To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>
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.
Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
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.'”
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.”
** Tim Egan: "... you can't help noticing the deep historic irony that finds [Paul Ryan,] a Tea Party favorite and descendant of famine Irish, using the same language that English Tories used to justify indifference to an epic tragedy," the great Irish famine. ...
... CW: Egan must have been reading contributor Patrick, who wrote here a few days ago,
Ryan purports to be Irish (one big fightin' family), but seems oblivious that such an attitude was pretty much that of the landlord class in Ireland, and the Tories in the UK parliament, back in the mid-19th century and especially during The Famine. Their answers were to turn the poor off the land and to the roads, and to deny welfare to any who would not turn themselves into the workhouse. A requirement of the workhouse was that you had to divest of any asset -- you had to be totally destitute to receive help. Many thousands starved, millions emigrated, and that seemed like an acceptable solution to most of the (absentee) landlords and MPs. Anyone named Ryan should be shamed for suggesting a repeat of that solution.
The American Prospectpublishes three reactions to economist Thomas Piketty's monumental work Capital in the Twenty-First Century. ...
... CW: A tiny, impossible dream of mine: Paul Ryan appears on "Press the Meat," & Greggers asks him, "So what about Piketty's results?" ...
... Here's an excellent, short piece by Martin Longman in Washington Monthly on Paul Ryan's "cartoonish" view of the dynamics of the inner-city economy.
Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Jonathan Martin & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama's sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law. The combination has led to uncharacteristic criticism of Mr. Obama and bitter complaints that his vaunted political organization has done little to help the party's vulnerable congressional candidates." ...
Cultural historian Jackson Lears has a fascinating piece in the New Republic on Teddy Roosevelt's brand of progressivism. As Lears describes Teddy, the President was a cross between John McCain & Mitt Romney, with a dash of Sarah Palin. His progressivism seems to have been limited -- for the most part -- to campaign speeches.
More on the newly-released Clinton memos from Peter Baker & Amy Chozick of the New York Times. And fromCathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times. (CW: I think the word she wants to use there is "chickenshit.") And a buncha stuff from Wall Street Journal reporters.
News Ledes
New York Times: "With malicious intent strongly suspected in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, American intelligence and law enforcement agencies renewed their search over the weekend for any evidence that the plane's diversion was part of a terrorist plot. But they have found nothing so far, senior officials said, and their efforts have been limited by the Malaysian authorities' refusal to accept large-scale American assistance."
New York Times: "The Army general prosecuted in the military's most closely watched sexual assault case has agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for the dismissal of accusations that he twice forced his longtime mistress into oral sex, threatened to kill her and her family, and performed consensual but 'open and notorious sexual acts' with her in a parked car in Germany and on a hotel balcony in Tucson. The new guilty pleas, outlined in a document obtained by The New York Times, are expected to be entered by Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair in military court at Fort Bragg, N.C., as soon as Monday morning."
New York Times: "A signaling system was disabled on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet before a pilot spoke to Malaysian air traffic control without hinting at any trouble, a senior Malaysian official said Sunday, shedding new light on a question important to determining why the plane turned far off its planned route and disappeared over a week ago with 239 people onboard."
Washington Post: "Crimeans started voting on their future Sunday after a hasty and one-sided campaign featuring intimidation and heavy-handed tactics that blocked most voters from hearing a vision for any alternative other than unification with Russia. The peninsula's two main cities, Simferopol and Sevastopol, look as if annexation had already been decided and accomplished, with Russian flags flying from government buildings, storefronts, trollies and public squares."
Reuters: " The U.S. government will ask Austria to extradite Ukrainian industrialistDmytro Firtash to face charges filed in a Chicago court arising from an investigation into international corruption, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday. One of Ukraine's most influential oligarchs, Firtash, 48, was arrested in Vienna on Wednesday. On Friday, a court there ordered him held and set bail at $174 million (125 million euros).... "Firtash's arrest is not related to recent events in Ukraine," they said in a reference to the political crisis between Ukraine and Russia."
Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.... The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group."
** Joan Walsh of Salon: "The backlash to the president's overtime-pay expansion just makes clear what we've known for a long time: [Republicans] oppose every attempt by government to reward hard work and protect the rights of workers -- unless it applies to the very wealthy."
