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The Ledes

Friday, March 29, 2024

CNBC: “Inflation rose in line with expectations in February, likely keeping the Federal Reserve on hold before it can start considering interest rate cuts, according to a measure the central bank considers its more important barometer. The personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy increased 2.8% on a 12-month basis and was up 0.3% from a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Both numbers matched the Dow Jones estimates.... Along with the inflation increase, consumer spending shot up 0.8% on the month, well ahead of the 0.5% estimate, possibly indicating additional inflation pressures. Personal income increased 0.3%, slightly softer than the 0.4% estimate.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Washington Post's liveblog of developments in the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse is here: “Divers recovered the bodies of two construction workers who died when a massive cargo ship struck and collapsed a Baltimore bridge, as investigators revealed Wednesday that hazardous material was leaking from breached containers on the stranded vessel and state and federal lawmakers rushed to begin the recovery from the disaster that crippled the Port of Baltimore. Rescue crews found the victims shortly before 10 a.m. trapped in a red pickup truck in about 25 feet of water in the Patapsco River near the mid-span of the hulking wreck of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Maryland State Police Secretary Roland L. Butler Jr. said at a news conference. The conditions were treacherous for the divers, so Butler said they were suspending the search for the bodies of four other construction workers who plunged to their deaths when the container ship in distress struck the bridge shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, causing it to fall.

“The workers are believed to be the only victims in the disaster.... The victims recovered were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Dundalk, Md. Other victims identified Wednesday were Maynor Suazo Sandoval, 38, from Honduras, and Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, who was the father of three. The names of the remaining two victims have not been released.” ~~~

~~~ CNN's live updates are here.

Public Service Announcement

The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705

The Hollywood Reporter has the full list of 2024 Oscar winners here.

Ryan Gosling performs "I'm Just Ken" at the Academy Awards: ~~~

Marie: If you don't like birthing stories, don't watch this video. But I thought it was pretty sweet -- and funny:

If you like Larry David, you may find this interview enjoyable:


Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Allison Hope comments in a CNN opinion piece:

~~~ Here's Chapman singing "Fast Car" at the Oakland Coliseum in December 1988. ~~~

~~~ Here's the full 2024 Grammy winner's list, via CBS.

He Shot the Messenger. Washington Post: “The Messenger is shutting down immediately, the news site’s founder told employees in an email Wednesday, marking the abrupt demise of one of the stranger and more expensive recent experiments in digital media. In his email, Jimmy Finkelstein said he was 'personally devastated' to announce that he had failed in a last-ditch effort to raise more money for the site, saying that he had been fundraising as recently as the night before. Finkelstein said the site, which launched last year with outsize ambitions and a mammoth $50 million budget, would close 'effective immediately.' The New York Times first reported the site’s closure late Wednesday afternoon, appearing to catch many staffers off-guard, including editor in chief Dan Wakeford. As employees read the news story, the internal work chat service Slack erupted in what one employee called 'pandemonium.'... Minutes later, as staffers read Finkelstein’s email, its message was underscored as they were forcibly logged out of their Slack accounts. Former Messenger reporter Jim LaPorta posted on social media that employees would not receive health care or severance.”

Washington Post: “The last known location of 'Portrait of Fräulein Lieser' by world-renowned Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was in Vienna in the mid-1920s. The vivid painting featuring a young woman was listed as property of a 'Mrs Lieser' — believed to be Henriette Lieser, who was deported and killed by the Nazis. The only remaining record of the work was a black and white photograph from 1925, around the time it was last exhibited, which was kept in the archives of the Austrian National Library. Now, almost 100 years later, this painting by one of the world’s most famous modernist artists is on display and up for sale — having been rediscovered in what the auction house has hailed as a sensational find.... It is unclear which member of the Lieser family is depicted in the piece[.]”

CNN: “Jon Stewart is heading back to 'The Daily Show.' The comedian, who during his 16-year run as host of the Comedy Central program established it as an entertainment and cultural force, will return to host the show each week on Mondays starting February 12, Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios announced Wednesday. Stewart, who returns as the 2024 presidential election season heats up, will also executive produce the show and work with a rotating line-up of comedians who will helm the program the rest of the week, Tuesdays through Thursdays.”

~~~ Marie: I don't know if this podcast will update automatically, or if I have to do it manually. In any event, both you and I can find the latest update of the published episodes here. The episodes begin with ads, but you can fast-forward through them.

