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New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”
Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."
Maureen Dowd writes Queen Elizabeth's wildly successful visit and President Obama's upcoming trip to Ireland. I've added a comments page in Off Times Square for Dowd & have posted my comment on her column. If you want to write about something else, please do. ...
... The Irish Times has a page of stories on Elizabeth's visit to Ireland.
Commenter P. D. Pepe recommends Jon Stewart's take on the defenders of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid at the Sofitel in New York City:
Chris Hawley of the AP: hotel chambermaids are often the targets of unwanted and unprovoked sexual assaults and advances, and those who may appear to be in the U.S. illegally are the victims of preference.
Steven Erlanger & Maia de la Baume of the New York TimesprofileAnne Sinclair, the wealthy, famous beauty who is standing by her man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Prof. Juliet Williams in a Washington Post op-ed: "One was accused of a crime, and one pleaded guilty to being a cad, but those quick minds in the infotainment business soon got Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the same story line: Sex and politicians! ... Uh, no. One of these things is not like the other.... When a term such as 'sex scandal' is used to describe behaviors running the gamut from politically irrelevant to legally actionable, I’d say we’ve got a problem. And the weird accident of timing here reveals how badly we still confuse consensual if illicit sex with violence against women." CW: this is exactly what I said last week in a New York Times comment that was decidedly unpopular.
"Apocalypse Not." Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times reports on the Rapture that wasn't. ...
... "The Great Disappointment." Stephanie Pappas of Live Science provides a brief history of what happens to believers when doomsday predictions fail. Here's an interesting one: "After Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the end of the world on Oct. 22, 1844 — a date thereafter known as 'The Great Disappointment' when nothing happened — his followers struggled to explain their mistake. One subset decided that on that date, Jesus had shifted his location in heaven in preparation to return to Earth. This group later became the Seventh-Day Adventist church."
Nicholas Kristof's quiz on the Biblical wrtings on sex is kind of fun. I would quibble with a couple of the specific answers, which Kristof bases on a book by Jennifer Wright Knust, but the general tenor of the Q&A is accurate, and Kristof's point is exactly right: "the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues."
Herman Cain, another Republican who will never be POTUS, formally announces he'll run anyway. Fox "News": "In 2006, Cain was diagnosed with liver and colon cancer. He says he's been cancer-free since 2007 and credits the nation's health care system with keeping him alive. He says it's one reason he's so opposed to the health overhaul championed by President Barack Obama." CW: Right. And as soon as all Americans are multimillionaires like Cain, I'll agree with him that we don't need a public healthcare system.
Mitch Danielsis not going to run for the job he is not going to get. (Also see today's Ledes.)...
Mitch Daniels is a friend of mine and one of the best governors in the country. While he may not be running, he is an intellectual powerhouse and will continue to play a leading role in the Party's politics and the Nation's policies. Mitch and I agree that America's out-of-control national debt is a threat to our nation's future, and that the next president must restore fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC. Mary and I wish Cheri and Mitch all the best. -- Tim Pawlenty
CW: I missed this post by Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress, but you do have a right to know, however belatedly, that Sen. Rand Paul is stark-staring mad, & doesn't mind proving it during a Senate committee hearing, where he said, in part,
With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies.... It means you believe in slavery.... I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.
* Where facts never intrude.
Local News
Rachel Stassen-Berger & Bob von Sternberg of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Bradlee Dean, a Christian minister, delivers an invocation in the Minnesota State House in which he implies President Obama is not a Christian. The prayer caused an outcry on both sides of the aisle & may derail a vote on a state constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. Dean said later he favored enforcement of sodomy laws. CW: here's a surprise: "U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann ... has fund-raised for Dean's group and is scheduled to share a stage with him at a Tea Party event ... September." With video.
News Ledes
President Obama speaks at the AIPAC policy conference:
New York Post: "Disgraced former IMF chiefDominique Strauss-Kahnattempted to lure two attractive hotel employees to his $3,000-a-night hotel suite -- and later put the moves on an Air France flight attendant following his alleged sexual assault on a maid, The Post has learned."
Haaretz: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahumust accept U.S. President Obama's vision for Mideast peace if talks with the Palestinian Authority are to resume, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Sunday." ...
