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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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Saturday
Mar232024

The Conversation -- March 24, 2024

Marie: Not sure how much I'll be doing today. We had five inches of snow Saturday morning, and my power has been out for hours. When I saw a truck go by on my road, I was hoping it was the power company, but it was the snow plow because it had snowed again Saturday evening. Then I saw that there was a live power line draped across the railings on my front steps and all the way across my front yard. So I won't be going anywhere since I'm in veritable prison lockdown; however, my generator may run out of power.

Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: "President Bidensigned a $1.2 trillion spending package on Saturday, putting an end to the prospect of a government shutdown after the legislation passed a rushed series of congressional votes with bipartisan support and landed on his desk just after 2 a.m." (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday toured the still-bloody and bullet-pocked classroom building in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members in 2018, using the grim backdrop to announce a new federal resource center and to call for stricter enforcement of gun laws.... 'This school is soon going to be torn down,' the vice president [said]. 'But the memory of it will never be erased.' Ms. Harris said the attack, carried out by a former student with a history of mental health and behavior problems, should prompt officials around the country to embrace local red-flag laws.... In her remarks, Ms. Harris announced the creation of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, which White House officials said would provide training and technical assistance to states as they work to implement their red-flag laws."

Marianne Levine, et al., of the Washington Post: Donald Trump has aligned "himself with Jan. 6 rioters, as he intensifies his use of dark, graphic and at times violent language.... Until November, he called the Jan. 6 defendants ... 'political prisoners' before introducing the term 'hostages,' according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches this campaign cycle.... [A Washington Post] analysis [of his speeches] also showed an uptick in his references to Jan. 6 defendants, as well as the word 'criminals,' which Trump has used to describe prosecutors, political opponents, the press and undocumented immigrants. The escalation overlaps with his own mounting legal jeopardy....' (Also linked yesterday.)

Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "Donald Trump's social media company could go public as soon as next week, paving the way for a potentially huge windfall for a former president who raked in tens of millions of dollars the last time one of his companies was listed on a stock exchange. That previous, decades-ago experience, however, did not end well for the company or its investors. While a 2016 Washington Post review found that Trump made over $44 million, the company -- Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts -- lost more than $1 billion and ended up in bankruptcy.... Trump, who was the company's chairman and later CEO, continued making millions of dollars a year in salary and bonuses despite the heavy losses [the company was experiencing under his direction]." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm no market guru, but my sense is that if Trump ran into the ground a business that is normally a cash cow, "Truth Social" -- a knockoff social media site in which the only "asset" is Trump tweets -- is worth about 50 cents.

David McAfee of the Raw Story: "MSNBC reportedly has no plans to use Donald Trump's close ally, Ronna McDaniel, on its airwaves.... According to a new exclusive article from The Wall Street Journal, the president of MSNBC [Rashida Jones] isn't interested in ever using her.... 'A number of MSNBC anchors and producers have voiced concern internally about McDaniel's ties to ... Donald Trump and the RNC's role in his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results,' [the Journal reported]."

~~~~~~~~~~

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

Yeah, 5" of heavy, wet snow with some rain in between to coat the branches with ice. Stay safe!

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

I heard someone on MSNBC refer to Trump's Truth social stock as monopoly money. They one million in revenue last year and spent 26 million. There is no way the company is worth all those billions unless it is being used to launder bribes to Trump.

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Politico

"What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network
Brian Schwalb’s probe followed a complaint that nonprofit groups associated with the judicial activist violated their tax status.

Allies of Leonard Leo have mounted a monthslong offensive against the man investigating the judicial activist’s network: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

Since news of the probe broke last August, the GOP chairs of powerful congressional committees launched their own investigation of Schwalb’s investigation; conservative media wrote articles criticizing Schwalb on unrelated crime issues — based on a social media post from a top Leo lieutenant; and a group of his Republican law enforcement peers sent letters warning Schwalb to stand down.

“Once the dam breaks, we and our successors will be under intense pressure to investigate the inner workings of every abortion advocacy group, every immigration advocacy group, every environmental advocacy group,” the Republican attorneys general warned. “We can only stop it if each of us conscientiously stays in his or her lane.”

In December, the House chairs then threatened to subpoena Schwalb. One day later, Concord Fund [one of the Leo network’s primary nonprofits] made a $250,000 contribution — its first to a federal political action committee in nearly nine years — to a fundraising group allied with House GOP leadership, according to Federal Elections Commission disclosures."

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

If you have 50 minutes, instead of watching a re-run of "Murder She Wrote". catch Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD-8) delivering a very entertaining and informative talk debunking NRA/GOP/MAGA claims that the US Constitution (2nd Amendment) confers the right to engage in insurrection, and therefore the right to obtain arms sufficient to prevail in such a revolt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIAf0kBE-MY

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

My best wishes to Marie, too. Hard to picture snow. We've had recent rain, but today only early morning fog and now clouds, some sun, and 49 degrees.

Weather isn't fair either.

Agree that Truth Social ain't worth much. Unless the Pretender starts charging his followers for access to his nutty rants, the network will have to rely on advertisers, and only a few will find his audience, but for his core group of crazies, likely to shell out for their products.

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Dear Marie

Thank you for all your continued hard work, you are amazing!

I admire your very calm approach to what must be a very nerve wracking situation. I hope the power company will be there soon.

Maybe you already have and would it help to call your local fire and police stations to alert them to this very dangerous event, maybe they could help you and they might expedite a response or at least put some safety measures in place to keep you safe.

Please stay safe sounds so inadequate, like thoughts and prayers not much but all I have to offer up right now and I do.

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterJulia

Marie,

See any MAGA nuts outside your house? They may be responsible for your downed power line. Although maybe not. If a Trumpty Sumphead did it you’d see the body, since they’d try to bite through the cable. Insulation is a deep state conspiracy! Live free or fry.

Anyhoo, hope your ‘lectricity is back soon. We await the powering up of the mother ship.

March 24, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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