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[.]”

Help!

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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."

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Wednesday
Oct192011

The Commentariat -- October 20

I've posted an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

** This past summer, President Obama proved he had no understanding whatsoever about how Lincoln came around to signing the Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln moved left, not right, as Obama suggests), even tho Obama boasted he had the original hanging in the Oval. BUT E. J. Dionne gets the politics of the 1860s & of the 2010s, & shows how Lincoln's move left (to emancipation) should be a model for Obama.

** Glenn Greenwald: "Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process — it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager’s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki’s son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter..., but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver."

"Occupy the Classroom." Nicholos Kristof gathers data that show a major cause of perpetual income inequality is that the children of the poor & of the rich get unequal early childhood education.

Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times writes about the right's new-found enthusiasm for judicial activism. Since they've spent decades decrying judicial activism, conservatives had to find a new term for what they're urging sympathetic judges to do. So bad ole "judicial activism" (liberal judges overturning conservative-writ laws) has become good new "judicial engagement" (conservatives judges overturning liberal laws). Watch for it, coming to a conservative court near you. ...

... ** Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect: President "Obama has been far less aggressive in filling judicial vacancies than his predecessors." If he loses his bid for re-election, the worst legacy of his presidency will be his failure to fill those vacancies: "Because of Obama’s neglect, we stand a good chance of giving conservative ideologues the tools they need to dismantle the welfare state, and leave liberals in a losing battle against right-wing legal theories."

Greg Sargent calls this a must-read: Michael Cohen of Democracy Arsenel: Leon Panetta is the first Democrat to be Secretary of Defense in 14 years. He's the wrong one. Cohen presents a pretty devastating analysis of Panetta's very brief tenure -- he's gaffe-prone & so wants the brass to like him that he hasn't seen an expensive military program he doesn't like.

CW: Off Times Square commenters have recommended these PBS "News Hour" videos on income inequality in the U.S. I can't listen to them yet because I'm writing from my local McDonalds, but based on the comments, I'm betting they're pretty worthwhile. The first segment aired August 16; the transcript is here:

... The second segment, which aired September 28, is on the health consequences of great income disparity. The transcript is here:

 

Okay, we've got every continent covered! Via Occupy Fort Myers.

BUT. Times Are Tough on Wall Street, Too. Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Banks, required by regulators to discontinue high-profit businesses like proprietary trading, reduce borrowings and hold more capital, may no longer be able to produce the supercharged earnings that were common before the financial crisis. Although Wall Street has not changed in some significant ways — top executives are still receiving huge pay packages and its lobbyists continue to have sway in Washington — the industry is facing forces of change unlike anything since the Great Depression.... Last week, JPMorgan Chase reported that earnings dropped by 4 percent in the latest period. Both Bank of America and Citigroup booked banner profits. But much of those results were attributed to one-time accounting gains.... Goldman [Sachs] ... lost nearly $3 billion on its investments in stocks and bonds...." CW: my heart is breaking for these guys.

Severn Suzuki, a 12-year-old Canadian, explains to bankers & politicians what kind of future they are leaving her generation & future generations "Are we even on your list of priorities?" she asks. Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link:

Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "With a Thanksgiving deadline fast approaching..., [the debt reduction supercommittee]  is running in rhetorical circles, unable to break the impasse over taxes that has long blocked aggressive action to tame the national debt. Though the committee’s 12 members have been meeting for nearly two months in closed-door sessions, lawmakers, aides and others involved in the process say they have yet to reach consensus on the most basic elements of a plan to restrain government borrowing."

James Grimaldi & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "Beginning two decades ago, the United States government bankrolled an Egyptian think tank dedicated to economic reform." The money, it turns out, was spent to promote crony capitalism & reward high government officials like Gamal Mubarak. "The privatization saga is a cautionary tale about the power and perils of U.S. foreign aid — most notably the nearly $8 billion that the United States has provided to Egypt since the 1990s to push the country toward economic reforms."

Bearing in mind that Joseph Napolitano, an attorney & a former (I think) judge, is kind of a nut, what he says here is worth considering because numerous reputable news organizations have produced evidence that his assertions are at least partly true:

In a blind taste test, panelists agree: Godfather's pizza is the worst.

Right Wing World

Glenn Kessler: "Senate Republicans, including Rand Paul (Ky.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Rob Portman (Ohio), last week unveiled what they labeled as their alternative to Obama’s plan. Their plan was mostly a mish-mash of previous offered bills, such as that hardy perennial -- a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. (Some experts would argue that such a requirement could hurt employment if government spending dropped too quickly.) ... Paul claimed the GOP plan would create 5 million jobs.... The 5 million figure ... is ludicrous. Even if one accepts the studies that came up with the figures, in most cases they indicate the GOP proposals would do little to create jobs in the near future."

Dana Milbank: "First came Herman Cain ... arguing for an electric fence at the border that would be powerful enough to kill people. Next..., Mitt Romney and Rick Perry devoted a large portion of Tuesday night’s Republican debate to a so’s-your-mama argument, complete with physical contact, about which was softer on illegal immigrants. Then, Wednesday morning..., Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee put Homeland Security Secretary [Janet Napolitano] through a hazing ritual that stopped just short of making her climb an electrified fence." ...

... Which brings to mind Karen Garcia's comment on Gail Collins' column today:

When it comes to undocumented workers laboring for pennies on their zillion dollar estates, the policy of rich white guys like Mitt has always been 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' They don't want to know and they will never know, mainly because they can't be bothered to actually interact with these wage slaves or offer them so much as a glass of water.... That would be the job of the undocumented housekeeper. The moderators of these debates should ask these anti-immigration indignados just who they they think picks the blueberries for their breakfast cereal, or washes the priceless china at their five-star restaurants. ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: All of which is an object lesson in how to lose the Latino vote. ...

