The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

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The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.'”

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The Commentariat -- Sept. 2, 2014

Internal links removed.

** Your Think Piece for Today. Timothy Stanley & Alexander Lee in the Atlantic: "Twenty-five years ago this summer, Francis Fukuyama announced the 'end of history' and the inevitable triumph of liberal capitalist democracy.... Today, it's hard to imagine Fukuyama being more wrong.... If the liberty of each person is to be maintained and maximized, the principles of equity and the common good must be embedded in the structure of society. And since society is structured above all by law, the law must reflect these precepts." Read the whole essay. Stanley & Lee provide, among more important concepts, a good example of why I think Hillary Clinton is so yesterday.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
OMG Edition

Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Washington Post owner Jeffrey P. Bezos is replacing Publisher Katharine Weymouth with Frederick J. Ryan Jr., a former Reagan administration official who was part of the founding leadership team of Politico, a primarily digital news organization that competes with The Post on political coverage, the company announced Tuesday. The departure of Weymouth, 48, ends eight decades of Graham family leadership of The Post, which her great-grandfather bought in 1933."

If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks. -- Russian President Vladimir Putin to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso, via La Repubblica ...

... Julie Davis & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "As Ukrainian leaders warned on Monday of 'a great war' with Russia, NATO leaders meeting in Wales this week were expected to endorse their most concrete response yet to increased Russian military intervention in Ukraine: establishing a rapid-reaction force capable of deploying quickly to Eastern Europe, officials of the alliance said.... The agreement is planned as the substantive centerpiece of the NATO meeting, which will take place Thursday and Friday and will be attended by President Obama...."

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "... wealthy political contributors have more access than ever to candidates since the ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. More than 300 donors have seized the opportunity, writing checks at such a furious pace that they have exceeded the old limit of $123,200 for this election cycle, according to campaign finance data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization." (Link missing.)

Cantor to Become Vulture Capitalist. Fred Barbash of the Washington Post: "Former House majority leader Eric Cantor is joining a Wall Street investment bank as vice-chairman and managing director, the firm announced this morning. The firm, Moelis & Co., said Cantor will be based in the New York office of the global company and will soon open an office in Washington. Moelis, with 500 employees, is known as fast-growing 'boutique' firm that advises companies and investors on mergers, acquisitions and risk."

Tom Bergin of Reuters: "A Reuters analysis of Burger King's regulatory filings in the U.S. and overseas, which was also reviewed by accounting experts, shows that it has been making major efforts to reduce its U.S. tax bill for some time. By massaging down U.S. taxable profits while maximizing the profits it reports in low-tax jurisdictions overseas, Burger King is able to operate one of the most tax-efficient businesses in the U.S. fast-food industry."

Caitlin Rathe of Salon on the history of the food stamp (SNAP) program -- a program pushed by U.S. grocers. CW: And yes, it continues to appall me that the biggest beneficiaries of social welfare programs are the Richest People in the World -- the Waltons, who benefit not only from the low wages paid by other businesses but also doubly benefit from the low wages WalMart itself pays. Thanks to Haley S. for the link.

Guantánamo Forever. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Although President Obama pledged last year to revive his efforts to close Guantánamo, his administration has managed to free just one low-level prisoner this year, leaving 79 who are approved for transfer to other countries. It has also not persuaded Congress to lift its ban on moving the remaining 70 higher-level detainees to a prison inside the United States."

As MAG noted in yesterday's Comments, Charles Pierce composed "a rollicking wicked read" on the sorry anachronisms that are the Village People's Gossip for Geezers Shows:

... on Labor Day weekend, with income equality on the rise, and with wages stagnant for decades, and the rate of unemployment officially normalized somewhere in the teens, and with all the roads full of holes and the bridges falling down, on the shows that a dead president once thought were highly influential, on which ISIS and Ukraine and Kirsten Gillibrand's book and the nine-year old with the UZI and the fundamental greatness of my man Chuck Todd were all considered worthy of discussion, there was not a single mention of an American worker because, I guess, rap music. Shazam.

... CW: For all the grandeur of its public buildings & its National Mall of the people, the Beltway encircles a smug, self-segregated community where the actual people who built the place are not only unwelcome but also not worth mentioning. Every couple of years we do get a virtual mention in "polling data," & I'm sure Chuck Todd will do a rootin'-tootin' job of describing us as data points. You have Andrea Mitchell's word on that.

