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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Friday
Dec082017

The Commentariat -- December 9, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "After the officer involved was acquitted of second-degree murder charges, officials in Arizona publicly released graphic video showing Daniel Shaver crawling on his hands and knees and begging for his life in the moments before he was shot and killed by police in January 2016. Shaver died in one of at least 963 fatal police shootings in 2016, according to a Washington Post database. And his death was one of an increasing number of such shootings to prompt criminal charges in the years since the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo. following the death of Michael Brown. Yet charges remain rare, and convictions even more so. The shooting, by Philip 'Mitch' Brailsford, then an officer with the Mesa Police Department, occurred after officers responded to a call about a man allegedly pointing a rifle out of a fifth-floor window at a La Quinta Inn. Inside the room, Shaver, 26, had been doing rum shots with a woman he had met earlier that day and showing off a pellet gun he used in his job in pest control." ...

     ... See related story under Beyond the Beltway.

*****

Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "F.B.I. officials warned one of President Trump's top advisers, Hope Hicks, earlier this year about repeated attempts by Russian operatives to make contact with her during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the events. The Russian outreach efforts show that, even after American intelligence agencies publicly accused Moscow of trying to influence the outcome of last year's presidential election, Russian operatives were undaunted in their efforts to establish contacts with Mr. Trump's advisers. There is no evidence that Ms. Hicks did anything improper.... After he took office, senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agents met with Ms. Hicks in the White House Situation Room at least twice, gave her the names of the Russians who had contacted her, and said that they were not who they claimed to be.... Ms. Hicks informed Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, about the meetings.... On Thursday and Friday, investigators working for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, interviewed Ms. Hicks as part of his investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether any of Mr. Trump's advisers assisted the Russian campaign." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: So Russian spies are trying to infiltrate the White House via a top presidential aide, the White House counsel knows about it, but Trump believes Putin??? ...

... Unreliable Sources. Joe Concha of the Hill: "CNN has issued a correction to a Friday morning exclusive about documents that Donald Trump Jr. received from WikiLeaks.... The new reports said Trump Jr. and other campaign officials had received an email pointing them to the WikiLeaks documents on the afternoon of Sept. 14 -- after they had already been made public. The original CNN report said Trump Jr. had received the email on Sept. 4, before WikiLeaks had made the documents public.... CNN said its original story had been based on two sources who had seen the email." The original CNN story was linked here yesterday...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Federal prosecutors' investigation into Paul Manafort's financial dealings was enormous in scope, with FBI agents executing at least 15 search warrants and assembling a trove of hundreds of thousands of records related to the case, according to details in a new court filing. Lawyers from special counsel Robert Mueller's office publicly outlined the scale of the probe on Friday as they informed a federal judge about efforts to turn over evidence to Manafort ... and his business partner, Rick Gates, who were both indicted in October on charges that included money laundering and failing to register as foreign lobbyists for Ukraine." ...

...Jonathan Chait of New York: "It is almost a maxim of the Trump era that the bounds of the unthinkable continuously shrink." Republicans have been able to rationalize Donald Trump's "Access Hollywood" tape, Roy Moore's extreme views & alleged sexual assault on underaged girls, & now "the next step in the sequence is almost insultingly obvious. Trump is preparing to shut down Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian intervention in the 2016 election..." --safari...

... ** Contempt of Congress. The Most Arrogant Little Prince Evah. Charles Pierce reads the transcript of Erik Prince's Congressional testimony. You will want to read his takeaways.

