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 Ledes

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the progress of Hurricane Helene. “Helene continued to power north in the Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a hurricane Wednesday morning, on a path that forecasters expect will bring heavy amounts of rain to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and western Cuba before it begins to move toward Florida’s Gulf Coast.” ~~~

~~~ CNN: “Helene rapidly intensified into a hurricane Wednesday as it plows toward a Florida landfall as the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in over a year. The storm will also grow into a massive, sprawling monster as it continues to intensify, one that won’t just slam Florida, but also much of the Southeast.... Thousands of Florida residents have already been forced to evacuate and nearly the entire state is under alerts as the storm threatens to unleash flooding rainfall, damaging winds and life-threatening storm surge.... The hurricane unleashed its fury on parts of Mexico’s Yucátan Peninsula and Cuba Wednesday.“

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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 3

Okay, for you royal watchers & wedding sentimentalists, here's a doubly-whammy. If the bride, Princess Charlene, looks sad -- and she does -- it might be because a third woman came forward this past week claiming she had a child by the groom, Prince Albert II of Monaco. Here's the New York Times wedding announcement & here's an AP story on today's ceremony. This Reuters story mentions the 13th-century "Curse of the Grimaldis":

     ... The couple were married Friday in a civil ceremony. A video of the civil ceremony & link to the news story are under the Soaps near the bottom of the right column.

Now, to our own travails:

Maureen Dowd doesn't quite know what to make of the unraveling of the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She concludes, "When a habitual predator faces off against a habitual liar, the liar will most likely lose, even if it is the rare case when she is telling the truth." ...

... I've added a comments page for Dowd's column on Off Times Square. You can write on something else, if you prefer. My comment got whacked again, so Off Times Square is the only place to read it. ...

... Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times profile Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney, whose office has experienced a string of high-profile losses & whose management style is controversial.

News You Can Use. David Streitfeld of the New York Times: "Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk."

NEW. Matt Yglesias on the Constitutional option on the debt ceiling: "It’s not clear that anyone would have standing to sue if Obama refused to abide by the debt ceiling. But it seems perfectly clear that if the government promised to pay you to do some work, and then just doesn’t pay you that you have grounds for a legal complaint. The president must 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' and the appropriations bills are real laws. [Emphasis mine.] Congress passed them." CW: this is what makes sense to me. Of course, I'm not a lawyer & I don't think Yglesias is, either.

Ghost of the Gipper -- Obama Assumes the Reagan Persona

Karen Garcia one-ups Krugman's post of yesterday and finds "Four Reaganisms in One Paragraph" of President Obama's radio address. "The good news, according to the One, is not the fact that he is fighting back, but that Democrats and Republicans are agreeing on the same fake problem."...

... David Rogers: "... a POLITICO review of [President Ronald] Reagan’s own budget documents shows that the Republican president repeatedly signed deficit-reduction legislation in the 1980’s that melded annual tax increases with spending cuts just as President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to consider.... The rich diversity of Reagan-era tax changes is most striking, impacting even such conservative priorities now as the estate tax. At the same time, Reagan also signed laws to double the federal gasoline tax to build more roads and increase payroll taxes to stabilize Social Security." ...

... Steve Benen. On taxes, this puts Reagan slightly to Obama’s left.... Doesn’t it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?" ...

... Constant Weader: it sure bothers Democrats like me. ...

... BooMan: "... today's conservatives ... don't see Reagan's presidency as the ideal. They see it as the beginning. He was the great man who got the ball rolling, not the man who governed (Goldilocks-style) just right.... So, telling Republicans how reasonable Reagan was doesn't impress today's Republicans; it just reminds them of how much progress they've made. And I'm tired of writing things that make Republicans feel warm all over."


The War on Terror Everybody. Adam Estes of The Atlantic: "Somalia is now the sixth country over which the United States is flying attack drones." And boots on the ground: "Somalia's defense minister says that American military forces touched down to collect the bodies of the insurgents."

