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.'”

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[.]”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

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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Wednesday
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The Commentariat -- September 22

I've posted an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

Final Thoughts. Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic on the history of the death penalty in the U.S. You'll have to read the whole post, which is a long one, to see why Cohen says Rick Perry's "wanton and freakish" disregard for the rights of the accused could help bring an end to the death penalty.

There is nobody on this country who got rich on his own. -- Elizabeth Warren ...

Ezra Klein has a good, short analysis for laymen on what the Fed did yesterday. ...

... Mark Thoma has a bit more; his conclusion: the Fed didn't do enough. Brad DeLong.: ditto, plus. ...

... AND Paul Krugman: "... they’re trying to use a water pistol to stop a charging rhino."

More on Class Warfare from Krugman: "One is that you have to beware of the old trick of saying 'taxes', then slipping into 'income taxes'. Most Americans pay more payroll than income taxes, but the reverse is true at high incomes. So focusing only on income taxes makes it seem as if the rich pay much more of the burden than they really do." Plus other tricks of the trade designed to fool you into thinking "the rich have done enough." ...

... Krugman is no doubt talking about this "fact check" by the AP's Stephen Ohlemacher.

E. J. Dionne: "... one of the Obama administration’s most successful programs is also its most 'socialist' initiative...: the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.... Yes, this was socialism — or, perhaps, 'state capitalism' — because the government temporarily took substantial ownership in the companies.... Today, the companies are thriving. More than that: The auto industry exemplifies how unions can do their best to protect the interests of their members while also ensuring the prosperity of the companies that employ them. This month, the United Auto Workers and GM reached a tentative four-year contract that will add or save some 6,500 jobs, provide workers with a $5,000 signing bonus and enhance a profit-sharing agreement.... The union and the company are seeking to align the interests of workers and shareholders."

The Affordable Care Act Is Working. Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "Young adults, long the group most likely to be uninsured, are gaining health coverage faster than expected since the 2010 health law began allowing parents to cover them as dependents on family policies." ...

... Linda Greenhouse has a very fine post on the legal wranglings over the constitutionality of the individual mandate, an essential element of the Affordable Care Act. Greenhouse writes approvingly of "a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting in the heart of the old Confederacy, [which] offers a powerful reminder of a fact that a dismaying number of folks appear lately to have forgotten: the Civil War is over... and that p.s., the Union won."

Helene Cooper & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach. The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking." CW: in other words, we have willingly let Israel isolate us in the region; not good for us & ultimately not good for Israel.

Adam Goldman, et al., of the AP: "The New York Police Department put American citizens under surveillance and scrutinized where they ate, prayed and worked, not because of charges of wrongdoing but because of their ethnicity, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents describe in extraordinary detail a secret program intended to catalog life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD's claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism." ...

... Timothy Williams of the New York Times: "On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Shoshana Hebshi, 35, a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother ... from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was on a plane flying from Denver to Detroit when something she — or another passenger in her row of seats — had done caused the government to scramble F-16 fighter planes and escort Frontier Airlines Flight 623 until it landed safely. The plane was taken to a remote part of the airport, and armed federal authorities handcuffed Ms. Hebshi and her seatmates and took them off the plane. She was placed in a jail cell, strip-searched and interrogated by the F.B.I. before eventually being released.... Ms. Hebshi says she believes she was detained because she is 'dark-skinned' — she is half Arab, half Jewish." See also Fred Drumlevich's comment on today's Off Times Square.

Skid Row, Rural South. Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The falloff of the economy of Greenwood County, [South Carolina,] a district of almost 70,000 people that once pulsed with busy factories and mills, was the steepest in the country by two counts. According to an analysis of Census Bureau figures made public on Thursday, its poverty rate more than doubled to 24 percent from 2007 to 2010, the largest increase for any county in the nation. The decline also engulfed the middle class. Median household income plunged by 28 percent over the same period...."

... Skid Row, Urban North. Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession. From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades." CW: tell it to Wall Street.

Presidential historian Matthew Dickinson is unimpressed with the so-called sensational aspects of Confidence Men, Ron Suskind's book about Obama White House infighting: "... based on reading memos and documents from thirteen previous presidencies, the scenes Suskind describes regarding dissent in the Obama White House are neither uncommon nor nearly as problematic as he would have us believe."

And speaking of books, here's another excerpt -- looks like a prologue -- from Roger Ebert's book Life Itself. Via NPR. Ebert is an easy guy to like and his style is instructive if you're thinking of writing your own memoir for the grandkids, for the public or just to organize your thoughts. Thanks to reader Haley S. for the link.

David Streitfeld of the New York Times: "As speculation swirled Wednesday that Meg Whitman might be brought in to save the troubled Hewlett-Packard, the tech world rendered a verdict: You have got to be kidding." See also today's News Ledes below.

"Let Him Die," an advocacy ad by Protect Your Care:

Right Wing World *

We're going to have a relentless focus on creating jobs. -- John Boehner, late 2010 ...

... Mike Stanfill started RepublicanJobCreation.com as a joke. He began "a chronological list of activities by the GOP beginning 2-10-2011. I'm sorry to report that none, so far, have resulted in a single new job being created in America." CW: Keep returning to Stanfill's site. As he says, "No job creation here. Seriously. Not a fucking employment sausage.... I'll keep adding to this list until the Republican House does something to create jobs. I unhappily predict this is gonna be one lonnnnng list. After all, you don't get rid of a sitting president by helping the economy."