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Sunday
Jan262014

The Commentariat -- Jan. 27, 2014

Internal links removed.

Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "Aides to President Obama on Sunday offered a preview of the strategy of the president's State of the Union address, emphasizing Mr. Obama's willingness to bypass a gridlocked Congress to achieve his goals. ...

... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "White House officials are setting the scene for a confrontational state of the union address on Tuesday night, claiming that President Barack Obama is preparing to 'bypass' Congress with executive action on divisive issues such as economic inequality." ...

... John Harwood of the New York Times: This is because Republicans are still getting their way. "'We've been playing on a Reagan playing field -- a cut-government, shrink-programs field -- since 1981,' [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] said in an interview. 'It's all turning around now.' If he is right, the president has three years left to capitalize. Neither Mr. Obama nor his aides evince much confidence."

... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: The Republicans' planned/canned responses to the State of the Union address are evidence of a party in disarray, with no clear message & no clear leader. ...

... Alex Pareene of Salon: "... the responses are multiplying for the same reason phony talking filibusters suddenly caught on among Senate Republicans last year: Because the GOP is effectively leaderless and acting like a rebel insurgent is the only way to win over grassroots conservative voters. In other words, expect even more responses in 2015."

Griff Witte of the Washington Post: The British are likely to raise the minimum wage to about $10/hour, & the Conservative Party is for it.

New York Times Editors: "The clandestine influence of the Kochs and their Palm Springs friends would be much reduced if they were forced to play in the sunshine. The Internal Revenue Service and several lawmakers are beginning to step up their interest in preventing 'social welfare' organizations and other tax-sheltered groups from being used as political conduits, but they have encountered the usual resistance from Republican lawmakers. Considering how effectively the Koch brothers are doing their job, it's easy to see why." See also safari's comments on the Koch Party in yesterday's Comments. ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality -- and simultaneously gives these people great power. The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins.... In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the 'one percent' -- and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.... President Obama has not, unfortunately, done nearly as much as F.D.R. to earn the hatred of the undeserving rich. But he has done more than many progressives give him credit for -- and like F.D.R., both he and progressives in general should welcome that hatred, because it's a sign that they're doing something right." CW: Krugman's column is an elaboration on a blogpost MAG linked in yesterday's comments. ...

... ** Matthew O'Brien in the Atlantic: "Upward mobility has stayed the same the past 50 years despite skyrocketing inequality. But it's lower in the South (and Ohio) than anywhere else in the U.S. -- or the rest of the developed world."

Click on map to see larger image.

... Amy Chua & Jed Rubenfeld in the New York Times: "... for all their diversity, the strikingly successful [ethnic/cultural] groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex -- a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite -- insecurity, a feeling that you or what you've done is not good enough. The third is impulse control." ...

... Robert Reich posits three reasons Americans don't mount a popular revolution (tho massive protest is justified).

Yesterday the New York Times ran a big profile of Rand Paul, by Sam Tanenhaus & Jim Rutenberg. CW: I didn't read it, but P. D. Pepe did. As do I, Pepe thinks Paul is a viable presidential candidate. A few more scandals, & he'll be the Last Man Standing (yes, "Man"; there will be no GOP women in the running. Or Democratic women, if Paul has it his way ...

... Sins of the Husband. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Sunday that the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal should give Americans pause when it comes to evaluating the Clinton legacy -- and, by extension, Hillary Rodham Clinton's potential presidential campaign. Paul's wife, Kelley, made similar remarks in a Vogue profile last year, and her husband agreed with her Sunday in an interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" ...

For I Acqua Buddha am a jealous Buddha, visiting the iniquity of the husbands upon the wives unto every presidential election henceforce and forevermore. -- Proverbs of Paul 5:8

... Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "During a Lexington luncheon Thursday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul discussed the possibility of cutting government benefits for unwed mothers who have multiple children, though the potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 didn't directly endorse such a policy.... 'Maybe we have to say "enough's enough, you shouldn't be having kids after a certain amount,'" Paul told the business group at one point. Paul told the audience that being "married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not. We should sell that message,' Paul said. 'Not in a mean way to tell people who already have made a bad decision, but if you've had one child and you're not married, you shouldn't have another one.'" ...

