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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Monday
Jul042011

The Commentariat -- July 5

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have added comments. 

"As His Batshit Chickens Come Home to Roost." Driftglass blames David Brooks for his decades-long promotion of ideas & policies that have led to what Brooks now complains is an immoral, unreasoning gang of Republicans. A tour-de-force (on Driftglass's part, not Brooks'). ...

... AND, while we're at it, Driftglass has figured out a way to save the economy AND give in to Republican demands to cut the deficit. It's the "Rewarding Wealth Producers and Penalizing Moochers Patriotic American Values Re-alignment" Act. The act will make things a little tough on denizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska & Rand Paul's Kentucky, ferinstance, but it's all for the good of the country. ...

... New York Times Editors: "In addition to demanding trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit, [Congressional Democrats Republicans] are now vowing not to act without first holding votes in each chamber on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.... It won’t be enough for Democrats to merely defeat the amendment when it comes up for a vote.... They also need to rebut the amendment’s false and dangerous premises." ...

... Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Obama’s in-your-face attitude [on the debt ceiling "negotiations"] seems to have thrown Republicans off their stride. They thought all they had to do was convince everyone they were crazy enough to force an unthinkable default on the nation’s financial obligations. Now they have to wonder if Obama is crazy enough to let them. The difficult work of putting the federal government on sound fiscal footing can’t begin as long as a majority in the House rejects simple arithmetic on ideological grounds." ...

... BUT. Know How to Hold Fold 'Em. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues. Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program." CW: because poor people have to die in the service of billionaires & big corporations. ...

'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion' -- this is the important thing -- 'shall not be questioned.' -- Tim Geithner, pulling a copy of the Constitution from his pocket & reading a section of the Fourteenth Amendment

... CW: I don't like Tim Geithner & I don't like his inteviewer Mike Allen of Politico, but this video is interesting. As expected, Geithner pushes the "confidence v. uncertainty" meme. But at about 39:30 min. in (cursor forward), Geithner invokes the Fourteenth Amendment option. Whether or not President Obama ultimately resorts to the Fourteenth Amendment, obviously, he has placed that option "on the table" during negotiations. As I've said, if Obama caves to Republican pressure & cuts essential programs for Americans in need, it's because he wants to. He knows he doesn't have to. Thanks to Jim Fallows for the link & the guidance:

... Moderate Republican David Frum, a former Bush II speechwriter: "Why don't the Democrats rebel? Presumably, they elected Obama to stand up for their shared principles. But he's not standing up. He's rolling over. Or being rolled." Thanks to reader Doug R. for the link.

Just in case you thought the WashPo editorial page was worth perusing, there's this from regular columnist & another former Bush II speechwriter Marc Thiessen: AG Eric Holder is "... pursuing his ideologically driven crusade against the CIA’s interrogators." CW: Oh, it gets worse from there. The real crime is giving this disreputable hack real estate in a major newspaper. 

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times on Prof. Elizabeth Warren & the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which she has organized: "... with no clear signal as to who will run the bureau, many bankers are now worrying that the opposition to Ms. Warren may produce a leaderless consumer bureau." 

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "... a new breed of 'super PACs' and other independent groups are poised to spend more money than ever to sway federal elections.... The rise of these independent groups, which can raise unlimited amounts of money..., could end up defining the 2012 campaign. But some of the groups could also pose a threat to established campaigns, which may find it difficult to stop them from wandering off message or committing strategic blunders. One rogue super PAC in Southern California has upended a Republican congressional campaign by producing a crude video depicting the female Democratic candidate as a stripper giving tax money to gang members." (CW: the words "crude video" appear in the WashPo article as "cru de video"; I thought it was some new wine!)

Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) "has begun a campaign, called Off the Sidelines, to mobilize women across the country, in advance of the national elections next year and as evidence emerges that the slow but steady progress made by women in elective politics has begun to stall. In the past few months, Ms. Gillibrand has activated her network of donors to help female candidates, emerged as a headliner among audiences of women, tried to recruit female candidates, advised women thinking about running, and started a Web site, offthesidelines.org."

Al Hunt of Bloomberg News on the rapid evolution of American attitudes toward gay marriage & how so many politicians (Obama) are still skirting the issue. In the lede, Hunt gives us one more reason to love Mario Cuomo.

