The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
Help!

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

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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.

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Sunday
May082016

The Commentariat -- May 8, 2016

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama delivered an impassioned call to civic action and responsibility at Howard University's commencement Saturday, giving an upbeat assessment of the nation's trajectory...." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... A pretty, pretty good address:

** Yes, You Can. Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: President "Obama could instruct officials at his Treasury Department to close the so-called carried interest tax loophole that allows managers of private equity and hedge funds to pay a substantially lower federal tax rate on much of their income. Forcing these managers to pay ordinary income taxes on the gains they reap in their funds would accomplish two things. It would take away an enormous benefit enjoyed almost exclusively by some of the country's wealthiest people. And, tax experts say, it would generate billions in revenue to the government each year.... Changing the carried interest loophole [does not] require an act of Congress," tax experts say. -- CW

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: Chief Justice John Roberts is "a fierce defender of the judiciary's independence and a firm believer in judicial restraint -- albeit a kind that at times is apparent only to him." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Robert McCartney of the Washington Post: "The Federal Transit Administration, citing Metro's botched response to Thursday's fire at the Federal Center SW station, on Saturday issued a series of emergency directives to the transit agency and threatened to shut down all or parts of the nation's second-busiest subway unless it took 'urgent action' to ensure passenger safety. In its toughest measures since it took over direct safety oversight of Metro in October, the FTA ordered daily inspections for 'hot spots' and water leaks along tracks, as well as reductions in the number of railcars in service and slower speeds for trains so less power is used." -- CW

Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Republicans have blamed the current president for so much that a satirical meme was born. Flat tire? Broken fingernail? 'Thanks, Obama.'...Yet one thing Trump supporters and Democrats agree on is the extent to which the party of Lincoln has been twisted out of recognition by its loathing for the current occupant of the White House. Amid bitter recriminations over Trump's successful exploitation of this mood, many are wondering if the president's greatest legacy may be the desolation of the Republican party, which did so much to frustrate his own time in office but may take decades to recover once he leaves." -- safari

Presidential Race

Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Hillary Clinton won the Guam Democratic caucuses Saturday.... According to unofficial results announced by Guam Democratic Party chairman Joaquin Perez, Clinton won 60 percent to Sanders' 40 percent." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Liz Kruetz of ABC News: "During a campaign event in Oakland, California..., [Hillary Clinton] prescribed a new name for the man who is being called the Republican presumptive nominee: The 'presumptuous nominee.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

George Packer of the New Yorker: Donald Trump "thrashed his way to this summit by understanding ... the decline of American institutions and mores, from Wall Street and the Senate to cable news and the Twitterverse, made the candidacy of a celebrity proto-fascist with no impulse control not just possible but in some ways inevitable.... Conservative orthodoxy, already weakened by its own extremism - the latest, least appealing standard-bearer was Ted Cruz -- has suffered a stunning defeat from within. And Trump has replaced it with something more dangerous: white identity politics.... Bernie Sanders speaks to and for [the working class] -- not as being white but as being economically victimized.... He has ... outperformed Clinton with the white working class." -- CW

Evelyn Rupert of the Hill: "Donald Trump took a swing at Hillary Clinton at a Friday night rally, using President Bill Clinton's affair to counter Clinton's attacks on his standing on women's issues. 'Nobody in this country was was worse than Bill Clinton with women. He was a disaster,' Trump said at a rally in Eugene, Ore. 'I mean there's never been anybody like this and she was a total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives. I mean have you ever read what Hillary Clinton did to the women that Bill Clinton had affairs with? And they're going after me with women. Give me a break, folks.'" ...

... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Trump made similar remarks in Eugene, Oregon, Saturday. ...

     ... CW: In general, Trump is right -- Hillary was a "total enabler" who repeatedly dismissed the credibility of Bill's lovers & orchestrated the management of "bimbo eruptions" -- but I don't know that dredging up her egregious behavior of decades ago will help Trump much now.

Liar or Demented? Maggie Haberman: "Donald J. Trump said he was was 'blindsided' when Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, withheld an endorsement from him this week, saying that Mr. Ryan had called to congratulate him after he won the New York primary on April 19.... On 'Meet the Press,' Mr. Trump said of the purported phone call: 'He called me to congratulate me. Couldn't have been nicer.'... But a spokesman for Mr. Ryan said Saturday that such a call never took place." CW: If wishes were fishes, Trump would be a truthful man. ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "... most politicians will drop a talking point if it gets labeled with Four Pinocchios by The Fact Checker or 'Pants on Fire' by PolitiFact.... Trump makes Four-Pinocchio statements over and over again, even though fact checkers have demonstrated them to be false. He appears to care little about the facts; his staff does not even bother to respond to fact-checking inquiries. But, astonishingly, television hosts rarely challenge Trump when he makes a claim that already has been found to be false." Kessler provides "a summary of recent Four-Pinocchio statements made by Trump." -- CW

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump will not rule out an effort to remove Paul D. Ryan as chairman of the Republican National Convention if he does not endorse Mr. Trump's candidacy. Mr. Trump stopped s hort of calling for Mr. Ryan, the speaker of the House, to step down from his convention role. But in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Mr. Trump said there could be consequences in the event that Mr. Ryan continues withholding his support." -- CW ...

