. He may be feted by Eurosceptics at home, but he emerged as the biggest diplomatic loser of the summit, leading his country into an isolation that all his predecessors sought to avoid." ...

... Ian Traynor, et al., of the Guardian: "David Cameron plunged Britain's position in Europe into the greatest uncertainty in a generation as he used his veto to block a new EU-wide treaty and left at least 23 other countries to forge a pact to salvage the single currency. With the apparent blessing of the pro-European deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – and the subsequent delight of Tory backbenchers – Cameron deployed the ultimate weapon in European summitry at about 2.30am yesterday." ...

... Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian reacts to Britain's rejection of the new eurozone treaty:

Paul Krugman: "I’m not as surprised as Greg Sargent seems to be that Karl Rove’s latest line of attack against Elizabeth Warren is that she’s too close to Wall Street. Hey, she oversaw the use of TARP funds! Greg takes this as a sign that Democrats are winning the argument, and it is. But they also have to win the election. And this wouldn’t be the first time that nonsensical arguments that rely on voter ignorance about who stands for what have worked."

Right Wing World *

Today in Rick Perry Said Another Ignorant Thing. Josh Voorhees of Slate: Gov. Rick Perry told the Des Moines Register editorial board that Supreme Court Justice "Montemayor" was an activist judge. That would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Perry went on to say that he didn't think 8 Supreme Court justices should be able to tell local school boards they can't allow prayer in school. There are 9 Supreme Court justices. With videos. So make that two ignorant things.

Today in Mitt v. Mitt. Ben Armbruster of Think Progress: In October, Mitt Romney said President Obama's decision (actually, he didn't have a choice) to order all troops out of Iraq by the end of the year was "an astonishing failure." Yesterday, he told the Des Moines Register editorial board the troop removal was "appropriate."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Mitt Romney is not going to keep his hands off your Medicare. He doubles down on his endorsement of Paul Ryan's voucher plan.

Tamara Keith of NPR: Congressional Republicans argue that many small-business owners will be hurt by a "millionaires' surtax" which would be used to pay for payroll tax cuts. NPR wanted to talk to small business owners who would be affected by the tax. They couldn't find any. "So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview."

In a Des Moines Register op-ed, ahead of tomorrow's umpteenth Republican debate, this one to be held in Iowa, Rand Paul Son of Ron writes an op-ed attacking Mitt & Newt, but mostly Newt, as not-so-closeted libruls: "If the tea party is to continue the work we resolved in 2010 to undertake, then we must not make a giant leap backward by electing big government, status quo Republicans like Gingrich in 2012."

* Where everything leaders say is a focus-group-tested lie.

News Ledes

Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the GOP debate. On-the-spot commentary & fact-checking from Times reporters is here. ...

... Washington Post: "Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich came under sharp and repeated attack here Saturday night, accused by his rivals of being a Washington insider, a career politician and a serial hypocrite who has changed his views to suit the times and his political needs."

Boston Globe: "Hundreds of Boston police officers swooped down on the Occupy Boston encampment early this morning, arresting dozens of protesters and tearing down tents, bringing an end to the 10-week rally against economic inequality, the longest continual Occupy demonstration in the country. At least 46 protesters were arrested in the lightning-swift operation, which was over in less than an hour. The vast majority are facing trespassing charges...."

New York Times: "Thousands of Russians thronged the center of Moscow on Saturday in a show of defiance against the government of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, one that organizers hoped would become the largest anti-Kremlin demonstration since the fall of the Soviet Union. Calls for protest have been mounting since parliamentary elections Sunday that domestic and international observers said were tainted by ballot-stuffing and fraud on behalf of Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia."

AP: "Three women who fought injustice, dictatorship and sexual violence in Liberia and Yemen received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Saturday. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her compatriot Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen collected their Nobel diplomas and medals to applause at Oslo's City Hall."

AP: "A Los Angeles woman accused of attacking at least 20 Black Friday shoppers at a Walmart store with pepper spray won't face felony charges, prosecutors said Thursday. The case of Elizabeth Macias, 32, was referred to city attorneys after county prosecutors didn't find evidence of a felony.... Macias could still face misdemeanor prosecution, Gibbons said."

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