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
Jun202011

The Commentariat -- June 20

Finally got an Open Thread up on Off Times Square.

Michael Scherer of Time writes a calm, incisive & devastating analysis of President Obama's hypocritical Libyan War Powers stance, which flies in the face of Pre-President Obama's stated positions and beliefs. Scherer ends with this joke from Seth Myers, delivered -- in the President's presence, of course -- at the White House Correspondents' dinner:

Who knows if they can beat you in 2012. But I tell you who could definitely beat you, Mr. President: 2008 Barack Obama. You would have loved him. So charismatic; so charming. Was he a little too idealistic? Maybe. But you would have loved him.

** E. J. Dionne: "An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot.... Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up. In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs.... Whether or not these laws can be rolled back, their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years. The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012."

Chistina Bellantoni of Roll Call: "Despite their grousing about the administration during the Netroots Nation conference, liberal activists and bloggers are relatively happy with President Barack Obama's performance. A straw poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that 80 percent either approve or strongly approve of the president more than a year before voters head to the polls to decide whether he deserves a second term. The results broke down to 27 percent strongly approving of Obama and 53 percent approving 'somewhat.' Thirteen percent said they 'somewhat disapprove,' and 7 percent strongly disapprove of the president."

"Legal Precedent." Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: if Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas had to resign for taking big gifts from buddies with business before the court -- And Fortas did -- so should Clarence Thomas. (See also yesterday's Commentariat.) ...

Whoop-dee damn-doo -- Clarence Thomas, responding to the news the Senate had confirmed his nomination to the Supreme Court. He was in the bathtub at the time

Mere confirmation, even to the Supreme Court, seemed pitifully small compensation for what had been done to me. -- Clarence Thomas

... The Long Dong Silver Connection. Attaturk in Firedoglake: "But, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Clarence Thomas it is that he is in no way affected with a sense of personal shame ... just grievances. The person who was until just recently leading the call to investigate Thomas’ ethical shortcomings? Anthony Weiner." ...

... Digby: "Bush vs Gore was a watershed -- the idea that the Court was above crass political considerations (even if it often wasn't) was fully abandoned and there's no going back. (Recall that Chief Justice Roberts worked on the Bush recount.)  I see no chance that Clarence Thomas will resign over this. (If they find out that he's been tweeting pictures of his John Thomas, however, then all bets are off.)

Ezra Klein on a really bad business tax cut that could pass: "a holiday for the profit that corporations are storing overseas.... Corporations get addicted to these holidays. They got one in 2004 (the American Jobs Creation Act -- which didn't create a single job), and now they’re pumping billions into getting another in 2012. Corporations are holding more money overseas than they otherwise would because they don’t want to bring that cash home in 2011 and pay taxes on it only to see a holiday pass in 2012. And if we pass two of these holidays in under a decade, corporations will never bring money home unless they’re given another holiday to do so...." ...

... David Koecieniewski of the New York Times writes an extended article on the effects of the farcically-dubbed 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, a new version of which businesses are hyping today.

For every dollar that was brought back, there were zero cents used for additional capital expenditures, research and development, or hiring and employees wages. -- Prof. Kristin J. Forbes, a member of Bush’s council of economic advisers who headed a study of the effects of the 2004 law ...

... CW News Flash: cutting business taxes increases the deficit, CEO compensation & occasionally shareholder dividends. It creates no jobs or other business improvements. Why? Because the Congress writes these laws so businesses can do what they want to with their tax break bonanzas. This particular bonanza reduces the corporate rate on profits from 35 percent to a little more than 5 percent. I think I'll ask Congress to cut my taxes by 85 percent, too, since -- like those generous corporations -- I too am willing to spend my own windfall tax break however I want.

Where Insider Trading Is Legal -- and Incredibly Profitable. Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "For Reid Hoffman, the chairman of LinkedIn, it took less than 30 minutes to earn himself an extra $200 million.... The blockbuster debut of LinkedIn ... provides a window into how a small group — bankers and lawyers, employees who get in on the ground floor, early investors — is taking a hefty cut at each twist in the road from Silicon Valley start-up to Wall Street success story.... The sharp run-up after the initial public offering set off a fierce debate among observers about whether the bankers had mispriced it and left billions on the table for their clients to pocket. But the pent-up demand for what was perceived as a hot technology stock set the stage for easy money to be made almost regardless of the offering price. Naturally, Wall Street is enjoying a windfall."

