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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The Commentariat -- November 12

The President's Weekly Address (Has Just a Hint of that "Mission Accomplished" Look). The transcript is here:

Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone: "The staggering economic inequality that has led Americans across the country to take to the streets in protest is no accident. It has been fueled to a large extent by the GOP's all-out war on behalf of the rich. Since Republicans rededicated themselves to slashing taxes for the wealthy in 1997, the average annual income of the 400 richest Americans has more than tripled, to $345 million – while their share of the tax burden has plunged by 40 percent. Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes – five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year." Oh, and Dick Cheney is even worse than you knew. Think that's impossible? Dickinson outlines Cheney's central role in creating new tax cuts for corporations & the rich. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

... Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Obama called the Democratic and Republican chairmen of Congress’s special deficit reduction supercommittee Friday and urged them to reach a deal...." But he also said if the supercommittee doesn't reach a compromise, Congress should allow the automatic cuts, half of which would come from the Pentagon, to go through. Obama, who has sign-off authority on the deficit reduction cuts, "made clear Friday that he would not agree" to allow a repeal of the automatic cuts. CW: this story is so unclear itself that it's hard to comprehend, but I think this is what Helderman means. I'm not sure the chart below is 100 percent current, as the GOP members of the supercommittee have made at least one new proposal in the past week, but it's close enough:

Parties no longer compete to win elections by giving voters the policies voters want. Rather, as coalitions of intense policy demanders, they have their own agendas and aim to get voters to go along. -- From A Theory of Political Parties, by Kathleen Bawn, et al. ...

... ** Ezra Klein: "'As [the authors of A Theory...] see it, political parties are basically groups of people with intense policy preferences who are trying to figure out how much they can get away with. But you can’t get away with anything if you don’t hold office. So the basic work of political parties is figuring out precisely how much of their agenda they need to sacrifice on the altar of electability.... That basically explains the dilemma the Republican Party faces right now. Its members sense that this election might end with Republicans controlling the House, the Senate and the presidency. In that event, Republicans could get away with quite a lot. So they don’t want to blow it. What a shame it would be to have wasted this opportunity on a centrist candidate [Mitt Romney] who will just end up compromising with Senate Democrats and looking to burnish his image with independents. On the other hand, it would be even worse to blow the opportunity on an extremist candidate who will scare voters into reelecting President Obama." ...

... Jamison Foser of Media Matters on how Republicans are using faux-populism to further expand income inequality. In their "populist" mode, Foser notes, some Republicans have agreed to cut minor expenditures on the rich. "While the substance of the GOP efforts is largely inconsequential, the symbolism is quite insidious. Consider the targets of the Republican faux populism: Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, Medicaid. These aren't programs that contribute to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the rest of us — they are the safety net that protect the middle class from falling into poverty.... Yet Republicans seek to use the symbolism of (largely non-existent) millionaire unemployment recipients and Rolls Royce-driving Medicaid enrollees to undermine [the programs themselves].... The goal isn't to save $18 million in unemployment payments to millionaires: It's to dismantle the unemployment insurance system that protects middle-class and low-wage workers."

Complex Regulations -- A Banker's Second Best Friend. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The 'Volcker rule' is a simple thing. Basically, it says that if you're a bank that takes deposits and benefits from federal deposit insurance, you can't also make risky trades that might blow up your bank and cost the taxpayers a bundle. Wall Street ... fought the idea in Congress, but in the end, the Dodd-Frank bill that passed in 2010 included a version of the Volcker rule in its final draft.... Last month regulators unveiled their first take on the actual implementation of the Volcker rule, and it had become a monster.... When it comes to financial regulation, fighting against new laws is merely [the banks'] first line of defense. When they lose..., the action simply moves to the regulatory agency charged with implementing the law.... Businesses don't like simple rules, because simple rules are hard to evade. So they lobby endlessly for exemptions both big and small.... Keep this firmly in mind the next time you hear someone from the Chamber of Commerce complaining about how many thousands of pages of regulations they have to comply with.... In public they bemoan complexity, but in private they fight endlessly for more of it."

