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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Thursday
Jul072011

The Commentariat -- July 8

Catfood!

On the Off Times Square page, commenter Richard suggests, "What about doing something more substantial than signing petitions that won't be looked at or making phone calls that won't be answered? Send the White House a can of Marie's cat food with your thoughts written on it. A few million cans or even a few hundred thousand would be hard to ignore. There are quite a few million people out there that are upset right now. All they need is a direction in which to focus their anger." My can of Fancy Feast is going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 20500, today!

Paul Krugman elaborates on his blogposts in which he concludes that President Obama has reportedly conceded not just the terms of the argument but actual economic policy proposals to Republicans because he wants to, not because he has to. ...

... I've posted a Krugman comments page on Off Times Square. You can comment on Krugman's remarks or on something else. Karen Garcia, Kate Madison & I have posted comments. I think you'd better read Madison's comment here; I'll let you know if the Times posts it. I could probably make a nice nest egg taking bets they will not! Update: Oops! My comment got whacked, too, and -- unbelievably -- so did Garcia's, which is particularly good. This is why we have Off Times Square. ...

... Jim Fallows: apparently Obama (and the Republicans) have learned nothing from Herbert Hoover's mistakes.

... Constitutional Law Prof. Larry Tribe, one of Barack Obama's former teachers, tries to explain in a New York Times op-ed why invoking the Fourteenth Amendment option on the debt-ceiling crisis won't work. CW: Pesonally, I think Tribe's "reasoning" is fallacious, but, hey, he's the expert. ...

... Which brings to mind this from the New York Times (final paragraph):

In addition to his warnings about the cost of a default, officials said, Mr. Geithner told the lawmakers the White House did not believe it had the authority, under the Constitution, to continue issuing debt if it reached the debt ceiling. Nobody in the room disputed Mr. Geithner's bleak assessment....

... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to Bloomberg's Peter Cook about the debt ceiling negotiations. Pelosi stands behind "no benefit cuts to Social Security & Medicare.... We should go someplace else to reduce the decifict":

     ... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: Pelosi & Obama are to meet today at 10:00 am ET in the White House. ...

     ... Michael Grunwald of Time on what Pelosi wants (most of all, to be Speaker again).

We think that obviously there are some Democrats who don’t feel as strongly about deficit reduction as [President Obama] does. White House political advisor David Plouffe

... Gene Robinson v. David Plouffe. Robinson ticks off a list of ways to reduce the deficit without cutting -- in some cases, enhancing -- entitlement programs. "There is, indeed, a way to eliminate these strangling deficits with fairness and an eye toward a brighter future. It just happens to be the progressive way." ...

... Steve Benen: "The word of the day is 'benefits' — as in, the specific kind of entitlement cuts that Democrats simply cannot tolerate as part of the debt-reduction talks."

... Paul Bedard of USA Today: "MoveOn.org, the progressive political group that turned legions of young voters on to President Obama in 2008, warns that donors would boycott the Obama-Biden re-election campaign if the president moves ahead with cuts to Social Security in a bid to broker a deal with Republicans to raise the debt ceiling." Polls of their members "found 76 percent would be less likely to donate to or volunteer for the president's re-election if he cut Social Security, as the administration is suggesting. Worse, if he trimmed Medicare, 78 percent said they'd be less likely to help Obama." ...

... AND you knew this was coming. Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders have made a rollback of tax breaks for corporate jets a frequent talking point in recent days ... as part of the budget talks. But the drumbeat from Democrats has set off a counterattack from a small but powerful group of jet manufacturers and users, who have contributed millions of dollars over the years to lawmakers from both parties.... The industry was surprised by Mr. Obama’s focus on private jets — the president mentioned the issue six times in a news conference last week — because it was Mr. Obama who had helped create an expanded deduction last year for the industry as a way of creating jobs."

** Bankers Are Too Nice to Prosecute. Gretchen Morgenson & Louise Story of the New York Times: "As the financial storm brewed in the summer of 2008 ... Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis.... The Securities and Exchange Commission also added deferred prosecution as a tool last year and has embraced another alternative to litigation — reports that chronicle wrongdoing at institutions like Moody’s Investors Service, often without punishing anyone. The financial crisis cases brought by the S.E.C. — like a recent settlement with JPMorgan Chase for selling a mortgage security that soured — have rarely named executives as defendants.... The [DOJ] began pulling back from a more aggressive pursuit of white-collar crime around 2005...."

