The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

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

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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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."

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Wednesday
Nov092011

The Commentariat -- November 10

Prof. Gary Gutting, relying on Plato's “Republic,” which describes "five types of government -- aristocracy (rule by the 'best', that is, by experts specially trained at governance), timarchy (rule by those guided by their courage and sense of honor), oligarchy (rule by a wealthy minority), democracy (rule by the people as a whole—a “mob” as Plato saw it), and tyranny (rule by a despot answerable to no one but himself) -- notes that the U.S. incorporates all five types. Gutting says, "Current calls for 'less government' actually mean less power for elected leaders and for the bureaucracies that serve them and more power for the 'oligarchy' of millionaires and corporations.  Such calls also imply less power for the people (the democratic element), since, while elected leaders are directly responsible to those who vote, those whose power is based on wealth are not." CW: this is a little philosophical something the rank-and-file of the Tea Party have not figured out. You can bet the Koch brothers have. ...

... So today on Off Times Square we'll discuss Plato and the Koch brothers. Or whatever.

** Karen Garcia: "... here is part of what The Times moderators saw fit to publish from reader-commenter Richard Luettgen of New Jersey [commenting on Gail Collins' column in which she mentions Mitt Romney's dog Seamus, whom Romney caged in a crate on the roof of his car during a traveling vacation]:

But you continue to misinform the public about Seamus, the dog that has achieved immortality by allegedly being strapped to the roof of Mitt's car during a family jaunt to Canada. The only dogs that Mitt ever strapped to the roof of a car were Herman Cain's old girlfriends.

     ... CW: Real the whole post; it gets worse. At least one person flagged Luettgen's comment shortly after the moderators decided it was fit to print. Despite the flag, the comment remained up for hours. The moderators -- who must have been flooded with complaints (quite a number of people told Garcia they had flagged it) -- took the comment down by early afternoon. Probably Luettgen will be the Times' very next "Trusted Commenter." (Evidence suggests that he did not made the cut.) BTW: Luettgen has written nasty stuff about Garcia and me, and the Times has published it. Knowing Luettgen is a raging misogynist helps explain his antipathy to us.

Craig Whitlock & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops’ remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea. The Dover, Del., mortuary, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead and the target of federal investigations of alleged mishandling of remains, engaged in the practice from 2003 to 2008, according to Air Force officials. The manner of disposal was not disclosed to relatives of fallen service members."

Karen Garcia found a new publication -- the New York Times eXaminer. The main page is here. The site's mission statement is here. Among its goals, to provide:

  • Daily direct responses to NYT articles (that appear in both their on-line and print forms)
  • Analysis and commentary on NYT coverage of topics and issues
  • Critique of NYT editorial choices, standards, journalistic ethics and practices
  • Provide editorials and Op-Ed’s covering labor, the environment, human rights, foreign policy, and more, providing alternative analyses to what is offered in NYT editorials
  • Provide hard news without corporate bias
  • Highlight and analyze Times content that is highly problematic but often found in its back pages

... Here's a story by Matthew Ingram positing that "if WikiLeaks is dying, then the New York Times is partly to blame." CW: Ingram's analysis is consistent with analyses I've read elsewhere & with my own limited observations. ...

... Julian Assange of WikiLeaks speaks with NYTX's Chris Spannos in this three-part video interview. Part 1:

     ... Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "One person who should be feeling particularly good about last night's election results in Ohio is Barack Obama. On our weekend poll, which got the final result of Issue 2 correct to within a point, Obama led all of his Republican opponents in the state by margins ranging from 9-17 points." CW: yeah, and he has labor & teachers to thank for that. He'd better remember who his friends are.

Book Review. Andrew Leonard of Slate on President Bill Clinton's Back to Work or Bill Clinton's Alternate, Unbelievable Reality: "Before Bill Clinton decided to write a book arguing the merits for smart government, he should have fessed up to how his own dumb government played a role in creating the financial crisis that put so many Americans out of work and has made it so difficult to restart economic growth."

