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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Monday
Oct032011

The Commentariat -- October 4

Today's Off Times Square asks, "Should the federal government be irrelevant?"

Yes. -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, in response to a reporter's question, "The $447 billion jobs package as a package: dead?" ...

... Republican Bruce Bartlett in the New York Times: "People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them. The G.O.P. opposes additional government spending for jobs programs and, in fact, favors big cuts in spending that would be likely to lead to further layoffs at all levels of government. Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but" these have no stimulative effect. So Republicans have embraced "the idea that government regulation is the principal factor holding back employment.... No hard evidence is offered for this claim; it is simply asserted as self-evident.... Regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that ... is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment."

Prof. Lawrence Lessig in a Bloomberg News opinion piece, suggests a complicated campaign finance reform law. CW: generally speaking, Lessig has a lot to say about campaign finance reform & has encouraged formation of a Constitutional Convention to get to the heart of it -- here, for instance). For me, here's the main takeaway from Lessig's column, which is adapted from a forthcoming book:

The threat to the republic is an economy of influence that draws our democracy away from the will of the people. Congress has allowed an engine of influence to evolve that seeks simply to enrich those connected to it. The rich secure their wealth through the manipulation of government and politicians.

Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York Times: "E-mails released Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the environmental group Friends of the Earth paint a picture of a sometimes warm and collaborative relationship between the lobbyist for the pipeline company, Trans-Canada, and officials in the State Department, the agency responsible for evaluating and approving the billion-dollar project. The exchanges provide a rare glimpse into how Washington works and the access familiarity can bring." ...

... Bill McKibben, in a New York Times op-ed: E-mails obtained via an FIOA request show that in the Obama/Clinton State Department, cronyism has been far more important than professional expertise in "evaluating" the TransCanada project, the Keystone XL pipeline that will carry tar sands from Canada across the center of the continent. Oh yeah, and so much for President Obama's vow of transparency.

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Bank of America announced last week that it will soon start charging most of its customers $5 per month for using their debit card — a move intended to recoup the revenue that the bank will lose under new federal regulations that went into effect Oct. 1. Those rules, authored by [Sen. Dick] Durbin [D-Ill.], capped the amount of swipe fees — what banks can charge retailers for processing debit cards. Other banks are likely to follow Bank of America’s lead.... Over the past few days, critics of the Durbin amendment blamed the Illinois Democrat for the debit fee hike. The Chicago Tribune, in an Oct. 1 editorial, dubbed the new charge the 'Durbin Fee' and blasted the senator for pushing the swipe fee change." Here's Durbin's response, from the Senate floor:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times interviews retired Justice John Paul Stevens, who has written a book on five Chief Justices under whom he served in one capacity or another.

John Mayard Keynes speaks, & Krugman hears him, seemingly for the first time:

There Are No Fat Women in Politics. Ruth Marcus: "Sure, [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie’s weight will be a topic if he decides to run. If he were a woman, though, it would have been the end of the discussion. That’s not a complaint, just a simple observation of reality when it comes to gender politics."

Right Wing World *

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "As Texas Gov. Rick Perry deals with the fallout from the revelation that his family leases a hunting camp called 'Niggerhead,' Herman Cain is facing his own backlash — for suggesting that the Perrys' conduct was 'insensitive.' ... You might have anticipated that Perry would face a firestorm for being associated with the property [CW: yes, you might], but it's Cain whose remarks are drawing the most criticism from the right." ...

... Dan Amira of New York Magazine: "So among Republicans, the widespread response to the Post story was ... 'the liberal media is smearing another Republican as a racist!' It's in this context that the backlash has occurred. Cain wasn't expressing reasonable grievances — he was 'piling on' and legitimizing a sleazy political attack.... Ladies and gentlemen, your modern-day GOP." Amira reproduces some tweets from prominent wingers.

L.A. Times reporter Michael Hiltzik, in a Washington Post op-ed: Rick Perry's campaign & his book Fed Up! center around attacks on the New Deal. But he repeatedly "employ[s] misconception, misrepresentation and misquotation" to make his points.