Beyond the Beltway

Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "On Tuesday, in a federal courtroom in Corpus Christi, Tex., Justice Department lawyers will try to persuade a judge to strike down the [Texas] voter ID law, the latest skirmish in a three-year legal battle over whether the law passed by the Republican-led Legislature in 2011 discriminates against blacks and Hispanics. If Texas loses the trial -- which opens Tuesday and will last about two weeks -- it could again be required to seek federal approval before making changes to its voting procedures, a level of oversight it was freed from by the United States Supreme Court."

James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times: "Leading a Labor Day rally at a park in South Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed on Monday creating a minimum wage in Los Angeles that would reach $13.25 after three years. Garcetti was backed by billionaire businessman Eli Broad, County Federation of Labor chief Maria Elena Durazo and seven members of the City Council, who will have to approve the increase." ...

... Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "America's fast food workers are planning their biggest strike to date this Thursday, with a nationwide walkout in protest at low wages and poor healthcare. The strike is the latest in a series of increasingly heated confrontations between fast food firms and their workers. Pressure is also mounting on McDonald's, the largest fast food company, over its relations with its workers and franchisees." ...

... Annie Lowrey of New York: "Connecticut has somehow managed to become both the richest and worst economy in America. And what's worse, America has started to look more and more like Connecticut.... Of late, its economy has expanded more slowly than that of any other state. It has the worst job creation record of any state, too, supporting fewer paying positions in 2010 than it did in 1990."

Steve Benen: "After [Texas Gov. Rick Perry] deployed National Guard troops for no particular reason, some of those troops reportedly reached out to a local food bank because the state hadn't fully planned for their deployment.... On Thursday, news accounts quoted a local food bank's executive director saying, 'We were contacted that 50 troops that are in the Valley don't have any money for food and gas and they need our assistance.' Apparently, the Guard troops were sent to the border on August 11, but weren't scheduled to be paid until September 5, and some needed local charity to bridge the gap." Texas officials are denying that any troops sought charitable assistance. CW: I suppose that food bank person is just another liberal liar making up stuff to make Rick Perry look idiotic.

There's Something Wrong with the Georgia GOP. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Over the past week there's been something of a brouhaha surrounding a journalist being forcibly removed from a local Republican event in Georgia. The journalist was Nydia Tisdale, who went to Burt's Farm in Dawsonville, Georgia, to record video of speeches by David Perdue, the state's GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, as well as Gov. Nathan Deal (R) and others. Tisdale runs the website AboutForsyth.com." The Republican party advertised the event on Facebook, inviting the public to attend the rally. The speakers were public officials &/or were running for public office. The event was held on private property, & Tisdale claims that one of the propertyowners gave her permission to tape. That's all she was doing. She was not heckling, holding a sign or otherwise protesting or showing disrespect for the proceedings. Others attending the event also were recording it....

     ... Jim Galloway's Atlanta Journal-Constitution report is here. An earlier report, by Galloway & Greg Bluestein is here. The sheriff's deputy who made the arrest was not on duty at the time. You can see in the picture he's strapped with a gun, but is wearing street clothes. His shirt has the logo of the Dawson County Sheriff's Department on it. The sheriff, who cleared the officer of wrongdoing, said the officer also was wearing a badge. ...

     ... Everything Is Obama's Fault. Here the top of the lead comment on the story posted by Brian Pritchard of FetchYourNews.com. Pritchard, who attended -- and recorded -- the event, broke the story of Tisdale's arrest. "What a disturbing story. Are we still citizens of the United States or has Obama succeeded in leading us down the path of a socialist society where individual freedom is no longer valued?"

Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel: "Two friends were injured Sunday afternoon at Shoot Straight, a Casselberry[, Florida,] gun range, when one tried to unjam a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and wound up shooting himself in the finger and his friend in the thigh, police reported.... Several witnesses saw what happened and one described it as 'just a case of stupidity.'" ...

... According to this 2012 MinnPost story, "Nonfatal gun injuries occur at the average rate of 20 a day in the United States -- and that doesn't include pellet-gun injuries (which average 45 day) or injuries that don't involve a bullet wound (like powder burns and recoil injuries)." Whaddaya bet most of them are "just cases of stupidity"? ...

... ALSO from the report: "If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that having a gun in your house reduces your risk of being a victim of a crime. Nor does it reduce your risk of being injured during a home break-in." In other words, statistically, gun ownership is a lose-lose situation.

