The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a “life-threatening” storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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The Ledes

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments Tuesday as powerful Hurricane Milton moves through the Gulf of Mexico toward Central Florida.

New York Times: “Cissy Houston, a Grammy Award-winning soul and gospel star who helped shepherd her daughter Whitney Houston to superstardom, died on Monday at her home in Newark. She was 91.”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.”

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Monday
Mar152021

The Commentariat -- March 16, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Tim Elfrink of the Washington Post: "Speaking outside El Paso on Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said border agents he had met earlier that day issued dire warnings that suspected terrorists are trying to cross into the United States via Mexico.... McCarthy's claims, which were echoed by another Republican congressman, were among the most alarming raised by a GOP delegation that aimed to highlight a growing crisis for the Biden administration amid a surge of migrants. But some Democrats from border states pushed back late on Monday and demanded evidence to back up McCarthy's assertions. 'Weird as the Chairman of the subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations and a border state member of Congress haven't heard anything about this,' tweeted Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who represents the Phoenix area. 'Gonna ask for a briefing. Pretty sure he is either wrong or lying.'... McCarthy's claims echo repeated assertions by ... Donald Trump and members of his administration that terrorists were using the southern border to sneak into the United States, a line Trump often used to justify his attempts to build a wall and tighten immigration rules. But those claims withered under scrutiny."

Paul Sonne, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Army initially pushed to reject the D.C. government's request for a modest National Guard presence ahead of the Jan. 6 rally that led to the Capitol riot, underscoring the deep reluctance of some higher-ups at the Pentagon to involve the military in security arrangements that day. In an internal draft memo obtained by The Washington Post, the Army said the U.S. military shouldn't be needed to help police with traffic and crowd management, as city officials had requested, unless more than 100,000 demonstrators were expected. The draft memo also said the request should be denied because a federal agency hadn't been identified to run the preparations and on-the-day operations; the resources of other federal agencies hadn't been exhausted; and law enforcement was 'far better suited' for the task.... The Army ultimately relented after facing pressure from acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley...."

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "... on Monday, in response to a question about whether it would help to have [Donald Trump] promote vaccination, [President] Biden ... explain[ed] why Trump is irrelevant. '... I discussed it with my team, and they say the thing that has more impact than anything Trump would say to the MAGA folks is what the local doctor, what the local preachers, what the local people in the community would say.' He added, 'So I urge all local docs and ministers and priests to talk about why, why it's important to get that vaccine, and even after that, until everyone is in fact vaccinated, to wear this mask,' before putting on his own mask. Biden's marketing idea is almost certainly correct.... So when it comes to the major issues facing our country, especially fighting covid-19, there really is no need to pay attention to the pandemic deniers who got us in this fix in the first place. Does it hurt when ignorant, reckless politicians such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) falsely say that those who had covid-19 do not need the shot? Perhaps...."

Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Guardian: "The FBI is facing new scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justice, after a lawmaker suggested that the investigation may have been 'fake'. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate 'proper oversight' by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.... Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse's letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence."

~~~~~~~~~~

Jim Tankersley & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Monday that his administration was on pace to achieve two key goals by March 25: 100 million shots of Covid-19 vaccines since his inauguration and 100 million direct payments under his economic relief bill.... ]Shots in arms and money in pockets. That's important,' Mr. Biden said in a brief address from the White House. 'The American Rescue Plan is already doing what it was designed to do: make a difference in people's everyday lives.'... With so much money at stake and Republicans criticizing the package as wasteful, Mr. Biden vowed to bring 'fastidious oversight' to the relief bill in order to ensure that it is distributed quickly and equitably.... 'We have to prove to the American people that their government can deliver for them, and do it without waste or fraud,' Mr. Biden said." ~~~

~~~ Laura Barron-Lopez & Ben White of Politico: "President Joe Biden is appointing Gene Sperling to a role overseeing the implementation of the administration's coronavirus relief plan, a White House official confirmed on Monday. The announcement could come as early as Monday, sources familiar with the plans told Politico.... Sperling, who served on the economic teams in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, was under consideration to serve as Biden's director of the Office of Management and Budget after the presidents first pick, Neera Tanden, failed to secure enough support in the Senate. Instead of that post, he is being tapped for a position within the White House where he will be tasked with overseeing the enactment of the recently-signed $1.9 trillion Covid-relief bill." (Also linked yesterday.)

Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "As thousands of Native Americans watched online, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) was confirmed as secretary of the Interior Department by a 51 to 40 vote in the Senate, making her the first American Indian to lead an agency that manages a vast portfolio of federal land and the oil and mineral wealth that lies beneath it. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and whose family ties in the country can be traced back 35 generations, will take control of a department that also oversees Indian Country, 574 federally recognized Native American and Alaskan Native communities. Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote for Haaland. The close vote reflected broad support from Democrats and overwhelming opposition from Republicans.... ~~~

"Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) recalled how Republicans called Haaland's views on managing public land extreme and radical during her committee confirmation hearing. Meanwhile, Smith said, some of those same senators posed little opposition to Tom Vilsack's nomination to run the Agriculture Department, although many of his views are similar to Haaland's. 'I just find it difficult to take these Republican attacks at face value,' Smith said. 'Once again a woman, and a woman of color, is being held to a different standard and we need to call it.'" Politico's story is here.

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is working with her counterparts worldwide to forge an agreement on a global minimum tax on multinational corporations.... The effort, which would involve a fraught and challenging global negotiation of tax laws, could prove one of Yellen's biggest policy legacies if it succeeds. It also could prove central to Biden's presidency. The $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation signed into law last week was financed completely by additional federal borrowing. But the administration is expected to raise taxes at least partly to pay for its other big-ticket spending priorities, such as the massive infrastructure and jobs package being discussed by White House officials and congressional Democrats. A key source of new revenue probably will be corporate taxes, which ... Donald Trump sharply cut in 2017."

Meagan Flynn of the Washington Post: "U.S. Capitol Police will reduce the security perimeter erected after the breach of the Capitol, having determined that 'there does not exist a known, credible threat against Congress,' according to a security memo sent to U.S. lawmakers on Monday. Over the course of this week, acting House sergeant-at-arms Timothy Blodgett said, security officials will begin 'repositioning' inner-perimeter fencing closer to the Capitol to allow some pedestrian access to the grounds. The complex has been surrounded by the seven-foot black metal fences topped with razor wire since just after the Jan. 6 riot...."