CW: The New York Times op-ed page, which has gone way downhill since the departure of Rich & Herbert, is rich today. Even David Brooks isn't half-bad. I've offered to give him my Democratic party card since I won't be needing it. ...

... Tim Egan has a fine post, exposing the majority perverts on the Supreme Court, or more accurately, allowing Justice Scalia to do it in his downright loony majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. ...

... Finally, Prof. David Goldfield provides a history lesson on the Christian fundamentalism that gave birth to the Republican party. This was news to me.

John Burns & Jo Becker of the New York Times have an interesting piece on Rupert Murdoch's political power in Great Britain -- including his personal relationship with Conservative PM David Cameron, which has turned into a bit of a sticky wicket for the Tories. "... concerns will be intensified by the expected arrest on Friday of Andy Coulson, the former editor of The News of the World and, until he resigned in January this year, Mr. Cameron’s media chief at Downing Street." CW: see today's Ledes; Scotland Yard arrested Coulson. ...

... AND, speaking of men in high places behaving very badly, John Eligon of the New York Times tries to solve the mystery of "What Happened in Room 2806": the number of the Sofitel room where former IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn encountered a maid. With graphics!

Right Wing World *

In the words of Orrin Robin Hood Hatch (R-Utah), You poor people need to get to work & pay more taxes so the rich don't have to do so much:

Listen to What I Say, Don't Watch What I Do. Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register: "The reason he’s lagging in the polls, [Tim] Pawlenty told ... The Des Moines Register’s editorial board [Thursday], is that 'this week is the first time that I’ve campaigned in earnest in Iowa.' Pawlenty has made more campaign appearances here than any other candidate except former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum."

From the Department of Dirty Tricks. Ben Smith: "A sharp-eyed Italian reader catches a bit of subliminal trickery in the latest [Karl Rove] Crossroads online ad, where the word 'TAXES' flashes very quickly in big bold letters on the screen and then resolve themselves into the word 'takes' instead." Since the ad is running online only, Smith thinks the FCC has no jurisdiction. Here's the ad & it's way scary:

* Where the rich are way too generous.

News Ledes

Here's the President this morning on the dismal jobs numbers:

For Betty Ford obituaries, see R.I.P. at the bottom of the right column.

AP: "A former KBR Inc. employee who said she was drugged and raped while working in Iraq lost her lawsuit against the military contractor Friday. The jury of eight men and three women rejected Jamie Leigh Jones’ claims a day after starting deliberations in a Houston federal courthouse. Jones, 26, said she was raped in 2005 while working for KBR at Camp Hope, Baghdad."

ABC News: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reiterated Friday that Democrats will not back any proposal to increase the debt limit that includes cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits, adding that whatever compromise comes out of the talks, it cannot 'do harm.'”

AP: "Atlantis and four astronauts rocketed into orbit Friday on NASA's last space shuttle voyage, dodging bad weather and delighting hundreds of thousands of spectators on hand to witness the end of an era. It will be at least three years — possibly five or more — before astronauts launch again from U.S. soil, and so this final journey of the shuttle era packed in crowds and roused emotions on a scale not seen since the Apollo moon shots."

President Obama spoke about the monthly jobs report this morning. And here's why -- Bloomberg News: "U.S. employers added 18,000 workers in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed [to 9.2 percent], indicating a struggling labor market." CW: oh, how will we Win the Future?

Telling It like as It Is. National Journal: "The United States believes the Pakistani government 'sanctioned' the murder of a prominent Pakistani journalist [Syed Saleem Shahzad] who had been probing links between the country's security services and its Islamic militants, said Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'It was sanctioned by the government,' Mullen told journalists at the Pentagon on Thursday. 'I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this'."

Politico: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor hinted last week and confirmed Friday that the House will stay in Washington during the week of July 18 – giving lawmakers more time in town to hash out details of a debt ceiling deal as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called off recess for the upper chamber...."

