The Ledes

Friday, September 6, 2024

CNBC: “The U.S. economy created slightly fewer jobs than expected in August, reflecting a slowing labor market while also clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates later this month. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 142,000 during the month, down from 89,000 in July and below the 161,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

New York Times: “Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two students at his Georgia high school, was arrested and charged on Thursday with second-degree murder in connection with the state’s deadliest school shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. In addition to two counts of second-degree murder, Mr. Gray, 54, was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, according to a statement. At a news conference on Thursday night, Chris Hosey, the G.B.I. director, said the charges were 'directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.'” At 5:30 am ET, this is the pinned item in a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report is here.

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 5, 2024

CNBC: “Private sector payrolls grew at the weakest pace in more than 3½ years in August, providing yet another sign of a deteriorating labor market, according to ADP. Companies hired just 99,000 workers for the month, less than the downwardly revised 111,000 in July and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 140,000. August was the weakest month for job growth since January 2021, according to data from the payrolls processing firm. 'The job market’s downward drift brought us to slower-than-normal hiring after two years of outsized growth,' ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said. The report corroborates multiple data points recently that show hiring has slowed considerably from its blistering pace following the Covid outbreak in early 2020.”

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Georgia school massacre are here, a horrifying ritual which we experience here in the U.S. to kick off each new School Shooting Year. “A 14-year-old student opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers before surrendering to school resource officers, according to the authorities, who said the suspect would be charged with murder.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) speak during a press conference. Kemp is often glorified as one of the most moderate, reasonable GOP elected public officials. When asked a question I did not hear, Kemp responded, "Now is not the time to talk about politics." As you know, this is a statement that is part of the mass shooting ritual. It translates, "Our guns-for-all policy is so untenable that I dare not express it lest I be tarred and feathered -- or worse -- by grieving families." ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: “Police identified the suspect as Colt Gray, a student who attracted the attention of federal investigators more than a year ago, when they began receiving anonymous tips about someone threatening a school shooting. The FBI referred the reports to local authorities, whose investigations led them to interview Gray and his father. The father told police that he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have unsupervised access to them. Gray denied making the online threats, the FBI said, but officials still alerted area schools about him.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on CNN that the reason authorities lost track of Colt was that his family moved counties, and the local authorities who first learned of the threats apparently did not share the information with law enforcement officials in Barrow County, where Wednesday's mass school shooting occurred. If you were a parent of a child who has so alarmed law enforcement that they came around to your house to question you and the child about his plans to massacre people, wouldn't you do something?: talk to him, get the kid professional counseling, remove guns and other lethal weapons from the house, etc.

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.

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.

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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Wednesday
May182011

The Commentariat -- May 19

Gail Collins: "What is it with Republicans lately? Is there something about being a leader of the family-values party that makes you want to go out and commit adultery?" ...

... I have a comments page up for Collins' column on Off Times Square. Akhilleus, Karen Garcia & Kate Madison have posted comments, and they are absolute winners!

Jared Bernstein, in his first blogpost since leaving his White House job as economic advisor to Vice President Biden, debunks the conventional wisdom du jour: "The federal budget is just like a family budget, and we in government must tight our belts and live within our means just like families do.” Bernstein writes, "First of all, it’s bass-akwards: when families are tightening their belts, the federal government is the one institution that can actually help the economy — and these belt-tightening families — by loosening its belt and running a deficit.... But there’s another fundamental way in which this family budget analogy gets misused.  Families borrow to make investments and to get over rough patches.  They run deficits too.  I went into pretty deep debt to finance college and grad school and I’m glad I did."

Atrios: "I'm quite happy bashing the media, as usual, but I think they're getting a bit of a bum rap. They're covering the deficit in large part because both major political parties are mostly talking about the deficit. If some charismatic politician with the ability to get people to point some cameras at him spent more time talking about jobs and coming up with policies for jobs and talking about those the media would be talking about that too." CW: wonder what charismatic politician Atrios has in mind? Hint: his initials are BO & he was born in the USA.

