The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Washington Post: “Hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, a spate of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes touched down across the state, flipping tractor-trailers and ripping off roofs. The twisters surprised anxious residents, even as the storm’s eye still loomed. Authorities said there had been 'multiple' deaths after the intense and destructive tornadoes.” MB: I'm still on Florida's emergency-call list, and I received several calls from Lee County, urging me to shelter in place.

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a 'life-threatening' storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here: “Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.... By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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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 -- December 29, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Alexandra Jaffe of the AP: "President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and predicted that 'things will get worse before they get better' when it comes to the pandemic. 'We need to be honest -- the next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, very tough for our nation. Maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,' Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday."

Mike DeBonis & Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday blocked consideration of a House bill that would deliver $2,000 stimulus payments to most Americans -- spurning a request by President Trump even as more Senate Republicans voiced support for the dramatically larger checks. McConnell's move was just the beginning of a saga that is likely to engulf the Senate for the rest of the week. Democrats are pushing for an up-or-down vote on the House bill, while more Republicans acknowledge a need for larger stimulus checks. Tension within the Republican party spilled into public view on Tuesday, with Trump leveling pointed attacks at GOP leaders for failing to act, accusing them of being 'pathetic' and suggesting they had a 'death wish.'... 'WE NEED NEW & ENERGETIC REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP,' he wrote. New proponents of the $2,000 checks include Georgia's two embattled Republican senators -- David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler...." The AP's story is here. ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, the Third Branch Weighs in. Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "A senior U.S. District judge called Donald Trump a 'criminal' during a phone call with the Associated Press as he discussed the 45th president's recent pardons of political allies who were convicted in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Senior U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt, a Bill Clinton appointee who had been the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa before assuming senior status in 2012, said..., 'It's not surprising that a criminal like Trump pardons other criminals.'" The AP story is here."

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Colorado officials on Tuesday reported the first known case in the United States of a person infected with the mutation-laden coronavirus variant that has been circulating rapidly across much of the United Kingdom and has led to a lockdown of much of southern England. The case involves a male in his 20s who is currently in isolation ... and has no travel history, according to a tweet from the office of Gov. Jared Polis."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "Dozens of research papers published over the past few months have found that people whose bodies were teeming with the coronavirus more often became seriously ill and were more likely to die, compared with those who carried much less virus and were more likely to emerge relatively unscathed.... The results suggest that knowing the so-called viral load -- the amount of virus in the body -- could help doctors...."

Whiney-Prez* Knocks Congressional Republicans. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday sharply criticized Republican leaders for allowing a vote to override his veto of a must-pass defense policy bill, calling them'weak' and 'tired' and accusing them of a 'disgraceful act of cowardice.' The House on Monday evening voted 322-87 to override Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), teeing up what may be the first and only veto override of Trump's presidency. 'Weak and tired Republican "leadership" will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass,' Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, apparently referring to GOP Senate leadership."

~~~~~~~~~~

Amy Wang & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "President-elect Joe Biden on Monday accused President Trump and his political appointees of obstructing the transition of power to his incoming administration, particularly on national security issues, an escalation in tone after reports of isolated difficulties in the transition process last week. In remarks from Wilmington, Del., Biden specifically called out the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department as agencies where his transition team had encountered 'roadblocks' from political leadership. Biden's remarks came shortly after he attended a briefing with nearly two dozen of his national security advisers. '... It's nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,' Biden said.... He warned that such delays could allow enemies of the United States to take advantage of vulnerabilities, citing a massive cybersecurity breach that compromised several U.S. agencies earlier this month.... Biden was careful to distinguish between political appointees in the agencies and the career professionals who he said had cooperated fully.... Biden opened his remarks by addressing the Christmas Day explosion in Nashville...." MB: Trump, BTW, is too busy golfing to remark on the Nashville explosion. The Guardian's story is here. The New York Times' story is here. More on this linked under "Last Days...."~~~

     ~~~ MB: The audio is low on all the videos of Biden's remarks, so this is the best I could do.

Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House mustered enough votes Monday to reject President Trump's veto of a $741 billion defense authorization bill, setting up the first congressional override of his presidency just days before he exits office.... The bill now heads to the Senate, which must also pass the measure with a two-thirds majority in order for it to become law. That vote could happen as soon as Wednesday." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) CNBC's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Then, Along Comes Bernie. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Sen. Bernie Sanders will filibuster an override of ... Donald Trump's defense bill veto unless the Senate holds a vote on providing $2,000 direct payments to Americans. 'McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote [on the defense bill] and I understand that. But I'm not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment,' Sanders said in an interview on Monday night.... Under Senate rules, Sanders has the ability to keep the chamber in during the holiday week and likely mess with the campaign schedules of Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)." ~~~

     ~~~ David Dayen in the American Prospect: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), with the backing of the Senate Democratic caucus, is prepared to make life miserable for Senate Republicans if they do not put a clean vote on the floor to increase one-time emergency payments to most Americans approved in the recent COVID relief package from $600 to $2,000. Sanders has the procedural means at his disposal to keep the Senate in session all the way to New Year's Day, inconveniencing Senators of both parties, particularly the incumbent Republicans from Georgia, who are in their final full week of campaigning for runoff elections...." Dayen explains how the maneuver would work. More on the Covid bill linked under "Last Days..." & "The Trumpidemic" below.

The Last Days of the Mad Kaiser

Michael Shear & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "For five days, starting before Christmas, Mr. Trump virtually held the nation hostage, delaying the extension of unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans, holding up the delivery of $600 checks, and dangling the possibility of a total government shutdown even as officials raced to distribute a coronavirus vaccine.... As an exercise in raw presidential power, it was a flop. As a political tactic, it backfired. And as a coda to his final weeks in office..., [it] merely underscored his tumultuous tenure in the Oval Office.... The veto threat was the latest attention-getting maneuver by a president who appears unwilling to accept the reality that Washington is moving on without him." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Part of the report reveals how Lindsey Graham & Kevin McCarthy had to engage in hours of "handholding ... to assuage the president's concerns." Aw, too bad. Lindsey & Kevin didn't make the Trumpenstein monster, but they were eager & able lab assistants. ~~~

~~~ We Shall Coddle Him on Palm Beach, We Shall Grovel on the Golf Course, We Shall Flatter in the Beast.... Mike DeBonis & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post write a story on how intrepid Lindsey rushed to Palm Beach to help negotiate Trump's "complete surrender."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "As of Monday, three days after authorities identified the [Nashville] bomber as a 63-year-old Nashville-area resident, Trump still had not commented personally on the event. He spent the day at Trump International Golf Club.... Trump's silence has offered another example of a president who, since his election defeat last month, has been consumed by his own political troubles and detached from the duties of his office as he wages a baseless assault on the integrity of the U.S. election system. But it is also consistent with a commander in chief who has, over nearly four years, quickly sounded alarms about violence he has connected to Muslim groups, foreigners or left-wing social movements in the United States --; but been slower to denounce attacks from right-wing actors or others who do not serve his political agenda." More on the bombing linked under "Beyond the Beltway."

Stupid Crazy People Have Another Stupid Crazy Plan. Justin Rohrlich of the Daily Beast: "A group of Republicans including Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Kelli Ward of Arizona is suing Vice President Mike Pence in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Electoral College is scheduled to certify the win on Jan. 6, a procedural task overseen by the sitting vice president.... In the lawsuit, details of which reporter John Kruzel of The Hill posted on Twitter, Gohmert, Ward, and 10 other plaintiffs such as Students for Trump COO Tyler Bowyer, Arizona Republican Party Executive Director Greg Safsten, and Maricopa County Republicans Second Vice Chair Nancy Cottle, are asking federal Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, to declare Pence legally authorized to pick pro-Trump electors on Jan. 6." Here's Kruzel's story in the Hill. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and ... Donald Trump's defeated electors from Arizona may force Vice President Mike Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump's bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.... Though the lawsuit itself is unlikely to gain legal traction, it does put Pence in the position of having to either contest the suit -- putting him on the opposite side of Trump and his GOP defenders -- or support it and lay bare the intention to subvert the will over the voters in the 2020 election. Pence has engaged with GOP lawmakers seeking to reverse the election results but has avoided publicly taking a side in the matter, and he has given no indication how he intends to handle his role presiding over the Jan. 6 session of Congress set to certify Biden's victory. Though Biden was the certified winner in states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and others, the Republicans who would have been Trump's electors met anyway and purported to cast their votes for Trump's reelection. They're counting on Pence and congressional Republicans to treat those informal votes as equal to the slates certified in those states where Trump was defeated." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), appearing on MSNBC, said the suit was nonsense & predicted it would be thrown out of court like the other 80-some nonsense election-results suits. ~~~

~~~ Zack Budryk of the Hill: "Republican-leaning pollster Rasmussen invoked a quote attributed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a Twitter thread Sunday suggesting Vice President Pence could attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election. 'Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. -- Stalin,' the pollster tweeted, before going on to outline a scenario in which Pence refuses to certify the results in swing states." Constitutional scholars say the veep is authorized only to open envelopes & report votes, not to strike the totals he doesn't like.