Today in Supercommittee News. Lori Montgomery & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Democrats [on the deficit reduction supercommittee] rolled out a new framework of their own that would save about $2.3 trillion over the next decade instead of the $3 trillion in their initial proposal. The blueprint ... called for $1 trillion in spending cuts, including a $400 billion reduction in federal health programs. It also called for $1 trillion in new tax revenue, down from $1.3 trillion in the initial offer." CW: in other words, a "breakthrough" that is a nonstarter.

Simon Lazarus of Slate on the D.C. Court of Appeals decision upholding the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act and the "outsized influence of Judge Laurence Silberman," the conservative jurist who wrote the decision: "... as the conservative [Supreme Court] justices brace for their turn in the health reform wars, they are receiving pointed recommendations — from their own side of the political and ideological spectrum — to leave this battlefield to politicians and voters. As Silberman notes, deflecting still another factoid often emphasized by ACA opponents, whether Americans can be required to purchase a product or service seems 'a political judgment rather than a recognition of constitutional limitations.'” CW: if you favor the ACA, this thoughtful post should hearten you.

You Can't See the Forest for the Signs. In what will likely be a never-ending series -- "Today in Oligarchy" -- Karen Garcia homes in on horticulture, horticulture of the oligarchic variety. It seems John Thain -- who plundered Merrill Lynch just as it was about to fold & make its massive contribution to the crash of 2008 -- has donated a bit of his plunder to the strapped-for-cast Bronx Botanical Gardens. And lest you not realize where you ramble on your gambol through said gardens, John Thain has planted more Thain Family Forest signs than trees.

Right Wing World *

Karl Rove's super PAC Crossroads GPS is running this new negative ad against Elizabeth Warren. Reader Julie L. saw the ad on Massachusetts TV this morning: 

     ... CW: this kind of attack will backfire if the Occupy movement doesn't turn violent. Obviously, such ads could hurt all Democrats if Occupy turns, or is perceived to turn, violent. Ads like this one will not convert voters who see the Occupy movement as a protest against Wall Street, the unemployment situation and other oligarchical power grabs. Noah Bierman of the Boston Globe has a story here.

NotMittRomney.com  Alicia Cohn of The Hill: "A coalition of conservatives is working to organize the disparate groups opposing Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee.... The new coalition is seeking to push back against the narrative that Romney is the 'inevitable nominee.' ... The group's website, NotMittRomney.com, launched this week." CW: oh, good. Let them rally 'round one of the dwarfs. You pick the dwarf. Danger: they just might pick Huntsman, the one candidate who's a bona fide hard conservative and not crazy. And he hasn't had his turn in the limelight yet.

Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations 'should think twice.'” CW: Wood's threat was not idle. Read the report. The way the right -- including Matt Drudge & the execrable Rush Limbaugh -- is defaming Cain's alleged victims is beyond disgusting. This is historically what happens to victims of sexual battery, assault & harassment: they are victimized twice. Cain & his thugs turn my stomach. Conservative women should speak out against these misogynistic bullyboys and rally around their victims. Enough is enough. ...

... It Gets Worse. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters: After it was revealed "that single mom Sharon Bialek had sat down with her son and told him about the encounter she alleges to have had with [Herman] Cain thirteen years ago, and that her son then urged her to come forward and make her claim publicly..., Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday repeatedly turned his AM wrath on ... the 13 year-old [and portrayed him] as a villain in the Herman Cain sexual harassment saga.... Limbaugh attacked the boy as a wannabe Nazi 'brownshirt.'" With audio. ...

... James Grimaldi & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "The women who have accused GOP contender Herman Cain of sexual harassment have agreed to hold a joint news conference to air their stories, one of their attorneys said Wednesday.... Joel P. Bennett, who represents federal employee Karen Kraushaar, 55, said in an interview that he was planning the news conference with Gloria Allred, who represents Chicago homemaker Sharon Bialek, 50. Details of the joint appearance have not yet been worked out, Bennett said."

