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
powered by Surfing Waves
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[.]”

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, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

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
Saturday
Nov122011

The Commentariat -- November 13

** The Founding Fathers Would LOVE OWS. Rick Ungar in a Washington Monthly column, on how the Tea Party-deified founders regarded corporations: "... every single investment bank on Wall Street, as we know it today, would have been illegal in the days of our founding. And ... in the early days of the nation, most states had rules on the books making any political contribution by a corporation a criminal offence.... Were they around today, our founders would not only be standing on the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street movement, they would likely be pursuing a far more strident strategy than playing some bongo drums in Zuccotti Park." The Boston Tea Party itself was, after all, a revolt against England's most powerful corporation: the East India Trading Company. Care for a cup of originalist tea, Mr. Scalia?

Jeffrey Sachs, in a New York Times op-ed: Ronald "Reagan’s [edict that "government is the problem"] was a fateful misdiagnosis. He completely overlooked the real issue — the rise of global competition in the information age — and fought a bogeyman, the government. Decades on, America pays the price of that misdiagnosis, with a nation singularly unprepared to face the global economic, energy and environmental challenges of our time.... Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits." Occupy Wall Street is poised to lead a new progressive movement that will get us out of the mess Reagan got us into. Sachs has some suggestions & observations about the way the movement will do that. ...

... Karen Garcia: "I don't think we have to worry too much any more about the Democratic Party co-opting OWS. The elite of the DNC have pretty much shut up about it.... If you're paying any attention at all to the Democratic leaks out of the SuperCommittee, you're finding out that they're bending over backwards, offering cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- even permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts -- in exchange for some loopy closings of corporate tax loopholes.... But at the local level, in the cities, the encampments are under direct siege by..... Democratic mayors.... It's about time we 'Occupy the Democratic Party', too." ...

... Markos Moulitsas tells ten stories, some with videos, of big banks forcibly trying to stop customers from closing their accounts. They're pretty good stories. Since September 29, more than 700,000 customers have moved their money out of big banks to small banks & credit unions.

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "A new Obama administration policy to avoid deportations of illegal immigrants who are not criminals has been applied very unevenly across the country and has led to vast confusion both in immigrant communities and among agents charged with carrying it out."

Nicholas Kulish & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "The window of opportunity to save the euro is rapidly closing, as the sovereign debt crisis erodes the solvency of Europe’s banks and drives up borrowing rates for even once rock-solid countries like France." ...

... Jim Fallows of The Atlantic: "I am as happy as the next person to see the well-deserved end to Silvio Berlusconi's reign in Italy. But I don't think many people can, or should, feel too happy about this second resignation of a democratically elected government (after Papandreou in Greece) because of pressure from bankers outside the country's borders." Fallows includes a letter from Piero Garau, a retired UN official who lives in Rome, who is not optimistic about the future of the euro, or really, of the E.U. ...

... AND in a somewhat Manhattan-centric analysis, Seth Meyers takes "A Closer Look at Europe":

Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "Republican lawmakers are objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to deny an anti-human-trafficking grant to a Catholic group, a dispute that reflects deep divisions over access to abortion and birth control. In late September, HHS ended funding to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to help victims of trafficking.... The church group had overseen nationwide services to victims since 2006 but was denied a new grant in favor of three other groups. The bishops organization ... had refused to refer trafficking victims for contraceptives or abortion. HHS officials have said they made a policy decision to award the grants to agencies that would refer women for those services."

National Service -- Could It Happen? Ryan Cooper of the Washington Monthly: "... the idea of national service, mandatory or not, has ... been coming up amongst American thought leaders across the media spectrum. [Former NBC anchor] Tom Brokaw devotes a substantial portion of his new book The Time of Our Lives to it. [PBS newsman] Jim Lehrer said recently ... he would impose mandatory national service, and Joe Klein [of Time] ... mentioned non-military national service favorably. [Actor George] Clooney personally supported the idea.... House Republicans, many of whom voted just two years ago to triple AmeriCorps’ size, are now [in the thrall of the Tea Party and] attempting to zero out the program entirely.... Before the country can expand national service, national service has to survive." ...

... A cynic's view of the appeal of national service. From "The Ides of March" (in theaters now!):

Harvard, Tuition-Free. "Justice," with Prof. Michael Sandel. This tape includes two lectures. The first is titled "The Moral Side of Murder." The second, which begins about 24:30 in, is titled "The Case for Cannibalism":

Right Wing World

If I were president, I would use waterboarding. Barack Obama is letting the ACLU run the CIA! -- Michele Bachmann, in last night's GOP candidates' debate

I do not agree with torture — period. However, I will trust the judgment of our military leaders on what is and what is not torture. -- Herman Cain, having it both ways, as usual

"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran." A Old McCain Refrain Returns. Karen Tumulty & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "With the International Atomic Energy Agency warning in a new report that Iran may be proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, the leading Republican candidates for president accused President Obama of not being forceful enough to prevent that from happening. At the first GOP debate that focused on foreign policy, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich indicated that if either of them were commander in chief, they would be willing to use military force against Iran, if tightened economic sanctions and support for the Iranian opposition did not work to deter nuclear weapons development in the country." ...

