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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.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Washington Post: “As a cargo ship the size of a skyscraper drifted dangerously close to a major Baltimore bridge that carried more than 30,000 cars a day, the crew of the Dali issued an urgent 'mayday,' hoping to avert disaster Tuesday. First responders sprang into action, shutting down most traffic on the four-lane Francis Scott Key Bridge just before the 95,000 gross-ton vessel plowed into a bridge piling at about 1:30 a.m., causing multiple sections of the span to bow and snap in a harrowing scene captured on video.... Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) hailed those who carried out the quick work as 'heroes' and said they saved lives, but the scale of the destruction was catastrophic and will probably have far-reaching impacts for the economy and travel on the East Coast for months to come.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here. CNN's live updates are here. ~~~

     ~~~ A Washington Post liveblog of developments is here: “Six people [-- bridge construction workers --] were presumed dead Tuesday evening, authorities announced as they shifted from a search and rescue operation to a recovery effort.... The governor declared a state of emergency, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) announced that the city has deployed its emergency operations plan. Vessel traffic into and out of the Port of Baltimore was 'suspended until further notice.'”

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.

Thursday
Jun142012

The Commentariat -- June 15, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' little dissertation explaining Republicans to shut-ins. The NYTX front page is here.

** Former Sen. (I presume) Gary Hart in a New York Times "Campaign Stop": "The Democratic response of triangulation and centrism, essentially splitting the difference between reactionary liberalism and increasingly virulent conservatism, cost the party its identity.... By failing to innovate some 30 years ago, [the Democratic party] has permitted itself to lapse into the defensive, if not also reactionary, posture that now plagues it. A well-motivated Democratic president now struggles to move the nation forward against a conservative tide that emerged in the policy vacuum created by Democratic failure to adapt and in a political climate...."

Tim Egan: almost everybody knows about the clown & the mindreader, etc., on whom the GSA wasted nearly $1MM. But the media hardly covered the fact that the House just passed a defense bill "authorizing $642 billion in spending next year -- almost $8 billion more than the Defense Department asked for. And this vote broke a promise by the Tea Party-backed Congress, when they agreed last year to cut defense spending over 10 years.... Which is more important, a bunch of clowns spending on a clown, for less than a million dollars, or a Congress that threw more than a thousand times that amount at things that are considered unnecessary -- outdated bases, pie-in-the-sky contractor schemes -- by the very people who are supposed to spend it?"

Steve Benen reminds us that the same senators who upbraided regulators three weeks ago for not preventing the $2BB+ JPMorgan loss, yesterday fell all over themselves praising JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon & seeking his advice when he testified before their committee. CW: Dimon might as well have handed out checks right there during the hearing; these lapdogs don't even try to hide their treachery.

As Paul Krugman writes, "We Don't Need No Teachers." Sacramento Channel 10: "Michelle Apperson just found out she was named "Teacher of the Year" for the Sacramento City Unified School District. Despite that and the fact that she has taught at Sutterville Elementary School for the past nine years, she's still losing her job due to budget cuts. She received her final notice in May."

Ned Martel of the Washington Post: "In the spring of last year, Timothy F. Geithner wanted to leave his job. The Treasury secretary's family was moving to New York for his son's senior year in high school, and the commute to see them each weekend was sure to be arduous. Who could do his job? Geithner's answer was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton."

The Washington Post has published another excerpt of David Maraniss's biography of Barack Obama; this one concerns his youthful journey toward establishing a racial identity.

The Washington Post is running a series by Craig Whitlock on the U.S.'s expanding military and intelligence presence in Africa. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. "The previously unreported practice of hiring private companies to spy on huge expanses of African territory -- in this region and in North Africa, where a similar surveillance program is aimed at an al-Qaeda affiliate -- has been a cornerstone of the U.S. military's secret activities on the continent."

Following is Jonathan Chait's punchline; you'll have to read his post to get it. "Once Washington was a happy place where a girl and her mother could be groped simultaneously in good fun by a white supremacist. Sadly, it has all been ruined by Kim Kardashian and Ezra Klein." CW P.S. I read the essay in question this weekend. I did not link it.