... Nolan McCaskill & Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump and his allies are lashing out at House Speaker Paul Ryan for his refusal to back -- for now -- the presumptive Republican nominee, with Trump's spokeswoman even declaring Ryan unfit for his job...The same sentiment was expressed Thursday evening by Fox News host Sean Hannity,who told viewers he is no longer 'ready to support Ryan as speaker. 'I'm thinking maybe we need a new speaker,' Hannity said during his show. 'Thoughts?'" --safari

Kristen East of Politico: "Gene Sperling -- a former top national economic adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who has been advising Hillary Clinton on economic policy -- said Trump's comments [about "making deals" to reduce payments to U.S. Treasury note holders] 'would risk a global financial meltdown, drive up interest rates for Americans for decades, and seriously harm middle-class families.'... 'For Donald Trump to casually announce he would consider defaulting on our debt for the first time in our history shows a stunning lack of responsibility and understanding of the global economy,' he said." -- CW

Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "Former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) called Donald Trump a sociopath Friday, saying he would never support the presumptive GOP nominee...." -- CW

Curtis Tate of The Wichita Eagle: "Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole endorsed Donald Trump for president on Friday, becoming the only former Republican presidential nominee to do so. Dole, who was his party's nominee in 1996, will also attend the Republican convention in Cleveland in July, where Trump is expected to be nominated." --safari

When the KKK whines about PC culture, then adopts it. Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "'... We knew what would happen what the liberal media always does,' the (anonymous) Grand Dragon toldThe Daily Beast, before decrying 'political correctness' in America and reiterating that Trump would be 'best.' He alleged that the journalists selectively edited the long interview ['semi'-endorsing the Donald] tomake them look as loathsome and bigoted as possible. 'They wanted to make us seem as racist as [they] could,' the Dragon said." --safari

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW: The top story in Saturday's New York Times is a longish piece on the rift in the GOP. The word "racist" or its derivatives never pops up once. Instead, it seems, Trump has an "outsider message." Right. ...

... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Steve M. "In The New York Times, Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin assess how we got to this Trump moment -- and go a wee bit overboard blaming it all on new media.... But Trump's primary means of transmitting his message is TV. In March, the Times reported that Trump had received nearly $1.9 billion in free TV time; that number, as of the end of April, is up to $2.8 billion." --safari...

... Rob Reiner gives the "journalists" at MSNBC a well-deserved dressing down. These people are clueless morons. --safari:

Beyond the Beltway

Beth Quimby, et al., of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald: "The Old Orchard Beach fire chief [Ricky Plummer] -- who has worked previously at numerous fire departments in Maine and elsewhere in New England and the U.S. -- was charged with arson early Saturday for allegedly setting the April 15 fire that burned 42 acres of the Jones Creek Marsh and forced the evacuation of a nearby condominium complex." -- CW

Bryce Covert of ThinkProgress: "Under current law, states aren't allowed to institute drug tests for unemployment benefits. But that hasn't kept Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) from trying. In July, Walker approved legislation that would implement drug tests for both unemployment benefits and food stamps, neither of which are currently permissible. To get his way, he&'s suing the government to allow him to move forward with implementation...But in the meantime, he took steps this week to do as much as he can under his limited authority." --safari

Michelle Goldberg of Slate: "The long war over sex ed could provide a template for the current fight over trans people and public bathrooms, which is playing out both on the state level -- most notably in North Carolina -- and in local school districts. Both are volatile because they involve kids, schools, and sex...If the battle over sex heralded the beginning of the religious right, the battle over trans people in bathrooms will show us whether the religious right has any power left." --safari

Way Beyond

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "In a new wave of royal decrees, King Salman of Saudi Arabia on Saturday replaced a number of top ministers and restructured government bodies in a shake-up that paved the way for significant changes in how the state is run." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)

Richard Smart of the Guardian: "North Korea will not use nuclear weapons against other nations unless its sovereignty is threatened, and will work toward nonproliferation and global stability, leader Kim Jong-un has said, according to state media.... In remarks apparently aimed at nations such as South Korea, Japan and the United States, Kim suggested that the nation will look to internationalise further, and 'improve and normalize the relations with those countries which respect the sovereignty of the DPRK and are friendly towards it, though they had been hostile toward it in the past'...But analysts took Kim's comments to congress with a pinch of salt." --safari

News Ledes

CBC (Canada): "A massive wildfire nicknamed 'the beast' has forced a work camp north of Fort McMurray housing first responders to evacuate Saturday night." ...

... New York: "The record-breaking wildfire that has engulfed the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada over the past week may yet still double in size, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said on Friday night, warning that, 'in no way is this fire under control.' The Associated Press reports that due to bad weather conditions, including continued high temperatures, dry weather, and high winds, the fire grew on Friday from impacting around 100,000 hectares to more than 156,000 hectares, and another likely two-fold increase in size would encompass additional forested areas, possibly reaching the border of the neighboring province, Saskatchewan, some 90 kilometers east of Fort McMurray." ...