Keach Hagey of Politico: after Hank Williams, Jr., compared President Obama to Hitler on a Fox "News" segment, ESPN had the good sense to cut Williams' famous musical intro from its "Monday Night Football" broadcast. Thanks to Doug R. for the link.

* Uh, where black is white & white is black??

News Ledes

New York Times: "Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., who transformed the company his father founded in 1923 into an international leader in market research, helping to make its name synonymous with television ratings, died on Monday in Winnetka, Ill., where he lived most of his life. He was 92."

New York Times: "Months of wrangling at the Security Council over a resolution condemning Syria failed on Tuesday after Russia and China vetoed a resolution that contained a weak reference to the possibility of sanctions against Damascus."

AP: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly warned Congress on Tuesday of what most of America has sensed for some time: The economic recovery, such as it is, 'is close to faltering.'" ...

... AP: "Stocks made up much of their morning losses Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is prepared to take more steps to stimulate the economy. The pullback left the S&P 500 index down 20 percent from its April peak, a drop that is widely considered the start of a bear market."

President Obama spoke about the American Jobs Act in Dallas Mesquite, Texas, this afternoon.

TPM: "Seeking to consolidate party support for President Obama's jobs bill, Senate Democrats are considering a proposal to impose a five percent surtax on millionaires to pay for the legislation, according to two party aides."

New York Times: "With limited discussion and zero fanfare, the House on Tuesday approved and sent to President Obama a measure to keep the government operating through mid-November, ending for now the threat of any shutdown. By a vote of 352 to 66, the House approved the measure, passed by the Senate just a week ago, closing another anguished chapter in the fiscal war between Republicans and Democrats that continues to dominate Congress."

New York Times: "After a kinetic month in which some of the biggest names in American industry and Republican politics urged him to run for president, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey spent a quiet weekend at home, coming to a sobering conclusion on Tuesday: 'Now is not my time.'”

AP: "Stocks slid again Tuesday as Europe’s debt crisis showed few signs of being solved any time soon and officials said Greece will have to wait until November to get its hands on much-needed bailout cash."

AP: "Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their studies of exploding stars that revealed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating." American Saul Perlmutter will "share the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award with U.S.-Australian Brian Schmidt and U.S. scientist Adam Riess."

New York Times: "House Republicans are laying the groundwork for another battle with President Obama over spending and domestic policy with a bill that would cut some of his favorite health and education programs, tie the hands of the National Labor Relations Board and eliminate federal grants for Planned Parenthood clinics."

AP: "Protests against Wall Street entered their 18th day Tuesday as demonstrators across the country showed their anger over the wobbly economy and what they see as corporate greed by marching on Federal Reserve banks and camping out in parks from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine." Washington Post story here.

Democracy Now!: "A final settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit challenging the police crackdown on journalists reporting on the 2008 Republican National Convention and protests in St. Paul, Minnesota. Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman, along with former producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous ... were among dozens of journalists arrested that week in St. Paul. The settlement includes $100,000 in compensation paid by the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments and the Secret Service."

AP: "The owners of two Southern California firms were among 55 people indicted by a federal grand jury in a $250 million income-tax fraud scheme claiming refunds were available through a secret government account, prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service said Monday.... Hundreds of false tax returns were filed with the IRS seeking refunds. Refund checks for $5 million went out in error, IRS Special Agent Felicia McCain said Monday."

AP: "To the dismay of consumer groups and the discomfort of Democrats, President Barack Obama wants Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to call the cellphones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other billions owed the federal government." CW: oh, debt collectors have lobbyists, too.

New York Times: "Elizabeth Warren ... will face off against her lesser-known Democratic opponents Tuesday in a debate that will be an important early test of her skills as a candidate." Boston Herald: "The Democratic candidates for U. S. Senate debate is scheduled for 7 tonight, at Durgin Hall on the UMass — Lowell campus. The debate is free and open to the public."

AP: "Palestinian officials said Monday that the U.S. has suspended West Bank development projects worth tens of millions of dollars after Congress froze funding to dissuade the Palestinians from seeking U.N. recognition of an independent state. It's the first concrete sign of repercussions for the Palestinians' decision to defy Washington on the issue."

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