The Ledes

Monday, June 30, 2025

It's summer in our hemisphere, and people across Guns America have nothing to do but shoot other people.

New York Times: “A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon in what the local sheriff described as a 'total ambush.' Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned, and officials later found the body of the male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone but did not release any information about his identity or motives.” A KHQ-TV (Spokane) report is here.

New York Times: “The New York City police were investigating a shooting in Manhattan on Sunday night that left two people injured steps from the Stonewall Inn, an icon of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. The shooting occurred outside a nearby building in Greenwich Village at 10:15 p.m., Sgt. Matthew Forsythe of the New York Police Department said. The New York City Pride March had been held in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, and Mayor Eric Adams said on social media that the shooting happened as Pride celebrations were ending. One victim who was shot in the head was in critical condition on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. A second victim was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, she said. No suspect had been identified. The police said it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the Pride march.”

New York Times: “A dangerous heat wave is gripping large swaths of Europe, driving temperatures far above seasonal norms and prompting widespread health and fire alerts. The extreme heat is forecast to persist into next week, with minimal relief expected overnight. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are among the nations experiencing the most severe conditions, as meteorologists warn that Europe can expect more and hotter heat waves in the future because of climate change.”

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Marie: Sorry, my countdown clock was unreliable; then it became completely unreliable. I can't keep up with it. Maybe I'll try another one later.

 

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.

 

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The Commentariat -- December 4

Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor: "... some prominent Nobel Prize winners [-- Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Solow & Paul Krugman --] argue for higher federal deficits – as a means of stimulating economic growth – rather than for quick steps on deficit reduction. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appears sympathetic to this position." ...

... Meanwhile, David Dayan of Firedoglake: 14 Democratic senators, plus Dems Dick Durbin & Kent Conrad, rally round deficit reduction. "... the Catfood Commission, while 'failing' in the technical sense, did its job. It created a report that people can label 'bipartisan' moving forward, and it put deficit reduction – when there are 15 million Americans out of work – at the top of the agenda.... And it’s a self-inflicted wound, as this was a Presidential commission."

Alan Grayson goes out with a bang, not a whimper. Recommended viewing!

They can pretend giving the rich tax breaks creates jobs, but we know it doesn’t. If that were the case, the economy would be booming.
-- Harry Reid ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "In a last-ditch effort to control the political messaging in the tax fight, Democrats accused the Republicans of favoring the rich over the middle class, of cruelly holding up an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and of pursuing bad economic policies that contributed to the recent recession." ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time has more on today's Senate votes.

John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "... the CBO released a study that shows if Congress does pass the DREAM Act, it would save us $1.4 billion over ten years.... Why does this matter? Because Republicans are screaming that they won't vote for any legislation that doesn't cut the federal deficit." Amato provides a call list of Senators we should lobby. The CBO report is here.

Super PACs provide a means for the super wealthy to have even more influence and an even greater voice in the political process.
-- Meredith McGehee, of the Campaign Legal Center ...

... T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month's elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry, according to new financial disclosure reports. The 72 super PACs, all formed this year, together spent $83.7 million on the election. The figures provide the best indication yet of the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to give unlimited contributions."

"Death by Budget Cut." Gail Collins writes of an Arizona man in need of a liver transplant who was literally prepped for surgery when "the Arizona state government, which is totally controlled by Republicans, got between him and his doctor." AND here's the backstory by Marc Lacey of the Times. The comments to Collins' column are pretty good, too.

Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "Democrats hoping to move forward with legislation other than tax cuts shouldn't look to centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to break the logjam. Collins said again on Friday that, while she would vote with Democrats to end the military's 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, she wouldn't do so until a debate over tax cuts has been resolved." CW: assuming Harry Reid can keep all the Democrats in line, Collins' "after-tax" vote is the 60th vote needed to break a filibuster. ,,,

... Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy in his "one post on repealing DADT: "... the status quo is undermining national security far more than any change. The rigorous enforcement of DADT is preventing competent and patriotic soldiers from serving their country, particularly in high-demand positions like, say, Arabic translators.... I therefore really and truly don't give a s**t why John McCain's position has shifted. I just want to know why the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services committee is throwing national security, civilian control of the military, and the hierarchical chain of command under the f***ing bus." ...

... Matt Yglesias: "I really wonder what’s happening, subjectively, inside the heads of people who oppose repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Do any of them think they’re on the right side of history here? That people are going to look back from 2040 and say 'if only we’d listened to John McCain thirty years ago?'"

Steve Benen on Sen. Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) comparing negotiating with Republicans to negotiating with terrorists. Republicans are having hissy-fits, but, Benen asks, after citing examples, "what about when Republicans compare themselves to terrorists?"

Ron Brownstein in the National Journal on why Dick Luger is the lone Republican Senator to openly back the New START treaty.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A small stockpile of spent nuclear fuel destined for disposal in Russia remained behind in a lightly guarded research center, apparently because of a fit of pique by Libya’s mercurial leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. In a frantic cable back to Washington, American officials in Tripoli warned of dire consequences unless the carefully brokered deal to remove the 5.2 kilograms (11.4 pounds) of highly enriched uranium stored in seven five-ton casks was quickly resurrected."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks ... offer the most intimate view to date of the wily, irreverent and sometimes erratic Yemeni autocrat [Ali Abdullah Saleh], who over the past year has become steadily more aggressive against Al Qaeda. But he appears determined to join the fight on his own terms, sometimes accommodating and other times rebuffing American requests on counterterrrorism." ...

... In the National Journal, Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist, writes, "... we’re mired in a political environment where much of the public distrusts the federal government and despises both parties.... If we want to restore trust in our government, maybe we can start by telling the truth, keeping fewer secrets, and respecting the privacy of average citizens a little more." Dowd castigates the media for not "defending WikiLeaks and doing some soul-searching of their own about why they aren’t devoting more resources to the search for the truth."

... Chris Cillizza (who is high on my list of village idiots) of the Washington Post says WikiLeaks made for a ruinous week for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. BUT Glenn Kessler of the Post sees a silver lining: "Arab angst about Iran's nuclear ambitions has been exposed, perhaps giving the United States greater leverage in international talks scheduled for next week."

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