The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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.

The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

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."

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Wednesday
Dec212011

The Commentariat -- December 22

Here's a short post on celebrations of the Winter Solstice.

Robert Scheer on Tom Friedman's Wednesday column: "That Friedman is a skilled obfuscator should no longer come as a revelation. But that his self-serving feints at the truth can still earn him a place of high regard in the world of journalism is a sad commentary on the profession that has rewarded him so lucratively." See also my column (which I also linked yesterday) on the same Friedman piece, which is in sync with Scheer's. The New York Times eXaminer front page is here.

You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better. -- Actor Matt Damon, who supported Obama in 2008

CW: I cite the editors of the Washington Post about as often as I do the editors of the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ made yesterday's cut. Here's a Post editorial on the Boehner boner: "... the speaker ... refused to allow the Senate measure to come to the floor for an up-or-down vote, in which enough Republicans might have voted with Democrats to approve the measure.... The real harm involves the failure to extend unemployment benefits. State-paid unemployment insurance would be available for the customary 26 weeks, but extended, federally subsidized coverage that has become routine during economic downturns would end. This is cruel and unwarranted at a time when there are about four jobless workers for every available position and two-fifths of the unemployed have been looking for work for more than six months. If the benefits are not extended, about 1.3 million people will lose coverage in January alone." ...

... Senate Democrats produced this video of Senate Republicans getting on the teevee and begging the House to get off the dime:

... Gail Collins summarizes the whole sordid tale in a manner that won't ruin your holidays -- unless you're one of the major victims of this mess. Here's a sample: "The idea that people were demanding that their leaders act like Mel Gibson should give you an idea of how out of control things had gotten." ...

     ... Steve Benen Update: "The timing of McConnell’s announcement [urging the House to pass the two-month extension] was rather remarkable. House Republican leaders, including Speaker Boehner, had just wrapped up a press conference..., telling reporters that the House GOP caucus won’t give in.... McConnell, almost immediately after Boehner wrapped up his remarks, cut the legs out from underneath the House GOP leadership and sided with Harry Reid’s proposed solution." CW: see also today's Ledes.

NEW. Kate Linthicum of the Los Angeles Times: "Many Occupy L.A. protesters arrested during demonstrations in recent months are being offered a unique chance to avoid court trials: pay $355 to a private company for a lesson in free speech. Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won't press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates. He said the program, which may include lectures by attorneys and retired judges, is being offered to people with no other criminal history and who were arrested on low-level misdemeanor offenses, such as failure to disperse."

Yesterday, I posted a link to Nate Silver's analysis of President Obama's improved poll numbers in which Silver said he thought the reason was the positive economic signs. I saw that as bad news for Obama. Now, it turns out actual economists agree with my "intuition": Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "... the good [economic] news also comes with a significant caveat. Many forecasters say the recent uptick probably does not represent the long-awaited start to a strong, sustainable recovery. Much of the current strength is caused by temporary factors. And economists expect growth to slow in the first half of 2012 to an annual pace of about 1.5 to 2 percent. Even that estimate could be optimistic if Washington lawmakers fail to extend aid for the long-term unemployed and a payroll tax cut for the United States’ 160 million wage earners."

Lifting the Fog of War. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on what Bradley Manning is accused of exposing. It's stuff the public should know about -- and it isn't good.

Yesterday, via a reader, I linked to a story about the Christian right's opposition to regulation of mercury, because, hey, the unbor might get over the deleterious effects of mercury poisoning by the time they're five or six years old. Today, David Roberts of Grist writes, "Wednesday, at long last, the EPA unveiled its new rule covering mercury and other toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants.... This one is a Big Deal.... The original Clean Air Act 'grandfathered' in dozens of existing coal plants back in 1977, on the assumption that they were nearing the end of their lives and would be shut soon anyway. Well, funny story ... they never shut down! ... Mercury rules get directly at these plants in a way no other rules have.... This is an historic day and a real step forward for the forces of civilization. It's the beginning of the end of one of the last of the old-school, 20th-century air pollution problems." CW: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, about whom I initially had doubts, is turning out to be a real hero. I'm glad she didn't quit whe Obama stabbed her (and the world) in the back on ozone regs. ...