... Roger Simon of Politico: "Nothing awful happened. Rick Perry exhibited no brain freeze (at least no more than usual), Herman Cain did not stumble badly (at least no more than anybody else), Newt Gingrich did not attack the moderators (much) and the audience booed only once (when Ron Paul opposed torture)."

Mitt Romney, Corporate Raider. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "By the green-hued yardsticks of Wall Street, the 1990s buyout of an Illinois medical company by Mitt Romney’s private equity firm was a spectacular success.... But an examination of the ... deal shows the unintended human costs and messy financial consequences behind the brand of capitalism that Mr. Romney practiced for 15 years." ...

... CW: I wonder if we can't find some way to make things worse. Count on Mitt. "Vouchers for Veterans":

Sometimes you wonder, would there be some way to introduce some private sector competition, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them and then they can choose whether they want to go on the government [healthcare] system or the private system and then it follows them, like what happens with schools in Florida where they have a voucher that follows them. Who knows? -- Mitt Romney, "brainstorming" with a group of veterans in South Carolina ...

      ... Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "The idea is similar to Romney’s plan for Medicare, which would allow recipients to choose a private plan instead of the classic government-run health care structure. Jerry Newberry, a spokesman for Veterans Of Foreign Wars, told TPM his group has long opposed policies along the lines of Romney’s proposal." ...

     ... Steve Benen: "Even the most conservative Republicans rarely venture into privatizing veterans’ health care benefits.... The taxpayer-financed, government-run V.A. hospitals are some of the finest medical facilities in the country.... Romney ... prefers to change this, and would apparently rather hand vets a voucher. Perhaps the inexperienced former one-term governor with no background on military policy hasn’t fully thought this through. For him to go this far on Veterans’ Day, of all days, seems remarkably tone deaf, even for him." ...

     ... Paul Krugman: "This is awesome on multiple levels. First..., the vouchers would be inadequate, and become more so over time, so that veterans who don’t make enough money to top them up would fail to receive essential care. Patriotism! Second, the VA is one of the great policy success stories of the past two decades. But the VA clearly delivers care as good or better than most civilians receive, at sharply lower cost. So naturally Romney wants to privatize it. Because let’s remember, he’s the serious Republican.... So, our serious Republican is committed on ideological grounds to demolishing successful programs and replacing them with conservative fantasies that have failed repeatedly in the past.

        "Maybe we would actually have been better off with Rick Perry, who might have left good government programs in place because he couldn’t remember what they were."

Truth in Advertising. Americans for Prosperity, the Karl Rove managed Koch Brothers front group, recently held a summit they called 'Defending the American Dream.' Based on their priorities and goals, I think a better name for their group should be 'America for the Prosperous' and their summit should have been called 'Defunding the American Dream.' -- Reality Chex reader Lisa

Dana Milbank: "The era of personal responsibility, if it ever began, has surely ended with the 2012 Republican presidential campaigns. The candidates blame the media, the elites, the Democrats, the government and each other for their problems, but never themselves.... But none has a blame game quite like Cain’s. When the allegations of sexual harassment first arose, he blamed the accusers for failing to get his 'sense of humor.' Then he blamed a 'witch hunt.' Then he claimed it was 'the Perry campaign that stirred this up.' ... Cain moved on to blame 'the D.C. culture' for his troubles, before blaming 'the Democrat machine in America.' Naturally, he blamed the media, winning cheers at the debate [last Wednesday].... Cain even played the same race card that he condemned Democrats for using, claiming that he was victimized because he’s 'a black conservative.'”

** Lies and the Lying Liars.... Steven Levingston of the Washington Post: "Of all the places you’d expect to find Bill O’Reilly’s new history'“Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever,' Ford’s Theatre — the site of the dreadful act — should rank right at the top. But you’d do better to search for the bestseller on Amazon because it has been banned from the theater’s store. The crime? O’Reilly and his co-author Martin Dugard have displayed a serial disregard for historical fact. For a purported history of the assassination..., 'Killing Lincoln' is sloppy with the facts and slim on documentation, according to a study conducted by Rae Emerson, the deputy superintendent of Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site...." Sen. Al Franken must find this hilarious.

News Ledes

Raleigh News & Observer: in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, "a police tactical team of more than 25 police officers arrested eight demonstrators Sunday afternoon and charged them with breaking and entering for occupying a vacant car dealership on Franklin Street. Officers brandishing guns and semi-automatic rifles rushed the building at about 4:30 p.m. They pointed weapons at those standing outside, and ordered them to put their faces on the ground. They surrounded the building and cleared out those who were inside. About 13 people, including New & Observer staff writer covering the demonstration, were forced to the ground and hand-cuffed."