Spencer Hsu & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "Federal authorities have arrested and charged two men with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick with bear spray during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but have not determined whether the exposure caused his death. Julian Elie Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania and George Pierre Tanios, 39 of Morgantown, W.Va., were arrested Sunday and are expected to appear in federal court Monday.... Khater and Tanios are charged with nine counts, including assaulting Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer identified as C. Edwards and a D.C. police officer identified as B. Chapman with a deadly weapon. They are also charged with civil disorder and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors filed charges after tipsters contacted the FBI allegedly identifying Khater and Tanios from wanted images released by the bureau from surveillance video and officer-worn body camera footage, the complaint said. It said the men grew up together in New Jersey...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mike DeBonis & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "U.S. Capitol Police suspended an officer Monday after a copy of an infamous antisemitic tract was found near a Capitol Hill security post Sunday, alarming a congressional aide who viewed the document in plain sight at the checkpoint. Photographs provided to The Washington Post show a printed copy of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion on a table inside an entrance to the Longworth House Office Building. The Post provided the photographs to the Capitol Police on Monday morning and requested comment. The department said Monday evening that acting chief Yogananda D. Pittman had suspended an officer pending an investigation 'after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.'" MB: I hope the Capitol Police conduct their "investigation" swiftly. There are innocent reasons a Capitol Police officer might be reading the "literature" favored by people who attacked him/her. I have not read this particular piece of crap, but I have definitely read crap, knowing full-well the disgusting gist of the crap.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Sen. Ron Johnson (RQ-Wis.) got on right-wing radio Monday to white-splain his racist remarks last week about how he wasn't afraid of citizens "who would never do anything to break the law, but who just happened to violently invade the Capitol & the police who tried to defend it. On the other hand, Black Lives Matter protesters are scary. Johnson set up a number of straw men to make his argument and said he couldn't be a racist because a lot of BLM protesters pictured on Tucker Carlson's show were white. MB: Okay then. BTW, here's something I had not read about the January 6 insurrection: "And among the broader group of protesters, D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges told The Washington Post they 'had been seizing guns all day.'" That is, insurrections showed up armed and planned to bring firearms into the Capitol, but the police confiscated the weapons first. ~~~

~~~ Marie: RonAnon Johnson, who because he is a doofus U.S. senator has one of the biggest megaphones in the U.S., has written an op-ed headlined "I Won't be Silenced by the Left." Oh, darn, the piece is published in the Wall Street Journal, so I can't link it.


The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

CDC Cleans Up Trump's Act. Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "Federal health officials have identified several controversial pandemic recommendations released during the Donald Trump administration that they say were 'not primarily authored' by staff and don't reflect the best scientific evidence, based on a review ordered by its new director [Rochelle Walensky]. The review identified three documents that had already been removed from the agency's website: One, released in July, delivered a strong argument for school reopenings and downplayed health risks. A second set of guidelines about the country's reopening was released in April by the White House and was far less detailed than what had been drafted by the CDC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A third guidance issued in August discouraged the testing of people without covid-19 symptoms even when they had contact with infected individuals. That was replaced in September after experts inside and outside the agency raised alarms."


Nomaan Merchant & Jake Bleiberg of the AP: "The U.S. government plans to house up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers at a convention center in downtown Dallas as it struggles to find space for a surge of migrant children at the border who have strained the immigration system just two months into the Biden administration.... The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center will be used for up to 90 days beginning as early as this week.... The Health and Human Services Department is rushing to open facilities across the country to house immigrant children who are otherwise being held by the Border Patrol, which is generally supposed to detain children for no more than three days. The Border Patrol is holding children longer because there is next to no space in the HHS system, similar to the last major increase in migration two years ago."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the upper chamber, torched the legislative filibuster on Monday, arguing that it is undermining democracy. 'The filibuster is still making a mockery of American democracy. The filibuster is still being misused by some senators to block legislation urgently needed and supported by a strong majority of the American people,' Durbin said during a floor speech. He added, 'This is what hitting legislative rock bottom looks like.'"

