The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.”

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

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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 22

President Obama holds a townhall meeting at the University of Maryland:

Paul Krugman sees the economies of the world continuing in what he calls the "Lesser Depression," a self-inflicted recession/depression brought about by really stupid policy moves:

Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse. In fact, policy makers seem determined to perpetuate what I’ve taken to calling the Lesser Depression, the prolonged era of high unemployment that began with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and continues to this day, more han two years after the recession supposedly ended.

(... Meanwhile, that pompous little know-nothing David Brooks is cheerfully advocating for those very policies that will worsen the economy and hurt ordinary Americans.)

... I've posted a "Lesser Depression" page on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have added comments. Don't miss Garcia on Brooks. ...

      ... Update: Garcia has repurposed her response to Brooks in a blogpost that is even tougher on that little shit.

When Right-Wing Billionaire Energy Moguls Collide. Ken Vogel of Politico: "An increasingly bitter personal rift between billionaires T. Boone Pickens and Charles and David Koch has morphed into an expensive political battle that is testing the commitment of House Republicans to the tea party principles many of them have publicly embraced. The fight centers on legislation backed by Pickens that would grant tax breaks to the natural gas industry, and it is forcing Republican members to choose sides between a traditionally GOP-allied industry and the free-market purism of many conservatives." CW: oh, please, gentlemen, can't we all just get along? I'm sure Republicans can find some nasty little domestic program to gut in the interest of more Breaks for Boone. Food stamps? Pell grants?

John Zogby is a lousy pollster, but I think the central premise in his Forbes column is right: President Obama's legacy may be the withering of the American dream.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones dedicates this tongue-in-cheek (though coincidentally accurate) graph to the Heritage Foundation:

Tidbits

Uh-Huh. Michelle Cottle of the Daily Beast. God is always "calling" Republicans to run for president. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is the latest to get The Word.

Oh. The anti-gay Michele Bachmann's anti-gay husband Marcus is more than likely gay. CW: and what better way to meet attractive gay men who won't tell than providing confidential counseling services to pray away the gay? Stories by Robert Paul Reyes of SOP here and Richard Lawson of Gawker here elaborate. And here's Jon Stewart, who just won't go there:

... Fortunately, Dr. Seinfeld gave Stewart some comedy repression therapy:

Oh My. Greg Sargent. Anti-tax pledge guy Grover Norquist told the Washington Post editorial board yesterday that, "“Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.” That is, Congressmembers who voted to discontinue the Bush tax cuts wouldn't be violating the stupid no-new-taxes pledge they made to him. As soon as the story came out and Democrats began hammering it home, Norquist walked back his assertion, saying, “any failure to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, in whole or in part, would clearly increase taxes on the American people.” So the WashPo released the audio of Norquist and Post writer Ruth Marcus, which is fairly hilarious and relatively unambiguous. ...

     ... Update: Grover Norquist tries to explain himself in a New York Times op-ed. Bottom line: taxes are very, very bad.

Uh Oh. David Leigh & Nick Davies of the Guardian: "James Murdoch appears to have given misleading parliamentary testimony about a key phone-hacking cover-up, according to evidence obtained by the Guardian." Not only did he grossly understate a huge payment to settle a legal case brought against News of the World, he misstated key facts about the negotiations, in which he was apparently intimately involved. ...

     ... Update: Jo Becker & Don Van Natta of the New York Times: "Two former News International executives publicly contradicted James Murdoch’s testimony to a parliamentary committee, saying Thursday that they told him of evidence in 2008 that suggested that phone hacking at one of the company’s tabloid newspapers was more widespread." Guardian story here. ...

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The fury against Murdoch ... [in Britain] reflects the anger of politicians who long have been intimidated by the tactics of aggressive tabloids and who have felt the need to curry favor with powerful media barons, especially Murdoch, to win the support of those newspapers and to shield themselves from their intrusive reporting. In Britain, money plays a smaller role in politics than it does in the United States, and politicians have few ways to communicate effectively with the public outside the media filter. Television advertising plays no significant role in campaigns; for the most part, it is not allowed." ...