Michael Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "Two online fundraising pages that raised more than $400,000 for the police officer who killed an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., were shut down this weekend so tax lawyers could decide how best to handle the money, an official told the Los Angeles Times." However, it appears the story is more complicated than that. CW: Also, too -- the site can't continue to collect funds at the same time its purported lawyers decide how to distribute them?

Gubernatorial Races

Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Sun-Times: "... supporters of Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner ... are quietly working to ensure that no third-party candidate has the chance to tilt the outcome in a tight election." Gun-toting private investigators have intimidated at least one signer of a Libertarian ballot petition & one petitioner." CW: So, not so "quietly working." ...

... Dan Mihalopoulos: "Public records show there are strong ties between [GOP gubernatrial candidate Bruce] Rauner and those involved in the effort to knock the Libertarians off the ballot." Rauner's campaign & another Rauner-backed political campaign have paid $53,000 to the law firm that hired the pistol-packing PIs. "Rauner personally contributed $6,500 to" a Republican group headed by the owner of the PI firm. "A notary for the effort to knock the Libertarians off the ballot, Morgan Kreitner, is a salaried employee of the Rauner campaign." Thanks to Haley S. for the leads.

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will probably cruise to re-election victory in November, but nobody much likes Mario's boy.

Presidential Race

Patrick Svitek of the Houston Chronicle: "A tweet mischaracterizing Gov. Rick Perry's indictment was sent Sunday evening from his personal account, setting the social network abuzz and leaving his critics fuming. An hour later, the message was deleted, with his account calling it 'unauthorized.' ... The original tweet ... included a graphic mocking Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg.... The text on top of the graphic read: 'I DON'T ALWAYS DRIVE DRUNK AT 3X THE LEGAL BLOOD ALCOHOL LIMIT ... BUT WHEN I DO, I INDICT GOV. PERRY FOR CALLING ME OUT ABOUT IT. I AM THE MOST DRUNK DEMOCRAT IN TEXAS.' Lehmberg did not indict Perry. She and other officials in solidly Democratic Travis County recused themselves.... Although the tweet came from Perry's personal account -- as opposed to the ones run by his staff -- it was unclear Sunday evening whether he actually sent it out." CW: How does he think he can run the country when he can't even manage his own Twitter account?

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: After making a series of gaffes in which he showed his ignorance of foreign affairs, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going to Mexico this week to show he's a "global guy." CW: I'm looking forward to seeing him insult all of Central America, not just Mexico.

News Ledes

New York Times: "With NATO leaders expected to endorse a rapid-reaction force of 4,000 troops for Eastern Europe this week, a senior Russian military official said on Tuesday that Moscow would revise its military doctrine to account for 'changing military dangers and military threats.'"

Guardian: "Syrian rebels have issued three demands for the release of 45 Fijian peacekeepers they've held captive for five days, Fiji's military commander has said. Brig Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga said the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front wants to be taken off the United Nations terrorist list, humanitarian aid delivered to the capital Damascus, and compensation for three of its fighters it says were killed in a shootout with UN officers."

AP: "U.S. military forces attacked the extremist al-Shabab network in Somalia Monday, the Pentagon said, and a witness described ground-shaking explosions in a strike that reportedly targeted the group's leader. Al-Shabab had attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people a year ago this month and the U.S. had targeted planners of the bloody assault."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (13)

Reports of fatal accidents at gun (de)ranges make me hanker for the good 'ole days when dumb kids (yes, I include myself) levered their Daisys and took a shot at another idiot kid firing at us from fifty feet away--what we judged to be a safe gun range for our BB wars-- this despite multiple, unheeded warnings from adults, who were much smarter than we were and apparently light years smarter than the current crop of gun enthusiasts, that we could "put out someone's eye."

If only we'd had automatic weapons. I don't think my parents would have known how the phrase their warning. Those simple folk were worried only about eyes.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Mirabile dictu! Even Wyoming is taking steps (albeit small ones) toward Medicaid expansion under the ACA. This is a state that went 70% for Romney, where the residents have "great distrust" for the Federal government (especially this administration - wonder why?).
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/wyoming-medicaid-expansion-obamacare-why-wy

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

So Eric Cantor is going to work for Wall Street, eh?

Wait. Wasn't he already working for Wall Street? He sure as shit wasn't working for the American public.

Do you think I could get a job in a Wall St. investment firm with no background or experience in mergers and acquisitions? Probably not unless I was experienced, like Cantor, merging and acquiring members of congress.

Well, at least it's official now. He doesn't have to take money from Moelis or any other company under the table or through "campaign contributions". He can get a check (a very big one, apparently) direct deposited, from Wall Street, with love.