In response to Congressmen Lewis and Thompson skipping the civil rights museum opening in MS:We think it's unfortunate that these members of Congress wouldn't join the President in honoring the incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history. The President hopes others will join him in recognizing that the movement was about removing barriers and unifying Americans of all backgrounds. -- Sarah Sanders, in a statement Thursday

Sanders was upset that 'these members of Congress' weren't going to honor the 'incredible sacrifice' of 'civil rights leaders.' Does she know that one of 'these members of Congress' was one of her aforementioned 'civil rights leaders?' -- Nicole Karlis of Salon, Friday

No, Nicole, probably not. Besides being duplicitous, mendacious, petty & generally nasty, Mrs. Huckleberry is remarkably ignorant. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Frances Robles, et al., of the New York Times: "A review by The New York Times of daily mortality data from Puerto Rico's vital statistics bureau indicates a significantly higher death toll after [Hurricane Maria] than the government there has acknowledged. The Times's analysis found that in the 42 days after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, 1,052 more people than usual died across the island. Officially, just 62 people died as a result of the storm.... On Oct. 3, nearly two weeks after the storm, Mr. Trump visited the island and praised the low official death toll. He referred to the 1,833 deaths in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina as a 'real catastrophe.' 'Sixteen people certified,' Mr. Trump said. 'Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together.' By that visit, an additional 556 people had died in Puerto Rico compared with the same period over the two prior years."

You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful '' I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.... Grab 'em by the pussy. -- Donald Trump, "Access Hollywood" tape, 2005

This was locker room talk.... Nobody has more respect for women than I do. -- Donald Trump, debate, October 9, 2016 ...

... Cristiano Lima of Politico: "A former Fox News anchor said Friday that ... Donald Trump tried to kiss her after a lunch visit to Trump Tower in 2005. Juliet Huddy, a current radio host in New York City and a former news anchor on Fox News, said she rebuffed an overture from the real-estate mogul after the two met at his luxury Manhattan high-rise. The incident ... allegedly occurred near the time he married first lady Melania Trump. 'He took me for lunch at Trump Tower, just us two. He said goodbye to me in an elevator while his security guy was there, rather than kiss me on the cheek he leaned in to kiss me on the lips....'" she said.... Huddy, who settled claims of sexual harassment against former Fox News star Bill O'Reilly, said Trump later joked about an exchange when he appeared on her daytime talk show. 'I hit on her but she blew me off,' Trump reportedly said."

** "Welfare Reform." John Cassidy of the New Yorker: Paul Ryan said Wednesday "'We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.'... Programs like Medicare and Medicaid 'are the big drivers of debt, so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.'... In a speech last week, the President talked about moving onto 'welfare reform' -- seemingly oblivious to the fact that Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress dismantled the primary welfare programs back in the late nineteen-nineties. About the only big federal means-tested programs left are Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Evidently, these will be on the Republican hit list, even though the primary populations they serve are the sick, the elderly, and children.... Ryan's remarks illustrate why he and other Republican leaders have refused to break with Trump despite his frequent outrages...." Cassidy does an excellent job of explaining the callous compact between a greedy, corrupt president & an equally greedy, corrupt Congress...

...Thanks Supremes! Andy Kroll of Mother Jones: "Very few Americans want or even understand the sweeping tax bill Republicans are right now conspiring to ram through Congress.... Yet Republican leaders in Washington show no sign of slowing down.... What explains the Republican Party's reckless rush to pass this bill? It boils down to two words: Citizens United...When I say that Citizens United explains the GOP's tax-bill frenzy, I really mean the big-money political climate that Citizens United helped create and, broadly speaking, embodies." --safari...

...Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Richard Waters and Tom Braithwaite at the Financial Times ran the numbers yesterday and found that the Republican tax plan's largest single winner is going to be Apple, which stands to reap a windfall of about $47 billion. For a sense of scale, that would cover four years' worth of the federal tab for the Children's Health Insurance Program which provides coverage to 9 million kids but is currently on hiatus since congressional Republicans say they can't find the money." --safari

Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "The degree to which the Trump administration has pushed to reverse regulations on the oil, gas, and coal sectors has shocked even the most optimistic in the industry, according to a new report issued by the Center for Western Priorities...Along with gutting important regulations, the Trump administration has filled key positions inside the Department of the Interior with fossil-fuel industry players.... The report, released Thursday, cites Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade association. Sgamma remarked a few months ago: 'Not in our wildest dreams, never did we expect to get everything. We were kind of used to getting punished.'" --safari

