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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Wednesday
Jul272011

The Commentariat -- July 28

The question for today's Off Times Square is "How's Obama Doing?"

The Washington Post has a handy chart that compares the Boehner & Reid deficit reduction/debt ceiling proposals.

** The Plot to Kill Social Security. Robert Scheer of TruthDig brings clarity to the debt ceiling crisis, & demonstrates how Republicans, Wall Street & the ratings agencies are conspiring to use "what should have been an uneventful moment" to cut social programs which are entirely unrelated to the debt and deficit. CW: this is really a good plot summary, with an emphasis on "plot."

** S&P Runs the Debt Limit Show. Bob Reich: Ratings agency "Standard & Poor’s has ... warned it might lower the nation’s credit rating even if Democrats and Republicans make a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Standard & Poor’s insists any deal must also contain a credible, bipartisan plan to reduce the nation’s long-term budget deficit by $4 trillion — something neither Harry Reid’s nor John Boehner’s plans do.... If Standard & Poor’s had been doing the job it was supposed to be doing between 2000 and 2008, the federal budget wouldn’t be in a crisis — and Standard & Poor’s wouldn’t be threatening the United States with a downgrade.... So why has Standard & Poor’s decided now’s the time to crack down on the federal budget — when it gave free passes to Wall Street’s risky securities and George W. Bush’s giant tax cuts for the wealthy, thereby contributing to the very crisis its now demanding be addressed? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the Street pays Standard & Poor’s bills?"

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz talks to Politico about Republicans' irresponsibility re: raising the debt limit (audio only):

... Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) says conservative members of Congress are "deceiving the American" people with their "bizarro" assertion that the Senate can incorporate a balanced budget amendment in the deficit reduction bill. (McCain favors a BBA):

     ... Here's a print story by Shannon Travis of CNN.

... David Corn of Mother Jones: Speaker Boehner, other Republicans & Karl Rove's Crossroads/GPS (in an ad) perpetuate the "Obama wants a blank check" lie, and the media let them get away with it.

Ta-Nahisi Coates explains the Emancipation Proclamation to President Obama, who views it as a good example of practical compromise:

Rendering the hallowed Proclamation as a seminal act of hippy-punching is understandably attractive to the Very Serious People of Washington. But, in Mr. Obama’s case, it also evinces a narrow politicocentric view of democracy that holds that the first duty of a loyal opposition is to stay on message and fall in line.

NEW. Class Warfare, Billionaire Edition. Michael Winship of Salon: it is so wrong to pick on those nice gentlemen who brought us the financial crisis & got filthy rich bringing down the world economy, paid little for it & are back in the money again.

NEW. Karen Garcia must have a mole in Obama's Chicago campaign HQ (maybe it's frequent Obama shill NYT commenter Winning Progressive) because she sure is good a digging up first drafts of Obama campaign e-mails. This one from Jim Messina is a hoot.

NEW. Glenn Greenwald: "... every Terrorist plot is immediately exploited as a pretext for expanding America's Security State; the response to every plot: we need to sacrifice more liberties, increase secrecy, and further empower the government. The reaction to the heinous Oslo attack by Norway's political class has been exactly the opposite: a steadfast refusal to succumb to hysteria and a security-über-alles mentality." Read the whole post. ...

... Linda Greenhouse on how the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City, combined with the ascendance of a conservative Congress, a shell-shocked president and a compliant Supreme Court, severely limited the Constitutional right of habeas corpus.

Chris Matthews talks to Reagan/Bush I economic advisor Bruce Bartlett about the sources of the deficit & other stuff related to the economy. Thanks to reader Bob M.:

What about Bears? Kirk Johnson of the New York Times: as climate change forces more and more bears into areas occupied by humans & as more & more people take advantage of recreational areas that are bear habitats, expect more bear-human encounters, not all of which will end happily. Public policy varies from incident to incident. CW: a bear visits my lake cottage regularly, and I don't like it at all.

News Ledes

Legal Times: In Washington, D.C., "U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a series of orders this morning denying motions to dismiss or relocate former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod's defamation lawsuit against conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart."

Politico: Democrats are proposing a compromise debt-ceiling bill in which "Congress could still get a second crack at voting on the debt limit within months. But rather than linking the vote to Congress approving the recommendations of a new 12-member committee — as it would be in Boehner’s bill — Democrats prefer McConnell’s proposal that allows President Barack Obama to lift the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of both chambers override his veto of a disapproval resolution, the officials said."

Guardian: "Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail." Payne, whom News of the world editor Rebekah Brooks had befriended, previously had been told she was not a target, but new information disputes that. Brooks gave Payne a telephone.

New York Times: "Though [House Republicans] appeared to be just shy of enough votes to assure passage of the [Boehner] plan that would allow a debt limit increase in two stages, lawmakers and top aides expressed confidence they could win over enough members to prevent a humiliating defeat for the speaker and the party."

     ** ... Update: story has a new lede: "House Speaker John A. Boehner abruptly delayed an expected vote on Republican debt ceiling legislation late Thursday as it became clear the Republican leadership did not have the votes needed for passage."

New York Times: "Officials said Wednesday that the [Treasury] department would address [how it will pay bills] ... later this week unless it became clear that Congress would vote by Aug. 2 to let the government borrow more money.... The implication is that the government will need to pay bills in the order that they come due."

Time: House & Senate leaders are working behind the scenes to merge the Boehner debt/deficit bill with a proposed Senate bill. ...

... Washington Post: "House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (S.C.), Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.) and Caucus Vice-Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.) said after a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday that they are calling on Obama both to veto a short-term deal and sign an executive order invoking the Constitution’s 14th Amendment to avert default on Aug. 2." ...

... Washington Post: Federal workers are both worried & angry about a possible government default, which could imperil their paychecks.

New York Times: "... Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation."

Washington Post: "The White House is waging an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to reassure core Democratic activists, following weeks of criticism from liberals who fear that President Obama has given too much ground in his debt-ceiling talks with Republicans."

New York Times: "A lawyer [Kenneth Thompson] for the hotel housekeeper [Nafissatou Diallo] who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in May said Wednesday that taped conversations, two of them made a day after the encounter, prove that his client had no intention of exploiting the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn to make money.... After listening to the recording on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson told reporters at a news conference that Ms. Diallo’s statements had been mischaracterized."

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