The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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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Oct242015

The Commentariat -- October 25, 2015

Internal links removed.

Sharon LaFraniere & Andrew Lehren of the New York Times: "... an analysis by The New York Times of tens of thousands of traffic stops and years of arrest data in [Greensboro, N.C., a] racially mixed city of 280,000, uncovered wide racial differences in measure after measure of police conduct. Those same disparities were found across North Carolina, the state that collects the most detailed data on traffic stops. And at least some of them showed up in the six other states that collect comprehensive traffic-stop statistics." ...

... CW: This is the type of reporting, BTW, that according to FBI Director James Comey, would constitute "the additional scrutiny and criticism of police officers..., [which] may have led to an increase in violent crime in some cities as officers have become less aggressive.... Mr. Comey said that he had been told by many police leaders that officers who would normally stop to question suspicious people are opting to stay in their patrol cars for fear of having their encounters become worldwide video sensations. That hesitancy has led to missed opportunities to apprehend suspects, he said, and has decreased the police presence on the streets of the country's most violent cities." Most people would call this a purposeful work slowdown or just plain dereliction of duty. What Comey is suggesting here is that First Amendment rights to freedom of speech & of the press cause violence because the police don't want to get caught on tape roughing up citizens. Comey is suggesting that a police state is less violent, or safer, than one that respects human rights. ...

... Amy Brittain of the Washington Post: "There have been "800 fatal shootings by police so far this year.... But only a small number of the shootings -- roughly 5 percent -- occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were ... armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats."

Katie Zezima of the New York Times: "Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation's public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful. Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to 'reduce over-testing' as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation's public elementary and secondary schools."

Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "President Obama compared the 'gloomy' Republican Party to grumpy cat, the dour-faced feline Internet celebrity, on Friday. Pouting in his best imitation of the cat that spawned a thousand memes, Obama was met with raucous laughter from attendees at the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum":

Rachel Bade of Politico: "Amid growing Democratic accusations of overreaching, especially on the matter of Hillary Clinton's emails, Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee are now reconsidering how aggressively to pursue the email scandal that's been dogging the Democratic front-runner." ...

... Maureen Dowd criticizes Hillary Clinton's management of the Libyan crisis, post-bombing. She describes Hillary as the prime mover behind the decision to go into Libyan & therefore the one who should have been most on top of the situation: "When you are the Valkyrie who engineers the intervention, you can't then say it is beneath you to pay attention to the ludicrously negligent security for your handpicked choice for ambassador in a lawless country full of assassinations and jihadist training camps." CW: I think both Dowd & Republicans give Hillary too much credit here -- as even Dowd acknowledges, both Samantha Power & Susan Rice were behind the U.S. invasion, too. Oh, & Britain, France & Canada. Dowd completely forgets about them. But she has a point. Hillary isn't a lot better than Dubya at planning an after-invasion. All Middle-Eastern countries are not alike, but there is only one democracy in the Middle East: Israel. (Kuwait is a partial democracy, & Tunisia is working at it.) You might think there's reasons for that.

Juan Cole: "The fruitless carnival barking that was the GOP Benghazi inquisition did the nation the disservice of taking focus off the things really wrong with US policies, and places there really was wrongdoing. So here are some suggestions for real investigations." CW: Sorry, Juan, a GOP-led Congress never does "real investigations."

** Jimmy Carter, in a New York Times op-ed, promotes a five-nation plan to end the Syrian conflict. Read it.

Carol Morello & Hugh Naylor of the Washington Post: "Israel and Jordan have agreed to take steps aimed at quelling a wave of violence, starting with the installation of security cameras on the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Saturday. Speaking after meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II, Kerry told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to King Abdullah's suggestion to install the 24-hour cameras at the holy site, which has been a focus of long-standing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. 'This will provide comprehensive visibility and transparency,' Kerry said. 'It could be a game-changer in discouraging anybody from disturbing the sanctity of the holy sites.'"

