The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Thursday
Oct272011

The Commentariat -- October 28

Tim Egan: boomer parents don't know what to tell their jobless millennial kids. "For all the efforts to raise hyper-achievers, we didn’t teach enough of a basic survival skill — to find joy in simple things not connected to a grade, a trophy or a job." ...

     ... I've posted a comments page on Egan's column on Off Times Square.

... OR the Kids Could Incorporate. Andy Borowitz: "... for a limited time, we are offering every man, woman and child in this country a chance to incorporate and become a card-carrying member of Corporation of American Corporations (CAC™). As a newly-formed corporation, you’ll immediately reap the benefits that such other CAC™ members as the Koch Brothers enjoy, such as:

–  Exemption from Federal, State and local taxes
–  Freedom to despoil America’s air, water, and birdlife
–  Exclusive opportunities to sell weapons to Iran

... AND How to Be a One Percenter. George Zornick of The Nation: First, get rich (see Borowitz above). Then buy Congress & the President, making sure the President picks judges & justices who will rule in your favor. Zornick cites recent cases decided & laws passed designed to help the rich and hurt everybody else: Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion protected big business from class action suits, the patent law protected big business from mom-and-pop inventors and the free trade agreements "are designed to depresses the wages of ordinary workers." President Obama promoted passage of these bills & signed them into law. ...

** Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Three decades of trickle-down economic theory, see-no-evil deregulation and tax-cutting fervor have led to massive [upward] redistribution [of wealth]. Another word for what’s been happening might be theft.... The system is rigged. Wealthy individuals and corporations have disproportionate influence over public policy because of the often decisive role that money plays in elections.... The real issue is what kind of nation we want to be. Thomas Jefferson’s 'All men are created equal' is properly understood as calling for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. But ... as [economic] polarization increases, mobility declines." ...

... Tax Me! Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal: "A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more)  support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners." ...

... AND if you'd like to know what a true blue-blooded blue-nose thinks of Wall Street (with which he is intimately familiar) and Occupy Wall Street, former Bush I Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, in a Washington Post op-ed, says tut-tut to everyone. Welcome to the drawing room, my dears, where we will commiserate together about this deplorable state of affairs.

... Jesse McKinley & Malia Wollan of the New York Times: "For supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement..., the wounding of an Iraq war veteran [in Oakland, California] has provided a powerful central rallying point. The veteran, Scott Olsen, 24, was critically injured on Tuesday night when he was hit in the head with a projectile thrown or shot by law enforcement officers combating protesters.... Mr. Olsen, who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine, suffered a fractured skull.... On Thursday night, camps in several major cities — including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia — were expected to participate in a vigil for Mr. Olsen, according to Iraq Veterans Against the War, of which he is a member." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, to the baffled punditocracy: "What the movement clearly doesn’t want is to have to explain itself through corporate television.... It takes a walloping amount of willful cluelessness to look at a mass of people holding up signs and claim that they have no message.... Mark your calendars: The corporate media died when it announced it was too sophisticated to understand simple declarative sentences. While the mainstream media expresses puzzlement and fear at these incomprehensible 'protesters' with their oddly well-worded 'signs,' the rest of us see our own concerns reflected back at us and understand perfectly." ...

Occupy Congress:

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Rarely has the disparity between [President] Obama’s sweeping foreign policy accomplishments and cramped domestic agenda been so stark — vivid evidence of a president hemmed in by a hostile Congress and a penurious fiscal climate, but still left with some powerful levers to pull as the nation’s chief executive." ...

... Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein in The New Republic: contra David Brooks' "friendly advice" to President Obama to play nice with Republicans in pursuit of a "Grand (Deficit Reduction) Bargain, "... if there is any hope of achieving bipartisan policy success, it will come from Republicans believing that blocking the president’s initiatives or offers will cause them political harm. Mitch McConnell admitted as much when he acceded to a deal on the debt limit — not because it would avert economic chaos, not because a conciliatory president offered it to him, but because, in his own words, the failure to do so would damage 'the Republican brand.' In other words, Obama’s new approach of turning up the heat — by calling out Republicans for their obstruction and their opposition even to ideas they have previously embraced, like a continuing payroll tax cut — actually has more chance of achieving the policy outcomes Brooks wants than his conciliatory approach. Obama, at the center of today’s political spectrum, should therefore be explicit and forceful in communicating the stark differences between the parties and the source of inaction and gridlock in Washington. To do anything less would be a disservice to the public, his party, and his hopes for a constructive and consequential presidency."

... Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid." ...

     ... Ben Smith: "... it's worth noting this is part of another trend...: the normalization of the Obama campaign into Democratic politics. Of course figures like David Cohen, Ed Rendell's former chief of staff, now at Comcast, and Andy Spahn, a Hollywood Democratic fixer, are bundling for Obama. It's what they do. And while influence is part of the picture, this shouldn't be mistaken for regular lobbying; it's simply a feature of the Democratic money establishment, one that supported Hillary Clinton in 2008 and has now for the most part united, without a second thought, around the Democratic president."