E.A. Crunden of ThinkProgress: "The Department of Justice is moving to investigate Planned Parenthood's transfer of fetal tissue, continuing the fall-out from discredited sting videos released two years ago by an anti-abortion group. On Thursday, the Justice Department reportedly asked Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) for documents relating to a Senate committee's report on Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue practices.... The request seems set to re-open a controversy surrounding the use of fetal tissue, as well as Planned Parenthood more generally.... The decision is further proof that sting videos hold significant power and sway. While the Judiciary Committee's finding were not based on the CMP videos, their release prompted the report." --safari: Perfect timing to gin up some froth of the Evangelists for 2018. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: While the link may be more philosophical for most confederates, there's a direct link between the DOJ's attack on Planned Parenthood & the behavior of Trent Franks. ...


... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), facing an ethics investigation over alleged sexual harassment, announced Friday that he will resign immediately following his wife's admission to the hospital. Franks had said Thursday that he would resign at the end of January but said Friday that his wife's ailment had prompted him to change his plans and immediately step down." ...

... Rachel Bade & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Arizona Rep. Trent Franks allegedly made unwanted advances toward female staffers in his office and retaliated against one who rebuffed him, according to House GOP sources with knowledge of a complaint against him. The allegations, which reached Speaker Paul Ryan and top GOP leaders in recent days, led to Franks' sudden resignation this week. Franks originally announced that he would resign on Jan. 31, 2018. But just hours after Politico inquired about the allegations, he sped up his resignation and left office Friday. The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos. A former staffer also alleged that Franks tried to persuade a female aide that they were in love.... One woman believed she was the subject of retribution after rebuffing Franks. While she enjoyed access to the congressman before the incident, that access was revoked afterward, she told Republican leaders." ...

     ... Juliet Linderman of the AP: "A former aide to Republican Rep. Trent Franks has told The Associated Press the congressman repeatedly pressed her to carry his child, at one point offering her $5 million to act as a surrogate mother.... The former staffer said the congressman at least four times asked if she'd be willing to act as a surrogate in exchange for money. Franks, in his statement announcing his resignation, said he and his wife, who have struggled with infertility, have twins who were carried through surrogacy.... The aide cited the surrogacy requests as 'a main reason' for leaving the office, adding that she felt retaliated against after turning down the congressman, ignored by Franks and not given many assignments." ...

... Stephanie Akin of Roll Call: "The Treasury Department paid $220,000 in a previously undisclosed agreement to settle a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment that involved Florida Democrat Alcee L. Hastings, according to documents obtained by Roll Call. Winsome Packer, a former staff member of a congressional commission that promotes international human rights, said in documents that the congressman touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job. At the time, Hastings was the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where Packer worked. Hastings has called Packer's charges 'ludicrous' and in documents said he never sexually harassed her. 'Until this evening, I had not seen the settlement agreement between the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and Ms. Packer,' the congressman said in a statement Friday night. 'This matter was handled solely by the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment. At no time was I consulted, nor did I know until after the fact that such a settlement was made.'" ...

... Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A former clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski said the powerful and well-known jurist, who for many years served as chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, called her into his office several times and pulled up pornography on his computer, asking if she thought it was photoshopped or if it aroused her sexually. Heidi Bond, who clerked for Kozinski from 2006 to 2007, said the porn was not related to any case.... Bond is one of six women -- all former clerks or more junior staffers known as externs in the 9th Circuit -- who alleged to The Washington Post in recent weeks that Kozinski, now 67 and still serving as a judge on the court, subjected them to a range of inappropriate sexual conduct or comments.... Another clerk, Emily Murphy, who worked for a different judge on the 9th Circuit and is now a law professor, described their experiences in on-the-record interviews.... Kozinski was appointed to the 9th Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1985."...