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "A three-week global assembly called by Pope Francis to re-examine church teaching on marriage and family in the modern era ended with bishops stopping short of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to take communion, but encouraging their fuller participation in the church. The bishops drew a hard line against any acceptance of same-sex marriage, saying in their final document that it is not 'even remotely analogous' to marriage between a man and a woman. They added that gay people should be respected and not subjected to 'unjust discrimination' -- a reiteration of prior church teaching. The next steps are now in the hands of Pope Francis...."

Presidential Race

Jennifer Jacobs & Kevin Hardy of the Des Moines Register: "The three Democratic presidential candidates used adrenaline-filled pop music, emotional ballads and fiery speeches Saturday to try to catch the same tailwind that Barack Obama captured at the Jefferson Jackson dinner eight years ago. The 'JJ' dinner is Iowa Democrats' biggest party of the year, the signal that it's the final stretch before the first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 1.... Front-runner Hillary Clinton arrived for the landmark event in a position of strength, but instead of coasting, unleashed the star power of her husband and pop superstar Katy Perry at a free concert that attracted thousands, then gave a confident, conversational speech to thousands of the party's most trusty activists. " With video. ...

... Links to the Register's complete coverage are here. Bernie Sanders' full speech is here. Hillary Clinton's full speech, taped in pieces, is here. And, if you've got 2 hours & 15 minutes to spare, C-SPAN is the way to go. ...

... Karen Tumulty & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The two leading Democratic presidential contenders on Saturday night drew their clearest and sharpest distinctions yet. At a high-profile Democratic party dinner here, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took a series of veiled, yet unmistakable jabs at former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying that he would govern on principle. Where Sanders' address represented a new and more aggressive posture against the frontrunner, Clinton delivered one that was close to her standard stump speech, in which she made the argument that she would be a fighter who would find common ground and deliver results."...

... Annie Karni & Glenn Thrush of Politico: In Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Clinton warms up the crowd before performer Katy Perry's concert for Hillary Clinton. It was his first campaign appearance this year. ...

Rachel Maddow interviewed Hillary Clinton (aired Friday):

     ... The full transcript is here.

Kristina Wong of the Hill: "... Donald Trump on Saturday mocked fellow contenders Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at a rally in their home state of Florida. Trump teased Bush, a former Florida governor, for his recent decision to lay off campaign staff and cut salaries by 40 percent, and for his planned retreat with donors in Texas on Sunday. 'Bush has no money, he's meeting today with mommy and daddy, and they're working on his campaign,' Trump said at the rally in downtown Jacksonville, Fla. 'He's a guy wants to run our country and he can't even run his own campaign. Think of it,' he added." He also took a shot at Ben Carson's religion: "'I'm Presbyterian. That's down the middle of road,' he said. 'I mean, Seventh-day Adventist I don't know about.'" ...

... Major Garrett of CBS News: "Jeb Bush will attend a finance meeting this weekend in Houston convened by former President George H. W. Bush and attended by Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, CBS News has learned. The session, designed to assess where Bush's candidacy stands in the face of large-scale staff cutbacks and underwhelming poll numbers, will also be attended by Bush's mother, Barbara Bush. The governor's campaign confirmed the meeting will be held Sunday and Monday." ...

This sounds way more like an intervention than a meeting. -- Daniel Drezner, on Twitter (See also other snarky commentary gathered by Annie Laurie of Balloon Juice at the linked page.) ...

... Ashley Killough of CNN: "A day after slashing salaries and cutting campaign staff..., [Jeb Bush] got an enthusiastic reception and delivered one of his strongest campaign performances to date. He tore into Donald Trump repeatedly and roused some in the crowd to their feet on answers about the military and foreign policy. Bush took part in a town hall series hosted by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, drawing an audience of more than 500 people, about twice the number Bush normally attracts on the campaign trail." ...

