The Ledes

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Washington Post: “The five-day space voyage known as Polaris Dawn ended safely Sunday as four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Dragon splashed down off the coast of Florida, wrapping up a groundbreaking commercial mission. Polaris Dawn crossed several historic landmarks for civilian spaceflight as Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer, performed the first spacewalk by a private citizen, followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis.”

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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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Sunday
Mar152015

The Commentariat -- March 16, 2015

Internal links removed.

Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "Three months into the expanded Republican majorities on the Hill, White House aides see a landscape in which President Barack Obama is more in charge now than he was before the midterms. Rather than moving forward on their own priorities as Republican leaders promised after their midterm sweep, the House and Senate find themselves reacting to Obama. So far, most legislation hasn't moved at all, and the most prominent votes have been on bills they already know Obama won't sign." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The congressional push this week to secure the first Republican budget plan in nearly a decade is revealing a chasm between fiscal hawks determined to maintain strict spending caps and defense hawks who are threatening to derail any budget that does not ensure an increase for the military. 'This is a war within the Republican Party,' said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who has vowed to oppose a final budget that does not ensure more military spending. 'You can shade it any way you want, but this is war.' The divisions will be laid bare Tuesday when congressional leaders unveil blueprints that hew to spending limits imposed by the budget battles of 2011." ...

... HOWEVER, as Jennifer Steinhauer wrote in yesterday's New York Times, "... when it comes to what is left of his viable policy agenda on Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama’s biggest problems are now often with Democrats. The administration's most pressing goal, expansive trade legislation, is adamantly opposed by scores of Democrats in the House and Senate even as most Republicans support it. Mr. Obama's formal request for congressional authorization to fight the Islamic State is deeply imperiled, in no small measure because Senate Democrats find it wanting."

Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday that the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general may hinge on whether Congress works out its gridlock over a human trafficking bill. 'It's not a threat. We need to finish this human trafficking bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously . . . because the next week we'll be doing the budget and the next two weeks after that Congress is not in session,' McConnell said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" ...

... CW: Funny, both Dana Bash & reporter Jeremy Diamond took your stance as a threat, Mitch.

Jennifer Haberkorn & David Rogers of Politico: "In a rare display of bipartisanship, House leaders are actively pursuing a deal to permanently change the way Medicare pays doctors and extend a children's health program for two years. The estimated $200 billion package could be introduced as soon as this week by House committees responsible for health care policy. Both Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi are personally involved...."

Bradley Klapper of the AP: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would be willing to talk with Syrian President Bashar Assad to help broker a political resolution to the country's civil war. Kerry said in an interview with CBS News that the U.S. is pushing for Assad to seriously discuss a transition strategy to help end Syria's four-year conflict, which has killed more than 220,000 people, given rise to the Islamic State group and destabilized the wider Middle East. 'We have to negotiate in the end,' Kerry said. 'What we're pushing for is to get him to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds.'" ...

... Kyle Balluck of the Hill: "Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview broadcast Sunday that a letter to Iranian leaders signed by 47 Republican senators was 'absolutely calculated directly to interfere with these negotiations.' 'It specifically inserts itself directly to the leader of another country saying, 'Don't negotiate with these guys because we're going to change this,' which by the way, is not only contrary to the Constitution with respect to the executive's right to negotiate, but it is incorrect because they cannot change an executive agreement,' Kerry said on CBS's 'Face the Nation.' 'So it's false information and directly calculated to interfere and basically say, "Don't negotiate with them. You've got to negotiate with 535 members of Congress,' he added." ...

... Sam Stein & Jessica Schulberg of the Huffington Post: "... the White House penned a letter Saturday night warning senators to hold back on legislation that would detract from the president's ability to affect and approve a final agreement with Iran. The letter, written by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), reiterates a veto threat of the bill, while insisting that Congress will have a say in reviewing and affecting the ultimate outcome. But in far more detailed and foreboding terms than normal, McDonough lays out the administration's concerns should Corker's Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 end up becoming law." ...

     ... The full text of McDonough's letter to Corker is here. ...

