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Sunday, September 15, 2024

Washington Post: “The five-day space voyage known as Polaris Dawn ended safely Sunday as four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Dragon splashed down off the coast of Florida, wrapping up a groundbreaking commercial mission. Polaris Dawn crossed several historic landmarks for civilian spaceflight as Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer, performed the first spacewalk by a private citizen, followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis.”

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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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The Commentariat -- July 11, 2015

Internal links removed.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was only able to purchase the gun used in the attack because of breakdowns in the FBI's background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday.... The lapse was the result of errors not only by the FBI but by the Lexington County prosecutors' office, and Comey said he has ordered a review of procedures that led to the failure. The errors came to light as investigators examined a gun purchase Roof made two months before the shooting in Charleston." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic has more details on the screw-up. CW: It seems to me the wait period for purchasing a gun should be longer than three days, bureaucracies being what they are.

Lisa Rein & Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta resigned under pressure on Friday, a day after Obama administration officials announced that two major breaches last year of U.S. government databases holding personnel records and security-clearance files exposed sensitive information about at least 22.1 million people. Archuleta, who had been leading the personnel agency for just 17 months, had been under fire from Republicans and Democrats in Congress and federal employee unions in the five weeks since she disclosed a massive hack of the employment files of 4.2 million current and former federal employees. But calls for her resignation grew late Thursday after administration officials revealed the full scope of a second hack that compromised background investigation files of federal employees, contractors, applicants and their families."

** Dana Milbank: "Thursday's Confederate flag debacle [in the House of Representatives] is a direct consequence of House Speaker John Boehner's leadership strategy. Calculating that compromise with the Democratic minority will cause his conservative caucus to oust him from the speakership, Boehner has essentially chosen to pass a legislative agenda with only Republican votes. Because this leaves him a thin margin for error, it empowers the most extreme conservatives in the House, who have an incentive to withhold their votes if they don't get everything they want.... Boehner seemed not to know what to do about the mess his lowest-common-denominator leadership caused.... Here's one idea: Show some leadership." ...

... Cristina Marcos & Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "House Republicans are hitting the brakes on consideration of spending bills after leaders yanked a measure from the floor this week over the display of the Confederate flag. The House was originally slated to consider the 2016 spending bill for Financial Services next week, but the odds are now low for it hitting the floor. Republicans are worried that Democrats could try to offer more amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag that could again tie the GOP into knots." CW: Yup, it's all Democrats' fault.

Paul Ryan Really, Really Does Not Want You to Have Health Insurance. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: Paul Ryan, Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee (R-Wis.) "on Friday vowed to keep fighting to repeal ObamaCare through budget reconciliation even as the tactic is losing support from some within the GOP.... When asked if Ryan would want to repeal all of ObamaCare using the budget tactic, he said yes, but added that he is still figuring out what can be done 'given the restraints of reconciliation.'"

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama's grade as top manager of the executive branch continues to sink. At this point, a C- would be generous. Cases of mismanagement at the agency level include:

  • The Office of Personnel Management computer hack;
  • The Snowden theft from the National Security Agency;
  • The Department of Veterans Affairs scheduling fiasco;
  • The healthcare.gov rollout;
  • Unending problems at the Secret Service.

     "... These aren't policy failures. They're just cases where the government bungles when carrying out policy.... The problem isn't a bunch of Obama-appointed crooks or incompetents. Instead, Obama just seems indifferent to executive branch performance. At least until there are problems that draw national press attention." CW: Let's add the federal/state background-check system to the list of SNAFUs. ...

... AND here's another. Danny Vinik in Politico: In 2008, in the wake of Hurricane Katrinia, "Congress created three new programs to get loans to small businesses quickly. Since the new emergency lending programs were born, American small businesses have been hit by Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, and other disasters. And here's how many loans the new programs have secured for small businesses in that time: Zero.... This week the Small Business Administration came under Congressional fire for what appears to be a total failure to execute the mission of issuing emergency loans. A long trail of GAO reports details this record of failure, and the SBA's perplexing inability to explain why businesses haven't received a dollar yet...." ...

... CW: President Obama came into office with no executive experience; that is, he didn't know how to run a huge organization. I don't think any POTUS should spend his nights reading GAO, Inspectors General, other watchdog & media reports. But s/he does have to have a top dog in the administration who spends her days doing that -- and then kicking ass when these reports cite problems or potential problems. Obviously, Obama neglected to do that. That error of omission can affect millions of Americans as deeply as do many of Congress's glaring failures to protect the public. I'm with Bernstein; this is a real failure of governance.

