REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- May 2, 2021

The Ledes

The Wires

The Ledes

Monday, October 7, 2024

Weather Channel: “Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a Category 3 and hurricane and storm surge watches are now posted along Florida's western Gulf Coast, where the storm poses threats of life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rainfall by midweek. 'Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,' the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay said in a briefing Monday morning.” ~~~

~~~ New York Times live updates are here for what is now a Cat 5 hurricane.

CNN: “This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated. Their research revealed how genes give rise to different cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation. Gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make – ... was first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor ... in Sweden on Monday.... Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted the research that earned him the prize at Harvard University. Ruvkun conducted his research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”

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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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The Commentariat -- May 2, 2021

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Before the president's rally near Atlanta on Thursday, he and Jill went out of their way to pay respects to the 96-year-old Jimmy Carter. This made Biden the first president to make a pilgrimage to Plains since Carter left office.... If there's a pol who knows what it feels like to be underappreciated by his own party, it's Biden. And he wasn't going to continue to let Carter, at the end of his life, be treated like a pariah in peanutville." MB: When she feels like it, MoDo knows how to tell a story.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has disclosed a set of rules secretly issued by ... Donald J. Trump in 2017 for counterterrorism 'direct action' operations -- like drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional war zones -- which the White House has suspended as it weighs whether and how to tighten the guidelines.... the visible [i.e., unredacted] portions [of the rules] show that in the Trump era, commanders in the field were given latitude to make decisions about attacks so long as they fit within broad sets of 'operating principles,' including that there should be 'near certainty' that civilians 'will not be injured or killed in the course of operations.' At the same time, however, the Trump-era rules were flexible about permitting exceptions to that and other standards, saying that 'variations' could be made 'where necessary.'... In October, Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York had ordered the government turn over the 11-page document in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by The New York Times and by the American Civil Liberties Union." CNN's report is here.

Congressional Race. Ethan Cohen, et al., of CNN: "Republican Susan Wright will advance to a runoff in the special election for Texas' 6th Congressional District, CNN projects, in a race that has been an early window into the fight over the future of the Republican Party in the aftermath of ... Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol. GOP state Rep. Jake Ellzey and Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez are locked in a tight race for the second spot." The Washington Post's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Ahead of a special election on Saturday to replace a Texas congressman who died after contracting Covid-19, former president George W Bush said the ascendancy of supporters of Donald Trump suggest Republicans 'want to be extinct'. The special election is in the sixth district, whose Republican representative, Ron Wright, died in February. Twenty-three candidates will compete: all but one of the 11 Republicans are tied to the apron strings of Trump... The one Republican not expressing fealty to Trump, former marine Michael Wood, told CNN he was 'afraid for the future of the country', given his party's adherence to Trump's lie that the election was stolen, its reluctance to condemn those who rioted at the Capitol on 6 January in support of that lie, and the prevalence of conspiracy theories such as QAnon.... In an interview released on Friday by the Dispatch, an anti-Trump conservative podcast, [Bush] was asked about recent moves by pro-Trump extremists to form a congressional caucus promoting 'Anglo-Saxon traditions'. 'To me that basically says that we want to be extinct,' he said."

Maeve Reston & Aaron Pellish of CNN: "A resolution to censure GOP Sen. Mitt Romney for his two votes to convict ... Donald Trump failed Saturday at the Utah Republican Party organizing convention, where the senator had been booed earlier in the day -- a reflection of the anger that persists among the party's core activists about Trump's impeachment and Romney's frequent criticisms of him throughout his presidency. The vote failed 711-798, according to Utah Republican Party spokeswoman Lynda Cox. The resolution to censure Romney, which was submitted by Don Guymon, a party delegate from Davis County, was rife with unproven conspiracy theories, including about President Joe Biden and his family."