ABC News: "King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key American ally and advocate of the Middle East peace process, says he does not have much hope for progress on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in the coming months.... Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who resigned this month as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East after serving two years, said that while President Obama's comments on the 1967 borders were "a significant statement," they do not signal a major shift in policy, especially when land swaps are taken into consideration." With videos of interviews.
President Obama spoke at an AIPAC conference this morning. AP story here. New York TimesUpdate: "President Obama, speaking on Sunday to the nation’s foremost pro-Israel lobbying group, repeated his call for Palestinian statehood based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders adjusted for land swaps, issuing a challenge to the Israeli government to 'make the hard choices that are necessary to protect a Jewish and democratic state for which so many generations have sacrificed.'”
New York Times: "Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said early Sunday that he would not become a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, telling supporters in an e-mail message that concerns from his family were the overriding factor in deciding to stay out of the race." Washington Post story here. ...
AP: "A spacewalking astronaut ran into trouble Sunday while trying to lubricate a joint in the life-sustaining solar power system of the International Space Station, losing one bolt and getting a washer stuck in a crevice."
What with the end of the world as we know it coming today, I've posted a Judgment Day Open Thread on Off Times Square. Write about anything. I've posted a couple of my Times comments there, even though I know all the good Christians probably won't have time to read them. Also, see posts from Karen Garcia & Kate Madison. ...
... Dana Milbankcites signs of the Apocalypse that Judgment Day calculator Harold Camping never thought of. "Camping points to traditional signs: the creation of the State of Israel and the spread of 'gay pride.'" Many of Milbank's signs involve Republicans, like "The Temptation of Huck" and "The False Prophet Trump." ...
... Update. Rapture-Fail. David Batty of the Guardian: "Christian doomsday prophet Harold Camping looks likely to be less than rapturous after his prediction that the world would end on Saturday failed to materialise. The 89-year-old Californian preacher had prophesied that the Rapture would begin at 6pm in each of the world's time zones, with those 'saved' by Jesus ascending to heaven and the non-believers being wiped out by an earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet. But as the deadline for the Apocalpyse passed in the Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia, it became apparent that Camping's prediction of the end of the world was to end not with a bang but with a whimper."
President Obama's weekly address:
** Today's Math Lesson. Jon Chait of The New Republic. So Paul Ryan writes an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor defending his indefensible budget against President Obama's charge that the Ryan/Republican Tea Party budget would leave children with disabilities to "fend for themselves" and decimates the social safety net:
Paul Ryan: Mounting debt also threatens our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, because those who depend most on government would be hit hardest by a fiscal crisis. Harsh austerity would be the only course left. A broke government unable to finance its spending commitments would be forced to make indiscriminate cuts affecting current beneficiaries of government programs – without giving them time to prepare or adjust.
Chait Translation: ... if there was a fiscal crisis, it would entail huge and immediate cuts to programs that aid the poor. Therefore we must enact huge, immediate cuts in programs that aid the poor. Oh, and also preserve the Bush tax cuts for top-income earners and cut the rate another ten percentage points. For the sake of the poor.
... Chait adds, "... strangely for a man so prone to boasting of his wonkery and love of numbers -- [Ryan's op-ed] contains zero numbers attempting to substantiate his claim that his budget 'strengthens,' or even fails to shred, the safety net. If you want actual numbers, you need to go to places like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which lay them out.... $2.17 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and related health care.... $350 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid).... $400 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs." Here's a pie chart from the CBPP:
... What workers want is an independent labor movement that builds the power of working people — in the workplace and in political life.... We’ll be less inclined to support people in the future that aren’t standing up and actually supporting job creation and the type of things that we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter what party they come from. It will be a measuring stick. -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka at the National Press Club
Howard Schneider & Mary Pat Flaherty of the Washington Post: "... the International Monetary Fund is still working to recover from Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s 2008 affair with a staff member — an incident that triggered reform of the agency’s ethics laws and new training programs for employees. On May 6, the agency put in place new rules ordering staff members to disclose relationships that develop among them so that any conflict of interest can be resolved."
Peter Stone of Yahoo News: "When George W. Bush declined President Barack Obama’s invitation to a ceremony at New York City’s Ground Zero after Osama bin Laden was killed, the former president cited his desire to keep a low public profile. But ... in the week after Obama’s Ground Zero event, the nation’s 43rd president made time for three separate speeches to hedge fund executives, a Swiss bank sanctioned for keeping secret bank accounts,and a pro golf event underwritten by the accounting firm involved in the Tyco International financial scandal.... Bush’s standard speaking fee is reportedly between $100,000 and $150,000. David Sherzer, a spokesman for the former president, told iWatch News that since Bush left office he has delivered almost 140 paid talks, at home and abroad. Those speeches have earned Bush about $15 million, a conservative estimate, following in the golden path blazed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton."