Presidential Race

New York Times Editors: "Mr. Obama still has not made his case. Mr. Romney's entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth. It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but-overlong speech." ...

... Contra the NYT, Michael Scherer of Time: "The words [Obama] spoke -- somber, substantial and filled with policy proposals -- may be remembered as more consequential than even his campaign announcement in May.... This was a big Obama speech. He was here to recast the debate.... For Obama and his aides, any day spent comparing plans with Romney is a day won."

Mike Tomasky of the Daily Beast: Romney is out there campaigning every day while Obama is going on picnics & Democratic handwringers are handwringing. "There's only one way to make [Romney] talk about [his vague proposals & flim-flam].... Obama has to raise them and ask the pointed questions. The press won't ask unless and until Obama asks. That's how this works. Two weeks of sharp, specific questions and accusations would change the dynamic in a hurry.

Jamelle Bouie, now with The Nation: "While [Romney] sells himself as a competent fix-it man, the fact of the matter is that there's nothing in his agenda that shows an awareness of our key problems." ...

... Paul Krugman pulls together his arguments against Romney's austerity policies in his column today. And I'm glad to see him including this: "Last week R. Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University, a top Romney adviser, published an article in a German newspaper urging the Germans to ignore advice from Mr. Obama and continue pushing their hard-line policies. In so doing, Mr. Hubbard was deliberately undercutting a sitting president's foreign policy. More important, however, he was throwing his support behind a policy that is collapsing as you read this." CW: Hubbard, an actual economist, knows better, so in my view, he is purposely trying to keep Europe down in order to further drag down our economy. ...

... "Romney's Vision Is Really That Scary." Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "The difference between Romney's vision and Obama's is tens of millions of people losing health insurance; less money for a variety of federal programs that help young people pay for college and enable poor people to get food; fewer dollars for repairing broken down bridges and infrastructure; and much, much bigger tax cuts for wealthy Americans. (The effects on the economy would be dramatically different, as well, although those effects are more difficult to state as fact....)" ...

... Ezra Klein: "... the Obama campaign's line of attack does point to a difficulty for the Romney campaign in the coming months: Where can they show a sharp break with the policies of the Bush administration? Spending cuts, perhaps, but the more specific they get on what they'll cut, the most voter opposition they face."

Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: "... it's not just a matter of Romney denying the wisdom of his own health care plan in Massachusetts (which depended, BTW, on the kind of generous federal Medicaid subsidies his and Ryan's budget proposals would make a thing of the distant past) and offering dishonest and threadbare 'solutions' to the problem of pre-existing conditions and other shortcomings of the status quo ante. By supporting interstate insurance sales and major reductions in federal Medicaid funding and ... the herding of people now covered by employer-based policies into the individual market, Romney would make the coverage and affordability problems far worse than they were in 2010.... The GOP's agenda for health care is not 'repeal and replace,' or even 'repeal and do nothing' -- it's 'repeal and reverse.' ..." ...

... Kevin Drum: "Mitt Romney has no intention of preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. His party wouldn't allow it, he doesn't really care about it, and it's basically impossible as a standalone policy anyway. He knows this. Everyone covering his campaign knows it. But the rules of engagement prevent anyone from plainly saying so."

Speaking of someone who will say anything, do anything, this is rich, even for Karl Rove. Steve Benen: "Karl Rove told Sean Hannity this week that President Obama and his allies have a dastardly election-year plan: they'll win by 'trying to take their wallet and buying it.'" CW: I'm pretty sure Sean Hannity fact-checked Rove on that one. Fair & balanced, you know.

Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed: "Republican nominee Mitt Romney's guerrilla tactics continued Thursday, as the campaign bus circled the venue where President Barack Obama will be speaking [Thursday] afternoon. As it passed the assembled throngs of supporters awaiting entry to the event at Cuyahoga Community College, the bus honked its horn dozens of times, before circling around to do it again. Obama supporters jeered and booed each time the bus passed the line outside of the security screening area." ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM: this is "something you'd expect a rival wrestling team to do to disrupt the other team's pep talk. On its face it seems somewhere between juvenile and just weird. But this is actually a core part of the Romney camp's election strategy."