** Susan Glasser of Politico interviews William Burns, former career ambassador & ambassador to Russia under Bush II, who has served under several U.S. presidents, & who began the negotiations with Iran. (This is probably news to Tom Cotton.) As Burns says (are you listening, John McCain?), "The reality is that the Iranians have developed over the course of the last decade or more the know-how to enrich, they know their way around basic enrichment technology, and you can't wish that away, you can't dismantle it away, you can't bomb it away." CW: If the Senate's 47 Percent read this interview, they might get a little insight into why we don't have 535 members of Congress conducting negotiations with foreign powers, especially when the majority of them are as ignorant as Tom Cotton. ...

... CW: Probably just a bit of garbled syntax, but Tom Cotton seemed a little confused Sunday as to what country Tehran was in. Maybe he sent that "open letter" to the Iranian leaders because he couldn't find their address. ...

And then I got flak for appearing on a video for BuzzFeed, trying to reach younger voters. What nonsense. You know, you don't diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran. (Laughter and applause.) Really, that wasn't a joke. -- President Obama at the Gridiron Club dinner Saturday

... Ben Terris of the Washington Post has President Obama's full remarks at the dinner. There are some LOL moments.

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The plea deal given to retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, which spares him prison time even though he gave military secrets to his mistress, reveals a 'profound double standard' in the way the Obama administration treats people who leak classified information, [Abbe Lowell,] a lawyer for an imprisoned government contractor, wrote in a letter to prosecutors. The sharply worded letter calls for the Justice Department to immediately release from prison Stephen J. Kim, an arms expert and former State Department contractor who is serving a 13-month sentence for disclosing classified information about North Korea to Fox News. Mr. Kim has said he was trying to call public attention to the threat posed by that country.... Mr. Lowell ... has previously highlighted the fact that top government officials disclose classified information for political purposes while prosecuting others for the same activity."

Karyn Bruggeman of the National Journal: "Campaign-style spending ... is becoming increasingly common for sitting governors, mayors, and other holders of high office. It's a spillover from a recipe for election success that has become pervasive since the Supreme Court struck down campaign-finance rules: Raise mass quantities of outside money, often from undisclosed donors.... Now, after winning, officials across the country are applying the same strategy to governing, relying on outside money -- and advocacy groups funded by that money -- to push their legislative agenda."

Election 2016

Onward, Christian Soldiers. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Evangelicals aim to mobilize an army for Republicans in 2016."

The Huckster. It's kinda hard to tell if Mike Huckabee would rather be POTUS or king of the late-nite infomercial realm. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: In one ad, Huckabee "tells viewers to ignore 'Big Pharma' and instead points them to a 'weird spice, kitchen-cabinet cure,' [for diabetes] consisting of dietary supplements.... The American Diabetes Association and the Canadian Diabetes Association caution against treatments like the one peddled by the company Mr. Huckabee represents." Huckabee's spokesperson says his quack contract has expired, but the company's CEO "seemed to dispute that." Ads that appear on his newsletter include a "cure for cancer hidden in the Bible" & survival food kits.

... CW: Sure, the Huckster may be a charlatan preying on the gullible, but bear in mind he's just the most obvious one in a field of fraudsters. Viewed from the GOP gutter, Hillary looks like a dream candidate.

Marc Caputo of Politico: A problem for Marco Rubio: his longterm, close relationship with "David Rivera: Scandal-plagued former congressman under investigation in a federal campaign-finance probe."

"Yes, Your World Is on Fire!" David Edwards of the Raw Story: Ted Cruz frightens a child. With video. Exchange starts at about 1:40 min. in. ...

     ... The first video here is better; you can see that the child is just past toddler-stage & you can hear her ask the question. Cruz should come with a child-safety warning label.

... Whatever Works. Steve M.: "... as soon as it was clear that the kid was upset, Cruz switched off the 'America under the Democrats is dooooomed!' tape in his head and switched on the 'America is the greatest country in the world! Woo! Woo! Woo! U-S-A! U-S-A!" tape, as if they're interchangeable."