... AND the New York Times editors eviscerate Alabama for its draconian immigration law, a primary purpose of which is to drive out undocumented immigrants via a strategy advocates call "attrition through enforcement." Read the editorial for an analysis of the side effects of that bright idea.

... More shocking & destined to kill as many American women as Herman Cain's electrocuting fence would kill Hispanic men is this, reported by Thomas of Blog for Choice: "Anti-choice Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) just filed an anti-choice amendment to a bill related to agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs. The DeMint amendment could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing, even if a woman's health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care. Under this amendment, women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors. Via Marie Diamond of Think Progress. CW: Herman Cain is not going to be president; Jim DeMint is a sitting U.S. senator & Tea Party leader with clout. ...

... BUT Wait, There's More. Alex Alvarez of Mediaite: as of last night (and who knows if today he'll say he was just joking), Herman Cain is PRO-CHOICE. Not a typo. In his conversation with CNN's Piers Morgan on the subject of abortion, Cain said that he personally opposed abortion but "The government shouldn’t be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to a social decision that they need to make." With video. That makes Cain more libertarian than Ron Paul, who is a libertarian except when he isn't -- like his vehement opposition to abortion, a subject on which Paul has expert creds  -- he is an obstetrician.

Michael Shear & Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "... the animosities [between Rick Perry & Mitt Romney] began long ago, set off by a series of political encounters that began when the two men were governors."

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), both of whom "have spoken out against federal subsidies for energy projects tried to obtain such benefits three years ago.... [They] pressed the energy secretary in 2008 to approve a federal loan guarantee to help an energy company hoping to expand a nuclear facility in Texas.... In recent candidates debates, the two have criticized federal energy loan programs."

Adam Serwer: "Knowing nothing about foreign policy has finally caught up with Herman Cain." No, Mr. Cain, everything Bibi Netanyahu does would not be just as awesome if a U.S. president did it.

One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.... [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. -- Rick Santorum, GOP presidential candidate (in case you forgot) ...

... Quit Having Sex! Just Stop It! -- Rick Santorum. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Rick Santorum pledged to repeal all federal funding for contraception, arguing that birth control devalues the act of procreation." With video, in case you just can't believe it.

Rand Paul Running for Most Despised Senator. Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post: "A Senate committee debate on a bipartisan bill to overhaul a key education law came to an abrupt halt Wednesday after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) invoked a little-used procedural rule that forced a temporary adjournment. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, who had worked for more than a year with the ranking Republican, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, to revamp the No Child Left Behind law, was visibly irritated.... Paul, who offered 74 of the 144 amendments that have been proposed for the Harkin-Enzi bill, told the Senate that the bill was being rushed." CW: because what's a year? Oh, it's longer than education expert Li'l Randy has been in the Senate.

Local News

Denver University Clarion: "The tent community set up by the Occupy Denver protesters outside the Capitol [in Denver, Colorado] was dismantled by police under the order of Governor John Hickenlooper, [a Democrat,] at 3 a.m. on Friday, prompting massive turnout and more aggressive protesting during the weekly Saturday rally. After indicating that he could not allow the unlawful accumulation of people camping out in the Civic Center Park, where Occupy Denver had about 70 tents set up, Hickenlooper sent in a police force dressed in riot gear to dismantle the community. Twenty-three protesters were arrested.... 'A lot of the people camping out there were veterans,' said Scott Green, a protester who spent Friday night in jail.... 'Two words should never go together: veteran and homeless. That's who most of the people camping out in that park were. They lost everything.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Senate voted 74-26 on Thursday to confirm the nomination of John Bryson to be the next commerce secretary, ending a months-long struggle over President Obama’s choice. Mr. Obama nominated Mr.. Bryson to replace the outgoing secretary, Gary Locke, in May. Mr. Locke succeeded Jon M. Huntsman Jr. as U.S. ambassador to China."

President Obama welcomed the recipients of the 2011 Presidential Citizens Medal this afternoon.

President Obama's statement on the death of Muammar Gaddafi:

** Reuters: "Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered in his capture near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday, a senior NTC military official said. National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked." Al Jazeera story here. ...

     ... Updated New York Times story here.

AP: "Libyan fighters drove the last holdouts of Moammar Gadhafi out of his hometown of Sirte in a few hours of fierce gunbattles Thursday, then declared victory over the last major resistance two months after the fall of Tripoli." New York Times story here.

AP: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday pushed Pakistan's leaders to fight harder against terrorists within their own borders...." The New York Times story, which includes more analysis, is here.

AFP: "The United States called on China to explain why it appeared to be blocking websites of US firms, as Washington took the first steps to bring the case to the World Trade Organization.... The request was made under world trade rules which require members to provide information about potential barriers to trade."

AP: "Amid expressions of horror and revulsion at the killing of dozens of wild animals in Ohio — and photographs of their bloody carcasses — animal rights advocates agreed there was little local authorities could have done to save the dangerous creatures once they began roaming the countryside after their owner released them before taking his own life. Sheriff's deputies shot 48 animals — including 18 rare Bengal tigers and 17 lions — after Terry Thompson, owner of the private Muskingum County Animal Farm near Zanesville, threw their cages open Tuesday and then committed suicide." The Washington Post story is here.

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