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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

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.”

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The Commentariat -- Sept. 24, 2012

Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: "... the current voting rights issue is ... a coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the result of a presidential election by restricting the opportunities of members of the opposition party's constituency -- most notably blacks -- to exercise a Constitutional right. This is the worst thing that has happened to our democratic election system since the late nineteenth century, when legislatures in southern states systematically negated the voting rights blacks had won in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution." Thanks to contributor Akhilleus for the link.

Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election.... The new laws include purges of people suspected of not being citizens in 16 states that unfairly target Latinos, the civil rights group Advancement Project said in the study to be formally released on Monday."

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "The attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans has dealt the Central Intelligence Agency a major setback in its intelligence-gathering efforts at a time of increasing instability in the North African nation. Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the assault on the American mission and a nearby annex were about a dozen C.I.A. operatives and contractors, who played a crucial role in conducting surveillance and collecting information on an array of militant armed groups in and around the city."

Amy Goodnough of the New York Times: "Officials in a handful of ... Republican-led states say they are ... working to have a framework ready [for state-run health insurance exchanges] by Nov. 16, the deadline for states to commit to running an exchange [in compliance with the Affordable Care Act] or leave it to the federal government to run it for them."

Kathleen Geier of Washington Monthly: "An extremely disturbing new study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that suicides have replaced car accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. This is partly because deaths from automobile accidents are down.... But ... the suicide rate has increased dramatically: between 2000 and 2009, according to data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, deaths by suicide went up by 15%, and deaths from poisoning increased by a whopping 128%." Geier notes that suicides are underreported; she attributes the cause of the increase to the bad economy.

Presidential Race

John Broder of the New York Times: In separate "60 Minutes" interviews which aired Sunday, "the two presidential contenders carried out a shadow debate that offered a likely preview of the tone and substance of the first of their three face-to-face debates, which will be held in Denver on Oct. 3." ...

Steve Kroft interviews President Obama. You can watch the Romney interview, by Scott Pelley, here. There are brief unaired segments for both candidates here (cursor through). The full transcript begins here:

David Morgan of Reuters: "New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points." ...

John Cassidy of the New Yorker lists seven theories about why Romney is a loser. He finally concludes that Romney is a lousy politician who hasn't mastered the not-so-fine art of politicking that "most city councilmen have mastered." CW: I'd say it's something like this: people like Obama & don't hold him responsible for not entirely fixing the Bush economy. (See Bill Kristol's & Joseph Cera's remarks below.) Romney & the Missus are basically arguing that Romney is a better, smarter person than Obama, and their manner suggests that the evidence of that is the pile of money Romney made while the lowly Obamas were paying off their college loans. But most people aren't particularly impressed with "their betters" & don't fully trust somebody who made millions -- often at the expense of people like them. In addition, nobody -- including Romney -- can name one thing Romney will do to help ordinary Americans. People end up thinking, Obama hasn't helped me enough, but Romney's for the rich, so he won't help me at all.

In PolySciSpeak, Prof. Joseph Cera writes that the "Are you better off?" comparison isn't working: "Evidence is mounting that Republican efforts to frame economic retrospections leading up to and during the RNC ('Are you better off than you were four years ago?') has backfired. In the aftermath, voters do seem to be embracing 2008 as a point of economic reference. However, voters are not looking at their own pocketbooks as much as they are considering the state of the larger economy four years ago, when George W. Bush was still president and the prospect of a second great depression was staring us in the face. This sociotropic comparison was embraced by the Democrats at the DNC and in subsequent advertising." Via Greg Sargent.

Paul Krugman: "... Mr. Romney's five-point 'economic plan' is very nearly substance-free.... In his Boca Raton meeting with donors, however, Mr. Romney revealed his real plan, which is to rely on magic. 'My own view is,' he declared, 'if we win on November 6, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back, and we'll see -- without actually doing anything -- we'll actually get a boost in the economy.' Are you feeling reassured? ... Mr. Romney offered a testable proposition in his Boca remarks: 'If it looks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president's going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy.' How's that going? ... Over the past month conventional wisdom has shifted from the view that the election could easily go either way to the view that Mr. Romney is very likely to lose; yet markets are up, not down...."

[During the debates,] the president will not be able to continue to mischaracterize my pathway. I'll continue to describe mine, he will describe his, and people will make a choice. That's the great thing about democracy. -- Mitt Romney, projecting again

"I'm not going to try to fool people into thinking he believes things he doesn't," Romney said. "He's trying to fool people into thinking that I think things that I don't. And that ends at the debates."

Here's a jaw-dropper. Conservative pundit Bill Kristol says "Bush was president during the financial meltdown & Obama has turned that around pretty well." Via Think Progress:

The Obama campaign uses video of Romney's "47 percent" remarks in this ad:

Seung Min Kim of Politico: A new 30-second ad by the Romney campaign "uses an anecdote from the new Bob Woodward book 'The Price of Politics' that shows [then House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi muting President Barack Obama while he was on a speaker phone during negotiations for the economic stimulus package in the early days of Obama's term. In a statement Sunday, Pelosi ... denied that she ever muted Obama. 'As speaker and as Democratic leader, any call from the president would be treated with great formality and respect,' Pelosi said. 'There was absolutely no situation in which either President Bush or President Obama were cut off from speaking. I respect the office of the President and the office of the Speaker, including the historic nature of any communication between these two offices.' ... Woodward has stood by his reporting...." Report includes the ad.