Why would a nonpartisan research company -- like McKinsey -- release questionable survey results undermining the Affordable Care Act? Rick Unger of Forbes has the answer: it's the money, stupid. The controversial survey -- which, especially because its results ran contrary to other survey findings & fit into the conservative ACA-bashing meme -- was really nothing more than a pitch to remind companies to use McKinsey services to help them evaluate their health benefits plans as the ACA kicks in. 

Right Wing World *

Jon Stewart tells Chris Wallace Fox "News" viewers "are the most consistently misinformed media viewers":

... Here's the full interview:

... Worse than Brainless. Steve Benen: "The quantifiable evidence is overwhelming.... The problem is actually getting worse.... In some cases, regular Fox News viewers would have done better, statistically speaking, if they had received no news at all and simply guessed whether the claims about current events were accurate." ...

... BUT BooMan says it's so wrong to blame Fox "News." Fox viewers were stupid, he asserts, before they tuned in Fox. ...

... Greg Sargent on the Wallace/Stewart exchange: "... there’s plenty of evidence that Fox News does deliberately slant its news coverage." Sargent lays out some of the evidence.

Bachmann Exposes Obama's Diabolical Capitalistic Medicare Plot." Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post: "The latest is Bachmann’s allegation that President Obama secretly wants Medicare to go broke so that — I’m not making this up — he can force senior citizens onto 'Obamacare.' ... In Bachmann’s mind, Obama might have a secret desire to move seniors onto a premium-support program. But in reality, her GOP colleagues have an overt one [the Ryan/Republican budget bill]. Bachmann’s speculation isn’t just hypocritical. It’s also illogical if you believe Obama is, as she has claimed, taking the country on 'the final leap to socialism.' ... Bachmann is accusing the president of wanting to take seniors off socialized medicine and push them into the private market he has set up for everyone else."

* Where Michele Bachmann is the fact-checker.

Local News

Idaho State Sen. John McGee, in uniform. Photo by Ada County Sheriff's Department.Idaho Statesman: "State Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, was arrested overnight by Ada County Sheriff's deputies for misdemeanor drunken driving and felony grand theft.... McGee began drinking at a golf course at about 10 p.m. Saturday night. At some point, McGee left the clubhouse on foot and walked for a distance, eventually coming upon a parked Ford Excursion with a 20-foot travel trailer near the Muir Woods Subdivision in Southeast Boise. The keys were in the vehicle and McGee drove away...." CW: legislator driving drunk? Not exactly unique. Grand theft auto? That's a new one on me.

 

News Ledes

Michelle Obama speaks in Soweto, South Africa:

     ... Here is the transcript of her remarks.

New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of women who work there. The court ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cannot proceed as a class action, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages. Now, the handful of women who brought the lawsuit may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. The justices divided 5-4 on another aspect of the ruling...." ...

... ALSO, New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected a lawsuit that had sought to force major electric utilities to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions without waiting for federal regulators to act." ...

... AND, AP (via NYT): "A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday refused to require states to provide lawyers for poor people in civil cases involving incarceration but did order state officials to ensure that those hearings are "fundamentally fair" to the person facing possible detention. The justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines to uphold the appeal of Michael Turner, a South Carolina man sent to jail for up to 12 months after he insisted he could not afford his child support payments. Turner had no lawyer, and claimed all people facing jail time have a constitutional right to an attorney. Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion for the court's four liberal-leaning justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy, would not go that far, saying 'the Due Process Clause does not always require the provision of counsel in civil proceedings where incarceration is threatened.'"

Washington Post: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday blamed the mass protests rocking his country on 'saboteurs' and 'vandalism,' declaring in a televised speech that 'there can be no development without stability.''”

New York Times: "Europe’s finance ministers unexpectedly put off approval early Monday of the next installment of aid to debt-laden Greece, delaying the decision until July and demanding that the Greek Parliament first approve spending cuts and financial reforms that include a large-scale privatization program."

When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost — in terms of life and treasure — hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people, my people, in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here. -- U.S. Amb. Karl Eikenberry to university students in Kabul

New York Times: "The departing American ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, lashed out at President Hamid Karzai on Sunday in a carefully calculated and candid rebuke of the Afghan leader’s increasingly inflammatory criticism of the coalition forces."

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