Anne Gearan & Kathy Lally of the Washington Post: "An eleventh-hour U.S. effort to resolve the growing confrontation with Russia over Ukraine failed Friday, and Moscow shipped more troops and armor into the flash-point Crimea region ahead of a planned vote on breaking away from Ukraine and rejoining Russia. Secretary of State John F. Kerry warned against a 'backdoor annexation' by Russia of the strategic Black Sea peninsula." ...
... The Guardian story, by Ewen MacAskill & Alec Luhn, is here. ...
... ** C. J. Chivers & Patrick Revell of the New York Times: "With a mix of targeted intimidation, an expansive military occupation by unmistakably elite Russian units and many of the trappings of the election-season carnivals that have long accompanied rigged ballots across the old Soviet world, Crimea has been swept almost instantaneously into the Kremlin's fold."
** Charles Pierce: "Either CIA director John Brennan gets to the bottom of what his people were doing and publicly fires everyone involved, or John Brennan becomes the ex-director of the CIA. By the Constitution, this isn't even a hard call. The Senate has every legal right to investigate what was done in the name of the American people during the previous decade.... That the president has not [given Brennan this ultimatum] yet -- indeed, that he seems to have thrown his support behind Brennan -- is not merely a mistake, it is a demonstration of the practical limits of the political appeal that got him elected in the first place."
Stupid Democratic Tricks. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Facing a possible defeat in the Senate, the White House is considering delaying a vote on President Obama's choice for surgeon general or withdrawing the nomination altogether, an acknowledgment of its fraying relationship with Senate Democrats. The nominee, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an internist and political ally of the president's, has come under criticism from the National Rifle Association, and opposition from the gun-rights group has grown so intense that it has placed Democrats from conservative states, several of whom are up for re-election this year, in a difficult spot. Senate aides said Friday that as many as 10 Democrats are believed to be considering a vote against Dr. Murthy, who has voiced support for stricter gun-control laws."
The President's Weekly Address:
New York TimesEditors: "An escalating campaign by immigration advocates against President Obama's get-tough policies (nearly two million deportations and counting) is having an effect on the deporter in chief."
Sierra Marquina of Ryan Seacrest's show: "Barack Obamaphoned in to "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" on Friday to encourage young people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act and revealed how he was able to keep a straight face during his comical appearance on Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis." A fairly enjoyable interview:
... Dana Milbank on why young people have abandoned President Obama -- and how their abandonment is hurting the implementation of ObamaCare. ...
... Rick Hertzberg & Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker talk with Dorothy Wickenden about the ACA & its political implications:
Ethan Skolnick of Bleacher Report: At the request of President Obama, Miami Heat star LeBron Jameswill cut "a 30-second public service announcement, released in time for March Madness, in which the four-time MVP speaks about the importance of health care coverage."
CW: I am ashamed to say that I missed David Brooks' best column evah: the one where he explains love & sex to shut-ins. I'll admit I didn't really read it, but there something about "dopamine" & "naked women" & Paul Tillich. I know I should feel sorry for him. ...
... I am not ashamed to say I didn't read this from the New York Times op-ed page: John McCain: Obama has made America look weak." No link.
Aaron Blake & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The documents released Friday [by the Clinton Library] shed light on White House strategy and decisions in areas ranging from health-care policy to national security to the official state visits of foreign dignitaries." Blake & Rucker run down some of the highlights.
Beyond the Beltway
At this point, all signs indicate that, in the eyes of the United States Constitution, the plaintiffs' marriages will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon become a footnote in the annals of American history. -- U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ...
Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "Three nonprofit groups offering homeowner counseling sued Gov. Jerry Brown of California on Friday, demanding the state replace $369 million that had been earmarked to help troubled borrowers but was used instead to pay down the state's debt. As part of the $25 billion national mortgage servicing settlement two years ago, California and other states won a portion for home loan counseling and other educational services to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure. Kamala Harris, the state's attorney general, secured the funds after long and tense negotiations with the banks."
Senate Race
It's about time that South Carolina (says) hey, we're tired of the ambiguously gay senator from South Carolina. We're ready for a new leader to merge the Republican Party. We're done with this. -- GOP Senate candidate Dave Feliciano, on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R)
Might be a good time for Graham to come out as less ambiguously gay. -- Constant Weader
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Russia's military staged a provocative new act of aggression on Saturday, occupying a natural gas distribution center and village on a strip of Ukrainian land near the Crimean Peninsula and prompting Kiev's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to denounce 'a military invasion by Russia.' The incident marked the first face-to-face standoff between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries outside the Crimean Peninsula, suggesting that Moscow is testing the will of Kiev amid fears of further Russian incursions in eastern and southern Ukraine."...