Joe Nocera of the New York Times: "... in 2009, Penn State football generated a staggering $50 million in profit on $70 million in revenue.... Protecting those profits is the real core value of college football — at Penn State and everywhere else. What goes on in the typical big-time college football program constitutes abuse of the athletes who play the game. It’s not sexual abuse..., but it’s wrong just the same. For 46 years, Joe Paterno averted his eyes to the daily injustices, large and small, that his players suffered — just like Nick Saban does at Alabama and Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, and all the rest of them. When Paterno averted his eyes from Jerry Sandusky, he was just doing what came naturally as a college football coach." ...

... Nina Bernstein of the New York Times: "The Penn State scandal ... is ... emblematic of a parallel judicial universe that exists at many of the country’s colleges and universities. On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings.... The Penn State case is expected to intensify the federal Education Department’s recent push to enforce laws that require public disclosure of such crimes and civil rights protections for victims and witnesses."

David Willman of the Los Angeles Times: "Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.... Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a 'sole-source' procurement.... The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government's specialists had earlier said was reasonable.... Smallpox was eradicated worldwide as of 1978 and is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific institute and the U.S. government. There is no credible evidence that any other country or a terrorist group possesses smallpox." CW: Read the details. I'd like to see a credible defense of this.

Talking Past the Problem. Piers Morgan of CNN tries to steer Very Serious Person Colin Powell into a polite discussion about the 99 Percent. Shouldn't the VSPs just STFU?:

Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is scheduled to step down as head of the government on Saturday, recalled the words of Benito Mussolini in reflecting on his "betrayal" by members of his government. CW: well, that's appropriate.

Right Wing World

The Little Cable Network that Could. Michael McAuliff of the (ugh!) Huffington Post: "An ad by Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS was yanked from rotation on a Montana cable show because it made claims that the network deemed false. Recently a number of ads by the well-funded conservative outfit have been declared misleading and false, but the spot targeting Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is apparently the first pulled from the air. The Associated Press reported that other outlets are still running the ad."

Herman Cain & His Supporters Think Sexual Harassment Is Pretty Funny. Holly Bailey of The Ticket: "Herman Cain is defending himself from sexual harassment allegations, but that didn't stop him from joking about Anita Hill, the college professor who made similar allegations against Clarence Thomas ... 20 years ago. A Fox News cameraduring a campaign stop in Kalamazoo, Mich., Thursday, when a supporter brought up the professor's name. 'You hear the latest news today? Anita Hill is going to come …' a man told Cain, the conclusion of his statement muffled by the crowd. 'Is she going to endorse me?' Cain joked, as he and the crowd laughed heartily." The audio is difficult to hear:

Running on Empty. Matt Bai of the New York Times: "The problem [with Rick Perry's Oops! moment] is that he didn’t seem to know the basic details of his own proposal.... It seemed the idea was not his own, but rather something he had tried and failed to memorize.... Mr. Perry violated one of the core tenets of modern politics, which is that you have to at least sustain the artifice of ownership.... There’s nothing more central to Mr. Perry’s campaign than the idea of scaling back the government in Washington ... and what he proved last night, in 60 or so agonizing seconds, is that he hasn’t thought deeply enough about it to even master the basics of his own agenda."

Rebecca Kaplan of CBS News: "Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Friday called the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been disrupting her campaign events 'ignorant and disrespectful.' ... Bachmann has been surprised at several events recently by groups of OWS protesters who have boisterously interrupted her stump speeches."

CW: I did not get around to reading Our Mister Brooks yesterday, but apparently he took the occasion of his Friday quotient of 800 words to make fun of the hilarious and growing inequality between the rich and the rest of us: the very stuff Tim Dickinson highlights above. Besides the obvious Herman Cain-y message: "If you're not rich, blame yourself!" the column presents a subliminal message (there always is, with Brooks): "Occupy Wall Street protesters are a bunch of whiney-babies." Fortunately for us, Driftglass has made a more thorough analysis of Brooks' official MSM prose. A sample graph:

So while both George Wallace's guest column -- 'On the Amusing Differences Between the Quadroon and the Octoroon amongst the Lower Orders' -- in the June, 1962 issue of 'Modern Confederate Bride Magazine' and Prescott Bush's 1939 essay -- 'Ten Things to Love about German National Socialism' -- were both arguably more shudderingly tone-deaf than Mr. Brooks' efforts today, had Our Mr. Brooks written his column in a powdered wig while lobbing magnums of champagne off his balcony at the homeless in his pajamas, he might have given the old boys a run for their money.