New York Times Editors: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered an overhaul of mental health care for veterans, who are killing themselves by the thousands each year because of what the court called the 'unchecked incompetence' of the Department of Veterans Affairs. In a scathing 2-to-1 ruling on May 10, the judges said delays in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-related mental injuries violated veterans’ constitutional rights." You can read the opinion here (pdf).

Richard Painter, formerly a White House lawyer in the Bush II administration, writes in Politico in support of the confirmation of Goodwin Liu, whom Republican senators oppose. Liu's confirmation will come up for a vote today.

Dahlia Lithwick on the politicization of the courts. "We are in a strange holding pattern right now, collectively waiting for the first judge to cross party lines in a health care case. Maybe once that happens, we can all go back to believing in the integrity and infallibility of the judicial branch. Until then, perhaps it's an apt moment to re-examine first principles and think about why we believe in the judicial branch in the first place." Lithwick favorably cites an article by Jeremy Waldron who argues that the courts have no business meddling with legislation. CW: Huh. You decide. And while you're deciding, think where we'd be without Brown v. Board of Education, ferinstance.

Liz Alderman & Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times: Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, is a likely candidate to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the IMF.

Tracy Weber of ProPublica in Slate: "The women who spoke out against Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 were castigated and humiliated. Would it have been any different with DSK?" ...

... Christopher Beam of Slate on the pros & cons -- mostly cons -- of perp walks.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: "The Afghan government has moved so slowly to recruit Taliban defectors that U.S. and Afghan officials say they are losing an opportunity to capitalize on hard-won military gains and the death of Osama bin Laden. Interest among war-weary Taliban foot soldiers and low-ranking commanders in switching sides is at an all-time high, the officials said, but the Afghan government’s inability to provide safe houses, job-training classes and other services aimed at reintegrating former combatants has prevented local authorities from offering amnesty to many fighters." CW: what a surprise -- the U.S.-backed corrupt, illegitimate Afghan government is also incompetent. Who knew?

New York Times Editors: The Vatican's "long overdue guidelines ... for fighting sexual abuse of children are flimsy and defective."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "The retail industry launched a new campaign Wednesday to protect a federal law that reduces the fees retailers must pay to banks every time a debit card is swiped, a move the industry hopes will blunt the massive lobbying attack from banks. The campaign calls for hundreds of merchants to flood Capitol Hill in June for meetings with key lawmakers, the third “fly-in” to be held this year on the issue." CW: can retailers beat the banks? Consumers can't.

Here is the short list of states with Democratic governors where labor unions are undergoing severe attacks: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland and New Hampshire.
Here is the short list of states with Democratic governors where labor unions are undergoing severe attacks: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland and New Hampshire.

CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC TO LINK TO THE NEW EDITION OF THE FINAL EDITIONRight Wing World *

When your political party is so desperate for a viable candidate that they’re begging George W. Bush’s budget director to come in and be the savior, you have a problem. -- David Dayen, Firedoglake

CW: Michael Calderone has forced me to temporarily interrupt my boycott of the Huff Post with this incredible e-mail he got from Newt Gingrich's press secretary Rick Tyler:

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.

... Ben Smith: "Tyler's comments puzzled many because Gingrich's criticism of Paul Ryan drew the sharpest criticism not from the 'liberal media' but from the core of his own conservative movement." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "... this isn’t the first time Newt has complained about political ads taking his words about Medicare out of context": Here's Gingrich, via Dayen, in a July 1996 letter to the editor of the New York Times complaining that when Democrats accurately quote him, it's a lie. I don't need a medical degree (I don't have one) to recognize that the Newt is a sociopath. ...