For I Acqua Buddha am a jealous Buddha, visiting the iniquity of the mothers upon the children unto the second and third and fourth of them. -- Proverbs of Paul, 5:9

     ... Ashley Killough of CNN: Paul clarified his comments on Sunday. "'I mostly concluded by saying it's a community, it's a religious, it's a personal problem, but it is a problem,' Paul said." ...

... Ashley Killough: "Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that Democrats are failing in their attempts to frame the GOP as a party that wages a war against women, and argued the message comes from the party of former President Bill Clinton, whose reputation is still tarnished from his 'predatory behavior' in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 'The whole thing of the 'war on women,' I sort of laughingly say, 'Yeah, there might have been -- but the women are winning it,'" the Republican senator from Kentucky said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' He said women have made great strides and, as an example, now make up more than half the students at medical and law schools." CW: There is no war on women, but a woman cannot seek high office if her husband behaves badly.

Clinton's husband must be above suspicion. -- Paulus Minor

David of Crooks & Liars: "CBS host Bob Schieffer's was driven nearly to a fit of giggles on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz R-TX) repeatedly refused to take responsibility for last year's government shutdown." CW: Actually, you can hear Schieffer chortling off-camera. And Schieffer didn't just laugh; after Cruz repeated his claim that President Obama was the one who shut down the government, Schieffer said, "Senator, I know what Republicans were telling me -- like John Boehner -- that this was a disaster and never again":

McConnell: I'll Say Anything to Get Re-elected. Zack Ford of TPM: "In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told host Chris Wallace that it would be 'irresponsible' for Republicans not to try to add amendments to a bill raising the debt ceiling, which they may need to pass as early late February." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "Republicans and their allies are still insisting that a key Obamacare provision amounts to a taxpayer-funded 'bailout' of the insurance industry. And now they may demand its repeal in exchange for giving the U.S. Treasury authority to borrow money and pay the government's bills." Cohn explains why this doesn't make sense, even in terms of GOP ideology.

Brass Behaving Badly. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Since November 2012, when an adulterous affair felled David H. Petraeus..., the armed forces have struggled to cope with tawdry disclosures about high-ranking commanders."

Reuters: "The National Security Agency leaker, Edward Snowden, would be willing to enter talks with attorney general Eric Holder to negotiate his return to the US, his legal adviser said on Sunday, but not without a guarantee of amnesty. Jesselyn Radack said she was glad Holder indicated last week he would talk to lawyers for Snowden to negotiate his return from Russia, but said that he would need better protection."

Local News

Times-Picayne: Former New Orleans Mayor Ray "Nagin stands accused of participating in the very cronyism he had vowed to combat. He is the first New Orleans mayor to face federal charges. And on Monday, he will be the first to stand trial, barring any last-minute plea deal. Federal prosecutors charged Nagin in January 2013 with 21 counts of bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy, stemming from misdeeds they say go back to 2004. He could get more than 20 years in prison if prosecutors can prove he broke the law for a meager bounty of $300,000, a truckload or two of granite, a ride in a limousine and a few trips on a private jet." The Times-Picayune will liveblog the trial here.

News Ledes

Coins for Coke. New York Times: "One of the most prominent players in the Bitcoin universe, Charles Shrem, was arrested by federal prosecutors on Sunday and accused of helping grease the wheels for drug transactions.... Mr. Shrem was the founder and chief executive of a popular website, Bitinstant, where Bitcoins could be bought using dollars. The criminal charges unsealed on Monday by the United States attorney's office in Manhattan claim that Mr. Shrem used his company to convert money anonymously for people interested in buying narcotics on the Silk Road site, and also personally bought drugs on the site.... According to the complaint, the scheme was operated in cooperation with another man, Robert Faiella, known as BTCKing, who was arrested on Monday."

Washington Post: "A powerful council of Egypt's top military commanders announced Monday that it is backing Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al-Sissi for president, a move likely to entrench the military's political power and intensify its battle with an increasingly sophisticated Islamist insurgency."

New York Times: "Islamist militants shot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula with a surface-to-air missile over the weekend, raising new alarms about the terrorist insurgency that developed there in response to the military takeover last summer....All five soldiers in the helicopter were killed, security officials said."