        ... Not having read Brooks, I cannot know who is the more humorous writer -- Brooks or Driftglass -- but there's a better than 50-50 chance I'd get it right on the first guess.

News Ledes

AP: "Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday after parliament's lower chamber passed European-demanded reforms, ending a 17-year political era and setting in motion a transition aimed at bringing the country back from the brink of economic crisis. A chorus of Handel's 'Alleluia,' performed by a few dozen singers and classical musicians, rang out in front of the president's palace as thousands of Italians poured into downtown Rome to rejoice at the end of Berlusconi's scandal-marred reign."

AP: "President Barack Obama is heading into a day of heavy diplomacy in his native Hawaii with some of the United States' most important and complicated allies, as he starts a nine-day tour of the crucial and growing Asia-Pacific region with domestic concerns front and center. Obama ... was to meet Saturday on the sidelines of a U.S.-hosted economic summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.... Obama was to meet with leaders from eight Asian nations that are the U.S. partners in an ambitious but not-yet-completed free trade deal the U.S. hopes will one day be the anchoring pact for the region." For the President's schedule of events today, see the Politico widget further down this column. ...

     AP Update: "Placing high hopes on the economic power of Pacific rim nations, President Barack Obama on Saturday declared the Asia-Pacific region the heart of explosive growth for years to come. For businesses, he said, "this is where the action's going to be."

Reuters: "Tensions were rising at anti-Wall Street protests in three western U.S. cities on Friday as demonstrators in Portland, Salt Lake City and Oakland defied orders by police to dismantle their camps." ...

... AP: "Oakland police handed out eviction notices at an anti-Wall Street encampment and officials elsewhere urged an end to similar gatherings as pressures against Occupy protest sites mounted in the wake of three deaths in different cities, including two by gunfire." ...

... San Francisco Chronicle: "After an intense day of behind-closed-door meetings Friday, Oakland officials are moving forward with plans to evict Occupy Oakland from Frank Ogawa Plaza. The eviction, which has the blessing of a majority of the City Council and the reluctant concurrence of Mayor Jean Quan, is likely to come sooner rather than later." The Oakland Tribune has a liveblog here.

... Oregonian: "The mood Friday at the Occupy Portland encampment was one-third somber, one-third defiant and one-third business as usual as Sunday's deadline for campers to leave two downtown parks ticked closer. Just before noon, campers were sprucing up the park, rolling up broken or abandoned tents, collecting garbage and recyclables into huge piles and sweeping up leaves and trash. Organizers planned to have a potluck meal and concert Saturday...." ...

... Oregonian: "Occupy Mosier may have been the country's humblest [OWS spinoffs]. Set in a park-and-ride greenspace in an apple and cherry growing hamlet of 433 at a bend on the Columbia River midway between Hood River and The Dalles, organizers dubbed Mosier the smallest town to host an Occupy encampment. In this intimate setting, dozens turned out for seven days of succinct protests against corporate power, income inequality and big-money politics." ...

... Knoxville, Tennessee, News Sentinel: "Downtown [Knoxville] felt the presence of the national Occupy Wall Street movement Friday when Occupy Knoxville protesters reserved Market Square from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. At least 100 musicians, singers and actors filled The Bill Lyons Pavilion at Market Square throughout the day as part of what coordinators called a "creative protest." Others took the stage to speak about personal experiences, salute veterans in honor of Veterans Day or to host teach-ins — educational lectures about everything from sustainable agriculture to the financial crisis." ...

AP: "President Barack Obama says the Penn State sex-abuse scandal should lead to 'soul-searching' by all Americans, not just Penn State. 'Obviously what happened was heartbreaking, especially for the victims, the young people who got affected by these alleged assaults,' he told Westwood One Radio in an interview Friday night', in his first public comments on the scandal. 'And I think it's a good time for the entire country to do some soul-searching — not just Penn State. People care about sports, it's important to us, but our No. 1 priority has to be protecting our kids. And every institution has to examine how they operate, and every individual has to take responsibility for making sure that our kids are protected.'"

Reuters: "The Arab League called on the Syrian army to stop the killing of civilians on Saturday and said it was suspending Syria from the regional body in a move that turns up the heat on President Bashar al-Assad. The League will impose economic and political sanctions on Assad's government and has appealed to its member states to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus, said Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim."

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