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The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

The Wires

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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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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

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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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Saturday

Sep282013

The Plot Thickens --

-- Or -- How Twitter Saved the World

In December or January, I wrote that the only way House Speaker John Boehner would ever get meaningful legislation through the House was to cooperate with House Democrats. He knows that & has resorted to the tactic some five times, most significantly in the "fiscal cliff" hoohah & in appropriating funds for Hurricane Sandy relief. A majority of Republicans opposed these bills, & they passed when most Democrats and only 30 or 40 Republicans voted for them. If we are to avoid a government shutdown next week and a federal debt default a few weeks hence, Boehner will have to rely on Democrats again.

As several contributors have pointed out here, defying his Tea Party caucus will cost Boehner his job.

But maybe not. This humorous tweet from Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon

inspired me to suggest, also in jest, that maybe Democrats could realize Demand 7. If Boehner riled his Chaos Caucus, they could try to unseat him, a move that would split House Republicans, leaving Democrats with enough votes to put Pelosi on top. However, if Wikipedia is trustworthy, the House has almost always chosen its speaker by majority vote, only once -- in the 19th century -- resorting to accepting a candidate who attained only a plurality.

But there is a more plausible scenario along these same lines. It goes like this. We know Boehner is trying to figure out how to simultaneously (a) keep his job & (b) avoid national and international catastrophe.

Besides actually giving a damn about the country, he is infuriated not just by teabagger actions but also by teabagger attitude. Tweets like this push him over the edge.

Boehner meets with Nancy Pelosi, & the two of them agree on an acceptable continuing resolution and on a "clean" debt ceiling bill. The bills pass the House with Democrats & a few dozen Republicans voting in favor, a la the "fiscal cliff" votes.

As a result, the Teabaggers revolt & attempt to oust Boehner. Quite a few Republicans will support Boehner, but not enough to give him a majority -- unless he can find some votes someplace else.

Hmm. Boehner goes back to Pelosi (it's possible they had this discussion in their first hypothetical meeting), and the two forge an agreement. Pelosi guarantees Boehner enough Democratic votes to beat back the Tea Party insurgency. Boehner agrees to ditch the "Hastert Rule" -- that is, the "rule" that he will only bring legislation to the floor that a majority of Republicans support. He further agrees to specifics on some pending legislation: like bringing up an omnibus immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship (see Seitz-Wald). A budget resolution that ends sequestration. Oh, SNAP. A farm bill that restores/increases the food stamps program. (You forgot that one, Alex.) Maybe replace a few of the more militant committee heads (buh-bye, Darrell Issa).

The Boehner-Pelosi agreement remains secret except to a few top dogs. The clueless teabaggers mount their no-confidence coup. At the last minute, Pelosi urges the Democratic caucus to vote for Boehner. Most Democrats & some Republicans vote for Boehner. He wins the day. The teabaggers are not only blindsided; this new House dynamic completely neutralizes them. They have no power.

Yes, this scenario also will leave Boehner as a very weak speaker, dependent upon the other party for passage of every bill. It assumes Boehner would rather be a weak speaker than an ex-speaker. In order to get enough Republicans to vote for the bills that come up under this scenario, the bills will necessarily be more conservative than we would like. But some progress is better than no progress at all.

Mind you, I'm not predicting this is what will happen. But you can bet such a series of events has crossed Boehner's mind. And Pelosi's. It is not entirely implausible. And there will by joy in all the land (except maybe in some pockets of "real America").

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Reader Comments (3)

Deliciously devious, it would be worth the price of more conservative legislation than ideal just to watch teabagger heads exp;lode. A side benefit might be to resuscitate a sane version of the gop (although the wackos still control their primary process, so unlikely) but it would make the next year - and probably the post 2014 election a bit easier to take.

September 28, 2013 |

Maxwell's Demon

Marie, love your scenario and am cheering my ass off for such a solution. Pretty sure Pelosi could pull it off, depends on how pissed Boehner is and if he can lay off the booze long enough to keep his emotions under control. He is a very sloppy drunk.

September 28, 2013 |

Diane

As long as we are speculating, how does this one strike you?

I read that Glenn Greenwald is working on a NSA story about government assasinations. He might have even said "Obama assasinations". His timing will be impecable (sarcasm) if it hits around the third day of a government shutdown. That ought to guarantee that all the fury will be directed at Obama thereby getting closer to Glenn's plan that Dems abandon the party (and endure a little "short-term" pain) in order to give birth to a new third party.

September 29, 2013 |

Haley Simon

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