James Risen of the New York Times: "The Central Intelligence Agency's health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency's post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a sweeping new report. The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation's psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon. The report concludes that some of the association's top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association's ethics policies in line with the interrogation policies of the Defense Department, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.'s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis ... after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Government lawyers labored on Friday to persuade federal appeals court judges [in New Orleans] to allow President Obama to move ahead with sweeping initiatives to protect immigrants in the country illegally. But the judges' questions seemed to make it ever more unlikely that the president's programs, which he has hoped would be a central piece of his legacy, would start any time before the last months of his term, if at all." ...

... Tom Dart of the Guardian: While a 3-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments inside the New Orleans federal courthouse about President Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability -- against which a lower court imposed & injunction & another Fifth Circuit panel refused to lift the injunction --hundreds of demonstrators massed outside protesting the injunction.

Nina Totenberg of NPR: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday provided an unusual peek behind the scenes at how the court did its work this term. It's true, she said, that the liberal justices tried to be disciplined about having their majority opinions, and even their dissents, speak with one voice in one opinion. 'The stimulus,' she said, 'actually began many, many years before ... when the court announced its decision in Bush v. Gore.'"

David Jackson of USA Today: "President Obama created three new national monuments via executive order Friday, setting aside more than 1 million acres of public land in three states":

Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama will become the first sitting chief executive to visit a federal prison when he goes to El Reno, Oklahoma, next week to meet with law enforcement officials and inmates as part of the administration's push for criminal-justice reform."

Angeliki Koutantou & Alastair Macdonald of Reuters: "Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won backing from lawmakers on Saturday for painful reform proposals aimed at obtaining a new international bailout, but he faced a rebellion in his own party that could threaten his majority in parliament.The measures, which received an initial green light from the European Union and International Monetary Fund before a crucial meeting of the 19 euro zone finance ministers in Brussels, were passed with the support of pro-European opposition parties.With Greece's banks shut and completely dependent on a credit lifeline from the European Central Bank, the measures were seen as a last chance to avert financial collapse and prevent Greece from being pushed out of the euro." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments.

Michael Gordon & David Sanger of the New York Times: "One of the last major obstacles to concluding a historic nuclear deal with Iran is a dispute over a set of United Nations sanctions that appeared to be resolved months ago and only peripherally has to do with nuclear weapons. The sanctions, passed in a series of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council beginning nine years ago, ban the shipment of conventional arms into and out of Iran."

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "In her standard stump speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton talks about fighting income inequality, celebrating court rulings on gay marriage and health care, and, since the Emanuel AME Church massacre, toughening the nation's gun laws. That last component marks an important evolution in presidential politics. For at least the past several decades, Democrats seeking national office have often been timid on the issue of guns for fear of alienating firearms owners.... Gun control is one of the few issues on which Clinton has a more left-leaning record than [Sen. Bernie] Sanders, who represents a rural, pro-gun-rights state and has voted in the past for legislation to protect the firearms industry." ...

... Cameron Joseph of the New York Daily News: Bernie Sanders & Honora Laszlo, a local Virginia chairwoman of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, get into a row over Sanders' failure to support for some gun-control legislation.

Ed Kilgore: "... the sheer number of things a would-be GOP president is expected to promise to rescind, repeal, suspend, ignore, or defy is getting very, very long. It won't be easy for the eventual nominee to get through this vast list of reactionary commitments and then slide into a smooth rap that my campaign is about the future."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "No, Donald Trump isn't a frontrunner.... This new poll from The Economist (and the online polling firm YouGov, which does not meet the Post's standards for polling) does have Trump in first place, leading lots of people to declare him the frontrunner. That poll is iffy.... But even if the methodology were beyond question, Trump isn't the frontrunner for the same reason that there's been no clear frontrunner in any poll: margins of error.... What's a frontrunner look like? It looks like Hillary Clinton, who in most national polls could have a margin of error of 20 points and still have daylight between her and Bernie Sanders." CW: Oh noes! And I just got back from the hairdresser's sporting a celebratory comb-over.

Jeb! Talks the Talk; Walker Walks the Walk. Gillian White of the Atlantic: "This week..., Jeb Bush was harshly criticized for saying that the solution to some of America's economic woes could be solved if Americans worked more hours. Republican politicians in Wisconsin are trying to make this theory reality, with a proposal to allow seven-day workweeks.... Though Walker might not have a direct hand in the current seven-day workweek proposal, his [earlier] changes [gutting labor-friendly laws] have certainly helped set the stage for decreased opposition to such a bill."