The Day Rudy Set up Trump's Impeachment. Christopher Miller of BuzzFeed News: "The infamous call in which ... Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do him a 'favor' and investigate Hunter Biden and the origins of the Russia probe took place on July 25, 2019, and eventually led to the former president's first impeachment. But the pressure campaign against the Ukrainians started just three days earlier, when Rudy Giuliani, then the president's personal lawyer, was on a call with a top Zelensky aide asking him to tell the Ukrainian leader to 'just let these investigations go forward.' The call between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, then Zelensky's top foreign policy advisor and currently his chief of staff, happened on July 22, 2019. Details of the Giuliani-Yermak call were first reported by Time in February. But today, BuzzFeed News is publishing the transcript for the first time.... During the call, Giuliani referenced the ... investigations into ... Hunter [Biden] and the unfounded allegations that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.... Over and over, [Giuliani] pressed Yermak to urge Zelensky to make a public statement on the matter."

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "The conservative news network Newsmax has apologized to an employee of Dominion Voting Systems for baselessly alleging he had rigged the company's voting machines and vote counts against ... Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In a statement Friday, Newsmax said it wanted to 'clarify' its coverage of Eric Coomer, the director of product strategy and security at Dominion, who filed a defamation lawsuit against the right-wing network in December. After the election, misinformation about Coomer's supposed role in manipulating the vote proliferated on right-wing sites, including Newsmax. Coomer said he had been forced into hiding after receiving death threats from Trump supporters, who believed Trump's false assertion that the election had been stolen from him and that Coomer had played a role. On Friday, Newsmax said there was no evidence such allegations were true.... In exchange, Coomer has dropped Newsmax from his defamation lawsuit, the Associated Press reported."

Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers -- citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process. This effort has alarmed election officials and voting rights activists alike: There is a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often in ways that target Democratic-leaning communities of color and stoke fears that have the overall effect of voter suppression." A related story by Zoe Richards of TPM is here.

Think Tear Gas Just Stings Your Eyes? Heather Murphy of the New York Times: "... Britta Torgrimson-Ojerio, a nurse researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland..., surveyed around 2,200 adults who said they had been exposed to tear gas in Portland last summer. In a study published this week in the journal BMC Public Health, she reported that 899 of them -- more than 54 percent of the respondents who potentially menstruate -- said they had experienced abnormal menstrual cycles.... Downstream effects, like the impact on fertility, are not known, but 'this is our call to action to ask our scientific community to turn their eye to this issue,' [Dr. Torgrimson-Ojerio] said."

Beyond the Beltway

Kansas. Sarah Ritter & Jonathan Shorman of the Kansas City Star: "Kansas state Rep. Mark Samsel was arrested on charges of misdemeanor battery on Thursday after getting into a physical altercation with a student while substitute teaching in Wellsville.... Superintendent Ryan Bradbury said that Samsel will no longer be allowed to work for the district. On Wednesday, Samsel, R-Wellsville, was substitute teaching at the Wellsville school district's secondary school. Throughout the day, high school students began recording videos of the lawmaker talking about suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible. In one video shared with The Star, Samsel tells students about 'a sophomore who's tried killing himself three times,' adding that it was because 'he has two parents and they're both females.'... Videos shared with The Star -- by parents of students in the class -- show Samsel focusing most of his attention on one male student.... Samsel is shown following the student around and grabbing him.... In another video, he tells students, 'Class, you have permission to kick him in the balls.' Parents told The Star that Samsel 'put hands on the student' and allegedly kneed him in the crotch." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Misdemeanor??? Really. Sounds like felony child abuse, a federal hate crime & probably a violation of half a dozen other laws. Whether or not Samsel is convicted, the state legislature should force him to resign or impeach him if he won't go. What a disgusting prick.

Minnesota. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "The Minnesota attorney general is seeking a harsher prison sentence for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin due to the 'particular cruelty' he showed in the murder of George Floyd last year, according to court documents filed Friday. Keith Ellison (D) argued in a legal briefing that Chauvin, who was convicted on murder and manslaughter charges last week, deserved a more severe sentence after the officer knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes and showed a lack of remorse for the 46-year-old Black man as he yelled out for his mother while detained." Artile topped by Chauvin's mugshot. He wears an arrogant expression in the camera-facing headshot, and IMO, "particularly cruel."

Oregon. Maria Cramer of the New York Times: "A Republican state legislator from Oregon who was captured on surveillance video allowing demonstrators to enter the State Capitol in December was charged on Friday in connection with the breach of the building, which led to a conflict between officers and protesters. The lawmaker, Representative Mike Nearman, 57, was charged with official misconduct in the first degree and trespassing in the second degree, according to court documents." The Oregonian's story is here.