Paul Campos in a New York Times op-ed: Justice Stephen Breyer "should announce his retirement immediately, effective upon the confirmation of his successor. For him to continue to make the same gamble that Justice Ginsburg made and lost runs the risk of tainting his legacy as a justice and has the potential to be an anti-democratic disaster for the nation as a whole." MB: No kidding. As much as I scoff at delusional Republicans, there seems to be a particular delusion among justices appointed by Democrats that (1) they will live forever, or (2) justice is blind & it doesn't matter the party of the president. Republican justices hold no such illusions. In recent years, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter & Anthony Kennedy -- all Republican appointees -- retired when it suited their political aims.

Jan Hoffman & Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "In a filing that signifies the beginning of the end of the country's most notorious manufacturer of prescription opioids, Purdue Pharma submitted its bankruptcy restructuring plan just before midnight on Monday. The blueprint requires members of the billionaire Sackler family to relinquish control of the company and transforms it into a new corporation with revenue directed exclusively toward abating the addiction epidemic that its signature painkiller, OxyContin, helped create. The plan, more than 300 pages long, is the company's formal bid to end thousands of lawsuits and includes a pledge from the Sacklers to pay $4.275 billion from their personal fortune -- $1.3 billion more than their original offer -- to reimburse states, municipalities, tribes and other plaintiffs for costs associated with the epidemic." The AP's story is here.


Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel, despite attempts by loyalists to ... Donald Trump to derail his career following his bit role in the president's first impeachment, according to two people familiar with the matter. Vindman's twin brother, Alex Vindman, was a star witness in Trump's impeachment trial and accused the president of pressuring the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. Alex Vindman chose to retire from the military last July as a lieutenant colonel after what he called 'a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation' and is now writing a memoir and getting a doctorate."

Justin Rohrlich of the Daily Beast: "About four weeks before Donald Trump vacated the White House..., presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner jetted off on his last official trip to Israel -- and U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for $24,335 in room and board.... A week later, Kushner's family real estate business filed papers with Israeli regulators indicating it planned to raise some $100 million in capital by selling bonds on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.... While all the Trumps had a taste for travel, some of the biggest bills were run up by former First Lady Melania Trump -- who billed herself as running a 'lean' East Wing operation. On a 2018 swing through Africa, she spent the day in Cairo and ran up a hotel bill of more than $90,000 without even staying the night. A year earlier, the first lady managed to spend $174,000 on hotels during a day trip to Toronto."

Philip Pullella of Reuters: "Steve Bannon, the former adviser to ... Donald Trump, has lost a legal battle to set up a right-wing Catholic political academy in an abbey in Italy. The Council of State on Monday ruled against the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI), backed by Bannon, which wanted to start the school in an 800-year-old monastery south of Rome. The case has been in the Italian court system for years...."

Arizona GOP Ordered to Pay for Frivolous Lawsuit. Jacques Billeaud of the AP: "The Arizona Republican Party and its lawyers must pay $18,000 in attorneys' fees that taxpayers were forced to pick up late last year to defend government officials against one of the party's failed lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden's victory in the state, a judge has ruled. In a decision Friday, Judge John Hannah concluded the state GOP brought a groundless legal claim to court, filed its case for political reasons while claiming it was trying to protect election integrity, and failed to acknowledge it sued the wrong government officials."


Rachel Swarns of the New York Times: "In one of the largest efforts by an institution to atone for slavery, a prominent order of Catholic priests has vowed to raise $100 million to benefit the descendants of the enslaved people it once owned and to promote racial reconciliation initiatives across the United States. The move by the leaders of the Jesuit conference of priests represents the largest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to make amends for the buying, selling and enslavement of Black people, church officials and historians said.... The money raised by the Jesuits will flow into a new foundation established in partnership with a group of descendants, who pressed for negotiations with the Jesuits after learning from a series of articles in The New York Times that their ancestors had been sold in 1838. The order relied on slave labor and slave sales for more than a century to sustain the clergy and to help finance the construction and the day-to-day operations of churches and schools, including the nation's first Catholic institution of higher learning..., now known as Georgetown University."

Beyond the Beltway

Minnesota. Holly Bailey of the Washington Post: "The attorney for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death, asked the judge overseeing the case to delay the trial and reconsider a change-of-venue motion, saying he was 'gravely concerned the $27 million civil settlement announced last week between the city of Minneapolis and the Floyd family has tainted the jury pool. Eric Nelson, Chauvin's defense attorney, questioned the 'suspicious timing' of the settlement and argued it was 'highly prejudicial' against his client. He called on Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter A. Cahill to 'at least' call back the jurors already seated in the case to question them to see if they had read the news of the settlement and if they could continue to be impartial in the case. Eight jurors have been seated." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Russia. Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "The Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny greeted his supporters via Instagram on Monday from the prison where he is likely to spend the next two years, referring to his new confines as 'our friendly concentration camp.' Mr. Navalny, whose whereabouts had been unknown for days, said in a message posted on his Instagram page that he had been transferred to Penal Colony No. 2 in the Vladimir Region east of Moscow. Mr. Navalny had passed the message along to his lawyers, who were able to visit him at the penal colony earlier in the day for the first time."

