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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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The Conversation -- November 11, 2023

Santa Fe National Cemetery

Kevin Freking & Stephen Groves of the AP: "House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his proposal on Saturday to avoid a partial government shutdown by extending government funding for some agencies and programs until Jan. 19 and continuing funding for others until Feb. 2. The approach is unusual for a stopgap spending bill. Usually, lawmakers extend funding until a certain date for all programs.... The bill excludes funding requested by President Joe Biden for Israel, Ukraine and the U.S. border with Mexico." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: All I can figure out is that Johnson's plan is to pass the buck to the Senate and President; if they don't approve the bill, Mike will blame Democrats for shutting down the government.

Wafaa Shurafa & Bassem Mroue of the AP: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with 'full force.' A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants."

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Josh Gerstein of the Politico: "Donald Trump is endorsing an effort by news organizations to provide live television coverage of his trial on federal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In a bombastic legal filing submitted late Friday to the judge who's scheduled that trial to begin in March, Trump's attorneys argued he's the victim of political persecution by President Joe Biden's administration and should be allowed to use the platform of TV to showcase the proceedings' unfairness. 'The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness. President Trump calls for sunlight,' defense attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche wrote."

President for Life. Marie: Yesterday we linked to a WashPo story that cited Donald Trump's saying during a Univision interview,

"They [Democrats] have done something that allows the next party ... if I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, "Go down and indict them." They'd be out of business. They'd be out of the election."

Trump's plan to break the knees of his political adversaries has gained at least some of the attention it deserves. But I haven't heard a single mention of Part 2 of what Trump says is the plan. To parse Trump's terrible syntax as best I can: Trump says here, "If I am elected president*, I will tell DOJ to indict anyone who is 'beating me very badly' in the next election." Now, I ask you, What "next election"? Should Trump win a second term, he would be term-limited out. Under the Constitution, he cannot run again; there cannot be another presidential election in which Trump is president*, he sics the DOJ on an opponent who is "beating me very badly." Ergo, it is obvious that Trump plans to run for a third term.

Shane Harris & Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: "A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country's intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people.... The officer's role provides the most direct evidence to date tying Ukraine's military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has spawned multiple criminal investigations and that U.S. and Western officials have called a dangerous attack on Europe's energy infrastructure. Roman Chervinsky, a decorated 48-year-old colonel who served in Ukraine's Special Operations Forces, was the ''coordinator' of the Nord Stream operation..., managing logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines. On Sept. 26, 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The attack left only one of the four gas links in the network intact as winter approached. Chervinsky ... took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, said people familiar with how the operation was carried out.... Chervinsky's participation in the Nord Stream bombing contradicts [President] Zelensky's public denials that his country was involved."

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Yasmeen Abutaleb & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "President Biden will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an economic conference in San Francisco next week, one year after their last face-to-face meeting in Bali. The two leaders are expected to meet on Wednesday as they both travel to San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, which is being held in San Francisco, senior administration officials told reporters during a call on Thursday. Biden and Xi have not had any direct communication since their last in-person summit last year. The highly anticipated meeting comes as the two sides try to stabilize a relationship rocked by a series of crises, including China's aggressive response to former speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan last year and the U.S. military's shoot-down of a Chinese spy balloon that crossed the United States in February."

Darla Mercado & Christina Wilkie of CNBC: "Moody's Investors Service on Friday lowered its ratings outlook on the United States' government to negative from stable, pointing to rising risks to the nation's fiscal strength.... 'In the context of higher interest rates, without effective fiscal policy measures to reduce government spending or increase revenues,' the agency said. 'Moody's expects that the US' fiscal deficits will remain very large, significantly weakening debt affordability.' Brinkmanship in Washington has also been a contributing factor, Moody's said. 'Continued political polarization within US Congress raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability,' the ratings agency said." MB: This is both-siderism-speak. Maybe Mike Johnson is a good indicator of what "polarization" really means: some about scrapping most of the Constitution. ~~~