Matthew Mosk of ABC News: "Last month, late night comedian Stephen Colbert launched a 'super PAC,' the newest form of political fundraising committee, allowing him to reprise his previous efforts to lampoon the outsized role of corporate money in American elections. But over the past month, what started as a humorous dressing down of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark campaign finance ruling in the case of Citizens United has turned into a[n] unexpectedly serious look at the complexities of the way the government regulates political spending." Here's Colbert last month after meeting with the FEC:
Although Newt Gingrich has not held political office since the 20th century, he thinks of himself as a 21st-century man. He has more than a million followers on Twitter & 130,000 people on his Facebook page. He announced his presidential run on YouTube! Kathie Obradovich the the Des Moines Register's political columnist. She doesn't make stuff up:
Peter Catapano of the New York Times has a roundup of some of the right-wing horror show at the Audacity of 1967. I've avoided linking to any of this stuff, but Catapano tells you all you need to know, plus he links to some commentary that debunks the right-wing noisemakers' mock horror. (See also Orrin Hatch in Right Wing World.) ...
... Matt Duss of Middle East Progress: President Obama's remarks about the 1967 lines "really shouldn’t be as controversial as it probably will be. Treating the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations in this way represents the overwhelming consensus of the international community, enshrined in multiple UN resolutions. That anyone should be confused or surprised about this probably goes to the success that Israeli leaders have had over the years in obscuring it, and the indulgence that American leaders have often shown toward those efforts." Read the whole post. ...
... Massimo Calabresi of Time: on "the icy relationship" between "Bibi and Barack:: "Unfortunately the florid and overheated reaction to Obama’s statement on Thursday is making progress ... even harder." Here are Bibi & Barack:
... Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuseemed to think he needed to educate President Obama on some issues today [Friday], so in the Oval Office he described in some detail to the president a history of the refugee problem in the region dating back 63 years, as well as his view on the need for Israel to be able to defend itself in the context of thousands of years of Jewish suffering."
... Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic: "Here is what Hillary Clintonsaid in 2009: 'We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.'" CW: Funny, the right didn't go nuts then. But then, Clinton is white. AND she was born in the U.S.A. AND she is not a Muslim. So, you, see there is a difference. Read another Goldberg post, in which he defends President Obama against PM Netanyahu's assault. ...
... CW: to put Goldberg's remarks in context, Steve Benen writes, "I think the right’s reaction to President Obama’s speech on the Middle East officially went off the rails this morning when a prominent right-wing blogger blasted Jeffrey Goldberg as a 'far-left Israel hater.' ... I’d note for context that he’s politically conservative, Jewish, and staunchly pro-Israel."
Right Wing World *
Israel is the United States' strongest friend and ally. By calling for a return to the pre-1967 borders, President Obama has directly undermined her. -- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), in a statement titled "Hatch Condemns President's Demand that Israel Revert to Pre-1967 Borders" ...
... The Problem? It Isn't True. As Eric Kleefeld of TPM writes, "Obama did not call for a direct return to the 1967 borders for Israel, as Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have represented. Instead, he reiterated the longstanding conventional wisdom of the international diplomatic community, and indeed the position of previous U.S. administrations, that those lines should be the initial basis for talks, and with additional land swaps to be agreed upon in further adjusting those lines." Hatch plans to introduce a Senate resolution opposing the President's proposals. CW: Is Hatch (a) stupid or (b) is this just more political flim-flam, lying to please his Tea Party Likud base? ...
CNN: "A new poll released Saturday shows the Democratic candidate now has a slight lead – a four point advantage among likely voters – over the Republican in a special congressional election in Western New York that has attracted the national spotlight.... The Siena College poll indicates Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul is now ahead with 42 percent in the poll, and the Republican, State Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, with 38 percent. The third party candidate, Jack Davis, the Tea Party candidate, has 12 percent. The lead for Hochul is within the poll’s 4-point margin of error."
Department of Defense: "The nation’s military is built and sustained on the strength of families, First Lady Michelle Obamatold the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 2011 and their families at a banquet last night in West Point, N.Y., on the eve of today’s graduation ceremonies."
