REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- June 13

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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.'”

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Jun122011

The Commentariat -- June 13

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square. Even if you don't comment, the threads are worth reading, as at least a thousand readers a day have discovered.

Robert Reich: "We’re in a vicious cycle in which lower wages and net job losses and high debt are causing consumers to cut their spending — which is causing businesses to cut back on hiring and reduce pay. There’s no way out of this morass without bold leadership from Washington to rekindle consumer demand." Thanks to commenter Pam Criscione for the link.

Paul Krugman explains why Sen. Joe Lieberman's idea to raise the Medicare eligibility age is "so bad, so wrongheaded, that you’re almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails." CW: The best thing about January 2013, no matter who wins the presidential election & who controls the House and Senate is that Joe Lieberman will be OUTTA THERE.

Here's our old friend Larry Summers giving another demonstration of how an economist admits he fucked up without admitting he fucked up. While he worked in the Obama Administration, Summers declared the 2008 stimulus package, like Goldilocks' porridge, "just right." (See, ferinstance, Summers' speech in July 2009, which Krugman highlighted in this blogpost.) But now, in a Washington Post op-ed, Summers finds that porridge was "too cold" & is promoting additional stimulus, mostly in the forms of a payroll tax cut to employers & infrastructure improvements. Oh, Larry, you are just too hot. ...

... And here's why Larry proposed primarily tax cuts instead of a more targeted & effective stimulus: E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "Last Thursday, Senate Democrats devoted their weekly policy lunch to a simple question: What proposals to spur job-creation have any chance of passing Congress, given Republican control of the House and the effective veto power the GOP has in a Senate where a simple majority no longer rules? ... The senators concluded that the only stimulative measures with any chance of getting Republican votes involve tax cuts. That’s why you’re hearing a lot of talk about extending the payroll tax cut another year, and perhaps extending it to the part of the tax that employers pay."

Felix Salmon of Reuters can't see much daylight between the testimony of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. When the views of a Democratic Secretary of the Treasury are indistinguishable from those of a big bank CEO, we no longer have to wait for the oligarchy to begin. It is here.

Big Brother, Chapter 'Leventy-'Leven. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention."

David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post: "Regulators are having such a difficult time translating into action the Wall Street overhaul Congress ordered last year that they are cutting the investment industry-- and themselves-- some slack. New requirements governing certain financial instruments are scheduled to take effect on July 16, almost a year after enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act. But the Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday that it is providing 'temporary relief' from some of the provisions. With the deadline looming, the SEC said it will extend some temporary rules and offer relief from others that predated Dodd-Frank. At issue are 'security-based swaps,' a form of derivative."

For the New York Times, Scott Turow favorably reviews Tangled Webs, "James B. Stewart’s engrossing re-examination of a quartet of celebrated federal investigations, all of which culminated in convictions for lying: the insider-trading probe that ultimately ensnared the homemaking diva Martha Stewart; the complex inquiry to determine who leaked to reporters the identity of the former C.I.A. covert operative Valerie Plame Wilson, which led to the perjury conviction of the ex-vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis Libby; the long-running San Francisco grand jury probe into steroid use by athletes that implicated the sprinter Marion Jones and (after the book was finished) the home-run king Barry Bonds; and the Securities and Exchange Commission inquiries in which the reigning king of swindlers, Bernard L. Madoff, managed to gull overworked young investigators and keep his Ponzi scheme alive, prior to his ultimate undoing in 2008."

Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "With wildfire season starting early and fires already raging across Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service is confronting a longtime problem that many inside and outside the agency think needs an immediate fix: The large tanker planes leased by the agency to fight such blazes have been flying, on average, about 50 years and are rapidly becoming unsafe to deploy. As worries deepen, the Forest Service is preparing — finally, critics say — to ask Congress this summer for money to replace its fleet of 18 large air tankers.... Owners and operators of private aviation companies that lease air tankers under contract or on a call-when-needed basis have been pressing for this kind of action since two air tanker crashes in 2002."

Right Wing World *

Steve Benen on the double standard Republicans apply to sex scandals: Weiner must go and it's "a failue of Democratic leadership" that they took two or three days to call for his resignation; but Republican leadership has never called for the resignation of Sen. David Vitter, who broke the law by making dates with prostitutes five years ago, or Sen. John Ensign, who probably broke the law by paying off his mistress's husband two years ago. (Vitter is still serving; Ensign quit to avoid having to testify before the Senate Ethics Committee.)

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Presidential candidate & former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) says doctors who provide abortions to rape & incest victims (or any other woman) should be criminally charged. With video, in case you can't believe anyone would say such a thing.

* Is a dangerous place for reasonable, responsible people.

Local News

Eric Kleefeld of TPM explains how Wisconsin Democrats are countering the Republican dirty trick of running Republican challengers (that is, fake Democrats) to force Democratic primary recall elections.

News Ledes

New York Times: "President Obama said on Monday that if he were in Representative Anthony D. Weiner’s position, 'I would resign,' according to NBC, which conducted an extensive interview with him."

New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected a First Amendment challenge to a Nevada law that barred officials there from voting on matters in which they had a conflict of interest. Such legislative recusal laws are common, and a decision striking them down or even subjecting them to strict First Amendment scrutiny would have reshaped politics across the nation." You can read the decision, written by Justice Scalia, here.

New York Times: "Lulz Security, a group of hackers who have claimed responsibility for a number of recent online data breaches, claimed two more victims on Monday, including Bethesda Softworks, a gaming company, and the Web site of the United States Senate."

After meeting with his Jobs & Competitiveness Council (CW: which is a cruel joke on the American people) in Morrisville, North Carolina, President Obama will make remarks at 1:45 pm ET. Politico: "President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy. The catch? Nearly three years into Obama's presidency, the White House can't point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting." ...

... Updates: Washington Post follow-up story here. The transcript of the President's remarks is here.

AP: Republican presidential candidates will debate this evening at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, New Hampshire. It's the first debate in which usual frontrunner Gov. Mitt Romney will participate. ...

... The Hill Update: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) announced during Monday evening's presidential debate that she'd filed paperwork to run for president." AND here's the Washington Post story on the debate: "Given opportunities to critique one another’s stances, the seven competitors repeatedly deflected the questions to attacks on the president."

Reuters: "Rerouting ambulances away from overcrowded emergency rooms may be costing patients their lives, U.S. researchers say. For patients with heart attack, high levels of rerouting are tied to a three percent higher risk of death, they report in the Journal of the American Medical Association." CW: this is another consequence of people not having access to health insurance. Even though you yourself may have insurance, people who have no insurance are crowding the emergency room. They could kill you.

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