Laura Jedeed in Politico Magazine: "'Speaker Mike Johnson has long been a supporter of Convention of States,' Mark Meckler, co-founder of Convention of States Action (COSA), told me.... For the last 10 years, the 'Convention of States' movement has sought to remake the Constitution and force a tea party vision of the framers' intent upon America. This group wants to wholesale rewrite wide swaths of the U.S. Constitution in one fell swoop. In the process, they hope to do away with regulatory agencies like the FDA and the CDC, virtually eliminate the federal government's ability to borrow money, and empower state legislatures to override federal law." ~~~

~~~ Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) displays a flag associated with Christian extremism outside his office at the U.S. Capitol. The Louisiana Republican posted flags outside his office representing the United States and Louisiana, along with a Revolutionary War-era 'Appeal to Heaven' flag, which has become associated with New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) network seeking to place the government under right-wing Christian control, reported Rolling Stone.... 'The "Mandate," as they understand it, is given by God for Christians to "take dominion" and "conquer" the tops of all seven of these sectors and have Christian influence flow down into the rest of society,' reported Bradley Onishi and Matthew D. Taylor for the magazine."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The House is not in order. Under [Mike] Johnson, the House is utterly out of control. It's not just the speaker's inability to curb the proliferation of censure resolutions, which have turned the chamber into a seething den of recriminations. In just seven days, the federal government will shut down after a temporary extension in funding (which cost Kevin McCarthy the speakership) expires. And Johnson (R-La.) has been fumbling in the dark. He squandered this week without passing, or even floating, a plan to avoid a shutdown. His plan -- whatever it is -- will come to the floor just days before the lights go out.... The serial failures are the direct result of GOP leadership's stubborn insistence on passing spending bills with Republican votes alone -- in contrast to the Senate, where all 12 appropriations bills command bipartisan support.... Trust him? Not after this start."

Jonah Bromwich & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Representative Elise Stefanik, a member of the House Republican leadership and an ally of ... Donald J. Trump, filed an ethics complaint Friday attacking the judge presiding over Mr. Trump's civil fraud trial, the latest salvo in a right-wing war against the case. Echoing the courtroom rhetoric of Mr. Trump's lawyers, the letter complains that the Democratic judge, Arthur F. Engoron, has been biased against the former president.... The letter, to a judicial conduct commission, is unlikely to have any immediate repercussions in the trial, which will determine the consequences Mr. Trump and his company will face as a result of the fraud. But it represents the latest Republican attempt to tar Justice Engoron, and to meddle with Ms. James's case." The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you look at the letter, you'll see that it is a screed with footnotes. You might think the authors were hack lawyers for Trump.

Devlin Barrett & Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "The judge overseeing Donald Trump's indictment for allegedly mishandling classified documents said Friday she would give the former president more time to review evidence before the May trial date, but also signaled she could decide next year if the trial itself should be pushed back. In a nine-page order, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon said she would revisit Trump's request to delay the trial in South Florida at a scheduling conference in March.... Cannon wrote in her order Friday that she expects a significant amount of legal fighting to come over what she called the 'unusually high volume' of evidence, particularly classified evidence." Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The hoohah over access to classified docs seems warranted. While there are likely a few classified docs that the Trump team needs to see because the government alleges in its charging papers that Trump has shared classified information he obtained from them, the main issues regarding the classified material is not the content of the documents but the facts that he stole them, hid them and lied to the feds about having them. So for most of the hundreds of classified documents the feds found lying around Mar-a-Lardo, all the Trumpies need to review are the folders or cover sheets, not the contents.

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The Rev. Stephen C. Lee is one of the lesser-known figures indicted with ... Donald J. Trump in Fulton County, Ga., on charges of unlawfully conspiring to keep Mr. Trump in power after the 2020 election. But on Thursday night at an evangelical church near Chicago, dozens of people held their arms aloft and prayed over Pastor Lee at a fund-raiser where he was portrayed as an American hero -- and a victim of religious persecution.... Pastor Lee, 71, is a former law enforcement officer who became a Lutheran minister and currently leads a small church in Orland Park, Ill.... His lawyer, David Shestokas, has argued that Pastor Lee was ... engaging in 'pastoral activities' when he showed up in Georgia after the 2020 election. There, he tried to meet with Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County elections worker whom Mr. Trump and his allies had falsely accused of ballot fraud, a conspiracy theory that ricocheted around the internet. At the time, Ms. Freeman was being barraged with threats and harassment."

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "An associate of a Jan. 6 defendant pleaded guilty this week to charges that the two men plotted 'to murder employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' Austin Carter, who was a 26-year-old security officer and a member of the Army Reserves at the time of his arrest in December 2022, admitted in a plea agreement that he 'unlawfully and knowingly combined, conspired, and agreed with his co-defendant,' Edward Kelley, to kill FBI personnel. Carter admitted that he provided a cooperating witness 'with a list of FBI employees that CARTER received from KELLEY' on or about Dec. 13, 2022, and that Carter instructed the cooperating witness 'to memorize the FBI employees identified on the list and then burn the list.' Kelley and Carter 'discussed plans to attack the FBI Field Office in Knoxville, Tennessee' and that the purpose of the conspiracy was 'to retaliate against government conduct,' Carter admitted. A court filing from December said that the list Kelley provided included about 37 names of law enforcement personnel who worked on Kelley's Jan. 6 case, and identified which officers were present when Kelley was arrested."

Ryan Reilly & Jonathan Dienst of NBC News: "A former New Jersey National Guard police sergeant accused of pepper-spraying officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack turned himself in to authorities in New Jersey on Friday following a 48-hour manhunt. Gregory Yetman faces several charges, including felonies such as assaulting officers and obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, as well as some misdemeanor offenses, according to the FBI. Yetman was taken into custody after the FBI on Thursday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest."

Presidential Race 2024

Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 -- including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.... Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims -- though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis. He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year."