Jeff Zeleny & Ashley Parker of the New York Times lede their story on Wednesday's GOP presidential debate with with Rick Perry's "Oops!" moment: "For any other candidate, the moment may have been quickly forgotten or easily explained. But for Mr. Perry..., it reinforced negative stereotypes about his candidacy, a point that was made clear after the debate when he made a rare trip into an adjoining room to face reporters and try to brush away what had happened."

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, whose sole talent is in the horse-race aspect of politics, picks winners & losers. Here's loser Rick Perry's "Oops!" moment:

... Dave Weigel of Slate: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn Rick Perry’s presidential campaign. Born in a South Carolina hotel ballroom on Aug. 13, it died on the campus of Oakland University on Nov. 9, with CNBC’s debate moderators unable to avert their eyes. The cause of death: Self-inflicted injury, brought on by amnesia." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Slate: "This really has the potential to be the flub that will define all of Perry’s flubs." ...

... Lucky Mitt. Jon Cohn of The New Republic: "Perry’s flub obscured more interesting exchanges – including two moments that revealed a great deal about Mitt Romney." For one thing, tho the debate was in Michigan -- center of the American auto industry -- Romney still didin't clearly state his view of the Obama auto bailout; he's been all over the map on it. Oh health care, Romney's oft-stated position is the popular right-wing line about not letting the government get between a patient & her doctor. But Mitt couldn't explain to questioner John Harwood why it was bad for the federal government to interfere but fine & dandy for a state government to meddle. "Romney, who’s a superb debater, was actually flustered. Eventually, Romney changed the subject to Medicaid and a statement that 'Obamacare is wrong.'” CW: well, we've cleared that up.

... Josh Lederman of The Hill: "Onstage at his first presidential debate since sexual harassment allegations against him emerged more than a week ago, Herman Cain dismissed the accusations as a 'character assassination' Wednesday — and was enthusiastically backed up by the debate audience. Those in the crowd at the CNBC debate booed moderator Maria Bartiromo when she asked Cain about whether he had the character needed for the nation's highest office." CW: bear in mind that Republican debate-goers also booed a gay serviceman serving in Iraq, cheered for letting a sick, uinsured man die, & cheered for executions. (Similarly, at a campaign event, Cain supporters cheered when he said he would put up a border fence that would electrocute Mexicans trying to get into the U.S.) Add sexual assault to the List of Their Favorite Things.

Alex Pareene of Salon notices this astounding bit of right-wing "media analysis": Dan Perrin of Red State, in a post duly admired by the ever-insane CNN correspondent Erick Erickson, claims that -- and really, this is a direct quote: "The media’s obsession with the Penn State sex scandal can be explained by the fact they think it will hurt Herman Cain." CW: yep, that was my first thought, too.

President Obama hates Christians. -- Jim Holt, Gateway Pundit

... Jeremy Holden of Media Matters: "Right-wing media figures are accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose a tax on Christmas trees; but the Christmas tree industry has been working since 2008 -- before President Obama was elected -- to partner with the Department of Agriculture and establish a marketing campaign funded by tree growers in order to promote the sale of fresh Christmas trees." ...

     ... Update. Jake Tapper of ABC News: so the Obama Administration is going to delay implementation of the tax. CW: Why?

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: In Tuesday's column, "David Brooks ... explained how [Mitt] Romney’s recent decision to unveil a plan for reforming the entitlement system 'demonstrates his awareness of the issues that need to define the 2012 presidential election.' ... Romney’s ideas ... pave the way for Wall Street’s ultimate goal – full privatization of Social Security and Medicare.... Evaluated purely on their own merits, without the implicit attachment to the taxpayer, [the big banks] actually have negative trustworthiness. And these are the people we want managing the nation’s Social Security accounts?... Advocating the turning over of Social Security management to Wall Street after the 2008 crash is a little like ... tabbing Charlie Sheen to manage the inventory of a hospital pharmacy – completely nuts, but to David Brooks, that makes Mitt Romney the 'serious” candidate.'" Thanks to reader Karen S. for the link.