... Frank Rich: "The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Predators.... It should also be noted that a tolerance for sexual predation may be well on its way to becoming a majority plank among the GOP rank and file. While a new Quinnipiac poll finds that 77 percent of Democrats believe elected officials should resign in the face of multiple sexual harassment accusations, only 51 percent of Republicans do.... [Republicans] will shed crocodile tears about the new sexual miscreant in the Senate chamber all the way to the bank." --safari

Senate Race

The NRA ❤s Pedophiles! David Corn of Mother Jones: "[T]he NRA, perhaps the biggest outside political player on the right, has quietly entered the race to help [Roy] Moore [R-Pedophile].... The NRA's website does not list the Alabama Senate race as a contest in which it is involved, but two days ago, the Center for Public Integrity reported that the NRA was spending $55,000 to send out postcards to boost Moore in the election this Tuesday." --safari: So the NRA has no morals, surprised? Even better, all NRA members are now supporting a pedophile with their hard-earned dollars.

Beyond the Beltway

Paige Blankenbuehler & Brooke Warren of Mother Jones: "The 2017 fire season was the nation's costliest, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which houses the Forest Service. That agency's annual budget is increasingly dedicated to suppressing and fighting wildland fires, as longer seasons and more destructive blazes require more resources.... Some of the West's biggest fires began in September, at a time when the fire season is typically waning." -- safari: Article contains lots of fire-related stats.

Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "A former Mesa, Arizona police officer who fatally shot and killed an unarmed father of two was cleared of second degree murder charges on Thursday. Philip Mitchell Brailsford, 27, was also cleared of criminal liability in the death of Daniel Shaver.... The Shaver case is another grim reminder of how common it is for police officers involved in unarmed shootings to avoid any sort of punishment for their actions. Even officer firings like Brailsford's are something of a paper tiger: an August investigation by the Washington Post found that, of the 1,881 officers fired for misconduct since 2006, more than 450 were reinstated after union appeals." --safari: The video, embedded in the article, is egregious. This is called murder.

News Lede

Los Angeles Times: "The powerful Santa Ana winds that fueled a five-day fire siege across Southern California this week began to ease Friday, but the destructive toll of the blazes continued to grow and firefighters will remain on high alert through the weekend. The fires, which stretched from Ojai to Oceanside, destroyed more than 500 structures and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. The smoke created air quality problems that officials said reached unprecedented levels in some areas. As hot, dry Santa Anas faded, officials warned that breezes from the ocean could pick up, changing the direction of the flames, placing fire crews at higher risk of getting caught without an escape route."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

Wonder why I haven't heard anything recently from the Pretender about those fake job numbers, you know, the ones that were fake for most of 2016.

More seriously, it does puzzle me why any economist of any stripe would support massive changes in the tax code while the Obama recovery continues?

Seems to me the R's are messing with the success they inherited but are happy to claim as their hard-earned own.

Of course, should disaster follow, that will still be Obama's fault.

December 9, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

I wondered how Rep Franks (R-AZ) could afford to offer $5 million to one of his workers for surrogacy services. As of June, in the Phoenix New Times, no mystery, it's oil, and family business churning.

December 9, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Since it has become the year of the woman, here's a piece about Elizabeth Hardwick (after reading her "Sleepless Nights" years ago, I was hooked), "a Kentucky Southern Bell through and through and yet arrived in New York with the stated intention of becoming a Jewish intellectual." The company she kept were indeed the literary bunch of intellectuals but her voice was sui generis blessed with an ability to see through the facades.

"In 1965 she went to Selma to cover voting rights marches for the New York Review of Books. She wrote with personal stakes in the future of the South... Would its sense of isolation and exceptionalism deepen as white Southerners dug in to racist policies or could the civil rights movement bring about a new era?"

Too bad she is no longer among us to see the results.

https://newrepublic.com/article/145930/company-kept

@Ken: right you are––have listened to die hard "Obama screwed up this great country" people who attribute our soaring economy to their King while talking smack against Obama. I used to be able to listen to these earnest fabricators, but I find I simply can't abide by their ignorance any longer. No more "both sides do it" crap––-I'm done.

December 9, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Now that we know the truth about recovery in Puerto Rico, Trump has acquired a new title.
old:
idiot-in-chief
liar-in-chief
groper-in-chief
new:
killer-in-chief

December 9, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb
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