... Sam Youngman of The Hill: "A number of White House officials, sensing momentum on their side, blasted Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail, mocking recent measures and Congress's 9 percent approval rating."

Leslie Gelb in the Daily Beast: center-left liberals "are ... practically the only ones today who are asking the essential policy questions — about domestic versus international priorities, the utility of land wars in inhospitable countries, the role negotiations need to play with adversaries.... Republicans and neoconservatives are attacking Obama for withdrawing all American troops from Iraq in two months and accusing him of giving the store to Iran. Forgotten is the carnal fact that the Baghdad government said 'Get out!' and that Iraqi and President George W. Bush’s officials signed an agreement three years ago mandating full withdrawal. The Republicans and neoconservatives didn’t say a word of criticism about that deal.... For decades now, the right has more or less called the national security shots.... But the liberals and lefties are leading the charge on reviewing fundamentals.... Give them a hearing."

Felix Salmon of Reuters: Federal Judge "Jed Rakoff has been a hero for a while now, but his questions for the SEC with respect to its Citigroup settlement are truly great even by his standards. Salmon lists them all. Read 'em. And ask yourself why other judges have not held the SEC's feet to the fire like this.

Déjà Vu All Over Again. Mike Lillis of The Hill: "Liberals on and off Capitol Hill agonized Thursday that supercommittee Democrats had bungled early negotiations over a budget deal and put their party in a position to be bested again by Republicans. By proposing significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid as an early offering, liberals said the panel Democrats weakened their party’s negotiating position as Republicans, who have ceded no ground on their central anti-tax message, sat back and watched."

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "In an effort to expand broadband Internet service, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved an overhaul of its fund that subsidizes rural telephone service, turning it into one meant to offer broadband service to the millions of Americans who lack high-speed connections. Calling its plans “the most significant policy step ever taken to connect Americans to high-speed Internet,” the commission voted unanimously to approve the revamped Universal Service Fund, which includes a $4.5 billion annual budget cap for its main Internet component, the Connect America Fund." Oh, and your phone bill is likely to go up.

Paul Krugman is in Iceland: "Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. Where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors, Iceland imposed temporary controls on the movement of capital to give itself room to maneuver.... Iceland hasn’t avoided major economic damage or a significant drop in living standards. But it has managed to limit both the rise in unemployment and the suffering of the most vulnerable; the social safety net has survived intact, as has the basic decency of its society." ...

... New York Times Editors: "Europe’s leaders did better than expected, but expectations were low to start.... Europe is still only grappling with the financial symptoms of the crisis, not the underlying causes.... None of these gyrations [leaders are taking] would be necessary if the European Central Bank was authorized to act as a lender of last resort. Without that, and a turn away from austerity to growth, Europe’s crisis will continue and continue to threaten the American economy and the global recovery."

Once again, libertarian Dave Weigel of Slate defends Elizabeth Warren against Massachusetts GOP lies from their "whopper factory."

Right Wing World

Steve Benen: Speaker John Boehner has "great concerns" about President Obama's exceeding his Constitutional authority by creating a few jobs, when Boehner's little friends in Congress will do nothing of the kind. But, funny, Boehner was thrilled when former President Bush used his executive authority to do business normally reserved for Congress.

A few reasons to like Mitt Romney 2002: pro-choice, pro-minimum wage, pro-gun control. Ten years later -- a different guy. Via Ben Smith.

Immigration Has Brought out the Worst in Romney & Perry. Conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson: "Romney, Perry and the others are, unfortunately, reflecting current Republican sentiments. Legitimate concerns — including overwhelmed public services in some communities — and high unemployment have combined to heighten resentment against illegal immigration.... The cynical accommodation of anger encourages serious division in a permanently diverse country. It is primarily the fault of politicians when the immigration debate turns ugly.... On issues of Hispanic concern, Obama’s lip service has been deafening."

Creepy AND Weird. Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "Walid Phares, the recently announced co-chair of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Middle East advisory group, has a long résumé. College professor. Author. Political pundit. Counterterrorism expert. But there's one chapter of his life that you won't find on his CV: He was a high ranking political official in a sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during Lebanon's brutal, 15-year civil war."

Jay Newton-Small of Time is not counting Rick Perry out, tho his GOP poll numbers are as low as 6 percent. But she does outline some of the ways his presidential campaign was, well, massively unprepared: "It wasn't just poor debate performances.... The campaign ... neglected to prepare a robust policy platform. Perry's energy speech was taken virtually whole cloth from an oil company lobbyist group's website. His economic plan remained unfinished just days before he was scheduled to give a speech on it and, according to two sources close to the campaign, Perry himself hadn't been briefed on the proposal on the Sunday before the big roll-out, an assertion [the campaign] denies." ...

