The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a “life-threatening” storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

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

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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The Ledes

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments Tuesday as powerful Hurricane Milton moves through the Gulf of Mexico toward Central Florida.

New York Times: “Cissy Houston, a Grammy Award-winning soul and gospel star who helped shepherd her daughter Whitney Houston to superstardom, died on Monday at her home in Newark. She was 91.”

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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 Conversation -- October 9, 2024

Colby Hall of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump is calling for an investigation into CBS News and its news magazine 60 Minutes for apparently editing Vice President Kamala Harris’s answers 'to make her look “more Presidential” or, at least, better.'... In a Wednesday morning post..., Trump alleged that the producers of 60 Minutes may be guilty of a 'major Campaign Finance Violation.' The alleged crime? Editing Harris’s answers for concision and time.... Trump is ... probably well aware that the same practice of editing for time occurs in nearly all the taped interviews he does for Fox News opinion hosts.”

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Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Michael Shear of the New York Times: “President Biden on Thursday warned those in the path of Hurricane Milton to 'evacuate now, now, now,' as he canceled a diplomatic trip abroad so he could oversee his administration’s response to the storm barreling toward Florida’s west coast. Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, the president said he had given Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, his personal phone number and he urged Floridians to listen to state authorities.... With the storm poised to slam into the Tampa Bay area by Thursday morning, Mr. Biden decided to postpone a trip to Germany and Angola meant to shore up support for Ukraine and promote investment in Africa.... The White House has not yet finalized new dates for the overseas trip.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Madeleine Ngo of the New York Times: “Small Business Administration officials warned on Tuesday that the agency would 'very soon' exhaust its funding for new disaster loans for homeowners and businesses in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The agency has less than $100 million for new disaster loans, according to the officials, and will continue to process incoming loan applications after the money runs out, but Congress will have to approve additional funding for it to make new loan offers and cut checks.... It is unclear whether lawmakers will approve additional funding before the agency exhausts the money, however. Congress is not set to reconvene until Nov. 12. [SBA administrator Isabel] Guzman said the money would 'definitely run out' before then....”

Adam Aton & Scott Waldman of Politico: “Elon Musk is using his social media network to spread election conspiracy theories about U.S. disasters — just as online falsehoods are complicating the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Musk has helped spread accusations that the Federal Emergency Management Agency 'actively blocked' donations to victims of Helene and is 'seizing goods … and locking them away to state they are their own' — allegations that FEMA officials call false and which run afoul of state and local Republican leaders’ praise for the assistance from Washington. On his social network, X, Musk also amplified rumors that authorities in North Carolina had 'taken control to stop people helping' stricken residents and accusations that sheriffs were threatening to arrest FEMA staff 'if they hinder rescue and aid work.' Many of his allegations centered on the claim that immigrants had already depleted federal disaster funds, which FEMA has said is untrue.... The wave of false conspiracy theories 'is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,' FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday morning call.”

Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: “A wave of antisemitic rhetoric and online threats has been leveled at state and federal officials in North Carolina in recent days as they respond to the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Helene, according to a report released on Tuesday by a nonprofit research group that studies online platforms. Researchers with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the nonprofit, found that on X, the social media platform, 33 posts that contained misinformation about the flood response had together generated more than 160 million views as of Monday.... The antisemitic attacks have been lobbed mainly at the mayor of Asheville, Esther Manheimer, as well as at the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s director of public affairs, Jaclyn Rothenberg. Posts that questioned Ms. Rothenberg’s loyalty to the United States because of her Jewish heritage had more than four million views on X. Another post that called out Mayor Manheimer’s faith racked up nearly 13 million views on the platform....

“The rapid spread of such posts has underscored how X ... has effectively scaled back its removal of misinformation on the platform.... The new report’s findings suggest that postings about the hurricane response have also been a source of heightened public distrust.”