Vatican. Nicole Winfield of the AP: "The Vatican decreed Monday that the Catholic Church won't bless same-sex unions since God 'cannot bless sin.' The Vatican's orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response Monday to a question about whether Catholic clergy have the authority to bless gay unions. The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was 'negative.' The note distinguished between the church's welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions. It argued that such unions are not part of God's plan and that any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage." (Also linked yesterday.)

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

Will be out of commission for awhile (eye surgery) but just wanted to ask: How does Melania work this magic?

"—. On a 2018 swing through Africa, she spent the day in Cairo and ran up a hotel bill of more than $90,000 without even staying the night."

March 16, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Brave Sir Ron sez:

“The Left will not silence me! Harumph!”

Note to Ron. Even though every time you open that hole in your face you weaken the nation, no one is trying to silence you. Certainly not me. Hell no. Because every time you speak, you reinforce the fact that you are stupider than a soup bone (although not nearly as useful). You have become one of the poster boys for confederate idiocy, racism, misogyny, and total lack of any moral core worthy of the name, and your very existence deserves a special Darwin Award*.

So yap it up there, Ronnie.

Keep those mal mots coming. You are that rara avis, a guy who is even stupider than he looks.

*I read the other day that there is a project being thought out for how we can save the DNA of over 7 million species, in tunnels on the moon, just in case another R knucklehead nukes the planet or goes golfing while another deadly pandemic almost wipes us out. I’ve already sent them a reminder not to include any Ron Johnson DNA. Their reply: “Dude, we got you covered.

March 16, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

PD,

It’s what Trumps do. Spend other people’s money. Lots of it. They all must be going through serious withdrawal now that they’ve been yanked away from the public trough. But hey, next time any of those moochers goes to Cairo, I can point them to some lovely sarcophagi, you know, in case they wanna take a nap. For a couple thousand years...

March 16, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

PD,

Good luck with the eye surgery. Had eye surgeries of my own last December, cataracts expunged and new lenses in their place. Worked out well. A few post operative adjustments, and it took some getting used to but am now wandering around without glasses but for reading (still chuckling at myself as I occasionally push those non-existent glasses up on my nose) for the first time in nearly seventy years....

Said yesterday that I thought the Yellen effort to find common ground with other nations on an international tax regimen was a big deal. We'll see how or if it works out, but something has to be done.

As it stands, the wrong people remain in charge of the global economic system and hence of us.

Commented to a friend a few weeks back on a book he recommended that tells the story of those wrong folks, the economic theories they have propounded and the institutions they have created to insulate themselves from social responsibility.

Didn't read the whole thing but that didn't stop me from having an opinion about it.

"First, that Hayek fellow. The man could have been a monk, poring over old manuscripts attempting to find some kind of universal truth in ancient scratchings. He did have enough sense, though, to determine that final answers are hard to descry, hard enough that he apparently decided the search was fool’s errand, so he eventually landed on the Unknowable, an answer with a familiar ring.

That conclusion applied to economics isn’t that much different from relying on Smith’s invisible Hand which I have long taken as sign that the market’s complexity in itself and in its implications for the way humans organize themselves are so hard to comprehend tthat the best thing to do is to turn the whole thing over to God or some other version of the ineffable.

Beyond that, the themes that Hayek and his followers proposed and amended as political circumstances changed over time created structures of convenience for capital and capitalists who have never let a nation or the welfare of its people get in the way of moving others’ stuff into their pockets.

Taken a a whole, I found the economic arguments summarized in the book very unsatisfying. I don’t understand how one can say with a straight face or an un-shuttered mind that the monetary value (prices) ascribed to any particular object of trade is the best possible approximation we can assign to its “value,” or that price signals tell us anything more about the ineffable than we knew before any human hand assigned it a price.

For me, the fundamental problem with economic theorizing is not so much in what it assigns value to but with all those things it ignores, like costs to the planet or the price of human feelings of dignity and respect—and in that view what price, I would ask, are trivialities like justice and democracy? Or, much as these theorizers seem to like and rely on law (the laws they like, anyway), what of all the law that derives from the Bill of Rights?

Not worth much according to most of the minds I encountered in “Globalists,” most of whom found democracy a bother at best, which I took to be one of the author's points, though if that point was clearly stated, I missed it."

The book I gave too short a shrift here is "Globalists" by Quinn Slobadian, should anyone wish to read it. As I said, I wasn't man enough for the job.

March 16, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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