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The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

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.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

Page Links

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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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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