Presidential Race

Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: “... Pennsylvania stands apart as the state that top strategists for both [Vice President] Harris and Mr. Trump have circled as the likeliest to tip the election. Both candidates are pouring more money, time and energy into the state than anywhere else, with Ms. Harris, Mr. Trump and their allies set to spend $350 million just on television ads in Pennsylvania — $142 million more than the next closest state and more than Michigan and Wisconsin combined.”

Vice President Harris spoke with Stephen Colbert last night: ~~~

Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “For over an hour, Vice President Kamala Harris and the radio host Howard Stern bantered on Tuesday about the state of the country..., Donald J. Trump, Ms. Harris’s cereal and workout preferences, and her favorite musicians and racecar drivers. It was the longest uninterrupted interview Ms. Harris has done since becoming the Democratic nominee, and while it did not delve much into what she would do as president, it was the most revelatory about her as a person. Mr. Stern is not a journalist, and he said multiple times that he supported Ms. Harris for president, but he is a skilled inquisitor who managed to extract an array of fresh details about her life. Here is a (perhaps incomplete) list of new things we learned about Ms. Harris. She is angry about the new reporting on Trump, Putin and Covid testing.... She is all too aware of the threats against her life.... She thinks Trump is ‘getting punked’ by dictators.” And so on.

Rebecca O'Brien & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Tuesday called for abolishing the Electoral College as a means of electing American presidents, reiterating a position he has articulated in the past.... Earlier Tuesday, at a different fund-raising event in Seattle, Mr. Walz called himself 'a national popular vote guy, but that’s not the world we live in.'... Teddy Tschann, a spokesman for Mr. Walz, said that Ms. Harris’s campaign did not support abolishing the Electoral College.... Twice this century — in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, and in 2016, when Mr. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton — Democratic presidential candidates have won the national popular vote and lost the presidential election in the Electoral College. Mrs. Clinton in 2017 called for abolishing the Electoral College.” Politico's story is here.