Charlie Nash of Mediaite: Former Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explained on CNN that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act against ordinary protesters, and in his opinion, it would be "completely legal."

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "On Tuesday night, Democrats won a slew of unexpected victories in those off-year elections -- such as Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear's victory and the success of ballot initiatives protecting abortion rights -- that stunned the political world. But in a new interview for Univision Noticias with Enrique Acevedo, Trump took credit once again for overturning Roe v. Wade and made a stunning escalation of his oft-told lie that Democrats believe in literally murdering babies after they’re born: '...The Democrats were killing babies after birth, killing babies in the ninth month, you know, etc., etc....'"

Ben Terris & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post play "Where's Melanie?" I don't think they've seen her but they hear she's mostly at Mar-a-Lardo & sometimes at Trump Tower in NYC.

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Louisiana. Katie Benner of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Friday agreed with a lower-court ruling that Louisiana's latest congressional map very likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters, and ordered the state to finalize a new map by Jan. 15. The decision, issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, said that the State Legislature should complete a new set of voting districts in time 'for the result to be used for the 2024 Louisiana congressional elections.' Louisiana is one of several Southern states led by Republicans that have been mired in legal battles as they face accusations of racial discrimination in their electoral maps."

New York. William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "F.B.I. agents seized [New York City] Mayor Eric Adams's electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a criminal inquiry into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers. The agents approached the mayor after an event in Manhattan on Monday evening and asked his security detail to step away, a person ... said. They climbed into his S.U.V. with him and, pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, took his devices, the person said. The devices -- at least two cellphones and an iPad -- were returned to the mayor within a matter of days, according to that person and another person familiar with the situation." CNN's story is here.

Ohio. Melissa Quinn of CBS News: "Republicans in the Ohio state legislature are threatening to strip state courts of their authority to review cases related to Issue 1, the ballot measure approved by voters on Tuesday that established a right to abortion in the state constitution. A group of four state GOP lawmakers announced their plans in a press release Thursday, which also teased forthcoming legislative action in response to voters' approval of the reproductive rights initiative.... The GOP lawmakers did not provide details on the legislation they plan to introduce."

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Israel/Palestine. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "As Israeli tanks encircled hospitals in Gaza City, bombardment and fighting has raged around al-Shifa Hospital, the city's largest, with medical workers unable to leave. Fuel shortages left the overcrowded hospital without power, killing a premature baby and four patients in the intensive care unit, Gaza health officials said Saturday. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned earlier that the medical system in the besieged Palestinian enclave had reached a 'point of no return.' Doctors Without Borders said they could not reach staff at al-Shifa, where thousands of displaced people have been sheltering. Amid an Israeli advance against Hamas, several hospitals in Gaza City have come under fire or were overtaken by Israeli forces on Friday, forcing their evacuation, according to videos verified by The Washington Post." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times's live updates are here. CNN's live updates are here.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (8)

Another cautionary tale:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/10/poland-donald-tusk-democracy-election/

The lesson: Easy to break. Hard to fix.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

"Johnson is still sounding out support among Republicans about what to do and is expected to unveil funding legislation over the weekend, according to Republicans granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations." --- according to NPR.

Can't wait to see if he finds it in the Old or New Testament.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Ken,

None of these wankers bother with the teachings of Snowflake Jesus and all that love your brother stuff.

It’s all fire and brimstone, pillars of salt punishment, and Red Sea devouring their enemies that gets them going.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

These increasingly horrific (not to mention illegal) schemes floated by the Orange Monster as part of his fascist dystopian nightmare scenarios most certainly slither out from his own warped and hate filled world view, but a good portion of these evil visions are designed to appeal directly to his base.

What does it say about that bunch of loonies that promises of violence and racially based roundups, kangaroo courts, and enemies hanging from street lights gets them racing to the polls to say “Yes! That’s what we want!”? The evil genie is out of the bottle, and that power isn’t going away anytime soon, even if the Fat Fascist loses or croaks or chokes on a Big Mac and ends up intubated and bed ridden.

The haters are energized and ready for more violence. Trump knows this and uses it for his own ends. But there’s gotta be hundreds if not thousands of Party of Traitors pols and influencers who will step into the Fatty void once that fool is gone.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Sean Casten, D-Il., lays it all out about what is going on in the house, including that Johnson may have let everyone go home because he has a speaking engagement in Paris this weekend.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Vanity Fair
"“You’re Telling Me That Thing Is Forged?”: The Inside Story of How Trump’s “Body Guy” Tried and Failed to Order a Massive Military Withdrawal

In an excerpt from his new book, Tired of Winning, Jonathan Karl reveals how officials were stunned when a presidential directive pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Somalia landed on their desk. Of course, they’d later learn that it wasn’t exactly Trump’s idea."
digby also has part of story.

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Akhilleus: You're right, the wankers don't push hard on Sermon on the Mount stuff, the key messages of the New Testament.

BUT ... they're all into The Book of Revelation, also part of the New Testament, with sufficient horror to motivate them to crawthump and speak in tongues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hucTDV1Fvo

November 11, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

@RAS: In this New Republic story, republished by Yahoo! News, Mike's spokesperson denied he was speaking in Paris this weekend: "Johnson spokesman Raj Shah tweeted that the speaker was not attending 'any events in Paris or anywhere overseas this weekend.'... Shah refused to explicitly confirm whether Johnson had spoken virtually, or why the speaker was featured so prominently on WFI social media and event publicity if he did not speak."

Since these people don't mind obfuscating & outright lying, it's still hard to say what continent Mike was on today, IMO.

November 11, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns
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