The New York Times Can't Handle the Truth. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is blasting The New York Times for not including the GOP presidential candidate's book on its influential bestseller list. It described the newspaper's initial explanations for not including the recently released A Time For Truth as 'cryptic' and 'false,' and suggested the Times 'does not want people to read the book.'" CW: Freedom of the press or something is at stake here, people. Coincidentally, what a fabulous fundraising tool for renowned author & political philosopher Ted Cruz. ...

... McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "Publishing giant HarperCollins is publicly pushing back against the New York Times' claim that Ted Cruz's new book, A Time For Truth, was disqualified from its bestseller list because sales were limited to 'strategic bulk purchases.' In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News, HarperCollins publicity director Tina Andreadis said the company looked into the matter and 'found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization.'" ...

... BUT. Steve M. has more on how Ted (and maybe HarperCollins) tried to game the system. As for the Times' trying to suppress the work of a budding literary giant, "books by conservatives make the Times list on a regular basis." ...

... The Salon piece, by Scott Kaufman, which Steve cites, is here. Kaufman has more on confederate outrage. You never know if these people are ignoramuses or phonies. Maybe both.

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously affirmed the public corruption convictions against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, thoroughly rejecting each argument from the onetime Republican rising star and declaring that they had 'no cause to undo what has been done.'"

Kevin Miller of the Portland Press Herald: "Maine Attorney General Janet Mills [D] said Friday that 19 bills held by Gov. Paul LePage have become law, dismissing the LePage administration's contention that the Legislature had adjourned. In a four-page letter released late Friday afternoon, Mills said LePage missed the 10-day window allowed under the Maine Constitution to either sign or veto the bills. There are another 51 bills sitting on LePage's desk, and under Mills' opinion, those also would become law unless LePage vetoes them by midnight Saturday." ...

... AP: "Members of Maine's Franco-American community are frustrated by Republican Gov. Paul LePage's self-deprecating humor about his French heritage. LePage said this week that the veto process laid out in the state's Constitution is very clear. He added that 'even I can understand it and I'm French.' Last week, he told reporters they were misusing a word and said 'that's coming from a Frenchman.'... Former state senator and representative Judy Ayotte Paradis of Frenchville said LePage is 'reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman.'" CW: Actually, Ms. Paradis; every time LePage opens his mouth, he's "reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman."

News Ledes

AP: "Bailout discussions between the Greek finance minister and his skeptical counterparts in the 19-country eurozone will resume Sunday after breaking up following more than eight hours of talks without any apparent breakthrough that will secure the country's future in the euro." ...

... Reuters: "euro finance ministers demanded on Saturday that Greece go beyond painful austerity measures accepted by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras if he wants them to open negotiations on a third bailout for his bankrupt country to keep it in the euro."

Washington Post: "Serena Williams won her fourth consecutive Grand Slam title and 21st of her career on Saturday by beating Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, 6-4, 6-4, at Wimbledon. It is her sixth Wimbledon championship."

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Reader Comments (2)

..."The report concludes that some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the interrogation policies of the Defense Department, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.’s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency." ...

I am so glad the APA has been investigated and that many psychologists will be defrocked (oops, that's ministers!), and have their licenses revoked. I hope some will do time--preferably at Guantanamo! I am really beyond horrified that the APA has acted just like any rotten institution does by lying, minimizing, and protecting its own. I tell you--the American Creed of Greed has made us into a Nation of Psychopaths! And Psychologists take an oath: "First, do no harm." We therapists are taught creative ways to help people, not torture them! Money and power corrupt so absolutely. I cannot bear it!

July 11, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Monsieur LePage continues to not amuse. Let's see, Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills declared the 19 bills he refused to take action on as law while 51 more remain on his desk.

The dilemma would seem, he is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place..otherwise it will 'negate' his argument about adjournment should it get to the courts—since the exact conditions are in play. I read the list of the 51 this morning at 3 am, and the list contains bills from both sides of the aisle. LePage stands to anger more and more legislators.

Sad, while LePage did not actually receive a huge vote, he nonetheless garnered enough to retain office. (I'm still pissed at Eliot Cutler for being so gutless in stepping away.)

Yesterday, Charlie Pierce offered up le plus bon sobriquet for LePage; La Tete de Merde

Thinking about the article on frontrunners in the GOP with barely a 12% show of support..with Trump 'high' up in the chart in the article that CW linked is most telling. Out of the 150 candidates (I've begun to lose track of how many Repubs are actually running) it appears that barely any of them are able to claim more than a single digit level of approval.

The side show continues....

July 11, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMAG
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