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
Oct012011

The Commentariat -- October 2

The Open Thread continues on Off Times Square.

** Jonathan Turley in a Washington Post op-ed: "The fears of the Danbury Baptists, [whose letter to President Thomas Jefferson prompted him to respond that the First Amendment built "a wall between separation of church and state"] appear to have been realized, with political campaigns, federal programs and judicial decisions moving away from a clear separation of church and state." Turley goes on to cite many examples of today's politicians interjecting religion into their rhetoric. "The danger of explicit appeals to faith in politics isn’t the establishment of an official religion; that remains highly unlikely. Rather, faith-based politics can become faith-based laws that enforce morality codes, expand public subsidies for religious institutions or sideline religious (or non-religious) minorities." ...

... CW: if you haven't read Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, a transcript is here. A photo of the original is here:

The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. -- John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

And then, hearing any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation and poking an ally like Israel in the eye, it's mind-boggling to see some of our nation's actions recently. -- Sarah Palin, her mind apparently boggled by the founding father cited above, while criticizing, misrepresenting & misquoting this guy:

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. -- Barack Obama, a "Constitutional scholar," June 28, 2006

Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent on diversity in all other aspects of life, seems bent on eliminating the diversity of moral judgment, particularly moral judgment based on religious views. -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, last week (cited in the MoDo column below)

... Maureen Dowd: "The most Catholic Supreme Court in history celebrates one of Washington’s most intriguing rituals, an annual merger of church and state." ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court, which has been focused in recent terms on the rights of corporations and on curbing big lawsuits, returns to the bench on Monday with a different agenda. Now, criminal justice is at the heart of the court’s docket, along with major cases on free speech and religious freedom.... Still, the shift in focus toward criminal and First Amendment cases will soon be obscured if, as expected, the justices agree to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law. That case promises to be a once-in-a-generation blockbuster. In the meantime, the justices will hear an extraordinary set of cases that together amount to a project that could overhaul almost every part of the criminal justice system." ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court convenes Monday for what could be the most significant term of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s six-year tenure, with an agenda that both reflects the nation’s political landscape and offers the potential to reshape it. The dominant theme is the one that has divided the country and fueled the debate between tea party Republicans and President Obama since the 2010 election: the extent of the federal government’s power. The justices are being asked to decide the constitutionality of the landmark health-care act, the ability of states to enforce strict immigration laws and whether the government can continue to monitor the airwaves for indecency."

Occupy Wall Street

CW: Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times gets a do-over. And, well, she sure botches the lede:

During their first week, members of Occupy Wall Street, the ideologically vague and strategically baffling effort to redress social inequities, put together a library on the north end of Zuccotti Park whose disparate offerings included 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'; Gay Talese’s article in The New Yorker on the collaboration of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga; and Abbott’s Digest of New York Statutes and Reports, Volumes 4, 9, 33 and 34.

     ... The ensuing prose improves. A little. I wonder what the report would look like if the Times had sent, say, a sports reporter instead of an arts critic like Ballafante. ...

FreakOutNation: "The New York Times has been part of the problem – in this image, note that within 20 minutes, the writer changed and the blame was shifted onto the protesters.... Natasha Lennard, a writer for the New York Times was allegedly among those arrested, so we can assume they will assign blame to her as well:

Graphic by FreakOut Nation.     ... CW Update: in an e-mail to me, Karen Garcia said that Natasha Lennard, the "Times reporter" who was arrested on the bridge yesterday is a stringer; i.e., not a regular staff reporter. So I'm thinking the Times won't give Lennard the full Judith Miller treatment (i.e., high-priced lawyers, First Amendment violation suits, supportive editorials, major news stories, etc.). ...

... A Felicitous "Coincidence." Yves Smith of naked capitalism: JPMorgan Chase "recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation." Smith figures the JPM Chase donation could represent as much as 3 to 4 percent of the foundation's total donations ever since its founding in 1971. "And what sort of benefits might JPM get? ... Today [Saturday], OccupyWallStreet decided to march across the Brooklyn Bridge (a proud New York tradition) to Chase Manhattan Plaza in Brooklyn.... Over 700 of the marchers were arrested," in an operation that many protesters [and Gawker] say was deliberate kettling; i.e., confining hundreds of protesters to the bridge, then arresting them before they could get to the Chase site. 