Alissa Rubin & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Gen. David Patraeus & Gen. David Rodriguez, who runs day-to-day operations, are all leaving Afghanistan at about the same time. "From an American policy standpoint, the changing of the guard means little, but from the Afghan standpoint, in which a leader’s personality can determine the policy, the triple departure, along with President Obama’s June 22 speech on the withdrawal of troops, has stoked fears of abandonment, especially for Afghans who have depended on the Americans."

Missed this one. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "President Obama announced Friday that he would nominate Thomas J. Curry to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees hundreds of national banks.... Mr. Curry’s nomination responds to the demands of Senate Democrats that the White House replace the acting head of the comptroller’s office, John G. Walsh, whom they regard as obstructing key aspects of the law passed last year to overhaul financial regulation."

Right Wing World *

Flip, Flip, Flop, Flip-Flop. Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times: "Mitt Romney has struggled to craft a consistent economic message in recent weeks — first blaming President Obama for driving the country deeper into recession and then backing off that charge during a visit to Pennsylvania. On Monday in southern New Hampshire, he appeared to offer those conflicting messages within one sentence:

The recession is deeper because of our president; it's seen an anemic recovery because of our president.

      ... Reston writes, "Those statements — that the president had driven the economy deeper into recession but also that an 'anemic' recovery had occurred — not only seemed to be contradictory, but also at odds with what Romney has previously argued. In a June..., Romney said Obama 'didn't create the recession, but he made it worse and longer.' Later..., he was quoted by NBC as saying the state's voters '...but [Obama] made it worse.' But when asked to elaborate on those statements..., he backtracked: 'I didn't say things are worse.' On Monday in Amherst, he combined both messages."

* Where a single sentence may be internally inconsistent.

News Ledes

President Obama makes brief remarks in the Brady Press Room about the deficit reduction talks:

** New York Times: "Members of the Afghan Parliament came to blows Tuesday as a majority for the first time began to discuss impeaching President Hamid Karzai, signaling the near-total breakdown of relations between the Parliament and the president as the country teeters on the brink of a constitutional crisis."

Guardian: "President Barack Obama is attempting to block the execution in Texas on Thursday of a Mexican man because it would breach an international convention and do "irreparable harm" to US interests. The White House has asked the US supreme court to put the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia on hold while Congress passes a law that would prevent the convicted rapist and murderer from being put to death along with dozens of other foreign nationals who were denied proper access to diplomatic representation before trials for capital crimes. The administration moved after the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, brushed aside appeals from diplomats, top judges, senior military officers, the United Nations and former president George W Bush to stay Leal's execution because it could jeopardise American citizens arrested abroad as well as US diplomatic interests." CW: pardon my ignorance, but can't the President do this unilaterally?

New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would prosecute in civilian court a Somali accused of ties to two Islamist militant groups.... In an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York, the Somali, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen. Mr. Warsame ... was captured on April 19, and a plane carrying him arrived in New York City around midnight Monday, officials said." The article contains a link to the indictment.

The Hill: "The Senate as early as Wednesday could vote on a 'Sense of the Senate' bill that says taxpayers earning $1 million or more each year should 'make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit-reduction effort.' The bill ... was introduced last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid filed a cloture motion on the bill on Tuesday afternoon, meaning a vote to end debate could take place as early as late Wednesday or, more likely, Thursday." ...

... Cornyn Goes Full Emily Litella. NBC News: "Though he may have hinted over the weekend that he would consider raising revenue in order to avoid a government shutdown, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) says not so fast. 'We're not for raising taxes through the front door or back door during a fragile economic recovery....'" Sen. Cornyn told Andrea Mitchell.

The Audacity of Betrayal. New York Times: "President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressional Republicans on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cutting deal, pledging to put popular entitlement programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescence to some higher taxes."

New York Times: "Manhattan prosecutors are scheduled to meet on Wednesday with the lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to discuss whether the sexual assault case against him can be resolved through a dismissal or a plea, according to a person briefed on the matter."

New York Times: "Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan’s powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country’s military, according to American officials. New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism...."

Reuters: "Prosecutors will drop sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at his next court appearance in two weeks, or earlier, because of doubts about the credibility of the alleged victim, he New York Post said Tuesday." CW: remember to consider the source.

AP: "The initial cleanup along the oil-fouled Yellowstone River could be tested Tuesday as rising waters make it harder for Exxon Mobil Corp. to get to areas damaged by the crude spilled from a company pipeline."

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