... AP Update: "Officials said Sunday they reached a turning point in fighting an enormous wildfire, hoping to get a 'death grip' on the blaze that devastated Canada's oil sands town of Fort McMurray amid cooler temperatures and light rain. Meanwhile, a massive evacuation of residents displaced by the blaze came to an end."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (6)

"In 1870, Julia Ward Howe responded to the horrors of the Civil War by issuing her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” calling on women around the world to rise up and oppose war in all its forms....

It would be decades before Americans officially began celebrating Mother’s Day, and much of the original spirit of the proclamation has since been lost...

The Brave New Foundation, Code Pink and No More Victims are leading a movement to restore that spirit to the day, and for that we applaud them." Truthdig

Rob Reiner tried. One could say, after Trump gives another one of his equivocal (I'm being generous here) answers, "This does NOT answer my question" or "This makes no sense" and keep at it until... The slogan, "I need my Morning Joe", might well be changed by putting a comma after morning –––I'd be up chucking my shredded wheat after listening to that program.

May 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

My only quibble with Rob Reiner's critique of journalists is that he lets the Morning Joe crew talk him into say that not all Trump supporters are racists. Yes they are.

It is quite possible to find some of Trump's proposals appealing -- say, infrastructure investment (even if the proposals are impossible since he also says he's going to cut the deficit to zero) -- but his racist proposals far outweigh the benefits of his non-racist proposals. Since Democrats have made the same policy plans -- to focus on infrastructure -- the only reason to support Trump is that you like his racist policies, too.

All Donald Trump supporters are racists, not just the white supremacists & Confederate flag aficionados. What pisses me off is the way the media avoid the obvious, a la the NYT Martin & Healy story, linked above. Their piece is the prime example of the "normalization" of Trump-brand Racism that Steve M., Paul Krugman, David Roberts & others have warned would happen. It's here, & right on the front page of Krugman's paper.

Marie

May 8, 2016 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Trump's proposal that the U.S. negotiate settlement of its debt, tossing promises of "full faith and credit" out the window, may be the most intriguing of his many off-the-cuff, whatever just bubbled to the surface of what passes for his mind, remarks.

As right as he is that debt does get negotiated and forgiven all the time in the world of private finance and even at the national level, politically it's a bombshell. Not only does the remark--I guess it doesn't really rise to the level of a proposal--strike at the root of real American exceptionalism, that is, America considered as the world's Daddy Many-Moneybucks, but it suggests that massive, unheard of redistribution, which I understand Republican elites don't much like, from individuals and nations who have (them) to those who don't (US).

How radical could a Republican get?

I'd think even floating that idea would give any wealthy Republican, not to mention other countries and their monied investors, anyone dumb enough to invest in the United States, real pause.

May 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

More in mangled Trump-speak!

" “The middle class has to be protected,” Trump told NBC. “The rich is probably going to end up paying more.” .

Our newest Orange Man, "He,Trump" frequently mentions that he went to the best schools. Apparently, he skipped class when it came to " Grammar. "

Yeh! What's the big deal? Using verbs correctly are so overrated.

Where are hackers when you need them? Can't someone download Mr.-I'm-soooo-Smart's college transcripts?

Also, on the Show-and-Tell list, when do we get to see the tax returns? Before Cleveland? After Cleveland? When hell freezes over!

May 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

@MAG: How bigly Trump mangles the language!

The thing is, I expect he's making these mistakes because he thinks they're "presidential."

Last Tuesday, he could have said, "We're gonna win big," which is what most of us would say. It isn't grammatical, but it's idiomatic. Some part of his brain must have told him -- correctly -- that an adverb was needed, and he made up "bigly."

Similarly, look at the construction of "the rich is" sentence. He begins with "the middle class," which is singular, so he probably thought, somewhere in the shallow folds of his brain, that it should follow that "the rich" is singular, too. It isn't.

The rich are not so very different from you and me. For instance, some of them try to put on airs. And all of them find the English language difficult. Because it is.

Marie

May 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

@Marie: F. Scott Fitzgerald begs to differ "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me..." Though, if F. Scott had spent any time around a Donald-like character and based, "The Rich Boy" on him, the opening lines might well have been rewritten per your point. The Donald thinks everything he does is in the best taste, more stylish, more awesome, the 'biggler the better"—(and his dainty dining habits so much classier than Kasich's). Gatsby worked at self-improvement and to fit with a perceived higher social set, the Donald is a know-it-all, publicity hound who works full time at self-aggrandizement. Correct speech, not so much.

How can we forget the bigly endorsement episode in Iowa this past January? Where Trump appeared somewhat uncomfortable on the stage as the original Word-Salad-Shooter, Ms. Palin delivered one after another of her bewildering, un-diagrammable sentences.

Some media scribes (I believe) mistakenly assumed that Trump was embarrassed by her overlong, nonsensical rambling diatribe. Nope, he was probably thinking, "...damn, she took all my gooder words."

May 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.