... AND/BUT as Driftglass remarks, "If you think anything is going to happen to Murdoch on this side of the Atlantic, you're living in a Frank Capra movie.... Murdoch owns a majority share of the Party of God, has had most of its candidates for President on the payroll, and more importantly, owns the souls of every bigot, lunatic and slack-jawed imbecile who gets his opinion piped directly into his tiny, tiny brain via Fox News."

News Ledes

Can they say yes to anything? -- Barack Obama ...

... Breaking. Obama says Boehner breaks off talks, wouldn't return Obama's phone call. NBC News: "Gridlock stubbornly held the high ground in the steamy capital Friday, as Republican House Speaker John Boehner called President Barack Obama to announce that he is withdrawing from the debt ceiling talks." C-SPAN has Speaker Boehner's (obnoxious) remarks on the House floor here.

Bloomberg News: "The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will halt some operations at midnight after the House of Representatives and Senate adjourned today without agreeing on legislation to extend the agency’s authority. The disagreement means the FAA has to furlough as many as 4,000 workers tomorrow and stop collecting about $200 million a week in airplane-ticket and other taxes until it is resolved, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday. Air- traffic controllers, considered essential employees, would remain on the job." CW: the article doesn't say so, but the "disagreement" is Republicans' objections to union organizing. (See this Daily Kos article I linked earlier in the week.)

New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on Friday across Syria, residents and antigovernment activists said, with enormous protests in two of the country’s five largest cities suggesting a growing momentum that the government of President Bashar al-Assad seemed at a loss to stanch." Al Jazeera has a liveblog here.

Politico: "President Barack Obama on Friday formally certified that the military is ready to allow gays to serve openly in the armed forces, clearing the way for an end to the 17-year old 'Don’t Ask Don’t Tell' law in September.... Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen both signed off on the certification on Thursday."

The Hill: "The Senate voted 51-46, along strict party-lines, on Friday to kill the House Republicans' 'cut, cap and balance' legislation. The measure would have cut spending by $111 billion in 2012, capped spending over the next decade and prohibited more borrowing until Congress had passed a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. President Obama had threatened to veto the bill, which was dead on arrival in the Senate." Here's the New York Times story, which also includes news about President Obama's townhall meeting this morning. The Washington Post story is here.

Reuters: "A huge bomb devastated the main government building in Norway's capital Oslo on Friday, and state radio said two people were killed and several others wounded. Though the attack was on the very heart of power in the small Nordic state, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was safe. There was no claim of responsibility." ...

     ... Update: "A bomb ripped through Oslo's central government district on Friday and a gunman dressed as a policeman then opened fire at a youth camp on a nearby island, killing at least 17 people altogether." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Norway suffered a pair of devastating attacks on Friday when powerful explosions shook the government center here, killing seven people, and shortly after a gunman stalked youths at an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party, killing at least 80. The police arrested a Norwegian man in connection with both attacks, the deadliest on Norwegian soil since World War II.... After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island.... He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page."

President Obama held a townhall-style meeting at the University of Maryland late this morning.

Politico has a pretty good rundown of what the various factions have said in the past 24 hours about the deficit reduction/debt ceiling catastrophe of Washington's own making.

I’m the Senate majority leader — why don’t I know about this deal? -- Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to Obama OMB Director Jack Lew

AP: "House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that Republicans controlling the chamber are willing to compromise on legislation increasing the government's borrowing authority." CW: This is almost a sick joke. According to news reports, Obama has cut a "deal" which does not require any compromise whatsoever. ...

... Now, contrast the Obama plan to cut trillions from programs for poor & middle class people with this good news: AP: "General Electric Co. said Friday that earnings grew 21 percent in the second quarter as its GE Capital lending arm continued to recover from the recession." GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, heads President Obama's Jobs Commission. GE has sent thousands of American jobs offshore.

AP: "Pentagon chief Leon Panetta has decided to end the ban on gays serving openly in the armed services and certify that repealing the 17-year-old prohibition will not hurt the military's ability to fight, officials said Thursday."

Who Needs NASA? New York Times: "Spurred by a $30 million purse put up by Google, 29 teams have signed up for a competition to become the first private venture to land on the Moon.... At the very least, a flotilla of unmanned spacecraft could be headed Moonward within the next few years, with goals that range from lofty to goofy."

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