... Update: ... this shows that it matters who holds the White House. You can complain about Obama’s lack of a strong progressive agenda, which I sometimes do, or wonder what good it is to hold the White House when the other side blocks every attempt to do good through legislation. But mercury regulation would not have happened if John McCain were president. Elections have consequences, and this is one delayed consequence of 2008 that will make a big difference. -- Paul Krugman

Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "Late last week, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced a bill to restore voting rights for citizens convicted of a felony after they complete their sentence. Currently, four states — Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia — permanently disenfranchise any resident convicted of a felony, even after he or she has been released from prison. Another seven states — Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Wyoming — permanently disenfranchise people convicted of certain felonies. If passed, the Democracy Restoration Act would restore voting rights to felons who have finished serving their sentence." CW: good luck getting this through. Since the number of ex-felons are disproportionately black, and since blacks historically more often vote Democratic, Congressional Republicans will never go for this. If they could have their way, voting "rights" would be limited to the same group that had voting rights in the late 18th century: white, propertied men over the age of 21. 

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: the public doesn't understand the implications of the individual mandate to obtain health insurance. A Kaiser study found that both sides -- pro and con -- have opportunities to change that dynamic. The cons can increase the negative view, but "the majority would flip to a positive opinion when they were told that Americans with employer-sponsored insurance really wouldn’t have to deal with the mandate. A handful of other messages also moved the dial." CW: of course if the Supremes strike down the individual mandate, "moving the dial" is moot.

Right Wing World

Art via Esquire.

Any President? Really? The DNC answers Romney (Bob Gates, BTW, is a Republican):

Profile in Cowardice. Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "At a morning campaign stop at a restaurant [in Keene, New Hampshire], Mitt Romney said that while he supported an extension of the payroll tax cut, he ... refused to criticize the speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, for siding with Republican members in blocking the Senate’s proposed two-month extension of the tax break." With video. ...

... BUT. Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who famously lost budget battles to President Bill Clinton amid two government shutdowns, had some advice to House Republicans at loggerheads with another Democratic president: Give in." ...

... Here's Karl Rove's plan, a/k/a Another Demonstration of Why Dubya Nicknamed Rove "Turdblossom." You would be forgiven for dropping the "blossom" part:

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Newt Gingrich fired back at Mitt Romney’s assertion that he can’t take the heat of a vigorous campaign, saying here Wednesday that he can 'take the heat plenty well,' accusing his rival of hiding and challenging his rival to a one-on-one debate in Iowa next week to settle their differences." CW: don't hold your breath waiting for Willard to call you, Newt. Not gonna happen.

CW: If Gingrich sounds like a rational guy in the exchange above, don't worry -- he's still crazy. Scott Shane of the New York Times: Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism."  ...

AND there's this: Gingrich says people for whom gay rights are important should vote for Obama. He means it, too:

Mitt Romney, Welfare King in a Pink Cadillac. Lee Fang in Salon: "During the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has lashed out at the Obama administration’s taxpayer subsidized grants to clean energy start-up companies. 'The U.S. government shouldn’t be playing venture capitalist,' wrote Romney in October. 'The very process invites cronyism and outright corruption.' But public records show that Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, repeatedly persuaded the government to play venture capitalist when it came its own portfolio of companies.... Whether through hiring insider lobbyists or funneling taxpayer subsidies to his companies, government assistance has been part and parcel to the rise of Romney."

Gloria Borger of CNN irritates Ron Paul -- so he walks out:

... Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic has a pretty good analysis of the racist newsletters and who wrote 'em. CW P.S. to Dr. Paul: when you become a viable candidate for POTUS, journalists are supposed to look into your sordid past. ...

... Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic on using racism "as a potent political force" even when the candidate "is not really a racist" himself. ...

... AND "Outreach to the Rednecks." Alex Pareene of Salon highlights this 2008 Reason article by Julian Sanchez & Dave Weigel that explains the "paleo-libertarian" move to the right: a strategic means to get Southern white racists on board the libertarian movement. This "paleo" movement directly links to Ron Paul & his racist newsletters. This is cynicism with consequences.

Charles Pierce of Esquire writes a funny post on Michele Bachmann's busy morning on the teevee yesterday: "Today, between 7 and 8 a.m, she managed live shots on the Today show (NBC) and The Early Show (CBS), as well as chatting with Ali Velshi on CNN and with the assembled graduates of the Muppets special-class on Fox and Friends. She did best with Velshi, who really seems to like her, and worse on Today with Ann Curry, who pinned her rather convincingly on an op-ed Bachmann had arranged to be published under her name in the Des Moines Register.... Bachmann really has to consult more closely with her ghostwriter next time to make sure she knows what she's saying in the newspapers that day." The Curry-Bachmann interview is here.

Via Gawker.Max Read of Gawker: "Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner hates how Michelle Obama is constantly forcing sickening Muslim traditions like 'vegetables' and 'exercise' on the youth of America — especially when she herself is so disgustingly corpulent, in the butt area. He hates it so much he can't even keep quiet about it!" CW: I'd love to see that fat-assed Sensenbrenner try to wriggle into a pair of Michelle Obama's workout pants.