Heather Parton a/k/a Digby in Al Jazeera: "Elizabeth Warren cemented her reputation as a person who knows how to speak to Americans about progressive values in a way that seems to have eluded almost every other public figure in America. There's just something about the way she talks in plain prairie English that makes people listen - and scares even the most hardened businessman and compromised politician into paying attention."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... when [New York State Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman, 56, rejected a proposed nationwide settlement releasing some of the country’s biggest banks from a lawsuit brought by the states claiming misconduct in the mortgage markets. Almost overnight, he found his own name mentioned in a series of laudatory articles in publications as varied as Rolling Stone, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and the Web site Gawker." CW: Feuer doesn't mention it, but on Friday, California AG Kamala Harris also rejected the national settlement deal.

Right Wing World

CW: this story, by Stephanie McCrummen of the Washington Post, leaves me speechless, which is just as well: "In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance. 'Niggerhead,' it read. Ranchers who once grazed cattle on the 1,070-acre parcel on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River called it by that name well before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s.... The name ... did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.... How, when or whether [Perry] dealt with it when he was using the property is less clear...." Seven people, mostly Perry allies, say he did not have the name obliterated as he claims. ...

... Federales, Sí. Rich Oppel of the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said on Saturday that as president, he would consider sending American troops into Mexico to help defeat drug cartels and improve border security. He indicated that any such action would be done 'in concert' with the Mexican government." CW: finally, Perry finds some use for the federal government: invade Mexico!

If Your Name Is Mitt Romney, You Just Might Be a Hypocrite. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: while he was Governor of Massachusetts, Romney and his "administration relentlessly scoured the tax code for more loopholes, extracting hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to help close budget gaps.... It was only after Mr. Romney was gearing up in 2005 for a possible White House bid that he backed away from some of his most assertive tax enforcement proposals amid intensifying complaints from local companies and conservative antitax groups in Washington. Mr. Romney’s campaign against the tax loopholes, like no other period in his career, put him at odds with the values and expectations of the corporate world.... Today, in seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Romney promotes himself as the pro-business candidate who understands what companies need and how to create jobs."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign spent Sunday deflecting scrutiny of a report in The Washington Post detailing a West Texas hunting camp he once leased with his father that includes a racial epithet in its name.... One of Perry’s rivals for the GOP nomination..., Herman Cain, criticized Perry in appearances on 'Fox News Sunday' and ABC’s 'This Week.' Civil rights activist Al Sharpton called for Perry to explain more fully his relationship to the property or bow out of the presidential race." (See today's Right Wing World in the Commentariat.)

Washington Post: "Former vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday called last week’s CIA drone strike against al-Qaeda operative Anwar Awlaki a validation of the George W. Bush administration’s terrorist-fighting strategy, and said that President Obama should apologize for his past criticism of those policies." CW: new definition of -- and a very high bar for -- "shameless": expecting an apology from those who criticize you for torturing people.

AP: "Syrian dissidents on Sunday formally established a broad-based national council designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Syrians took to the streets in celebration, singing and dancing." Al Jazeera story here.

Al Jazeera: "The Greek government has acknowledged that it will miss its targets for reducing the budget deficit for this year and next year despite massive job cuts."

Reuters (via the NYT): "Israel accepted on Sunday a call by the Quartet of international peace mediators to resume talks with the Palestinians, an official Israeli statement said."

Fox "News": "Police have arrested two dozen protesters for trespassing during a demonstration against Bank of America's foreclosure practices at the banking giant's offices in downtown Boston. The Boston Herald reports that the event was an act of civil disobedience that the organizers intended to send the message that the lender's practices were unfair. 'They wanted to be arrested, and we obliged,' Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis told the newspaper. Organizers say about 3,000 people joined the protest." See also stories on Occupy Wall Street, NYC, in yesterday's Ledes & Commentariat. ...

Gothamist has a very good liveblog that details yesterday's Occupy Wall Street events, with lots of photos. BTW, the Gothamist reporter says the "little girl" who was arrested looks 15-18 year of age. CW: from her height & closeups of her face, I would guess she is 12 or 13, at the most. I can't find any news stories that ID her. ...

... AND here's the Firedoglake liveblog for today.

Reuters: "The State Department issued a worldwide travel alert on Saturday warning of the possibility of anti-American attacks in response to the killing of two top al Qaeda members."