Muzzling Missus Mitt? Omaha.com: "Ann Romney ... made an appearance Friday at an Omaha-area fundraiser for her husband. She had scheduled interviews with The World-Herald and other reporters but canceled after controversy erupted this week over her comments to a public radio station in Iowa about her husband's Republican critics." ...

... Sarah Jones of Politicus USA: "Ann Romney was supposed to be Mitt's secret weapon, but apparently that isn't working out very well."

Teddy Patridge of Firedoglake has way too much fun cataloging Mitt's gaffes of last week -- and he doesn't even include the Missus Mitt Meltdown. Partridge reminds readers, "... this is not a list of Things That Happened to Mitt This Week. This is, instead, a list of Things Team Mitt Did."

Tom Edsall in the New York Times on why Romney has given up on Pennsylvania, which he thought would be a swing state he could win.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a long piece in New York magazine on Mitt Romney's 10-year stint as the Mormon Church bishop of Boston.

John Harkinson in Mother Jones: "Mitt Romney is richer than you think." Harkinson totals up some of the Romney assets that don't get reported in financial disclosure statements, & says the Romney are worth more like $378 million, or half again as much as is usually reported.

AND Bill Clinton hints of Hillary run in 2016.

Congressional Races

Mr. Nice Guy Goes Negative. David Catanese of Politico: "... after months of warm ads showcasing [Sen. Scott Brown {R-Mass.}] as a down-to-earth family man and consensus-seeking moderate, Brown debuted a more combative strategy during the debate [last week with Democrat Elizabeth Warren]. The senator's invective toward Warren only accelerated over the weekend during numerous campaign stops."

Local News

New York Times Editors: Republicans, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal & former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, are openly working with other right-wing groups to oust David Wiggens, an able Iowa state supreme court judge who joined in a gay marriage decision several years ago. "This is a battle over the future of a fair and independent judiciary.... On Friday, the Iowa State Bar Association announced its own pro-retention 'Yes Iowa Justice Tour' that will shadow the 'No Wiggins' tour as part of a larger bar effort 'to respond to, and correct, misinformation about Iowa's judicial system.'"

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Israel is bullying the United States over the alleged threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, using the prospect of an Israeli military attack on Iran to force the hand of its much larger ally, Iran's president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] said Monday.... during an interview with American editors and reporters."

AP: "Scientists reported Sunday that they have completed a major analysis of the genetics of breast cancer, finding four major classes of the disease. They hope their work will lead to more effective treatments, perhaps with some drugs already in use."

AP: "The company that makes Apple's iPhones suspended production at a factory in China on Monday after a brawl by as many as 2,000 employees at a dormitory injured 40 people."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (13)

Bob Woodward's annoying drone plugging his book on various talk shows begins to have what one could call "the Wayward Wood effect." In the September 24 issue of The New Yorker under "Briefly Noted" you find this concluding review:

"Perhaps the familiarity of Woodward's method has begun to shape what his interlocutors tell him: recollected emotions often dovetail conveniently with talking points. Much regard is given to Eric Cantor's tender feelings; Paul Ryan is shocked by Obama's 'demagoguery.' Woodward, who has here the elements of a devastating study of Washingtonian pettiness, has instead written a book that in many ways exemplifies it."

And what's up (and that may be his problem) with Rush and his penis business? That's probably the most bizarre nonsense he's ever spouted––oh, but wait––since I never listen in I'm probably missing a whole mess of crazy from this nincompoop.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Re. The Rats tax returns for 2011. It really matters not what he files for tax returns in 2011. Amended returns can be filed up to three years later reclaiming unused deductions or correcting "mistakes" such as "foreign country-USA". For now his dwindling supporters can trumpet ' See, he pays taxes'.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterRoger Henry

Always remember that Woodward conducted an interview with a dead CIA boss named Casey. Read Woodward with a salt shaker at hand.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered Commentercarlyle

Here is information that the very important swing state of Florida has NOT stopped its voter purge, contrary to popular belief:

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/13/842661/florida-supervisors-of-elections-speak-out-against-new-voter-purge/

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

@Victoria Dahlgren. I think Scott has given up on this for the 2012 election. This AP story, filed yesterday, on disenfranchising Latinos says, "Florida stopped its effort to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls once officials realized that they were using an outdated database to check citizenship."

I sure hope I see lawyers at the polls -- as I did in 2008 -- to advocate for would-be voters who come up against poll workers withholding ballots from people for Voting While Black, or Voting While Hispanic.