Blah blah blah blah, that's my answer, blah blah blah. -- Jeb Bush, responding to reports that he has cut back his campaign

Nice to learn Jeb! is as articulate as ever. -- Constant Weader

... But, Wait. He's not stopping at "blah blah blah." Which is a mistake:

I've got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. -- Jeb!, at that "strong campaign performance" in South Carolina

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "In some ways, that might be one of the most honest things Jeb has said this campaign. But letting folks know that he has other cool things he'd rather be doing than fighting for the nomination reeks of the kind of entitlement folks have come to expect from the Republican establishment." CW: I doubt Jeb! does actual "cool things." If he does, he does them awkwardly. "Jeb!" & "cool" are fairly antithetical.

Gubernatorial Race

Kevin Robillard of Politico: "A private investigator working for Sen. David Vitter's gubernatorial campaign [in Louisiana] was arrested Friday and charged with illegally recording a conversation involving a local sheriff, throwing a last-minute wrench into Saturday's all-party primary as other campaigns pounced on the news.... [Sheriff Newell] Normand, a Republican, is a backer of Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne in the governor's race.... 'So we know this about David Vitter. He's cheated, he's lied and now he's been caught spying,' Dardenne says direct to the camera in a web ad his campaign shot late last night."

Kevin Robillard : "Sen. David Vitter spent the summer on a glide path to becoming Louisiana's next governor. But even if Vitter earns a spot in the general election after Saturday's all-party primary, the Republican's ascension to the governor's mansion is in serious trouble. Vitter is still blessed with the most financial backing of any of the candidates and near-universal name recognition in the state. But over the past few months, his approval ratings have slipped underwater after Vitter's opponents -- including two fellow Republicans -- have spent significant time and money rehashing Vitter's 2007 prostitution scandal."

... UPDATE. Julia O'Donoghue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter will continue their heated battle for governor in a Nov. 21 runoff after finishing 1-2 in the primary election Saturday. The Edwards-Vitter pairing was no surprise. Edwards was all but guaranteed 30 percent of the vote as the only major Democrat running; he ended up with 40 percent. Vitter was the candidate of choice for conservative Republicans, but was a distant second with 23 percent. In the end, the two other Republicans in the race -- Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne -- couldn't piece together coalitions big enough to overcome Vitter's conservative appeal. Vitter may be popular with his 'super Republican' base, but polling shows he has 'high negatives' among other groups of voters."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Poland's chief right-wing opposition party, out of power for nearly a decade, came roaring back in parliamentary voting Sunday, apparently seizing control of the government with a platform that mixes calls for higher wages with appeals to traditional Catholic values."

New York Times: "Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of conflict."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (3)

A great ten days for Hillary is a debacle for Maureen. Maureen has about eight years of defamation invested in destroying Hillary. She and Frank Rich and the Times made certain Hillary was defeated by Obama and was not Democratic candidate in "08.
I do not think Maureen has surrendered and am not certain about Frank Rich. The Times, of course, may find a theme or an agitator to let them reprise their Iraq indulgence.

October 24, 2015 | Unregistered Commentercarlyle

Been offline for a while - 'Puterus Crashius - so this may have already been tossed around on RC (if so, Mea Culpa for the redundancy):

I'm appreciative that some in the media (if interested, see Politico's September offering: "Biden's Anita Hill Problem" - - or a title close to that) have not forgotten our VP's role during those "hearings" (or,
as has been more accurately scripted here, regarding HRC's Own Private Ben-GAAH-Zee!, "inquisition").

Many have not forgotten Biden's role back then.

Many more, it occurs to moi, suffer selective amnesia regarding his mistreatment (understatement) of Ms. Hill . . . and his defense ("Supreme" endorsement?) of Long Dong Clarence.

Best to One & All -
Ophelia M

October 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterOphelia M.

Those of us who remember the role Biden played in the Hill/ Thomas hearings and were/are furious about the outcome have mentioned this from time to time. I'd like to think good old Joe might feel mighty poorly about how he conducted himself back then. However, if we held politician's feet to the fire for every bloody mistake they once made there would be few that would ever make the "clean as a whistle" grade. Forgiveness happens.

I will be on the road tomorrow going up to Bernie Sander's territory–-Vermont and N.H. for most of next week visiting old friends who are into politics as much as we are so should be some good discussions. I'll take notes.

October 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
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