     ~~~ Alayna Treene of CNN: “Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching a new digital ad campaign featuring two former Donald Trump administration officials criticizing the former president’s handling of natural disasters while in office.” ~~~

~~~ Lisa Kashinsky & Adam Cancryn of Politico: “... Donald Trump is making the [hurricanes] a flashpoint in the presidential race. The former president has seized on the devastation left by Helene to launch a barrage of misinformation.... Across visits to storm-torn states and through social media, he has cast Kamala Harris and the Biden administration as absent and incompetent in delivering aid even as members of his own party in affected areas say otherwise.... [Harris's] campaign has attacked Trump repeatedly on social media, featuring clips from his rallies where he talks about Helene or mocks Democrats’ rhetoric on climate change. It has also highlighted a clip from Ken Cuccinelli — a former senior Trump homeland security official and Project 2025 contributor -- ... talking about shrinking FEMA, warning that 'their plan is to cut assistance for hurricane victims.' Now..., Harris has begun tearing into the former president in interviews for amplifying misinformation....”

Ken Bensinger of the New York Times: “Less than a month before Election Day, Donald J. Trump’s campaign has not yet participated in the government’s official presidential transition process.... Mr. Trump’s team has missed two key deadlines to sign agreements with the administration that are set by federal law and has also failed to sign an ethics plan that is required to jump-start the process of planning for a new administration. Mr. Trump’s representatives did attend a meeting at the White House last month, but they otherwise have had little communication with the Biden administration about the handoff and have skipped the opportunity to receive national security briefings.... [Mr. Trump's] refusal to sign the documents allows him to circumvent fund-raising rules that put limits on private contributions to the transition effort, as well as ethics rules meant to avoid possible conflicts of interest for the incoming administration.... The transition team for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has signed all three documents, according to White House officials.”

Ian Philbrick & Ashley Wu of the New York Times: “To help readers experience what a Trump rally is like, we used video to break down the nine themes he consistently returns to. 1.... Mr. Trump presents himself as the sole hope for what he describes as a lawless and violent country where inflation crushes families, crime is rampant, the southern border is open and migrants kill and rape with impunity.... 2.... Mr. Trump’s language is crude when it comes to his political opponents.... 3.... Mr. Trump lies often on the stump.... 4.... Mr. Trump has a few routines and set pieces he revisits at most rallies, to the audience’s delight.... 5.... Mr. Trump ... sometimes trivializes, celebrates or seems to court violence.... 6.... The former president has plans..., some concrete..., [others] more vague.... 7.... Mr. Trump’s rallies can be hard to follow.... 8. [Mr. Trump makes] anti-democratic statements.... 9.... Mr. Trump’s verbal flubs seem to have worsened as he has aged.”

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: “... Donald Trump has threatened a campaign of retribution if he returns to the White House.... As president he demanded investigations of his enemies and often got them.... What I had failed to appreciate [which I was covering Trump's presidency], in the blizzard of news, was that he had been far more successful than I thought in having the government’s most powerful arms directed at his enemies. In 10 cases that I looked at, a demand from Trump that someone be investigated was followed by their facing major federal pressure. Even without evidence of Trump signing a direct order, after he expressed a desire for a person to be targeted, remarkably, the Justice Department, the F.B.I. or the I.R.S. ended up doing what Trump wanted.”

Here's Why They Lie. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “Donald Trump and JD Vance are lying about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene.... It would be easy to dismiss these lies as mere MAGA theater, but they are far more destructive than that. First and foremost, the lying degrades the ability of the federal government to respond to the disaster.... As Trump sees it, the goal of the state is to be a pathway for the upward redistribution of wealth to him, his friends and his allies.... If Trump does not care about FEMA’s ability to do its job, it is because both he and his allies intend to dismantle the agency (most likely to help pay for tax cuts).... When political leaders lie with abandon..., they are trying to build a culture of dishonesty that erodes trust and makes collective action[i.e., self-governance,] all the more difficult.... To lie without shame about everything ... is to cultivate the habits of autocracy.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Bouie is essentially confirming Trump & Vance's application of Hitler's theory of die große lüge -- the big lie -- as an effective form of propaganda. That is, the lie is so out-there that no one can believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

Debra Kamin, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump Organization pursued a deal last year to open a luxury hotel on a former site of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to people involved in the previously unreported talks, as well as documents reviewed by The New York Times.... Mr. Trump’s company also considered turning a rising skyscraper in Tel Aviv into another Trump-branded hotel, the documents show. That tower ... is near the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces and will have the most hotel rooms in the country when construction is completed. Eric Trump, who runs the family business, embarked on the negotiations well after his father kicked off his latest presidential bid in November 2022.... The company’s efforts in Israel highlight longstanding ethical concerns about the mingling of the former president’s financial and political fortunes — this time in a warring country at the contentious center of U.S. and global politics.”