... Washington Post: "Opposition to Russia's intervention in Ukraine sparked an unexpectedly large protest march [in Moscow] Saturday, as tens of thousands of demonstrators waving Ukrainian, Russian and European Union flags chanted 'No war!' and 'Russia without Putin.' They wore armbands and ribbons in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow, ribbons in Russia's white, blue and red, and the plain white ribbons that were a hallmark of the large rallies against President Vladimir Putin that blossomed and then faltered in 2012."
New York Times: "Russia on Saturday registered the sole veto against a United Nations Security Council resolution that declared a planned Sunday referendum on secession in Crimea illegal. China, Russia's traditional ally on the Council, abstained. As a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has the right to reject any measure proposed in the body. The Russian ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, preceded his no vote by saying that Russia would respect the results of Sunday's referendum, without saying anything about exactly what it would do afterward."
New York Times: "Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced on Saturday afternoon that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing as the result of 'deliberate action' by someone aboard. Mr. Najib also said that search efforts in the South China Sea had been ended, and that technical experts now believed that the aircraft could have ended up anywhere in one of two zones -- one as far north as Kazakhstan in Central Asia, and the other crossing the southern Indian Ocean."
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama said Thursday that deportations of illegal immigrants should be more humane, and to make that happen, he has ordered a review of his administration's enforcement efforts. Mr. Obama revealed the effort in an Oval Office meeting with Hispanic lawmakers on Thursday afternoon, telling them that he had 'deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system,' according to a White House statement. Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, Democrat of Illinois, said afterward that it was 'clear that the pleas from the community got through to the president.'"
Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal Thursday that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless allowing for retroactive payments to go to more than 2 million Americans whose benefits expired in late December. Ten senators, evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans, announced the pact and set up a timeline in which the legislation could pass the Senate in late March. Its outcome in the House remains up in the air, however." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... it's happening again. Suddenly, it seems as if all the serious people are telling each other that despite high unemployment there's hardly any 'slack' in labor markets — as evidenced by a supposed surge in wages -- and that the Federal Reserve needs to start raising interest rates very soon to head off the danger of inflation.... Although the current monetary debate isn't as openly political as the previous fiscal debate, it's hard to escape the suspicion that class interests are playing a role."
Walter Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times in McClatchy: "There are more millionaires in the United States than ever before. The number of households with net worth of $1 million or more, excluding their homes, is at a record 9.63 million, according to a new report. That eclipses the old mark of 9.2 million in 2007 before the global financial crisis, according to the Spectrem Group research firm. The tally of millionaires slipped to 6.7 million in 2008 as the financial crisis struck. The study reinforces other data showing that the wealthy are doing well compared to many other segments of society."
Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama ordered the Labor Department on Thursday to 'modernize' regulations to allow millions more workers to be paid overtime. The regulations being changed govern which types of employees qualify for the 'white collar' exemption that allows employers to avoid paying overtime at a time-and-a-half rate":
"New Rules for For-Profit Schools." Maya Rhodan of Time: "On Friday, the Department of Education released new regulations that will cap loan payments for graduates of so-called 'gainful employment programs,' offered both at for-profit schools and community colleges, to 20% of discretionary income and 8% of total income. The institutions must stick to the caps and keep loan default rates under 30% in order to continue receiving federal financial aid. Though some of these job-training institutions properly prepare students for the work force, the majority of for-profit schools designed to propel students straight into careers do not.... For profit institutions can receive up to 90 percent of their revenue from taxpayer money."
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -- Archilochus, c.a. 7th century, B.C.E.
The op-ed columnists at the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are probably the most hedgehoglike people. They don't permit a lot of complexity in their thinking. They pull threads together from very weak evidence and draw grand conclusions based on them. They're ironically very predictable from week to week. If you know the subject that Thomas Friedman or whatever is writing about, you don't have to read the column. You can kind of auto-script it, basically. -- Nate Silver
The world is divided into two sorts of people: those who think the world is divided into two sorts of people and those who don't. -- Robert Benchley, 1920s
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to confirm President Obama's nominee [Caroline Krass] to become the C.I.A.'s top lawyer, as senior lawmakers escalated pressure on the agency's director to make public a voluminous report on the C.I.A.'s defunct detention and interrogation program."
Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, are to meet in London on Friday for talks on Ukraine before Sunday's planned referendum in Crimea. The two will meet at the US ambassador's residence in central London as Kerry attempts to head off a vote that could lead to Crimea -- now under the control of Russian troops -- deciding to become part of Russia." ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "A proposed U.S. aid package for Ukraine's fledgling pro-Western government stalled Thursday amid festering Republican Party feuds over foreign policy. Tensions erupted on the Senate floor late in the day after the chamber did not advance the measure, with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) berating the dozen or so of his Republican colleagues who, for various reasons, objected to the legislation.... A House version of the package passed last week." ...
... Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Ukraine's interim prime minister, seeking to rally support for a Security Council resolution criticizing the Russian takeover of Crimea, took pains on Thursday to say that his country wanted a peaceful resolution to the crisis."
... Steven Myers & Alison Smale of the New York Times: "With a referendum on secession looming in Crimea, Russia massed troops and armored vehicles in at least three regions along Ukraine's eastern border on Thursday, alarming the interim Ukraine government about a possible invasion and significantly escalating tensions in the crisis between the Kremlin and the West. The announcement of the troop buildup by Russia's Defense Ministry was met with an unusually sharp rebuke from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany...."
Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The US came under sharp criticism at the UN human rights committee in Geneva on Thursday for a long list of human rights abuses that included everything from detention without charge at Guantánamo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality. At the start of a two-day grilling of the US delegation, the committee's 18 experts made clear their deep concerns about the US record across a raft of human rights issues. Many related to faultlines as old as America itself, such as guns and race." ...
... ** Charlie Savage of the New York Times: " The Obama administration declared Thursday that a global Bill of Rights-style treaty imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad, rejecting an interpretation by the United Nations and the top State Department lawyer during President Obama's first term."
Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "A second batch of 4,000 pages of records from former President Clinton's White House are slated to be released Friday. The records ranging from the 2000 presidential recount in Florida to documents related to terrorism in the decade before 9/11 will be available online at the Clinton Presidential Library at 1 p.m."
Congressional Races
** Frank Rich: "The Democrats are in deep trouble this fall, but not because of any reading of the tea leaves in this single district [Florida's 13th], and not because the entire country hates Obamacare. The fundamentals are far more basic." And other stuff. ...
... Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "Geoff Garin, the pollster who did [Alex] Sink's polling in the race. Garin argues in a memo he released the day of the voting that 'the issue ultimately provided more of a lift than a drag to her campaign.' He followed up by telling me yesterday: 'She would have done worse if she'd neglected to hit back and engage the issue.' There's a lesson in there for Democrats as they march toward November." ...
Steve Peoples of the AP: "Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has begun seeking campaign staff while aggressively courting New Hampshire's political elite, marking what local Republicans consider serious steps toward launching a Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.... In the meantime, Brown continues his role as a paid contributor for Fox News...."
Beyond the Beltway
Adding Insult to Cold-Blooded Murder. Tamara Lush of the AP: "A former police officer accused of killing a man in a movie theater during a dispute over texting had used his own phone to send a message to his son moments before the incident, according to documents released Thursday by Florida prosecutors." ...
... CW: If there was any sort of person whom I thought could be trusted to carry a firearm into a movie theater, it would be a kindly old retired police captain who had taught gun safety classes. This case is refutation of the NRA's argument that we're all a lot safer when "responsible" gun owners can carry their loaded weapons into public places, the better to protect us from the occasional mass murderer.
Salvador Rizzo of the Star-Ledger: "Angry protesters turned up at Gov. Chris Christie's town hall today, shouting criticisms about the governor's handling of the George Washington Bridge scandal and Hurricane Sandy relief funding. Amid the heckling, six people, including four Rowan University students, were escorted out by State Police.... Protesters kept piping up until the end of the event, police kept removing them, and the governor scolded them for interrupting while he answered other people's questions."
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "While the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has expanded westward amid concerns of foul play, a satellite company confirmed that signals from the plane were registered by its network. British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat said Friday that signals from the Boeing 777 were 'routine' and 'automated.'" ...
... Reuters: "Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday. Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations...."
;)
Share Article 