New York Times: "Former Gov. David A. Paterson of New York will not be charged with perjury in connection with accusations that he lied to the State Commission on Public Integrity about taking free World Series tickets from the New York Yankees while he was in office."
AP: "Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts took a close, detailed look at a small gash in the belly of their ship Saturday, to ensure their safety when they return to Earth in 1 1/2 weeks. NASA ordered the inspection during the next-to-last shuttle flight, even though managers said there was no reason to be alarmed by the damage generated by Monday's liftoff."
Al Jazeera: "At least six people have been killed and 23 injured in a suicide bombing at a surgery training session in a military hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The Afghan defence ministry said a lone bomber was responsible for the attack on Saturday, after reports that a second bomber was still at large on hospital grounds." With video.
... AP: "Three Republican senators moved closer to recall elections Friday when state elections board staff suggested dismissing most of the challenges to recall efforts targeting the Wisconsin lawmakers. Government Accountability Board legal counsel and election specialists released memos that said the full board should reject most of the claims against petitions gathered to oust Sens. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon. The memos said elections should be held July 12." ...
... Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prossernarrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election. But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge the results in court. And if a legal contest goes on long enough, attorneys say it could delay efforts to swear Prosser in for a new term on Aug. 1, leading to a temporary vacancy on the closely divided high court."
Paul Krugman writes that in the U.S., "Manufacturing is one of the bright spots of a generally disappointing recovery. Just look at the auto industry." CW Translation: low wages bring back lousy jobs. ...
... MEANWHILE, David Brooks touts British Conservatives' "Big Society" (which apparently no Brits have ever heard of) -- a program that Brooks claims is a great social engineering experiment to get the lazy poms off their asses and into some sort of happy, integrated society. CW Translation: Conservatives find an anodyne name for government cutbacks. ...
... I've set up a comments page on Off Times Square for Krugman & Brooks and have posted my comments.
Drip, Drip. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: CIA Director Leon Panetta sent a message Wednesday to CIA employees cautioning that there should be no more leaks about the bin Laden raid and how it was conducted. In the message, obtained by ABC News, Panetta acknowledges that it’s likely some of the classified information about the raid that has emerged in the press has come from beyond the CIA...." CW: Tapper doesn't specify the obvious: someone at the CIA leaked to ABC News Panetta's memo warning against leaking.
This is about choice and we believe in the democratic process. This is about the personal and individual right to choose. -- Jim Skinner, McDonald's CEO, speaking of stockholders' decision not to assess the impact of its food on childhood obesity, as greedy stockholders cheered
It Isn't Just CEOs Who Exhibit Corporate Greed & Lack of Social Responsibility. Debra Sherman of Reuters: "McDonald's Corp spurned calls to assess the impact of its food on childhood obesity, and said its trademark clown Ronald McDonald would be hawking Happy Meals to kids for years to come.... Shareholders of the world's largest fast-food chain resoundingly rejected a proposal that would have required it to issue a report outlining its role in the childhood obesity epidemic, saying customers were free to make their own dietary choices.... Skinner defended McDonald's strategy, which has resulted in hefty sales and earnings for shareholders. McDonald's shares have gained nearly 12 percent in the last four months and rallied to a record high of $82.63 on Thursday." CW: too bad. I wish their goddamned stock would tank.
It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare. -- Nancy Pelosi ...
... Digby: "Finally -- the Democrats have awakened to the fact that Paul Ryan's plan is the best thing that ever happened to them, a major overreach of the kind that perfectly characterizes the Republicans' greatest weakness: hubris." ...
... BUT Mark Schmitt, writing in The New Republic, thinks Pelosi's plan to center the 2012 campaign around defense of Medicare is a loser. As I said way last summer, the GOP's as-yet unspecified plan to impose Medicare cutbacks on Americans 55 and younger was a way to innoculate themselves against senior backlash. Schmitt writes, "If there was ever going to be a generational war in this country, that high school class of ’74 would be its Mason-Dixon line. It’s the moment when Bill Clinton’s promise — 'if you work hard and play by the rules you’ll get ahead' — began to lose its value. Today’s seniors and near-seniors spent much of their working lives ... with their incomes rising, investments gaining, their health increasingly secure, and their retirements predictable. Everyone 55 and younger spent his or her entire working life in an economy where all those trends had stalled or reversed." Schmitt says that concentrating on senior issues has much less impact in a Presidential election year because younger voters, who don't turn out at the polls in off-years, will be there in 2012, and they are indifferent to senior issues.