Peter Baker & Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: “The book, 'War' [by journalist Bob Woodward], which is set to be released next week and relies on some anonymous sources, lays bare just how frustrated [President] Biden has become with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu since the war in Gaza began and Israel has bombarded the enclave, killing more than 40,000 people and displacing most of the more than two million residents there. Outwardly, Mr. Biden has voiced strong support for Israel, sometimes in the face of withering international criticism.... Privately, the president has reacted far more explosively, sometimes with expletives, to Israel’s moves, as multiple news reports have indicated. Mr. Netanyahu and the president last spoke on Aug. 21, according to a White House statement.” The story includes some specifics which Woodward reports. Baker & Livni note that “The New York Times could not independently verify the specific statements reported in Mr. Woodward’s upcoming book.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump has secretly spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as many as seven times since leaving office, even as he was pressuring Republicans to block military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian invaders, according to a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward.... The book also reports that Mr. Trump, while still in office early during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, secretly sent Mr. Putin what were then rare Abbott Point of Care test machines for the Russian’s personal use. Mr. Putin, who has been described as particularly anxious about being infected at the time, urged Mr. Trump to not publicly reveal the gesture because it could damage the American president politically.... [Woodward wrote that a single Trump aide was the source for the Trump-Putin conversations.]

“Mr. Trump’s campaign dismissed Mr. Woodward’s book by assailing the author with typically personal insults — 'a total sleazebag' ... — without addressing any of the specifics reported in it.... [Dmitri Peskov of] the Kremlin likewise denied the reporting in Mr. Woodward’s book about conversations between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin and the provision of Covid tests. It would be highly unusual for a former president to privately talk with a top American adversary like Mr. Putin without clearing it with the current administration — especially at a time when the United States and Russia are on opposite sides of a war in Europe.” MB: Okay, but Putin's puppet has to get instructions somehow. (Also linked yesterday.)

Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea. Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham ~~~

⭐   ~~~ Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: “With publication on the eve of the presidential election, Woodward, who has chronicled the successes and failures of U.S. presidents for 50 years, concludes that Trump is unfit for office while President Joe Biden and his team, mistakes notwithstanding, exhibited 'steady and purposeful leadership.' Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, makes several appearances in the narrative, with Woodward presenting her as a shrewd and loyal No. 2 to Biden but not an influential voice in his administration’s foreign policy.... The book ... includes candid assessments by Biden of his own missteps, including his decision to make Merrick Garland attorney general. Reacting to the prosecution of his son Hunter — by a special prosecutor named by Garland amid partisan recriminations over the Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump — the president told an associate, 'Should never have picked Garland.'” Interesting stuff about Biden's foreign policy. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

⭐    ~~~ Jamie Gangel, et al., of CNN: “In his new book, legendary journalist Bob Woodward offers a remarkable look behind the scenes at President Joe Biden’s blunt, profanity-laced assessments and interactions with the world leaders who have shaped his presidency, from Benjamin Netanyahu to Vladimir Putin.... Woodward’s new book, which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release, gives an unvarnished, in-the-room account of key moments as Biden and his national security team navigate international crises, from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to confronting Putin before he invaded Ukraine to private battles with Netanyahu. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants, 'War' is filled with newly reported details of high-stakes showdowns.” Also good stuff about Biden. Expletives included! (Also linked yesterday.)