>The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "The House on Monday voted to beef up stimulus checks set to go out to American households in the coming weeks from $600 to $2,000. The chamber acted swiftly after President Trump demanded the larger payments in the last week.... Forty four Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats on Monday in passing the bill on a 275-134 vote. The measure's fate is much less certain in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. Approving stimulus checks of $2,000 would add several hundred billion dollars to the price of an aid bill that congressional Republicans had sought to keep under $1 trillion." An NBC News story is here.

William Feuer of CNBC: "President-elect Joe Biden plans to invoke the Defense Production Act after he takes office next month to boost production of coronavirus vaccines, a member of his Covid-19 advisory team said Monday. 'You will see him invoking the Defense Production Act,' Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Biden's Covid-19 advisory board, said ... on CNBC's 'Squawk Box.' 'The idea there is to make sure the personal protective equipment, the test capacity and the raw materials for the vaccines are produced in adequate supply.' The wartime production law, which allows the president to compel companies to prioritize manufacturing for national security, could help the U.S. secure components and specialized products that manufacturers need to produce the Covid vaccines.... The New York Times reported last week that Pfizer ... began asking the Trump administration in September to help the pharmaceutical giant obtain some supplies needed for production but was disappointed by a lack of response.... The Times ... reported that as part of [a] deal, [struck last week], the U.S. government agreed to invoke the Defense Production Act to 'help Pfizer get better access to around nine specialized products it needs to make the vaccine.'"

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here.

Americans Celebrate the Birth of the Baby Jesus by Condemning Themselves & Others to Death. Brittany Shammas & Reis Thebault of the Washington Post: "Despite weeks of increases in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, U.S. air travel hit a pandemic record this weekend as Americans crisscrossed the country for the holidays -- a sign, some public health experts warn, that yet another surge could be on the horizon. The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that it had screened 1,284,599 passengers Sunday. Travel is down 55 to 65 percent compared with before the coronavirus pandemic, but Sunday marked the highest number of travelers since mid-March and the sixth time in 10 days the daily volume exceeded 1 million."

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted an attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing Fauci of lying about the efficacy of masks & distorting information about herd immunity. "As usual, the real answer is a little more nuanced than Rubio seems capable of understanding or he's the one who's outright lying to Americans about the facts to score political points. As for the 'elites' Rubio [accuses of tricking the American people], is one of the 'elites' who has already received the vaccine." Burris includes tweeted criticisms of Rubio. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Beyond the Beltway

Tennessee. Rick Rojas, et al., of the New York Times: "Anthony Warner had a solitary job as an information technology specialist.... He was 63. He was not married. His neighbors barely knew him. He sent an email to one of his clients three weeks ago to say he was retiring. He started shedding possessions: He told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car. Records show that he signed away his home on the day before Thanksgiving. But he made sure to hold on to ... his R.V., a Thor Motor Coach Chateau that he kept in his back yard. He parked the vehicle around 1:22 a.m. Christmas morning on Second Avenue North in downtown Nashville, in the heart of a district of honky-tonks, restaurants and boot shops that would often be packed but was quiet in the small hours of a holiday morning. The R.V. had been rigged with explosives and a speaker set to play a warning and a song: 'Downtown' by Petula Clark, a hit released in 1964 celebrating the bright lights and bustle of a vibrant city.... Just before dawn, the R.V. exploded, its concussion reverberating for blocks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Lede:

New York Times: "Pierre Cardin, the visionary designer and licensing pioneer who invented the business of fashion as it is conducted today, has died in France. He was 98.... He clothed the famous -- artists, political luminaries, tastemakers and members of the haute bourgeoisie -- but he was also a merchant to the masses with an international brand...."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (15)

Could it be the OMB and the Defense Dept. (and the entire national security apparatus) are where the Pretend administration has the most to hide?

I would have to wonder about the EPA and its parent, the Interior Dept. too.

Ah hell, I'm sure after four years nothing was immune to the infection.

December 28, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Bless Bernie Sanders heart! I love to think Moscow Mitch is finally bested by the boy from Brooklyn.

December 28, 2020 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625

Milbank on the Pretender as Lear.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/28/trump-his-final-days-goes-full-king-lear/

The Lear thing has become a common meme that I don't like. When "Newsweek" termed the Bush II presidency a tragedy, I objected. Dubya was no tragic figure because he lacked the necessary initial heroic qualities that tragedy requires.

From the beginning the Pretender was all flaw. A clown, and not even funny.

Milbank does point to some neat t-shirts, though...

December 28, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Not sure what all this adds up to--or will when a decision is issued --or even why the SCOTUS took such a potentially explosive case, but plenty to think about here.