New York Times: "British police arrested a former editor of The News of the World tabloid on Friday who had also been a senior aide to Prime Minister David Cameron>, deepening the crisis swirling around Rupert Murdoch’s news empire over allegations of phone hacking and corruption. Struggling to contain the biggest scandal since he took office more than a year ago, Mr. Cameron meanwhile announced two separate inquiries into the revelations, saying 'no stone will be left unturned.'" CW: Yesterday Cameron, an ally of Murdoch's, was not turning any stones. (See links to previous stories under Infotainment further down this column.) ...

... Meanwhile, across the Channel ... New York Times: "The Paris prosecutor’s office on Friday opened a preliminary investigation into accusations that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund who is accused of sexually assaulting a New York hotel housekeeper, tried to rape a French journalist during an interview in 2003, an official at the prosecutors office said."

Reuters: "Medicaid ... is giving people unprecedented access to doctors and also improving their finances, a study co-authored by the Harvard School of Public Health has found. The study, released on Thursday, showed that new recipients of Medicaid reported better physical and mental health and were less likely to go into debt to pay their medical bills."

New York Times: "Prodded by grieving parents, Spanish judges are investigating hundreds of charges that infants were abducted and sold for adoption over a 40-year period. What may have begun as political retaliation for leftist families during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco appears to have mutated into a trafficking business in which doctors, nurses and even nuns colluded with criminal networks." Thanks to reader Ted P. for the link.

More on the Murdoch Mess

Guardian: "Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.... News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist.... The allegation [of the deletions] directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering." ...

... Guardian: "Clive Goodman, the News of the World's former royal editor, has been arrested over allegations he bribed police officers for information. Goodman was convicted and jailed in 2007 after the first police investigation into phone hacking and sacked from the Sunday tabloid. He was arrested in a dawn raid at his Surrey home, which was searched by officers. In a statement the Metropolitan police said the arrest was over allegations of corruption."

The New York Times has an interactive feature on "The Anatomy of the Phone-Hacking Scandal."

New York Times: "Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday collectively turned on Rupert Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation, and the tabloid culture he represents, using a debate about a widening phone hacking scandal to denounce reporting tactics by newspapers once seen as too politically influential to challenge. But though he joined in the chorus of outrage, Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party benefits from Mr. Murdoch’s support, stopped short of calling for an immediate investigation into behavior by the Murdoch-owned News of the World and other tabloids. Such an inquiry would have to wait, he said, until the police had concluded their own criminal investigation." ...

... Daily Telegraph: "The bereaved relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked by a private investigator working for the News of the World." Guardian story here. ...

     ... ** Rupert to Close Tabloid. New York Times Update: "The media titan Rupert Murdoch abandoned his defiance of popular and Parliamentary pressure on Thursday, sacrificing the mass-circulation British tabloid News of the World in a bid to protect his News Corporation empire from fallout as the phone hacking scandal turned yet more disturbing on suggestions that targets included not only a 13-year-old murder victim but also relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan." Guardian story here. ...

     ... Statement from James Murdoch, Chairman of News International, to his staff at News of the World. ...

     ... Eric Boehlert of Media Matters: Murdoch's hand-picked Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton previously ran News of the World & other Murdoch British publications & was the guy who "investigated" earlier allegations of hacking by News of the World personnel. Hinton claimed at the time that "there was no evidence of widespread wrongdoing." Boehlert asks, "... is Les Hinton really qualified to be publisher of one of the largest and most prestigious newspapers in America?"

     ... Guardian: Labour leader "Ed Miliband has suggested [Prime Minister] David Cameron's leadership over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal is mired by his 'close relationships' with individuals embroiled in the affair at News International." ...

     ... New York Times Update: With the closing of News of the World, "an outpouring of suspicion and condemnation came from all directions on Thursday, and was directed chiefly at the News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a figure as powerful as he is polarizing. The British media establishment, Facebook and Twitter users and even Mr. Murdoch’s own employees questioned his move." CW: couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Keach Hagey of Politico: "In the past ten days, [Fox News] has run more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group [Media Matters] to be stripped of its tax-exempt status. Its Fox Nation website has even provided a link to pre-completed complaint forms against Media Matters to send to the Internal Revenue Service. While Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have long grumbled about Media Matters, this attack on the group has been carried out across the channel’s news and opinion programs."

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