He’s a rotten prick.... This is all about him being a bully and a punk. I wanted to punch him in his head.... You know who he reminds me of? Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ the mean old bastard who screws everybody.... He’s mean-spirited. He’s angry. If you don’t do what he says, I liken it to being spoiled, I’m going to get my way, or else. -- New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Gov. Chris Christie, who line-item vetoed many state programs for the disadvantaged. Thanks to commenter Marvin Schwalb for this rhetorical gem

Aristocracy Watch. Pradnya Joshi of the New York Times: "... the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. Some chief executives have consistently taken token salaries — sometimes, $1 — choosing instead to rely on their ownership stakes for wealth. These stock riches don’t show up on the current pay lists.... Warren E. Buffett, for instance, saw his stock holdings rise last year by 16 percent, to $46 billion.... The average American worker was taking home $752 a week in late 2010, up a mere 0.5 percent from a year earlier. After inflation, workers were actually making less."

... Aristocracy Watch, Con'd. E. J. Dionne: "The United States Supreme Court now sees its central task as comforting the already comfortable and afflicting those already afflicted." ...

... Lincoln Caplan, the New York Times editorial writer for legal affairs, writes a powerful editorial condemning the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Connick v. Thompson which overturned a $14MM jury award for John Thompson, who was the victim of serial prosecutorial misconduct. Caplan concludes, "The capital punishment system in this country has put many innocent people on death row. It cannot be fixed and should be repealed everywhere. With this ruling, the court made it even more likely that innocent people will be railroaded by untrained prosecutors — with the terrible prospect of their being put to death for crimes they did not commit."

** Chris Geidner of Metro Weekly: "... the Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court employee Karen Golinski's federal court challenge, supporting her lawsuit seeking access to equal health benefits for her wife and arguing strongly that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional in terms unparalleled in previous administration statements.... Unlike in other cases where DOJ has stopped defending DOMA in accordance with President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder's decision that Section 3 of DOMA -- the federal definition of marriage -- is unconstitutional, DOJ lawyers today made an expansive case in a 31-page filing that DOMA is unconstitutional."

Bibi's Big Fat Greek Wedding. Barak Ravid of Haaretz: Israeli PM Benjamin "Netanyahu’s personal investment in his relationship over the past year-and-a-half with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in which he increased diplomatic ties with the floundering European nation seems to have put the final nail in the Gaza flotilla’s coffin." CW: see also today's Ledes on arrest of flotilla captain.

Andy Greenberg of Forbes: "If Visa Europe and MasterCard Europe haven’t re-opened payment WikiLeaks by next Thursday, the group and its payment provider DataCell plan to file a complaint with the E.U. Commission against the two companies as well as the Danish payment processor Teller, according to Sveinn Andri Sveinsson, the Icelandic lawyer for WikiLeaks and DataCell." In this knockoff "ad," WikiLeaks claims the financial institutions have cost it $15MM:

Right Wing World *

Vicki Needham of The Hill: Congressional Democrats & the Obama Administration expected smooth sailing for three trade deals the White House sent to Congress last week, but House Republicans walked out of the committee hearing on the markup. Here's why: "GOP lawmakers are opposing the decision to include Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which helps retrain workers displaced by foreign trade, as part of the South Korean deal, insisting, instead, that TAA be considered separately."  CW: They don't want to retrain displaced American workers???? Can we just face it? Republicans hate people. The 2012 Democratic campaign theme for 2012 should be "Republicans: They're just not that into you."

Ryan Reilly of TPM: "The sponsor of an Ohio bill which restricts access to the ballot box was arrested back in April on drunk driving charges.... On April 23, an Indiana state trooper pulled Rep. Robert Mecklenborg, [a Republican,] over for a burned out headlight.... After failing three separate field sobriety tests, Mecklenborg allegedly refused to take a breath test and was placed under arrest. A blood test later revealed that he had recently taken a Viagra.... Mecklenborg was accompanied by a 26-year-old woman, who a local blogger claims has 'personal connections' with Concepts Show Girls strip club, which is right near where Mecklenborg was arrested." CW: since the police almost certainly confiscated Mecklenborg's driver's licence, he no long has a voter ID.

* Where the facts occasionally kick the deserving in the ass. 

News Ledes

CNN: Speaking at Aspen, former President Bill Clinton urged the White House "not to blink" in the debt ceiling negotiations & said President Obama should stand his ground.&

AP: "Greek authorities have arrested the captain of a boat that is part of a Gaza-bound flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, officials said yesterday."

AP: "Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said. The break near Billings in south-central Montana fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts Saturday to close intakes."

AP: On Friday Commander Christopher Ferguson, co-pilot Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus will make NASA's 135th and final shuttle flight on board Atlantis. "It will be years before the United States sends its own spacecraft up again."

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