One of my thoughts: If the law can reach across the borders of both space and time, those lines on maps and the walls we build really don't mean much, do they?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-supreme-court-considers-when-the-us-can-judge-other-nations-human-rights-violations/2020/12/28/d0f0b02e-492e-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Very sorry to hear that David Greene is leaving NPR. He made Morning Edition bearable. Best wishes to him and his next gig.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterNJC

Our idiotic newspaper headline said "Smucker bucks Trump" for his vote AGAINST the $2000. Somehow, that implies how noble this loser, our congressrat, is. I immediately wrote him and called him a scumbag...He has voted for every cockamamie thing that is possible to vote for, proposed by repugs or the king of all. Every time I feel like things are improving, something comes along to level me out. An R is an R, regardless. No caring for people's welfare allowed in their makeup. They are forever and always SCUM.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

One of my sons gave me a disk, years ago, of Petula Clark's many hits and I wondered why since we were both into very different kinds of music. His answer–-"because you love to dance." He was right–-I'd put Petula on and prance around and dance my way straight into a broadway play in my mind.

Now we learn the terrorist that blew up the block in Nashville used that song as his signature farewell. The words, reading them from his point of view, belie its upbeat message; for him it meant the end of a life that failed. That he destroyed not only himself but property and people reveals not only his terrible sickness but his desire to finally be known. I have forgotten what it is already.


DOWN TOWN

[Marie: Lyrics removed because copyright violation. You can read them here.]

@Ken: I totally agree re: the Lear image–-Fatty is as far from that old man as he is from a decent human being. We could conjure up a whole lot of comparisons but why bother––it's tick tock time and his sorry ass is about to be kicked out the door. Then we can let the historians write about the worst president in U.S. history.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

@Ken Winkes: As I've written before, Trump cannot stand as a tragic fallen hero because there was never anything heroic about him. Maybe someone could zero in on something that happened to him as a toddler that explains his narcissism, before which he was a sweet-tempered baby. That would make him a tragic toddler, I guess. The story could end with, "And that, boys and girls, is how Donald Trump became such a colossal jerk."

But I doubt it; I think the story of Baby Donnie is that he never developed psychologically past the id stage. No ego, in the Freudian sense, & certainly no superego. He's just a blubbery mass of "gimme."

December 29, 2020 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

@Marie: you bet! One of the pieces that has stuck in my mind about Baby Donny, is the mother's distant relationship with him right from the start. If you ain't got Mommy's love you are gonna get it one way or another. Remember the mouse experiments that found newborn mice that were licked a lot by their mothers performed very well as adults; low licked began to bite themselves, chew on their fur and performed badly in acuity experiments. We could, and why not, conclude Fatty done got low licked therefore spent the rest of his life pretending what a well-licked mousie he was––the one lie that surpasses all his others.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

More Ulysses than Lear I fear:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterK2Crew

Marie,

You made my day.

"Tragic toddler." What an image!

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

K2Crew,

I’m thinking that, in regards to the whiny baby traitor, I’d prefer to press a different Tennyson poem into service:

“Crossing the Bar”. Can’t happen soon enough.

(Interesting name, by the way. Might you be a climber of mountains? Very big mountains?)

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Ken and Marie,

One line from “Lear” works perfectly at this point in American history, especially when considering that Fatty is still refusing to accept the truth and threatening to hang on as long as possible:

“Out, vile jelly!”

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Maybe McConnell doesn't like Perdue or Loeffler any more than I do.

Maybe he's tired of being majority leader...

Who the hell is he trying to please?

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Ken,

I’ve met three senators from Kentucky. Up close and personal. The most obnoxiously self-aggrandizing and ridiculously smarmy was Li’l Randy. He showed up accompanied by a phalanx of giant (ie, bigger than him, eg taller than 5 foot 7) bodyguards arriving in a small armada of huge, black SUVs, the better to announce his Aqua Buddha-hood. He spoke to no one he considered inconsequential, and stomped out the same way.

The Turtle showed up with three consultants and a single bodyguard. He didn’t acknowledge anyone he thought couldn’t help him.

The one guy I met, a Ky senator, whose ideology and political stances I was firmly against, was Jim Bunning. He was, in person, a really nice guy. He showed up alone, no giant SUV battalion like Li’l Randy and no cotillion of consultants.

Being a baseball fan, I asked him some baseball questions. He paused and asked if I had voted for him. I felt a little funny telling him “No way” since he had been so amicable, but he laughed and said, “Well, it’s America, ain’t it?”

We went on to have a great conversation for another ten minutes or so.

And thinking of that makes me realize how different things are in the age of Trumpian Treason.

December 29, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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