"Sen. Tom Coburn Debunks His Own Report." Jamison Foser of Media Matters: "Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has produced yet another list of government spending that he considers wasteful largely because it sounds funny.... Coburn's typical approach is to catalogue government spending that he can caricature with silly-sounding headlines, much of it constituting a trivial amount of money, and lambaste the 'wasteful' spending without bothering to assess the actual merits.... Less than two months ago, Coburn was caught denouncing a laundry list of non-existent spending.... Coburn writes that the report details 'unnecessary, duplicative, or just plain stupid projects.' But on the very same page, in an adjacent paragraph, Coburn admits: 'Some of the projects listed within this report may indeed serve useful purposes or have merit.'"

Local News

Daniel Luzer of the Washington Monthly: Florida Gov. Rick Scott (America's Worst Governor) has been trying to "reform college. It’s not going so well. First there was Scott’s much-derided comment that the state should stop supporting the humanities and social sciences because the state didn’t need more anthropologists. This was followed by an incident where Scott angered virtually all state university professors by publishing their salaries online." Then his call to suspend Florida A&M President James Ammons because of a hazing death at the school led to a student & alum backlash.

Dick Hogan of my local newspaper, the News-Press, has written a terrific investigative report on a real-estate swindle that rips off both banks & foreclosed homeowners. Hogan sticks to data in Lee County, Florida, but you can bet this is happening in your community, too: "A wave of suspicious deals by real estate agents selling bank-owned or distressed homes at ultra-low prices is sweeping Southwest Florida, a News-Press investigation shows. The practice is called 'flopping.' In it, the banker, on the advice of its own real estate agent, sells a property for less than it’s worth. Then the agent arranges for the property to be sold to an associate — who quickly resells it at a much higher price, sometimes the same day." There's a related article here and more material, including a good graphic here.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "Bowing under intense pressure from members of their own party, House Republican leaders agreed Thursday to accept a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut, beating a hasty retreat from a showdown that Republicans increasingly saw as a threat to their election opportunities next year. Under a deal reached between House and Senate leaders, the House will now approve as early as Friday the two-month extension of a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits approved by the Senate last Saturday, and the Senate will appoint members of a House-Senate conference committee to negotiate legislation to extend both benefits through 2012."

President Obama speaks on the importance of the tax cut:

AP: Mitch McConnell, "the Senate's top Republican, on Thursday urged the GOP-led House to pass a short-term renewal of payroll tax cuts and break an impasse that threatens 160 million workers with a 2 percentage point tax increase on Jan. 1... while calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to appoint negotiators on the separate House measure that would bring a year-long renewal of the payroll tax and jobless benefits. Separately, in a Thursday morning phone call, House Speaker John Boehner urged President Barack Obama to send administration officials to the Capitol to negotiate an agreement on a long-term measure demanded by Republicans. Obama declined the offer." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: Boehner says fuggedaboudit.

The Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor endorses Jon Huntsman, Jr., in the GOP presidential primary.

New York Times: "Mistakes by both American and Pakistani forces led to airstrikes against Pakistani posts on the Afghanistan border that killed 26 Pakistani Army soldiers last month, according to a Pentagon investigation that for the first time acknowledged some American responsibility for the clash, which plunged the already frayed relationship between the United States and Pakistan to a new low. But a crucial finding — that the Pakistanis fired first — was likely to further anger Pakistan."

Reuters: "Bank of America Corp's Countrywide Financial unit agreed on Wednesday to pay a record $335 million to settle civil charges that it discriminated against minority homebuyers, an historic settlement for the Obama administration in the wake of the subprime mortgage morass."

Reuters: "Anti-Wall Street activists who have camped out since October in the college town of Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, braced for an eviction that city officials warned would be enforced late Wednesday night. The city distributed flyers announcing plans to shut down the Occupy Berkeley encampment at Civic Center Park starting at 10 p.m. local time, citing an escalating rash of violence and other criminal behavior in recent weeks, capped by an attempted rape on Tuesday."

Reuters: "A rash of bombings hit Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 57 people in the first big attack on Iraq's capital since a crisis between its Shi'ite Muslim-led government and Sunni rivals erupted days after the U.S. troop withdrawal. The apparently coordinated bombings were the first sign of rising violence after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki moved to sideline two Sunni Muslim leaders, just a few years after sectarian bloodletting drove Iraq to the edge of civil war."

Comments Off