Ezra Klein: more stimulus spending could actually reduce the deficit by creating more jobs, which would lead to increased revenues. But it isn't going to happen because Democrats have let Republicans drive the conversation to deficit, deficit, deficit, and guess what? Republicans really don't care about reducing the deficit.
E. J. Dionne: "'At some point it’s clear to me that we have to increase the debt ceiling,' House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday on CBS’s 'Face the Nation.' Yet Boehner needs to push things to the brink because the Tea Party members of his caucus believe that last year’s election gave the GOP a 'mandate' to make their wildest small-government dreams a reality. Boehner is trying to appease the right with extended rounds of shadow-boxing and big slabs of anti-spending rhetoric." CW: read the whole column; there's more. ...
... AND Brian Beutler of TPM gets ratings agency Standard & Poors to go on the record: on what S&P would do if the U.S. defaulted on its debt:
A sovereign's failure to service its debt as payments come due is a default according to S&P's sovereign rating criteria. In that case, the rating would be lowered to 'SD' (Selective Default). -- John Piecuch, spokesman for Standard & Poors ...
The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. -- President Ronald Reagan, 1983
Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. -- Ronald Reagan, 1987
This country cannot be allowed to default on its financial obligations for the first time in history. This would be unthinkable. -- Ronald Reagan, 1987
[Holders of U.S. government debt would be willing to miss payments] for a day or two or three or four. That's what I'm hearing from most people. What is more important is that you're putting the government in a materially better position to be able to pay their bonds later on. -- Paul Ryan, repudiating the GOP Gipper God
Reid & Boehner to Hold Stealth Votes on the Patriot Act. AP: "Top congressional leaders agreed Thursday to a four-year extension of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act, the controversial law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks that governs the search for terrorists on American soil. The deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner calls for a vote before May 27, when parts of the current act expire. The idea is to pass the extension with as little debate as possible to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government."
Friend of Barack (Enemy of Unions). Karen Garcia: "Only in a banana republic can a CEO of an anti-union corporation just found criminally responsible for polluting the earth with radioactive waste suddenly become a government-appointed expert on waste in health care spending. David Cote has jumped on board yet another Obama Administration PR initiative...."
Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "President Obama ... announced several incremental shifts in U.S. policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.... Former Congressman Robert Wexler, now the president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told The Cable that Obama's announcement was a bold step toward Middle East peace that alters U.S. policy in a fundamental way.... There's also evidence that the decision [to base negotiations on the 1967 borderlines, with swaps] went down to the wire."
Dorothy Parvaz, an Al Jazeera reporter, tells of her harrowing 19 days in captivity, first in Syria, then in Iran. The Iranians, whe she said treated her well, in contrast to the Syrians, released her after a judge ruled that she was not a spy. ...
Jon Stewart on the strained relationship between the U.S. & Pakistan:
... BUT John Hodgman has the solution for repairing the rift:
Risque Business. Binyamin Appelbaum & Sheryl Gay Stoldberg of the New York Times: "Interviews and documents paint a picture of the [I.M.F.] as an institution whose sexual norms and customs are markedly different from those of Washington [where its headquarters are located], leaving its female employees vulnerable to harassment. The laws of the United States do not apply inside its walls, and until earlier this month the I.M.F.’s own rules contained an unusual provision that some experts and former officials say has encouraged managers to pursue the women who work for them: 'Intimate personal relationships between supervisors and subordinates do not, in themselves, constitute harassment.'”
The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation. -- Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote. -- Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster. -- Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it. -- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) & Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)
... Back to the Present ...
... All of these Republican senators -- and more -- who declared the Constitution would crumble, the nation would fall & Armageddon would come if Democrats filibustered a Republican president's judicial nominee -- filibustered President Obama's nominee Goodwin Liu yesterday. The Senate voted 52-43 not to allow Liu's nomination to receive a full Senate vote. Thanks to Matt Yglesias for collecting this rogues gallery of hypocrites. His post contains more similar End-of-Civilization Republican predictions. ...