... BUT, you know, some most all Democrats are just not going to follow Newt's orders not to use his own words against him & the GOP:

Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn’t agree more with what he said Sunday about the plan to end Medicare. He acknowledged that it is right wing social engineering. It was refreshing to hear such candor from a top Republican. Gingrich was saying what everyone knows to be true: The plan is extreme.... He is the Republican canary in the coal mine. When that canary speaks truth, he is snuffed out. What Newt seems to realize is that it would be impossible to win the White House if they embrace the Ryan plan. If Republicans make endorsing the Ryan plan the standard in the Republican primary, it will make the nominee unelectable. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

... Here's your proof, from the Democratic National Committee:

... ** NEW. AND Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post demonstrates that Newt still opposes the Ryan plan: "In a conversation with bloggers Tuesday, for instance, Gingrich persisted in calling the plan radical: 'Part of what I'm worried about is compelling people to go through a radical change that has not been tested.' In another conversation Tuesday, this time with radio host William Bennett, Gingrich listed a long series of caveats before saying he could support the Ryan plan." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Salon: "Republican leaders and activists are using Newt's flub as an opportunity to say something that's been on their minds for a lot longer: Get lost!"

Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today. -- Mark Salter, aide to Sen. John McCain ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: Rick Santorum tries to fix his incredible assertion that torture victim John McCain doesn't understand torture (but he, the Great Santorum, does), but -- surprise! -- he doesn't fix it at all:

For anyone to infer my disagreement with Senator McCain's policy position lessens my respect for his service to our country and all he had to endure is outrageous and unfortunate. -- Rick Santorum

CW translation: If you think I said what I said, it's your fault.

Pat Toomey Pulls His Tinfoil Hat down over His Eyes. Dana Milbank: the Republican Tea Party senator from Pennsylvania thinks the federal debt default is all a hoax. Thank you, Pennsylvania, for your excellent choice.

Keith Ablow, writing a Fox "News" opinion piece, asserts that Maria Shriver "must have known" about Arnold's multiple infidelities and that her husband's public admission of fathering a child by a woman who worked in Shriver's home for 20 years is a great opportunity for Maria to develop a better relationship with Arnold. She should take him back. According to the Fox "News" blurb, Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. CW: I leave it to you to decide what the "A" in "A-Team" stands for. For an apt comment on Dr. A-Team's unsolicited advice, see today's Off Times Square page (6th comment).

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Queen Elizabeth II of England speaks at a state dinner at Dublin Castle:

The President's speech on  the Middle East:

New York Times: "A judge granted Dominique Strauss-Kahn bail on Thursday, allowing the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund to be freed from Rikers Island to stay in a Manhattan apartment while his sexual assault case is pending."

Irish Times: Speaking at a state dinner in Dublin Castle, Queen Elizabeth II of England spoke of the "painful legacy of history" between England & Ireland. The text of her speech is here. Video above.

President Obama spoke about U.S. Middle East policy early this afternoon. New York Times story here. Washington Post story here. ...

     ... Update: Here's the Washington Post's post-speech report. New York Times: "Seeking to harness the seismic political change still unfolding in the Arab world, President Obama for the first time on Thursday publicly called for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a non-militarized Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s borders before 1967." See video of the full speech above. Here's the transcript of the speech. ...

     ... Haaretz Update: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects 1967 border proposal.

New York Times: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned Wednesday as head of the International Monetary Fund after explosive accusations that he had sexually attacked a housekeeper in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room."

Wall Street Journal: "A Berkeley law professor's chance of joining a federal appeals court lay in the hands of seven Republican senators, as Democrats scheduled a Thursday vote to break the filibuster that has held up Goodwin Liu's appointment."

Los Angeles Times: "The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General plans an investigation of an immigration enforcement program that purports to target 'serious convicted felons' for deportation but has ensnared many illegal immigrants who were arrested but not subsequently convicted of crimes or who committed minor offenses, a letter obtained Wednesday shows.."

New York Times: "With Democrats citing last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a cautionary tale, the Senate on Wednesday decisively rejected a Republican plan to allow more coastal oil and gas exploration and to speed the issuance of drilling permits to oil companies.... Democrats, however, say they will push to make sure that any deal to raise the federal debt limit this summer incorporates their proposal to limit tax breaks for the five major oil companies, a plan they say will save $21 billion over 10 years."

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