AP: "The Afghan government needs to see Pakistan making 'tangible progress' on pledges to use its influence to help end the Taliban insurgency, a foreign ministry spokesman said Sunday. The statement came a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was giving up on trying to talk to the Taliban directly and that the key to ending the war is mediation by Pakistan."

AP: "A government warplane has mistakenly bombed an army position in southern Yemen, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding many more, military and medical officials said on Sunday.... Heavy fighting has been raging in the area for days as part of the army's monthslong campaign to seize back Zinjibar from the militants."

AP: "Sent to death row 20 years ago as a convicted cop killer, Troy Davis was celebrated as 'martyr and foot soldier' Saturday by more than 1,000 people who packed the pews at his funeral and pledged to keep fighting the death penalty." Savannah Morning News story here.

Los Angeles Times: "California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris will no longer take part in a national foreclosure probe of some of the nation's biggest banks, which are accused of pervasive misconduct in dealing with troubled homeowners. Harris removed herself from talks by a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies investigating abusive foreclosure practices because the nation's five largest mortgage servicers were not offering California homeowners relief commensurate to what people in the state had suffered, Harris told The Times on Friday."

AP: "The Pentagon has decided that military chaplains may perform same-sex unions, whether on or off a military installation. The ruling announced Friday by the Pentagon's personnel chief follows the Sept. 20 repeal of a law that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military."

President Obama spoke at an event honoring outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen late this morning. Voice of America: "U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey will be sworn as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Friday. President Barack Obama will be in attendance when the 37-year veteran becomes the nation's top uniformed officer, replacing retiring Navy Admiral Mike Mullen. Mr. Obama nominated Dempsey to succeed Mullen in May, only a month after Dempsey assumed the post of chief of staff of the Army."

** New York Times: "In a significant and dramatic strike in the campaign against Al Qaeda, the Defense Ministry [in Yemen] said American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading figure in the group’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning. In Washington a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was dead. But the circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear. It was not immediately known whether Yemeni forces carried out the attack or if American intelligence forces, which have been pursuing Mr. Awlaki for months, were involved in the operation." ...

     ... ** Updated Lede: "Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who was a leading figure in Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate and was considered its most dangerous English-speaking propagandist, was killed in an American drone strike that deliberately targeted his vehicle on Friday, officials in Washington and Yemen said. They said the strike also killed a radical American colleague traveling with Mr. Awlaki who edited Al Qaeda’s online jihadist magazine." (Emphasis added.) ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Yemen’s official news agency reported that the young Web-savvy American thought to be behind Inspire, a magazine for Al Qaeda, was killed in the same Friday strike that killed the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The report, citing an unnamed defense official, said the man, Samir Khan, was killed in the strike, along with two other people, and identified him as an American citizen and a computer specialist."

Washington Post: "Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged Thursday making the final decision to allow [Solyndra,] a struggling solar company, to continue receiving taxpayer money after it had technically defaulted on a $535 million federal loan guaranteed by his agency.... Also Thursday, a law enforcement official confirmed that the criminal probe of Solyndra is focused on whether the company and its officers misrepresented the firm’s finances to the government in seeking the loan or engaged in accounting fraud."

Washington Post: "After a remarkable run as the most successful atom smasher in the world, the Tevatron — a four-mile underground ring about 50 miles west of Chicago — will smash no more. At 2 p.m., Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, the Energy Department facility that operates the Tevatron, will command the shutdown of the mammoth machine. Operators will switch off dual beams of particles that have been colliding since 1985, sprouting terrific sprays of fleeting particles that offered a glimpse of the subatomic world."

The Hill: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment Democrats in Congress don't have enough votes to pass President Obama's jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change." The WLS Radio report is here.

Can You Hear Us Now? Crain's New York: "The city's most experienced agitators — the labor and community groups that typically organize local marches, rallies and sit-ins — have been largely missing from the Occupy Wall Street protest.... But that's about to change. A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week.... The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks...."

Los Angeles Times: "Pakistani political leaders meeting Thursday in the capital [Islamabad] denounced U.S. allegations that the country's premier spy agency assisted insurgents in attacking American targets in Afghanistan, but also stressed the need to keep lines of communication open with Washington."

Comments Off