Way Beyond

Russia. Nicholas Garriga, et al., of the AP: "Workers and union leaders dusted off bullhorns and flags ... for slimmed down but still boisterous -- and at times violent -- May Day marches on Saturday, demanding more labor protections amid a pandemic that has turned economies and workplaces upside down. In countries that mark May 1 as International Labor Day, the annual celebration of workers' rights produced a rare sight during the pandemic: large and closely packed crowds, with marchers striding shoulder-to-shoulder with clenched fists behind banners. In Turkey and the Philippines, police prevented the May Day protests, enforcing virus lockdowns and making hundreds of arrests. In France, some marchers battled with riot police.... Russia saw just a fraction of its usual May Day activities amid a coronavirus ban on gatherings.... For a second straight year in Italy, May Day passed without the usual large marches and rock concerts."

News Lede

New York Times: "In darkness, four astronauts splashed down early Sunday morning in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Fla. That marked a successful end of a mission for NASA led by a private company, Elon Musk's SpaceX, to take its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It was the first of what the space agency calls an operational mission." A CNN story is here.

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Hold the phone, kids! Actual voter fraud uncovered in Pennsylvania. But oh-oh. The fraudulent voting was done to help Trump. One R voter has just been convicted of voter fraud. Two other cases (both of which involve illegal ballots for Trump) are pending.

Why is it that whenever we hear about actual voter fraud it’s always connected to Republicans?

https://www.newsweek.com/man-pleads-guilty-illegal-vote-trump-blames-stupid-mistake-too-much-propaganda-1588079

May 2, 2021 |

Akhilleus

Oh, and one other thing about those Trump voters in PA trying to scam election officials? They got caught. Procedures are in place to detect and punish actual fraud. Fatty’s screeching about thousands and thousands of fraudulent votes doesn’t even pass the most lenient possibility test.

Real fraudsters, almost all Republicans, are caught. It’s not possible to detect fraud that doesn’t occur. But since when did logic ever enter into confederate harangues against facts? No wonder Trump loves the uneducated. But in truth, plenty of people without much education are pretty sharp. What Fatty means is that he loves idiots. Morons. Gullible poltroons he can con.

And in many parts of the country, these people are in charge. And they’re passing laws to make it more and more difficult to vote them out of office. You see, like fraudulent voting, idiocy is easily detectable. R’s are trying to make it illegal to do anything about it.

May 2, 2021 |

Akhilleus

They're going to have to start putting small-print disclosures on those "I Voted" stickers we get when we turn in our ballots. Like "Once. And I didn't cheat. I voted using my own name and in my own precinct where I own/rent my primary residence."

May 2, 2021 |

Marie Burns

On the Samsel "prick:"

Sunday morning charity might have me thinking he was only remonstrating with those kids, trying to get them on the path to their salvation, the route to righteousness and God...

Now, if he'd been insisting that they wear masks, I'd think the state had a case.

May 2, 2021 |

Ken Winkes

I once had a close relationship with someone who was born and bred in the South–-N.C.–- and he'd regale me with stories of the racism that he witnessed as a white man. One story in particular was about a friend's of his Black mammy, as he described her. This friend's parents, especially the mother, were frequently on long trips and this guy was essentially brought up by this Black woman who became more a beloved parent than his biological ones. One day his mother had a fierce argument with the nanny and she fired her on the spot. At the time this friend was around eight and said that the loss of this woman colored his whole life. She had raised him from infancy.

I'm thinking about the stories my friend would tell me because I watched the film "The Help" last night and I can't seem to shake the impact. Then on PBS they had a documentary on the Japanese internment camps. If I could, I'd send both and a whole lot more historical facts to Tim Scott whose light is hidden somewhere under the GOP barrel.

May 2, 2021 |

PD Pepe

Just because it's reported by PBS doesn't mean they aren't biases: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/enbridge-rejects-michigans-demand-to-shut-down-oil-pipeline. Almost all the words and especially the last word is from the corporate overlords, Enbridge. The reason we hear so seldom about the Alaska pipeline is because environmentalist made them build it better. Business people forget that counting nickels is pretty easy for both sides. The second sentence has to note the governor is a democrat, almost like that is a disqualifier. The report is like an audition for corporate stooge by the reporter.

Speaking of stooge: MoDo. Dowd was an unassailed leader in the continuous, unfair, unequal, sexist pillorying of Hillary Clinton that so many other copied. Dowd is a shithead who deserves to spend lots of time sharing succulent and corpulent minded time with Orange Turd. She advanced and made money from Turd. Ewwww.

May 2, 2021 |

citizen625

MoDo did not like Obama either—. We quit her. In fact it is impossible to read Kathleen Parker and David Brooks and most other so-called sensible “conservatives.” Why waste the time...

May 2, 2021 |

Jeanne

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