Guardian: "Lost letters, photographs and diaries by Heinrich Himmler have been discovered in Israel, shedding new light on one of the men most directly responsible for the Holocaust. The stash of documents from the Nazi era is currently held in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, but has been authenticated by the German federal archive, considered the world's leading authority on material from the period. Its contents are to be published over eight days in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, starting on Sunday with Himmler's letters to his wife Margarete."

Yonhap (South Korea) News: "All relatives of the executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, including children and the country's ambassadors to Cuba and Malaysia, have also been put to death at the leader's instruction, multiple sources said Sunday." Via New York.

Reader Comments (9)

Watching Ted Cruz trying to weasel his way out of that deep hole of chicanery is most entertaining. Do I remember correctly? wasn't his forever and a day schpiel on the floor of the Senate about shutting down the government?

As for our Nazi glass-breaking billionaire Tom Perkins, it appears that he has written one of those bodice rippers we were talking about here on R.C. several months ago: "Sex and the Single Zillionaire"–––very naughty and very haughty. Perkins was once married to Danielle Steel–-that alone gives one pause. Oh, and by the way, Al Gore is a partner in Perkins' firm. Strange bedfellows and such fun to speculate about.

@CW: Paulus Minor––that and the proverbs, so funny!

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

@PD; Thanks; you solved a puzzle for me. This is a sentence from the abused billionaire Mr. Perkins cry for help; "We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel,...". That brought me to a full stop. After I caught my breath I had the following thoughts; Was it the book reviewer that attacked? Is it the same Danielle Steel? You know, the author of such page burners as "Satin is for Sex" and "My Bodice is my Business"; that person? Come on, number-one celebrity? What ever happened to the City by the Bay? How about that goofy quarterback for the 'niners?
Where's Herb Caen when you need him?

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

FAMOUS LIES THROUGH THE AGES.

Whoa...we didn't kill Caesar! It was that creep, Marc Antony.
Brutus, Cassius, et al., Roman Senate, Ides of March, 44 BCE.


Trail of Tears my ass. We didn't kick out those Indians. They went out for a walk and never came back.
Andrew Jackson, White House, 1831.


We didn't build that wall. It was those East Germans. They're nuts.
Nikita Khrushchev, The Kremlin, August, 1961.


Shut down the government? I didn't do that. Obama did that!
Ted Cruz, Face the Nation, January 26, 2014.

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Real World to Toupée Top Randy:

Women will "be winning" the war you and your fellow Republicans have been waging against them when they are paid equal wages for equal work, are allowed to make decisions regarding their own lives without you and your supporters screaming at them and your dwarfs on the Supreme Court and lower courts trying to turn back the clock on them, can run for office without being pelted by "critical" pieces on how they dress and do their hair (you should know a little about that, Buddha Boy), are not called sluts by your number one media screamers, are not told to hold an aspirin between their knees by right-wing religious leaders, not lectured on controlling their libido, have funding restored to family health clinics and Planned Parenthood operations taken away by your party, when your party stops talking about legitimate rape and decides that rape within a marriage is entirely possible, and when your party stops forcing women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds before proceeding with their health care decisions, and when morally stunted little weasels stop declaring that unmarried women have too many kids and may need to be controlled. Need I go on, moron? There are plenty more examples...

Winning the war? I suppose by that sort of thinking you might as well say that in light of the enormous wage inequalities and staggering differences in things like education, opportunity, possibility of incarceration, etc, between those who have and those who don't that the war on poverty is over.

Oh wait. That IS what you say.

I can't wait for this sour-faced nudnik to run for president.

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

So the crazies are lining up to give their responses to the SOTU.

Pass the Xanax. Or better yet, a bottle of Black Bush.

Actually, the list of responders to the SOTU over the years is a halfway decent analog to the descent of conservative politics into inanity and dangerous silliness, since the "loyal" opposition started with the television rejoinders in 1966.

That year, after LBJ's speech, Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford did the honors. After Nixon slithered into the White House, Democratic counters were presented by the likes of Mike Mansfield and Bill Proxmire. All serious people on both sides, so far. Hubert Humphrey and Ed Muskie did it up after Gerry Ford's few turns, and when Carter was in office, the likes of Howard Baker spoke. During Reagan's time in office, the Democrats sent out Ted Kennedy, Bob Byrd, Tip O'Neill, Paul Sarbanes, even Bill Clinton. All smart, serious people. No nutjobs yet.