Beyond the Beltway

Manny Fernandez & John Eligon of the New York Times: "A 20-year-old man was charged with first-degree assault in the shooting of two police officers in front of the Ferguson Police Department early Thursday morning, according to Robert P. McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County, who announced the charges in Clayton on Sunday. The man, Jeffrey Williams, acknowledged firing the shots, Mr. McCulloch said. He said that Mr. Williams, who is from north St. Louis County, was inside a car 'at least for some of the shots.'... The suspect was found through information provided by community members.... 'He is a demonstrator,' Mr. McCulloch said. 'He was out there earlier that evening as part of the demonstration. He's been out there on other occasions, part of the demonstrations.'" CW: The racial animus inherent in that statement is sickening. McCulloch wants to exploit racial tensions. He's the Rudy Giuliani of St. Louis. ...

... Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "McCulloch said Williams had previously attended demonstrations and had been at the demonstration on the night of the shooting. But local activists, organizers and journalists largely said they didn't know Williams or recognize him from his mugshot." ...

... Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times: "Despite an effort being mounted to recall him, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles hopes to keep his job. Other former Ferguson leaders have resigned in the wake of a DOJ report exposing rampant racism & corruption in the town.

William Booth & Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned supporters at a rally [in Tel Aviv] Sunday that he and his Likud party may not win Tuesday's election, a potentially dramatic fall for a consummate political survivor whose nine years in office transformed him into the public face of contemporary Israel. A loss by Netanyahu -- or a razor-thin win and the prospect that he would be forced to enter into an unwieldy 'government of national unity' with his rivals -- would mark a sobering reversal for Israel's security hawks, in a country where the electorate has been moving steadily rightward for the past 15 years." ...

... Diaa Hadid of the New York Times: "Now, polls cited by the Israeli media suggest the Arab alliance is likely to become the third-largest faction in [Israel's] Parliament with 13 of its 120 seats, potentially preventing Mr. Netanyahu from cobbling together the 61 seats he needs to form a coalition and stay in power." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Once upon a time, Israel was a country of egalitarian ideals.... Since then..., however, key measures of inequality have soared; Israel is now right up there with America as one of the most unequal societies in the advanced world.... Roughly 20 families control companies that account for half the total value of Israel's stock market.... The political economy of the promised land is now characterized by harshness at the bottom and at least soft corruption at the top.... And Israel's experience shows that this matters, that extreme inequality has a corrosive effect on social and political life.... Many Israelis see Mr. Netanyahu as part of the problem. He's an advocate of free-market policies; he has a Chris Christie-like penchant for living large at taxpayers' expense, while clumsily pretending otherwise."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Iran has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran's growing influence in Iraq."

New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Netanyahu made the assertion on the eve of an election in which he is trailing in the polls."

Washington Post: "Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public appearance in more than 10 days on Monday, following intense speculation about his health or other reasons he was out of view. 'It would be boring without gossip,' Putin told reporters outside St. Petersburg in his first public event since March 5. But he offered no other immediate details on why he missed a series of meetings and postponed one state visit during the period."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (2)

Evangelicals Aim to Mobilize an Army for Republicans in 2016
Huckabee Pursues Unconventional Ways to Fund a Campaign

These two clowns despise every word of Jesus. The definition of 'evangelical' - CINO.

March 16, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

Mitch McConnell's technique for restoring the honor, dignity, and integrity of the US Senate?

Blackmail!

Nice job, Jowly Boy! Way to show those Democrats how to "legislate". Hide an ideological deal breaker in a bill that should have passed easily with a show of bipartisanship almost as unbelievable as the fact that Tom Cotton went to Harvard, then tie a positive vote for your side to something entirely unconnected but vital to national business.

He must be so proud of himself! I think he deserves a Ted Cruz autographed mirror with glow in the dark frame so Mitchy can admire his turtley wonderfulness even in the middle of the night.

This Republican controlled congress is racking up shameful examples of legislative criminality and malevolence quicker than Scott Walker can hide under his desk.

March 16, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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