The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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 -- June 30, 2014

Obsolete video removed.

ScotusBlog will liveblog the Supremes' announcements of decisions this morning. The liveblog will begin at 9:15 am, with the Court airing its rulings beginning at 10 am. The two cases to be announced are Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn. There was some discussion here yesterday about Harris; also, in today's Comments, P.D. Pepe links this New Republic piece on Harris by Taylor Malmsheimer. ...

     ... Update: Both decision by Alito. So there you go. Five-four vote on Harris with the liberals dissenting. The decision & dissent are here. Alito reads summary from the bench.

     ... Update 2: Hobby Lobby: 5-4 ruling. Closely-held corps can't be required to provide contraceptive coverage. "Kennedy's concurring opinion says that the government could pay for the coverage itself, so that women receive it." Three dissents: (1) Ginsburg joined by Sotomayor & partially by Breyer & Kagan, each of whom write separate dissenting opinions who filed together. "Alito reads summary from the bench. "It is extremely likely that the Obama administration will by regulation provide for the government to pay for the coverage. So it is unlikely that there will be a substantial gap in coverage." -- Tom Goldstien of ScotusBlog. "Kennedy's opinion emphasizes that in this particular case, a mechanism for accommodating employers is 'already in place' so that the majority opinion does not require the Govt to create 'a whole new program or burden on the Govt'." -- Kevin Russell of ScotusBlog. Ginsburg is reading from her dissent. The decision & dissents on Hobby Lobby are here. ...

... AP: "The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union's costs of collective bargaining. In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take." ...

... Some Corporations Are People, My Friend. Jason Millman of the Washington Post: "The federal government can't force owners of closely held for-profit companies to provide birth control coverage to female employees if they object to the administration's requirement on religious grounds, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 5-4 ruling, in one of its most contentious cases of the year, recognizes for the first time the religious rights of corporations." The New York Times report, by Adam Liptak, is here.

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Monday will nominate Bob McDonald, a West Point graduate who served as chief executive of Procter & Gamble, to take over as head of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs, according to White House officials." ...

... OR, as Mark Thompson of Time puts it, "Obama to Tap Soap Salesman to Clean Up VA."

James Risen of the New York Times: "Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor's operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: 'that he could kill' the government's chief investigator and 'no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,' according to department reports." ...

     ... CW: Another chilling example of how things worked under Bush-Cheney. Even after the Nisour Square shooting, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the Blackwater guards were swell. If you connect the dots, you wonder if they threatened his life, too. The "accidental" assassination of a person supposedly under their protection would be pretty easy to accomplish. And this is rich: Crocker told reporters after the mass murder, "I certainly do wish I'd had the foresight to see that there were things out there that could be corrected." Foresight? His embassy had just aborted a State Department investigation of Blackwater, an investigation in which the preliminary findings were devastating.

Hillary Stout of the New York Times: "A $1 million starting point for each death anchors the formula to pay families of those who died in accidents caused by a defective ignition switch in General Motors cars, under a plan unveiled Monday by a compensation expert hired by the automaker. The plan, announced by the expert, Kenneth R. Feinberg, is broad and inclusive, and seems certain to account for deaths beyond the 13 that G.M. has publicly linked to the defect."

Of Pitchforks & Plutocrats. Nick Hanauer, a self-described .01 percenter, in Politico Magazine: "... I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won't last. If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us."

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: We can't predict GDP growth because ... ObamaCare! CW: Now, finally something for which we can legitimately blame the ACA.

Paul Waldman, in the Washington Post: "The idea that Obama is a tyrant wiping his muddy boots on the Constitution as he goes about his project to destroy the United States used to be the province of spittle-flecked talk radio hosts, right-wing Web sites and those chain e-mails your father-in-law reads while he watches 'Hannity.' But it has now moved to the core of the GOP's case against the president":

This is imperial power. This is George III. -- Karl Rove, on President Obama's use of executive authority, speaking on "Fox 'News' Sunday" ...

Fox 'News,' the place where irony gets no purchase. Rove meant George III of England, of course, but I wonder if FoxBots thought he was referring to Pappy Bush I, Duyba II, and Barack III. And speaking of Georges, if you read Tim Devaney's whole report (linked above), you'll see how Rove & George Will are on exactly the same page: the one about Obama's overreach coming in his adjustments to ObamaCare implementation. Hard to know who put out the memo on this one; chronology doesn't help much since Will often seems to get his "ideas" from his contacts. -- Constant Weader

David of Crooks & Liars: On ABC's "This Week," Katrina Vanden Heuvel tells Bill Kristol he should join the Iraqi army. ...