I always thought that one of Cantor's problems was that he didn't have a nickname. You know, like Mafia guys have. The Hammer, or the Velvet Hammer (James Baker, known mostly for helping Bush steal the presidency in Florida), or Goodhair, or Mittens (I don't think Mitty responds to my nickname for him), or The Decider or Darth Cheney. But then I looked it up. It appears that he did have a nickname when he was an up and coming Visigoth (or maybe an Ostrogoth) in the Virginia state senate, claw-hammering anyone in his way.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dug it up:

“True to his roots, he got the nickname ‘Overdog’ for his unflinching support of big corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the middle class,”

And, appropriately, the Overdog is now kenneled on Wall Street with all the cutthroat canines.

Here Eric, fetch. Good boy.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

They sure have a funny way of demonstrating Southern Hospitality in Georgia, especially Georgia Republicans.

"Welcome. Glad you could come. If you don't do what we say when we pick you out of a crowd of people taking pictures and videos, we will assault you, push you to the ground, relieve you of your property, and throw you into jail, and we don't care if you have permission. We just revoked it. Don't you know this is a Republican event and we don't allow no strangers to record what we say, because it might be used against us. Look at what happened to that Romney fella."

On one of the sites Marie links, fetchyournews.com, you can see in a series of images, Nydia Tisdale being physically assaulted by an off-duty dickhead deputy while all the manly Republican men stand around watching this woman being grabbed, dragged into a barn and shoved to the ground for no reason other than that she was a reporter. That, by the way, was Obama's fault, as one helpful wingnut commenter on the site reminds everyone. I guess he was off in the bushes using his Jedi mind tricks on that fool of a deputy.

The Georgia Attorney General, Sam Olens, was in attendance and to his credit, he denounced what had just happened. Not very creditably, he did nothing, like all the other Law and Order wingers in attendance, to stop it. I don't know for sure how it works in Georgia, maybe Barbarossa can help with this one, but it's always been my understanding that an Attorney General is the top law enforcement officer in his or her state. That being the case, I'm pretty sure Sam Olens could have walked over to that asshole deputy and told him to unhand that woman and chill the fuck out.

The comment about it being Obama's fault that Republicans at a Republican event, sponsored by Republicans in a blood red state like Georgia would manhandle, suppress, and jail a reporter who was there, at a public event, by invitation, and with permission, tops it off perfectly.

Assholes who blame the black guy because they're assholes.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

"I can take Kiev in two weeks."

Sounds like the drunken bully in a bar slurring out "I can lick any man in the joint."

He'd make a great Republican. Are we sure that deputy in Georgia who threw that reporter to the ground wasn't actually Putin in disguise?

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Along the lines of "I can take Kiev in two weeks," spoken by a "true leader:"

My local paper has had a steady flow of R-leaning letters lately. This morning had two, one of them wishing that President Obama would get out there and do something, anything, about ISIS. Why can't he be like Truman, who "dropped the atom bomb, ending WWII," or Reagan who "told Gorbachev where to stick it." I wish I lived in such a simple world where those tidy statements were the entirety of both the problem and the solution.

Of course, tomorrow's letter to the editor will most likely call Mr. Obama out for being a tyrant dictator.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

NiskyGuy,

Maybe Obama can challenge the ISIS caliph to an arm wrestling contest. Winner take all. But then the wingnuts would scream that he was endangering our FREEDOMS. Unlike tough guy George Bush who bombed the guilty and the innocent alike without distinction while prosecuting a war, the results of which have inspired insurgencies all across the region, turning the Fertile Crescent into the Febrile Crescent, and laying pipe for the present FREEDOM hating wha-hoos in Syria.

We make fun of these idiots for their insulation from the real world, for inhabiting a never-never land where lack of maturity is a must, but their infantile thought processes endanger everyone on the planet.

They have a lot to answer for.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I believe my response to Bruni got "flagged" and removed this morning. I always figure that compare to AK, I'm pretty mild:

About 60 years ago, television changed everything about American foreign policy.

Now, with YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, our powerlessness over the rest of the world haunts us.

In a sane world, someone would stop the crazy people who have taken over parts of Syria and Iraq. Once they were comfortable in their padded cells, someone would explain to them that while many people proclaim their belief in that theistic nonsense, few are willing to kill everyone to prove their sincerity.