The Hon. Rep. Joe Walsh (RTP-Ill.) -- dutifully following the Republican party lie line -- explains to constituents that Congress, not the banks, caused the housing market bubble & crash. Joe presents his case in such a sweet manner that you won't be surprised the right-wing Family Research Council gave him their "True Blue" Family Man award even though Walsh is more than $100K in arrears on court-ordered child support -- and he still refuses to pay. And you'll wonder how his wife ever could have left such a sweetiepie. Legally, Joe's little chat with his constituents probably constitutes harassment at the least, assault at worst:

 * Where paranoia and conspiracy theories are, like, normal.

News Ledes

Deciding Not to Decide: Election 2012. Washington Post: "The Obama administration will delay action on a controversial cross-country oil pipeline in order to assess a shift in its route, officials announced Thursday, effectively putting off a politically vexing decision until after next year’s election. The move is the latest twist in a more-than-three-year review process that has evolved from a fairly routine decision within the federal bureaucracy to a very public debate over national energy policy."

AP: "U.S. Army soldier accused of exhorting his bored underlings to slaughter three civilians for sport was convicted of murder, conspiracy and other charges Thursday in one of the most gruesome cases to emerge from the Afghan war. Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, of Billings, Mont., was the highest ranking of five soldiers charged in the deaths of the unarmed men during patrols in Kandahar province early last year. At his seven-day court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, the 26-year-old acknowledged cutting fingers off corpses and yanking out a victim’s tooth to keep as war trophies, 'like keeping the antlers off a deer you’d shoot.'”

AP: "The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level since April, a sign that employers could be stepping up hiring.The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped to a seasonally adjusted 390,000. It was the third decline in four weeks."

New York Times: "Lucas Papademos, a respected economist with an avuncular style, was named prime minister of Greece on Thursday. He will head a unity government that has pledged to quickly approve the tough terms of a European aid package and save the country from bankruptcy." CW: it would be nice if the U.S. would make "an avuncular ... respected economist" head-of-state.

New York Times: " After top Penn State officials announced that they had fired Joe Paterno on Wednesday night, thousands of students stormed the downtown area to display their anger and frustration, chanting the former coach’s name, tearing down light poles and overturning a television news van parked along College Avenue." CW: because harboring an alleged child sex abuser and possibly even being involved in the coverup is A-OK. And I thought all the kids cared about was academics.

AP: "James Murdoch told Parliament Thursday that he'd told the truth when he said he'd been kept in the dark about the culture of criminality at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. In comments to often-skeptical and occasionally hostile lawmakers, Murdoch stuck to his guns, accusing his former subordinates of keeping him in the dark and misleading Parliament over the extent of the phone hacking that has shaken his father Rupert Murdoch's media empire." The Guardian has a liveblog. ...

     ... Update: Somebody Is Lying. Guardian: "James Murdoch was embroiled in a rancorous war of words with two of his former senior News of the World executives after he told MPs during a marathon questioning session that they had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the paper and had misled parliament. In a two-and-a-half hour session..., the 38-year-old repeatedly denied being told three years ago about evidence that hacking went beyond a single journalist at the paper. But his account was quickly contradicted by both those executives, former NoW legal head Tom Crone and ex-editor Colin Myler."

Washington Post: "First lady Michelle Obama announced commitments from a range of companies Thursday to hire 100,000 veterans and military spouses by 2014, a dramatic step-up in activity for her Joining Forces initiative. She said the show of support demonstrates to military families that 'America has your back.'”

AP: "In a shift in White House tactics on the cusp of an election year, President Barack Obama isn't shying away these days from saying that many of his policies were designed with African-Americans in mind.... on Wednesday, the White House convened a gathering of black business, political and community leaders to share a report on the multiple ways the president's agenda has benefited African-Americans. The president made a direct appeal for help on proposals 'where we don't have to wait for Congress' to act." See video below.

Al Jazeera: "Israel's Supreme Court has upheld the conviction by a Tel Aviv court of former president Moshe Katsav over two counts of rape and other sexual offences. Reading out their decision on Thursday, the three justices unanimously ruled that the disgraced president was guilty of rape and rejected his 'alternative scenarios,' Israel's army radio reported." Haaretz story here.

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