... Driftglass: Nonetheless, Kristol will endure. No matter who fires him, there is another major media outlet to hire him.

Rachel Bade of Politico: In back-to-back appearances on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday Darrell Issa (RTP Calif.) & William Taylor, the attorney for former IRS official Lois Lerner, accused each other of being assholes. (Paraphrase.) "Appearing just before Taylor, Issa (R-Calif.) accused Taylor of lying about Lerner not printing out official emails.... 'This is election-year politics; it's convenient to have a demon that they can create and point to,' Taylor said...."

Robinson Meyer of the Atlantic reports "Everything We Know About Facebook's Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment."

Beyond the Beltway

What's the Matter with Kansas? Paul Krugman: Gov. Sam Brownback (RTP) & his wingnut legislature still follow the long- & oft-disproved theory of supply-side economics, brought to them by ALEC & discredited economist Arthur Laffer. "... faith in tax-cut magic isn't about evidence; it's about finding reasons to give powerful interests what they want." ...

... Josh Barro of the New York Times on Kansas's small-business tax exemption. Um, "If you cut taxes, you get less revenue." The exemption has not proved to be a job-creator; Barro gives one example of why not. It does, however, encourage some firms & individuals to change their filing status to make themselves tax-exempt.

New York Times Editors: "Time and again, [New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie] has used dubious strategies to avoid raising taxes (sparing him from inevitable criticism by party conservatives).... Such tactics have not helped the state. New Jersey's bond rating took another hit when Mr. Christie, facing a big budget shortfall, rejected the usual remedies -- cutting costs, borrowing money or raising taxes -- and instead cut state contributions to the public employees' pension fund.

News Ledes

How do you say, "Sanctions, Schmanctions" in French? Reuters: "About four hundred Russian sailors arrived in western France on Monday for training on Mistral amphibious assault ships before the first of two is delivered to Moscow by the end of the year. The United States and some European partners have urged Paris to reconsider the 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) sale to Moscow following Russian action in Ukraine, including its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March."

Reuters: "The U.S. Justice Department is expected to announce on Monday a settlement with BNP Paribas involving a record fine of nearly $9 billion over alleged U.S. sanctions violations by France's biggest bank...."

AP: "A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman...."

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Reader Comments (8)

Here's a pretty comprehensive article on the other important case (besides Hobby Lobby) to come down today: Harris v Quinn––the article doesn't specify the union fees Harris is required to pay each month but I looked it up and it appears to be $50.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118456/harris-v-quinn-what-it-would-mean-unions-and-workers

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

So what is more important in this country today? Fairness, justice, equal treatment under the law, generations of precedent, or smirking hyper partisan victory for far right ideology?

Don't bother.

This morning I halfway convinced myself that there was a chance--just a chance, mind you--that at least one or two of the usual suspects might not be on wingnut autopilot, kind of like a kid hoping that that bulge in his Christmas stocking was something besides a lump of coal.

Coal it was. And two lumps, not one.

Yesterday I commented that this Supreme Court has furiously busied itself with a radical restructuring of life in America in alignment with the requirements and desires of corporations, the gun lobby, the religious right, with anti-democratic, and anti-American interests. The redrawing of the moral and legal map of the country continues apace.

The wingers on the court don't even bother anymore with trying to cover up their reactionary, activist agenda. They're flying their partisan Jolly Rogers high up on the mast. If you're not a winger, you walk the plank.

The dominoes have been falling. More will fall. Wingnut groups who wish to challenge pretty much anything on ideological grounds will be giddily lining up with every sectarian complaint and petty challenge they can muster.

Very shortly we'll all be living in Right Wing World whether we want to or not. The Supremes' map of America is morphing to fit the contours of conservative political demands.

So much for the hand over the heart promises by Roberts and Alito that they had an idea of what stare decisis meant and that they could adjudicate cases without knee jerk resort to partisan ideology.

Lying fucks.

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I don't know why I listen to anything Bill (Always Wrong) Kristol has to say except that it was great to see someone confront him directly for his part in the atrocities and war crimes that were foisted on both the US and Iraq during the Bush Debacle, cheered on with lusty bloodthirstiness by bobble-head pundits like Kristol.

But if there's any more blatant evidence that these people inhabit a different, fanciful, farcical universe, than this statement: "President Bush made mistakes, he was punished for those mistakes electorally as he should have been in 2006, and perhaps in 2008. He also had the courage to order the surge in 2007, which made up for those mistakes, and left things peaceful", I have yet to see it.