... Jason Embry of the Statesman: but, really, the Perry campaign's worst problem is -- Rick Perry.

* Where it's bold leadership if I do it, unconstitutional if you do it.

News Ledes

AP: "A Taliban suicide bomber rammed a vehicle loaded with explosives into an armored NATO bus Saturday on a busy thoroughfare in Kabul, killing 17 people, including a dozen Americans, in the deadliest strike against the U.S.-led coalition in the Afghan capital since the war began."

Guardian: "Up to 40 people have been killed after Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters following Friday afternoon prayers, according to activists."

New York Times: "A federal judge in Washington has granted final approval for a $1.25 billion settlement by the Agriculture Department for  African-American farmers’ longstanding claims of racial discrimination. The Thursday decision by the judge, Paul L. Friedman, was expected and gives about 40,000 plaintiffs a second chance to have their complaints heard by a court-appointed neutral party."

AP (via NYT): "On the defensive over a half-billion-dollar loan to a now-bankrupt solar company, the White House on Friday ordered an independent review of similar loans made by the Energy Department, its latest response to rising criticism over Solyndra Inc."

Guardian: "Muammar Gaddafi's fugitive son Saif al-Islam has been in contact with the international criminal court in the Hague about surrendering to face charges of inciting the murder of thousands of Libyans."

ABC News: "A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters coordinated a march in mid-town Manhattan today, delivering 6,000 'angry letters' to five major banks. Before the march, the group, Occupy the Board Room,  invited people to submit letters online to Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. Today, the group delivered printed letters to the doors of the bank headquarters." ...

... Reuters: "Anti-Wall Street protesters' plans to camp in a New York park throughout the city's harsh winter were dealt a blow on Friday when the fire department confiscated six generators and about a dozen cans of fuel. With the first snow forecast to fall on Saturday, the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement against economic inequality lost the generators that had been powering heat, computers and a kitchen in the Lower Manhattan camp they set up six weeks ago." ...

... Los Angeles Times: "Occupy San Diego protesters vowed Friday to return to the civic plaza behind City Hall despite being ousted and their tents removed by a massive police sweep hours earlier. Police arrested 51 people at the plaza and at Children's Park in the nearby Gaslamp Quarter, most on suspicion of illegal lodging, encroachment and resisting." ...

... New York Daily News: "Tennessee state troopers cleared out Wall Street protesters from the state Capitol grounds early Friday because they didn't have the resources to 'babysit' the overnight encampment.... Commissioner Bill Gibbons said Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's office approved the pre-dawn roundup of protesters for refusing to comply with a new overnight curfew and permit requirements.... Twenty-nine people were arrested, but a night judge refused to sign their warrants because the policy had only been in effect since the previous afternoon." ...

... San Francisco Chronicle: "Occupy Oakland protesters moved Thursday to reclaim the battleground plaza outside City Hall, pitching two dozen tents and canopies just two days after police dismantled an elaborate encampment over sanitary and security concerns." ...

... Oakland Tribune: "Oakland Mayor Jean Quan shifted into damage control Thursday, asking hospitalized protester Scott Olsen and other Occupy Oakland demonstrators to cooperate with police investigating Olsen's head injury. Quan visited Olsen, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, on Thursday morning at Highland Hospital." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who was seriously injured by a police projectile during a protest in Oakland, has regained consciousness but 'cannot talk'. Olsen, 24, is communicating with friends and family at his bedside by writing notes, but his injury is believed to have damaged the speech centre of his brain, according to Keith Shannon, who served with Olsen in Iraq."

AP: "Pushing a campaign to act without Congress, President Barack Obama will announce on Friday two more executive actions on the economy, both of them small steps intended to give a boost to businesses. The moves cap a week in which Obama has sought to employ the power of his office as he struggles to make headway on his jobs bill on Capitol Hill." ...

... AP: "Appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. plans to cut 5,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its workforce in North America and Europe, as it faces soft demand and higher costs for materials. The world's biggest appliance maker also on Friday cut its 2011 earnings outlook drastically and reported third-quarter results that missed expectations...."

Guardian: "Libya's interim government says it will prosecute anyone found responsible for the death of Muammar Gaddafi after his capture, in a retreat from its earlier insistence that the dictator had been killed by crossfire." ...

... AP: "NATO has announced it will end its air campaign over Libya next Monday, following the decision of the U.N. Security Council to lift the no-fly zone and end military action to protect civilians. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Friday that the operation was "one of the most successful in NATO history," one which was able to wind down quickly following the death of former Libyan leader, Moammar Gadhafi."

Guardian: The 16 Commonwealth Nations of the Queen's realms have agreed to change the royal order of succession to be gender-neutral. "An elder daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would become Queen. The changes ... will also lift the ban on anyone in the line of succession marrying a Catholic...."

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