... ** Dahlia Lithwick: "... the judicial confirmation détente of 2005, when the so-called 'Gang of 14' pledged that honorably fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities meant that 'nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,' is over. The era in which the self-styled grownups on both sides agree that the judicial vacancy rate represents a national crisis, and that the Senate's responsibility to advise and consent does not extend to delaying and distorting, is over, too." Henceforth, Lithwick suggests, the only "qualified" nominee will be "someone who has spent their whole public life sitting in a cave watching cartoons." (CW: e.g, Elena Kagan.)
Ultra-conservative Dr. (& Sen.) Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) had a prescription for Newt Gingrich: "Keep your mouth shut." ...
... BUT, after several days of getting hammered like this, after blaming the elite Washington liberal media, after retracting his "inaccurate," "unfortunate" remark "that was a mistake," after saying he had apologized to Paul Ryan for dissing the Ryan plan, etc., Newt has come up with Plan F or so. Chris Good of The Atlantic: "Newt Gingrich said today that he wasn't referring to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan when he uttered the words 'right-wing social engineering' last Sunday...." CW: This is way past comical.
Doublethink. def.: The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. -- George Orwell, 1984 ...
... Driftglass calls doublethink "Ronald Reagan's most potent and vile political legacy." CW: It most certainly is an essential tool in the Right Wing World toolbox.
* Where facts never intrude & it's okay if Republicans do it.
News Ledes
President Obama thanks the intelligence community for its role in locating Osama bin Laden:
New York Times: "As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel heads to the White House on Friday for the seventh meeting since President Obama took office, the two men are facing a turning point in a relationship that has never been warm." AP story here. ...
... New York TimesUpdate: "After a meeting at the White House that was far longer than scheduled, [Obama and Netanyahu] sought to paper over what is by all accounts a frosty relationship, pleading mutual support for the enduring bonds between their countries. Mr. Netanyahu, however, bluntly rejected compromises along the lines outlined by Mr. Obama in a speech the day before in hopes of reviving a moribund peace process, looking directly at the president in the Oval Office to warn against 'a peace based on illusions.'” Video of the Obama-Netanyahu public statements is in the May 21 Commentariat.
New York Times: "NATO officials expressed increased confidence Friday that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military position was weakening, and that allied airstrikes had prevented his forces from making sustained attacks on rebel forces and had driven him into hiding."
New York Times: "Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota who has been exploring a presidential candidacy for months, will formally announce his intention to join the Republican field on Monday during a visit to Iowa, an adviser said."
New York Times: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, must find another place to stay when he leaves his Rikers Island jail cell because the Upper East Side building where his wife had rented an apartment will not accept him, a court official said on Friday. Instead, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will be staying at a corporate-housing building used by the security company, Stroz Friedberg, which has been hired to guard him while he remains under 24-hour home confinement...."
Negligent Homicide. New York Times: "In the first comprehensive state report on the 2010 coal mine disaster in West Virginia, an independent team of investigators has put the blame squarely on the owner of the mine, Massey Energy, concluding that it had 'made life difficult' for miners who tried to address safety and built 'a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable.'”
Washington Post: "The president of Japan’s embattled Tokyo Electric Power Co. resigned Friday, taking responsibility for a nuclear crisis that forced 80,000 to evacuate, caused record fiscal losses and left the country with a long-term energy shortage. Masataka Shimizu’s decision to step down came as the giant utility company announced losses of $15 billion for the fiscal year that ended in March."
Boston Globe: "President Obama lost his first vote on a judicial nominee yesterday, as Senate Republicans derailed the nomination of a liberal professor who leveled acerbic attacks against two conservative Supreme Court nominees — both now justices. Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they need to end a filibuster and give Goodwin Liu an up-or-down vote on his nomination to the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."
Doping. New York Times: "The cyclist Tyler Hamilton, one of Lance Armstrong’s former teammates on the United States Postal Service team, said he saw Armstrong inject himself with the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO to win the Tour de France, according to a report on CBS’s '60 Minutes' that will run Sunday.... Hamilton, the 2004 Olympic champion in the time trial, who has been sanctioned for doping twice, is the latest Armstrong teammate to say he saw Armstrong use performance-enhancing drugs.... A year ago, Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, shook the world of cycling by saying he and Armstrong were part of a systematic doping scheme while racing for the Postal Service team." ...
... Update: "The American cyclist Tyler Hamilton, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the time trial, has voluntarily surrendered his gold medal to the United States Anti-Doping Agency after admitting to doping during his cycling career, the International Olympic Committee said Friday."
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