Politico: "President Barack Obama announced Saturday that a group of Pacific Rim nations reached the 'broad outlines of an agreement' on a key trade partnership and warned Iran that the U.S., Russia and China would work together to counter its attempts to develop its nuclear capability." ...

... BUT. AP: "President Barack Obama prodded the skeptical leaders of Russia and China for support in reining back Iran's nuclear ambitious, but without winning public endorsement from either man. Neither Russian President Dmitry Medvedev nor Chinese President Hu Jintao publicly echoed Obama's push for solidarity over renewed concerns on Iran as Obama met separately on Saturday with each leader on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim economic summit here." ...

... Reuters: "Asia-Pacific leaders will call on countries on Sunday to do what they can to prop up economic growth, rallying around the common threat from Europe's debt crisis despite divisions over trade and currency policies. Fresh off a rare success in securing agreement on the outlines of a regional trade deal, the heads of the 21 nations that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will turn their attention to the more immediate problem of preventing contagion from Europe."

AP: "Anti-Wall Street protesters and their supporters flooded a city park area in Portland early Sunday in defiance of an eviction order, and authorities elsewhere stepped up pressure against the demonstrators, arresting nearly two dozen. Crowds converged on two adjacent downtown Portland parks where protesters are camped after city officials set a midnight Saturday deadline to disperse. But hours later, the protesters were still there, backed by many supporters who spilled out into the streets next to camp, tying up traffic. At one point the numbers swelled to thousands but then started to thin in the early morning hours." ...

... Oregonian: "Portland police held off from sweeping two downtown parks early today as thousands of chanting people converged on the city center to support the Occupy Portland movement. A police officer was injured shortly before 2 a.m. from a projectile thrown by someone in the crowd. One person was arrested as tensions rose. At one point, police warned people that they would use chemical agents to keep control as the crowd pushed against police lines. Before then, demonstrators remained peaceful and even festive at times as officers watched and directed traffic, but didn't move to clear Lownsdale and Chapman squares." ...

     ... Reuters Update: "Occupy Portland encampments were nearly empty on Sunday as protesters packed up and left after warnings by city officials that they would be evicted over the weekend. Fewer than a dozen tents remained at two downtown parks where protesters have camped since early October as part of the nationwide Occupy Wall street movement against alleged economic injustice. City officials said they planned to put up fences around the two Portland parks to close them to protesters on Sunday afternoon."

... AP: In Salt Lake City, "police arrested 19 protesters supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement who refused to remove tents from a downtown park late Saturday but avoided the violent clashes that have occurred in other cities. Although police entered the park at sundown with a significant show of force — including a couple dozen cars, two buses for prisoner transport and spotlights — officers were not wearing riot gear or flashing batons. Instead, Chief Chris Burbank and other officers worked their way methodically from tent to tent, asking people to leave and arresting those who didn't comply." ...

... Denver Post: "Denver police in riot gear forced stubborn protesters out of Civic Center park Saturday evening, tearing down illegally pitched tents. A cloud of smoke rose — not from tear gas, but from wood smoke as the protesters' cooking fire was extinguished. Seventeen people were arrested, according to Sonny Jackson, spokesman for the Denver Police Department. Five of those arrests were made on the 16th Street Mall, where some protesters headed after the encampment was cleared. The confrontation came about five hours after Occupy Denver demonstrators marched through downtown for the sixth straight Saturday." ...

... St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "After 27 protesters spent Friday night in jail, Occupy St. Louis said Saturday it would continue to keep an around-the-clock presence at Kiener Plaza.... On Saturday night, about 10 protesters followed police orders and moved to the sidewalk surrounding the park. Another 20 people stood outside the St. Louis Justice Center awaiting the release of three protesters who remained in jail. Mayor Francis Slay's staff reiterated Saturday that it was amenable to Occupy St. Louis staying around, as long as the protesters obey the ordinances." ...

... San Diego Union-Tribune: "More than 80 self-described 'everyday, middle-class women' brought rainy-day supplies and food to Occupy San Diego Saturday.... The woman, mostly in their 40s and 50s, filled five wheelbarrows with food, tarps, blankets, socks and other items."

AP: "The Syrian government has called for an urgent Arab summit to discuss the deepening political unrest in the country. The Arab League on Saturday voted to suspend Syria over its bloody crackdown on the country's eight-month-old uprising."

Reuters: "Italy's president [Giorgio Napolitano] raced to appoint an emergency government on Sunday to face a crisis endangering the whole euro zone and replace Silvio Berlusconi who resigned as prime minister to the humiliating jeers of thousands of protesters."

Comments Off