However, my President understands that we do not live in a sane world. He has been candid with us, and I thank him for that. He has witnessed during the last few years the utter religious insanity that flares up like clockwork in the Arab world. He also can see that Europe is deeply embroiled in its own problems, including a spiraling recession caused by a dogmatic refusal to recognize reality and the cultural clashes that have resulted from corporate lust for cheap foreign labor.

Frank, are you really saying that America is now responsible for the behavior of everyone around the world? Before you dismiss that question, consider what sort of actions you believe should not require us to react. Here's one: How about routine pederasty and legal child rape in the culture of our ally, Afghanistan?

I suppose that the reason that prayer was invented is that sometimes you wish you could do something, but you can't.

Jack Bauer is fiction. Welcome to reality.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJack Mahoney

The ascension of Fred Ryan to Head Republican at the WaPo doesn't really bother me. The Post has been only marginally useful for years now. It became a retirement home for Bush Lie-writers and wingnut apologists and fact-free attack dogs (lookin' at you Jen), so what's one more far-right acolyte more or less.

But the publisher does make a difference. It's a definite statement of direction and intention.

What makes Fred Ryan eligible for so prestigious a Post, so to speak, and where might he intend to take the paper?

According to Jim Newell on Salon, here are just a few of Ryan's journalism bona fides. Try not to chuckle--or gasp:

"Mr. Ryan is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation and Chairman of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission...Mr. Ryan is the editor of Ronald Reagan: The Wisdom and Humor of The Great Communicator, published by Harper Collins in 1995, and Ronald Reagan: The Great Communicator, published by Harper Collins in 2001. He was Executive Producer of the highly acclaimed video of the Reagan Presidency, entitled 'The Reagan Years.'"

I think he forgot "Ronald Reagan Underwear Sniffer".

So we can all pretty much write off the Post, lest we all suffer WaPost Traumatic Stress disorders.

It's Right-Wing World all the time.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Jack,

Last night I watched a PBS program that reviewed some of the events surrounding the October Missile Crisis.

To this day, the most important thing, the one thing that saved the world from being plunged into the kind of Armageddon that the John McCains promulgate on an almost daily basis with their endless search for someone to bomb, please, anyone:

Sanity. Followed closely by common sense.

Both Kennedy and Khrushchev fought off intense pressure by their military leaders and politicians spoiling for a war, for some kind of bellicose response, regardless of the possibly calamitous consequences.

They thought about it and decided that the very real possibility of another world war, this time with nuclear weapons, was not only not worth it, but freaking insane.

So every time I hear another one of these Republican blowhards (most of them lifelong chicken hawks) screaming about Obama's need to start dropping bombs or else we'll all be pounding sand and speaking Arabic before the week is out, I think about those days in October long ago.

And by the way, if you really wanna get flagged by the Times trolls, send your comments to me first. I'll spice 'em up for you.

(Seriously, don't worry about it. Marie can tell you that long ago when we were both regular Times commenters, our stuff was tossed routinely for no apparent reason, and that was when I was being a good boy. Just think about what it would have been like had you sent a comment like that to the New Washington Post. Dude, you'd be on the Enemies List.)

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Sheesh. Talk about l'esprit de l'escalier...

One more (too) late thought about the New Washington Post and where a diehard Reagan hagiographer might take it.

Can we expect the New Post, which has gone from drifting right to spinning furiously around the edges of the Wingnut Whirlpool to begin its mission of refurbishing the credentials and reputations of the most reprehensible right-wing mountebanks, a kind of Rev. Butler's Lives of the Saints, wingnut style?

Well, okay, maybe that thought should have stayed on the staircase, but I went to bother of typing it up so, here ya go.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Former Congress critters hired by Russian gas firm to lobby American lawmakers against economic sanctions.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/02/15450/russian-bank-hires-two-former-us-senators

So while the wingers foam from their mouth about action against Putin, are they going to publicly skewer these two twits as they (in)directly lobby on the part of Putin INSIDE Washington. Sounds like it should be some kind of treasonous affair given how convoluted Putin is with his oligarchs and given the current circumstances of Putin playing Russian roulette with European stability.

But nah, when Fukuyama's cherished economic liberalism melts into hyper-individualism where Money is God, even the wingers can brush this one off because hey, they're just trying to make a buck.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered Commentersafari

"http://www.salon.com/2014/09/02/they_are_intellectually_underpowered_and_full_of_themselves_because_they’ve_been_told_their_whole_life_how_wonderful_they_are/". This is an interesting take on the privileged Ivies from one of their own. I read a lot into the political dysfunction and stratification from this particular article.

September 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCitizen625
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