Marie

September 24, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Re: Gettin' smaller by the day; Dick size. We are at a new low; hard to tell; with Limpbob; everyday is a new low. Rush claims the feminazis are responsible for the shrinking penis. The Italian study cites climate change and the retirement of Sophia Loren. Rush then goes on to say, in a weeks time they will be blaming Bush. Didn't he blame bush already?
Rush reminds me of Baby Huey the cartoon character in "Roger Rabbit" who laments that he's got, " a forty year old libido and a two year old dinkie".
Rush is one of those old fat guys that hasn't seen his dick in twenty years and without a cash payment he can't get anyone else to look at it either.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

I got my Sunday Clinton interview on Zakaria GPS. He asks better questions and I don't swear at the teevee.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

Keeping Kate's admonition in mind, "Remember the Supremes,*" this issue is obviously on the mind(s) of the other side. This morning, I received an e-mail from someone in Florida containing this warning:

"…….Besides electing a president, just keep this possibility in mind……Justice Scalia 78, Kennedy will turn 78 later this year, Beyer will be 78 in August, Ginsburg became 81 this year……….Ginsburg has pancreatic cancer and Justice Stephens plans to retire once Obama is re-elected……..if Obama should win, Eric Holder most likely be nominated, plus hundreds of other life-tenured federal judges………WHAT A POSSABILITY (sic)!!!!!! "

My reading between the lines, observes the worrisome writer's "once Obama is re-elected" — as a sign of throwing in the towel on Romney...although he then moves to "if Obama should win." Yeh. Can't quite give up the battle yet.

An aside, this individual who is concerned about Obama being re-elected... relies heavily on SS, Medicare and some VA benefits.

A good read: "What's Wrong with Pennsylvania" http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/whats-wrong-with-pennsylvania/?hp is interesting, especially in light of changing demographics-particularly in the Allentown area. Interesting to compare with views/comments expressed by those potential voters LIKELY TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN INTERESTS from yesterday's feature on Steubenville, Ohio.


P.S. *(I confess, at first I initially remembered Diana (Ross), Cindy (Birdsong) & Florence (Ballard). And, yes... I do remember THOSE Supremes rather fondly!

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Elizabeth Drew in the current issue of the NYRB on the Republican scheme to steal the election: "...it’s a coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the result of a presidential election by restricting the opportunities of members of the opposition party’s constituency—most notably blacks—to exercise a Constitutional right."

And it's all happening in broad daylight with most of the press more concerned with Emmys and i-Phones and regurgitating Mittens' latest lies.

A 10 point Obama lead in the polls will evaporate in hours once the "voting" starts. Millions will be denied the exercise of their franchise and millions more votes for Obama will mysteriously wind up being tallied for the Rat.

And if it comes down to the Supreme Court again, there's no doubt as to who will be handed the victory. Johnny and the Dwarfs would put Lady Ann's horse in the White House rather than abide four more years of the black Kenyan usurper.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/sep/21/voting-wrongs/

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

re: Romney's spray-paint make over for Univision... so why didn't he try black-face at NAACP? Might of worked.

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

@James Singer: Because Romney wasn't trying to impress the members of the NAACP; he was trying to impress his anti-NAACP constituency. At his next campaign stop, Romney said something like, "I knew they would boo me." Then, if that wasn't enough, he said, "Remind them of this: if they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy -- more free stuff. But don't forget, nothing is really free."

That is what Romney thinks of NAACP members, the vast majority of whom are black -- they "want free stuff." And, see, Romney -- like his primary rival Rick Santorum -- wasn't going to give lazy "blah" people free stuff, wrenched from the sweaty hands of his hardworking, his lily-white constituency. So, "you people" can go ahead and vote for "the other guy"; did I mention he's black-black-blackity black just like you?

Romney figures everybody who belongs to the NAACP is in the 47 percent of moochers & freeloaders. Well, they're not. This is the kind of racism that really matters. It isn't just name-calling; it's depriving people of what Obama aptly calls "a fair shot." Of all the loathsome things about Mitt Romney, this is one of the most loathsome.

So blackface? Hardly. Romney's strategy was to "fail."

Marie

September 24, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

James,

I'm thinking that Romney probably tried out a blackface routine but, because the only black person he knows is Buckwheat from the Little Rascals, his makeup gave him a kind of weird combo pickaninny/sambo appearance. That, and his suggested opening line "I's gwine ta hep y'all", didn't poll too highly, even amongst Lady Ann's hand picked control group of country club Republicans, none of whom could recall the "help" at their clubs ever saying "Yassuh, Massa".

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Postscript:

Her Royalness, Lady Ann, begged to differ when informed that her Republican diddysquats didn't agree with her.

"Every dark-skinned person Mittens and I have ever encountered always refers to him, quite correctly, as 'Massa'".

She then went into "tantrum tizzy" mode, spun on her tiara, spoke in Mormon tongues, and held her breath until she turned red. Wingnuts never turn "blue" and never, ever, ever, ever, go along (or get along) with "black". Unless of course it's a Step n' fetchit philanderer like Herman Cain. And then only when he has surrendered his bid to the wonderfulness that is the Rat.

She then got on the phone and ordered a pizza. "Immediately!!"

September 24, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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