REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- May 13, 2013

The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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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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The Commentariat -- May 13, 2013

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has solicited sizable donations from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block, the tax preparation service, as part of a multimillion-dollar campaign to ensure the success of President Obama's health care law, administration officials said Sunday, even as a leading Senate Republican raised questions about the legality of her efforts.... The senior Republican on the Senate health committee, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said the fund-raising 'may be illegal.' He likened it to efforts by the Reagan administration to raise money for rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, after Congress had restricted the use of federal money.... Administration officials said private donations were needed because Congress had provided much less money than Mr. Obama requested to publicize the new law and get people enrolled in health plans subsidized by the government." CW: yes, educating Americans about affordable health coverage is just like funneling money to rebels fighting another sovereign nation.

Joseph Stiglitz, in the New York Times: "America is distinctive among advanced industrialized countries in the burden it places on students and their parents for financing higher education. America is also exceptional among comparable countries for the high cost of a college degree, including at public universities.... Total student debt, around $1 trillion, surpassed total credit-card debt last year.... merica — home of the land-grant university, the G.I. Bill and world-class public universities from California to Michigan to Texas — has fallen from the top in terms of university education. With strangling student debt, we are likely to fall further. What economists call “human capital” — investing in people — is a key to long-term growth." ...

... Here's One Reason for the High Cost of Higher Ed. Tamar Lewin of the New York Times: "... the median total compensation for the presidents of public research universities was $441,392, up 4.7 percent from the previous year’s $421,395. The median base salary, $373,800, was up 2 percent from $366,519 the previous year." The highest paid of all last year (largely because of his plum severance deal): "Graham B. Spanier, the president of Pennsylvania State University, who was forced out in November 2011 over his handling of a child sex abuse scandal involving a football coach." Creep.

Jonathan Weisman & Matthew Wald of the New York Times: Republicans plan to turn up the outrage machine over disclosures that some IRS personnel were targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Also, looks as if the IRS (run, don't forget, by a Dubya appointee) didn't quite come clean, providing more material for the outrage machine. ...

... John McKinnon & Siobahn Hughes of the Wall Street Journal have more details on the extent of the IRS's targeting practices & what IRS honchos knew & when they knew it. ...

... Kevin Drum: "... even if, as seems likely, this whole thing turns out to have been mostly a misguided scheme cooked up by some too-clever IRS drones, it doesn't matter. Conservatives are right to be outraged and right to demand a full investigation.... What's really unfortunate about all this is that ... more than likely, though, Congress will step in to neuter them completely on this score, and the current Wild West character of 501(c)4 fundraising will continue unabated."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: Darrell Issa will be subpoenaing (a) any person who can spell Benghazi, (b) any person who cannot spell Benghazi but know it is not the name of a tiny dog. Also, Issa got into an on-air fight with former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering -- a Bush Pere appointee. CW: consider the foregoing a paraphrase. ...

... Kevin Liptak of CNN: Thomas Pickering, "the leader of a panel charged with reviewing September’s attack in Benghazi, Libya, said Sunday that criticism of his report was unfounded and did not accurately reflect how his review was carried out." ...

... Jake Miller of CBS News: "Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, [a Republican,] forcefully defended the Obama administration on Sunday against charges that it did not do enough to prevent the tragedy in Benghazi, telling CBS' 'Face the Nation' that some critics of the administration have a 'cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.'" With video. ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) tore into Fox News’ Chris Wallace and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) for obsessing over the talking points U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used when talking to the media in the days following the attack in Benghazi, Libya rather than focusing on identifying the perpetrators of the killings." With video.

... Jordan Chariton of Mediate: John McCain isn't ready to impeach President Obama over Benghazi, but he'd like to see the House pre-emptively impeach Hillary Clinton. Or something. With video. ...

... Michael Tomasky of Newsweek expects Congressional Republicans to try to impeach President Obama over Benghazi. ...

"SIX POINT THREE TRILLION DOLLARS!" Bill Keller: the Heritage Foundation's anti-immigration report "is an unusually stark sign of the transformation of Washington’s think tank culture into a more partisan archipelago of propaganda factories."

Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "A potentially toxic clamor for Britain to consider quitting the European Union appeared to be spreading within the dominant Conservative Party on Monday, even as its leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, prepared to meet with President Obama in Washington as an advocate of closer trade ties between the United States and the European bloc."

"E Pluribus Me." Tim Egan: Ted Cruz may consider himself to be the smartest guy in the room -- no matter what the room -- but his positions are illogical & inconsistent. "Senator Cruz probably doesn’t mind the title that’s been hung on him — most hated man in the Senate. I suspect he also relishes being called a 'wacko bird' (John McCain’s term) because, for now, it’s the avian wing that dominates his party."

Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Two major tech leaders have resigned from Mark Zuckerberg’s new political group, FWD.us, in protest of the organization’s controversial decision to bankroll ads supporting Keystone XL and drilling in the Arctic National Refuge.... The strategy has alienated Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and David Sacks, the founder of Yammer."

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Just a few thoughts on Benghazi. I just watched MSNBC's MSM VSP interview Thomas Pickering (Mark Halperin et all.) They pressed him on the entire affair. His bottom line answer to it all is that he is prepared to go back to Issa's committee and answer questions as long as the entire interview is public and recorded so the answers as well as questions are preserved so they can be reviewed. What that tells me is that he is certain he and his committee acted professionally and thoroughly but he wants his defense of the report and comments about the entire thing to be available to the public so it is not able to be spun or twisted. I have seen Pickering being asked questions about this very "serious people's" issue over the last few days and I'd be prepared to take his assessment as the best answer to what happened - when and where.

The bottom line on this is -- witch hunt -- that this will not go anywhere because there is no smoking gun coverup on this. The editing of the emails was something that had to be done and I am glad it was done. Let's move on.

On the IRS thing. I think that this may be a blight on the administration. What the hell were those people thinking, conducting targeted investigations on specific types of entities, Tea Party, or not? Idiots!

May 13, 2013 |

fromtheheartland

@FromtheHeartland: I don't see how the IRS political behavior can be "a blight on this administration" unless evidence surfaces that someone in the Obama administration ordered or encouraged low-level IRS employees in Cincinnati to come down on conservative groups. It seems highly unlikely that an administration official would have done so.

The IRS has only two political appointees, as Jay Carney pointed out the other day, & the top dog is a Bush appointee who had planned to (& did) retire at the end of his stint. A temp is filling in as commissioner. Read Rick Unger of Forbes on this.

Marie

May 13, 2013 |

Marie Burns

At this point, I'm ambivalent about the IRS and its alleged political motivations. Supposing this sort of 'review' may be more common than we think for a whole bunch of entities! This one, with all the Tea-Party related entities that apparently sprang up may have provoked more scrutiny. I would not be surprised to learn that other instances could be uncovered during past administrations, which doesn't necessarily mean it was wrong to look at these or any other entities. However, I seem to recall that included among Nixon's dirty tricks was gaining access to the tax records of political opponents (via IRS) to find useful & potentially embarrassing info.

Though, I'm not buying into the 'overzealous, lower-ranked-the-caseworkers did it' story either.

May 13, 2013 |

MAG

Much food for thought in Pierce's piece on the shooting in New Orleans. http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Shooting_In_New_Orleans

May 13, 2013 |

Diane

If the current IRS brouhaha leads to closer scrutiny of all tax-exempt organizations who claim to be apolitical Obama can take the heat in the short term. Hell, he'll take heat for something 24/7 for the rest of his term because the alternative is unthinkable: no more Fox Network.

May 13, 2013 |

Jack Mahoney

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