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: “Donald Trump took 'British naval secrets' to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House, the former UK spy Christopher Steele says in a new book. 'I was reliably informed by impeccable sources that among the classified documents which Trump, apparently unauthorizedly, took with him to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency were British naval secrets, some of the most sensitive ones in our governmental system,' Steele writes.... A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defence said of Steele’s comments about naval secrets taken to Mar-a-Lago: 'These claims are untrue.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Book Report. Monica Hesse of the Washington Post: “Depending on how you define 'memoir' — must it be a coherent narrative, or does a posthumous collection of diary entries suffice? — roughly a dozen first ladies of the United States have penned a total of more than 20 accounts of White House life.... We read repeatedly throughout 'Melania' [that s]he does something 'superb' and 'beautiful' and 'perfect.' But other people are out to get her. The villains are the usual suspects: the media, cancel culture, Democrats, the electoral process.” Like the manufacturer of a skin-care product she developed who failed her after she “discovered the rejuvenating properties of caviar.” Or her staff on Jan. 6, 2021, who failed to “pull her away from her scrapbooking.”

Mike Masnick of TechDirt: “... Elon Musk is now directly tweaking the site he owns to push his favored political candidate, even seizing people’s accounts to promote Trump. One of Elon’s main reasons (he claimed) for buying Twitter was to stop what he (falsely) believed was the existing management using the site to push their political ideology.... Musk declar[ed] this just days after the Twitter board agreed to his offer to purchase the company:... 'For Twitter to deserve the public trust, it must be politically neutral....' That’s not quite how things have played out. Elon has not only endorsed Donald Trump, appeared at his rallies, and turned ExTwitter into a non-stop propaganda-pushing campaign ad for Trump (while at the same time repeatedly pushing blatantly false and misleading claims via his own account), but he’s also become one of Trump’s biggest funders.

“Imagine how the GOP would react if a social media CEO had done that in support of Kamala Harris? Oh, wait, we don’t even have to imagine, because even though it hasn’t happened, the MAGA world had a fever dream where they pretended it did.... Mark Zuckerberg didn't endorse either candidate [in 2020, but he] fund[ed] politically neutral voting infrastructure efforts to make sure the 2020 election was free and fair. And for that, he was falsely accused of election interference and tipping the scales to Biden. Donald Trump has accused Zuckerberg of criminal behavior and threatened him with jail time for that effort. And, just recently, under pressure from Rep. Jim Jordan over that funding, Zuckerberg apologized for it and promised never to help fund election infrastructure again.”

Tales of The Seven Dwarfs. Chapter 6. Whitewashing Boozy. Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: “In September 2018, as allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett M. Kavanaugh threatened his confirmation to the Supreme Court..., Donald Trump vowed that the FBI would have 'free rein' to vet the claims.... The president’s comments came as a surprise to the FBI, according to a new report from a Democratic senator [Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.)] based on previously undisclosed correspondence between the agency and the White House.... The report ... provides additional evidence of the tight control exercised by the White House over the FBI investigation — despite Trump’s claims to the contrary.

“The report found that [more than 4,500] messages to the FBI tip line regarding Kavanaugh were forwarded directly to the White House and never probed, and that the FBI had no written protocols for the supplemental background investigation ordered by the White House. It notes that the FBI was instructed by the White House to talk to 10 potential witnesses and was not given the leeway to pursue corroborating evidence — the absence of which was cited by senators as they narrowly voted to confirm Kavanaugh.... Even when senators contacted the FBI directly with the names of people who claimed to have relevant information about Kavanaugh, the FBI did not contact them.” The Guardian's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Whitehouse's full report, via the Senate, is here. It begins with a handy executive summary.

⭐ Annals of “Journalism,” Ctd. Lucian Truscott of Salon on how the press normalized Donald Trump from the get-go. “... the [New York] Times and much of the rest of the national media played such a large role in normalizing behavior that once would have been disqualifying on the day it occurred.... The orange-haired buffoon who first ran for president in 2015 showed us over the years who he was, and still much of the press let him slide.... In 2016, I called him a 'toy fascist.' He was the real thing, not a toy. I mistook a buffoon for a monster, and I will be eternally sorry for that.”

Then There's This. Kathleen Culliton of the Raw Story: "A documentary about the Trump administration's family separation policy will not air before Election Day because MSNBC is concerned about offending the Republican presidential nominee, according to new reports. Journalist Oliver Darcy, a former critic for CNN, revealed Tuesday that the Errol Morris documentary based on Jacob Soboroff's 2020 book 'Separated: Inside an American Tragedy,' is being held by NBC bosses until Dec. 7 — a move that apparently annoyed the director.... Darcy also reported NBC bosses 'don’t want to offend Donald Trump, according to The Wrap.' [Darcy wrote,] 'Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorials for NBC News, opposed airing "Separated" before the election because the network still hopes Trump will agree to another presidential debate.'" MB: In fairness to Blumenstein, network suits have always opposed journalism.


Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “A majority of the Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Tuesday to the Biden administration’s restrictions on kits to make homemade guns that skirted background checks. At least five justices seemed to favor the measures, with at least two conservatives, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, showing skepticism toward the plaintiffs, gun manufacturers and owners who argued that the administration had overstepped its bounds in regulating so-called ghost guns. The rule, part of a broader effort by President Biden to address gun violence, sought to curtail the soaring popularity of the guns, weapons made from kits available for purchase online and heralded as easy enough to assemble in less than an hour.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Glenn Thrush & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: “The F.B.I. has arrested an Afghan citizen in Oklahoma City on charges of plotting a suicide attack on Election Day, with the intent of inflicting mass casualties on behalf of the Islamic State, according to a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday. In preparation for the attack, the complaint said, the man, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, liquidated his family’s financial assets to raise cash for the resettlement of his relatives in Kabul and recruited a co-conspirator, his nephew, who was not named because he is under the age of 18. It is not clear where Mr. Tawhedi intended to stage the attack, though investigators said he planned to use two AK-47s. His online history showed that he searched for how to access cameras in Washington on the same day he visited the White House and Washington Monument webcams, according to investigators. Mr. Tawhedi communicated his plans in chilling detail to a man he later identified as a member of the Islamic State.... Charges against other individuals are possible, according to a law enforcement official....” The AP's story is here.

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Florida. Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information: Florida's Department of Health has threatened Mark Higgins, the General Manager of WFLA Tampa, with jail time for airing an ad that supports passage of Amendment 4, which would overturn Florida's near-total ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

New York. Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: “A former city official under Mayor Eric Adams was arrested Tuesday and charged with witness tampering and destruction of records as part of a federal probe into alleged illegal contributions solicited on the mayor’s behalf during his last campaign. Mohamed Bahi ... recently resigned as a community liaison focused on serving members of New York’s Muslim population. He previously had a role in Adams’s 2021 campaign.”

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Brazil. Terrence McCoy & Marina Diaz of the Washington Post: “A Brazilian Supreme Court justice lifted the suspension Tuesday evening on the social media platform X after the company met all of the court’s demands, ending a months-long dispute over the limits of freedom of expression in an era characterized by disinformation and polarization. The platform — which has paid off its fines, suspended accounts deemed to have broken Brazilian law and appointed a legal representative in the country — is expected to be back online within a matter of hours, reopening operations in one of its most active markets. The suspension order was a political defeat for the company’s owner, Elon Musk.”

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israeli wars are here: “Fierce cross-border fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah rages on, with the Israel Defense Forces announcing that it had killed at least 50 Hezbollah operatives in a spate of attacks across southern Lebanon. U.N. human rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence condemned Israeli actions in Lebanon, accusing the IDF of using 'the same means and methods of warfare' as in Gaza and stating that 'the devastation is beyond belief' in both regions. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to speak on the phone Wednesday, according to Israeli media reports, as Israel plans its response, possibly within days, to Iran’s barrage of ballistic missiles last week.”

Adam Rasgon, et al., of the New York Times: “Israel announced a new division had joined its invasion of southern Lebanon on Tuesday, signaling that it could be ramping up operations as it pounded the Beirut strongholds of Hezbollah. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Israel had also struck near the Iranian Embassy in Syria’s capital. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces launched their own aerial attack toward Israel, firing what the Israeli military said were 180 'projectiles,' most of which were intercepted. Separately, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to confirm in a video message released on Tuesday that Israeli airstrikes outside Beirut last week had killed the presumed successor of Hezbollah’s assassinated leader, Hassan Nasrallah.”

Comment2 Comments

Reader Comments (2)

Tim Walz mistakenly says he was in China on a certain date. The corporate MSM eviscerates him. Yes, he’s been to China (a number of times), but not at that point. He’s still getting ripped for that.

Trump claims he visited Gaza. He was never there. Ever. MSM? Zzzzzzzzzz. No biggie.

This isn’t Both Sides. This is “We’re here to screw Democrats. We mostly leave Trump alone cuz we’re scared of what they’ll say about us. Democrats don’t scare us.”

October 9, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Reuters

"Harris proposes new funds for at-home senior care, aiming at 'sandwich generation'

Harris' plan targets 'sandwich generation' caring for both children and aging parents
Proposal includes expanding Medicare to cover at-home senior care for first time
Funding to come from Biden's drug-price negotiation plan and crackdown on hidden drug costs"

October 9, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

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