So the 2007 surge made up for everything--the lies, the subterfuge, the treasonous outing of CIA personnel for political reasons, the torture, Abu Ghraib, the Green Zone, malfeasance, gouging of the US military by Dick Cheney's own company, murder of civilians by Bush soldiers of fortune, displacement of millions, tens of thousands of Americans dead or wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded, the profligate loss of trillions of dollars--those everythings?--and "left things peaceful"?

My definition of peaceful is a tad different than Wrongway Bill's.

According to Kristol's understanding of "peaceful" the Balkans, after the breakup of Yugoslavia was a freakin' paradise of peace.

But guys like Kristol still gets paid for opening their fat mouths and spewing raw sewage across the airwaves.

It truly is Right Wing World.

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

So, Hobby Lobby. Two take-aways (among many others) from the majority:

(1) Corporations, if closely held, are capable of religious conviction.
(2) It is less of a substantial burden to have the government pay for contraceptive coverage (as it does for employees of religious institutions) than to require the corporation to violate its religious beliefs.

I suppose since making money is sort of a religion for certain types of people, saying that an entity (corporation) created for profit- making can exercise religion makes some sense (not sense under law and precedent, but "feels right" to the zealous).

But saying that the taxpayer should foot the bill to relieve the burden? How can you square that with a sanctified belief in limiting government?

Ginsburg is correct in her dissent, the court calendars are going to fill up with specious demands for exemption on everything you can think of. God help us. Lawyers stand to make billions.

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Guns are people too, my friend.

Dateline: Bloomsburg, PA

"Gun vendor shoots woman at gun show. As punishment, vendor is asked to leave. Had the woman been killed, he may not have been invited back again."

What, you might think, is the point of a a gun show if you're not going to shoot someone? After all, guns are people too. They exist for one reason only. To fire ammunition at high velocity into a (not for long) live body. So why can't they "express themselves", you know, just like people?

The vendor was distressed. Not because he shot someone, but because people might think gun shows are not safe. Also, he was sure the weapon he was demonstrating wasn't loaded. Sure! Positively sure! It must have been someone else who put that bullet in. Oh wait. Maybe the gun loaded itself. Yeah! That's the ticket.

The truly sad thing about this is that the woman who was shot--apparently another gun fondler herself--feels bad. Not bad about the fact that she was shot by a knucklehead demonstrating a loaded weapon in a crowed exhibition hall. She's feels bad for the guy who shot her. The poor man! He wasn't able to make as much money as possible selling deadly weapons.

This is the same planet, isn't it? I mean, do we live on a different planet from these people?

Any day now the Supreme Court will make it against the law to complain about being shot at a gun show. In fact, shouldn't guns be able to vote? And not have to pay union dues? And get a religious exception to obeying the laws? Anything can happen in Right Wing World.

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Job Security. The Neocon Way.

The web is a constant source of hints and suggestions about best practices for landing and keeping jobs. What not to say at interviews ("My last four bosses were incompetent jerks"), how to negotiate a raise, and how to keep your present job if layoffs loom large.

But I have yet to see the kind of practical advice those Blackwater Bush-Cheney BFFs implemented for keeping their jobs. Threaten to kill the person who could get you fired.

Why didn't I ever think of that?

No wonder Republicans are never concerned about unemployment when they're in charge. They must figure if someone's about to lose their job, the road to job security is to stick a gun in the boss's ear.

Problem solved!

Man, Right Wing World has an answer for EVERYthing!

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/29/free_markets_killed_capitalism_ayn_rand_ronald_reagan_wal_mart_amazon_and_the_1_percents_sick_triumph_over_us_all/

It's worse than we thought. Thomas Frank ("What's The Matter With Kansas?") interviews Barry Lynn ("Cornered") who specializes in monopolies. In almost all industries, a few companies decide who can do business. It all started with who else? St Ronald of Reagan. The damage he did boggles the mind.

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

I asked google if anyone was boycotting Hobby Lobby.
Got this facebook page. Note - I do not belong to facebook
I glances at its page.... it raised my despair, a tad.
Yet social media could be hot air.

https://www.facebook.com/HobbyLobbyBoycott
It has a great pix of the SC, with the hash tag "not my boss's business".
CW? I tried and failed to copy paste the pic. Sorry.
mae finch

June 30, 2014 | Unregistered Commentermae finch
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