But by the middle of the Clinton years, the GOP starts sending out the hyper partisans and things start sliding into idiocy. At first they stuck to the idea that someone of weight and substance should be doing this so we get Bob Dole a couple of times. Then they just say, WTF, and instead of heavyweights, we get JC Watt, Bill Frist, Steve Largent, and Trent Lott. Very partisan bunch but still not certifiably insane (well, maybe except for Lott).

But once Obama was elected, the loony bin has emptied out and instead of serious, thoughtful responders who have been around the block a few times and understand the nature of governance, we get losers, liars, cynical manipulators, incompetents, and soon to be jailbirds: Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Mitch Daniels, and Bob McDonnell. All of whom had less experience, put together, than Bob Byrd did by himself. Now experience isn't the sole quality desired of a reasonable response to the SOTU, but sanity, gravitas, and a modicum of truthfulness are.

So now that we're on the downward slide into inanity and stupidity, who do we have this year, folks? Government shut down specialist and 'bagger bag man, Mike Lee. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chosen, presumably to show everyone that the GOP doesn't hate all women. Just ones who don't, like Rodgers, support the government shutdown then blame Obama for it, lie repeatedly to their constituents about the ACA, and voted thumbs down on the Violence Against Women Act.

Then there's Senator Self Certified. The Bad Toupée himself. I don't think anyone believes that the BT's speech will include anything serious or useful besides plenty more Teabagger posturing and the usual assortment of lies and stupidity. Although maybe he'll use this time to expand on his idea for ensuring that women he doesn't like can't reproduce,or how freedom means keeping minorities out of your place of business.

So there you have it. The slide of the GOP into irrelevant idiocy, as tracked by the respondents to the SOTU over the last half century or so.

Maybe next year we'll get Ted Nugent, Louie Gohmert, and Foster Friess.

De fumo in flammam

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I sincerely hope that Holder maintains the no clemency stance with Snowden. All those "others" who have been the recipients of stolen documents for safekeeping in furthurance of an endgame to safeguard Snowden would no longer be needed. They can release whatever. I am concerned about more tales involving other countries. Snowden appears desperate and has now adopted the stance that the NSA/CIA/corner grocer are trying to kill him. I don't think his loyal minions will sit on the documents indefinitely and then poof, nothing with which to negotiate.

There is a much more pressing issue in Russia. I have no confidence that Putin can safeguard Olympic athletes. What a stage on which extremists can make their statements. We know from experience what a single suicide bomber or a lone vehicle can accomplish. We also know that catching an individual before a murderous act is like finding a needle in multiple haystacks. I can't imagine that any number of extremists will pass up such a chance at the spotlight.

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

Diane,

I fear you are correct about possible Olympic mayhem. Various groups have already declared that they are ready and willing to use the Games to make a statement, including a Chechen warlord who has unshackled his various operatives from carrying out terrorist strikes.

Ticket sales for the Games are slow. Any wonder? I read recently that they've only sold 70% of their tickets. Hey, maybe Putin can call in the old Olympic Games Fixer, the Mittster.

Unless oversight of all those off-shore tax-free accounts is taking up all his time.

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus. Funny you should mention Mitt. I heard a blurb on NPR. Not sure where, but he was pronouncing how important security was at the Olympics. For reals, that's all you're comin' with. The depths of his intellect is truly staggering, if you are a developmentally disabled cockroach - oh wait......

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

@AK: thanks for the rundown of all those speakers after the Speakers of the free world. As for tomorrow: keep your eye out for the only woman to speak for the Republican Party–-Cathy McMorris Rogers. She is someone who has piqued my interest for some time–- I was privy to a long two hour CSpan interview with her back in the fall. She just gave birth to her third child in November–-her juggling between motherhood, wife, and House member is, I would guess, something of a struggle since her family resides in Washington state. What interests me is her fierce opposition to anything Obama–-health care, guns, Snap, etc. because I find it so difficult to understand how a woman who presents as she does as a caring, empathetic soul with young children of her own buys into the right wing diatribe. The fact that she is an ardent Evangelical may explain part of it, but... I once emailed her complaining of a lie she told during a new's conference; I never heard back. So if you can hack it, listen to her speech tomorrow–- I predict there will be a sweet sincerity to her words that belie the real message of austerity along with all the other effluvia that the Republicans offer up. And she, being the female representative for the party's response, is being offered up –––does she know she is being used?

January 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
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