Via AlterNet.Down the Memory Hole. Joshua Holland of AlterNet lists nine policies conservatives were for before they were against them; i.e., before Democrats adopted them. Thanks to a reader for the links to this & to RepublicanJobCreation above.

 

 

Michael McAuliff of the (ugh!) Huffington Post: "The GOP-led House Oversight Committee may be accusing the White House of a 'job killing' green energy agenda in a hearing Thursday -- but at least ten Republicans on the panel have signed letters seeking to land green energy jobs in their districts." ...

... AND. Jim Snyder of Bloomberg News: "Republican Representative Darrell Issa, who said government subsidies to specific companies can encourage corruption [& who heads the House Oversight Committee accusing Obama of "job-killing" green energy], sought U.S. help in the past for clean-energy projects in his home state of California. Issa ... wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu to support an Energy Department loan for Aptera Motors Inc., a Carlsbad, California, electric-car maker, according to a letter received by the department Jan. 14, 2010. 'Awarding this opportunity to Aptera Motors will greatly assist a leading developer of electric vehicles in my district,' Issa wrote...."

I certainly have some concerns [about the creation of a Palestinian state]. The first step in any peaceful negotiation for a two-state solution for the Palestinians is to recognize the right of Israel’s existence. They have to denounce terrorism in both word and deed. And they have to sit down and negotiate with Israel directly. Anything short of that is a non-starter in my opinion. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), in an interview with Time magazine, Sept. 15, 2011

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Perry is stuck in a time warp. He’s describing a situation that existed in the 1980s, not really today.... We sent Perry’s remarks to three experts on Middle East diplomacy — an Israeli, a Palestinian and an American. All three said he appeared to be remarkably uninformed. We contacted Perry’s spokesman for an explanation but as usual he did not respond. (The Perry campaign has become a fact-free zone, not responding to Fact Checker queries, ever since Perry received Four Pinocchios for his comments on climate change.)

Steve Benen posts a couple of photos you should look at.... Now, do you think Democrats will use the Perry, et al., shot the way Republicans used the Obama, et al., shot? Again and again and again? I don't. Maybe it's because Democrats don't think their voters are stupid bigots, which Republicans are pretty sure about a bloc of their voters.

Nice work, Rev. Al:

..."Romney Calls for a Tax Policy that Will Help "Us" in the Middle Class." Sarah Boxer of CBS News on Mitt Romney, Regular Joe, struggling along like "80 or 90 percent of us"; never mind that actually "he's in the bracket that President Obama is targeting with his proposed 'Buffett rule' to tax millionaires."

As if you had no idea, Michael Crowley of Time writes about why Jon Huntsman, Jr., can't gain any traction in the Republican presidential primaries. The article does provide an interesting overview of Huntsman's campaign.

* Where leaders are rewarded for hypocrisy.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A day after the Federal Reserve announced another measure to stimulate the economy, global financial markets on Thursday declined steeply as pessimism about the outlook for the economies of the United States and Europe was deepened by weak data and the Fed’s own grim assessment. The downcast mood appeared to be reflected across the board. Stocks fell in Asia, Europe and on Wall Street, where equities were down more than 3 percent as the market closed."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration for the first time Thursday openly asserted that Pakistan was indirectly responsible for specific attacks against U.S. troops and installations in Afghanistan, calling a leading Afghan insurgent group 'a veritable arm' of the Pakistani intelligence service. Last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and a Sept. 10 truck bombing that killed five Afghans and wounded 77 NATO troops were 'planned and conducted' by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network 'with ISI support,' said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

New York Times: "Meg Whitman, eBay’s former chief executive, was named to lead Hewlett-Packard on Thursday, the company said."

President Obama speaks about the American Jobs Act at the Brent Spence Bridge:

President Obama spoke about the American Jobs Act in Cincinnati, Ohio, this afternoon. A Bridge to Somewhere. Washington Post: "Obama’s scheduled appearance at the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects the home states of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has drawn rebukes from his two Republican rivals." AP post-speech story here.

AP: "The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week, though the decline isn't enough to signal improvement in the job market. Weekly applications dropped by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 423,000, the Labor Department said Thursday."

New York Times: "Proclaiming his innocence, Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday night, his life — and the hopes of supporters worldwide — prolonged by several hours while the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution."

New York Times: "White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas. Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history."

Washington Post: "World markets plunged Thursday after the Federal Reserve took a dramatic step to help revive the U.S. economy — and in the process sent a message that America’s financial malaise seems unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Key European and Asian indexes were down more than 4 percent. Investors took the Fed’s surprise action to purchase longer-term bonds--an effort to push down long-term interest rates even further -- as a sign that it felt the U.S. downturn could last for a long time."

AP: "The general commanding NATO's mission in Libya said Thursday that isolated groups of forces loyal to ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi continue to be a threat to local people but are unable to coordinate their actions. Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard said in a conference call with reporters that many Gadhafi forces are surrounded with no way out. On Wednesday, NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, granted approval to extend the mission for another 90 days."

AP: "Palestinian protesters have denounced President Barack Obama for his opposition to their bid to win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. Dozens rallied on Thursday outside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office in Ramallah."

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