Right Wing World

"Those People" All Look Alike. Elizabeth Flock of US News: "RNCLatinos.com features as its main image a stock photo from Shutterstock, which tags the photo with keywords that clearly suggest the kids are Asian, including: 'asia,' 'asian,' 'interracial,' 'japanese,' and 'thailand.' We're guessing the RNC may have taken inspiration from Sharron Angle, who in 2010 told Hispanic children they looked Asian.... Update: The photo of Asian children has been taken down and replaced with a banner that reads 'Hispanic Latino Strategic Partnerships.'" CW: an indignant commenter wrote in to point out that the kids could be from "Peru or any Latin American country with a significant Asian population." Yes, indeed; those GOP pros are probably targeting the vast bloc of American voters of Japanese-Peruvian heritage. Sure hope Florida Gov. Rick Scott doesn't purge them from the voting rolls.

Local News

Amanda Beadle of Think Progress: "A male Republican House leader in Michigan silenced two female Democratic state legislators on Thursday after the pair tried to advance a measure that would have reduced access to vasectomies." With video.

News Ledes

NBC News: "President Obama introduced his administration's new policy granting qualified legal status to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children in a Rose Garden statement interrupted by the heckling of a conservative reporter. As the president, standing at a podium outside the White House, explained why he was implementing the policy, Daily Caller writer Neil Munro began to shout questions, asking why Obama would want foreigners in the country instead of giving jobs to Americans":

... New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children will be able to obtain work permits and be safe from deportation under a new policy announced on Friday by the Obama administration. The policy, effective immediately, will apply to people who are currently under 30 years old, who arrived in the country before they turned 16 and have lived in the United States for five years.... The administration's action on Friday, which stops deportations but does not offer citizenship or even permanent legal status, is being undertaken by executive order and does not require legislation." ...

... The New York Times' "The Lede" posts some responses to the policy.

New York Times: "Rajat K. Gupta, the retired head of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and a former Goldman Sachs board member, was found guilty on Friday of conspiracy and securities fraud. He is the most prominent business executive convicted in a wave of prosecutions that followed the government's sweeping investigation into insider trading on Wall Street."

AP: "The U.S. government has revealed details of serious allegations against Secret Service agents and officers since 2004, including claims of involvement with prostitutes, leaking sensitive information, publishing pornography, sexual assault, illegal wiretaps, improper use of weapons and drunken behavior. It wasn't immediately clear how many of the accusations were confirmed to be true. The heavily censored list, which runs 229 pages, was quietly released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to The Associated Press and other news organizations...."

New York Times: "Egypt's military rulers formally dissolved Parliament Friday, state media reported, and security forces were stationed around the building on orders to bar anyone, including lawmakers, from entering the chambers without official notice."

Washington Post: "The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce a proposal Friday to tighten the nation's soot standards, a move that could help deliver major health benefits by the end of the decade but force some oil refiners, manufacturers and other operations to invest in pollution-abatement upgrades."

New York Times: "Russia offered its most direct rebuttal and response so far on Friday to an accusation by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Moscow is providing attack helicopters to Syria in the midst of a struggle depicted by the authorities in Damascus as 'cleansing' of rebel-held strongholds. A statement posted on the Foreign Ministry Web site confirmed that Moscow had refurbished helicopters for the Syrian military but denied shipping new models." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "The US state department has acknowledged that Russian helicopters it claimed had been sent recently to the Syrian regime were, in fact, refurbished ones already owned by Damascus."

AP: "Police on Friday arrested the last fugitive suspected in a doomsday cult's deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways 17 years ago, ending one of Japan's longest manhunts and closing a chapter on the worst terrorist attack in the country's history. Katsuya Takahashi, the former bodyguard for the Aum Shinrikyo cult leader, was tracked down at a comic-book cafe in downtown Tokyo. He admitted who he was when approached by police."

Washington Post: "Egypt's highest court ruled Thursday that the Islamist-dominated parliament should be dissolved because one-third of its members were elected unlawfully, blunting the astonishing political ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood and imperiling the country's transition to democratic rule."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Prosecutors closed their case Thursday in the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse trial with testimony from a man who said his cries for help went unanswered as he was repeatedly sodomized in the former coach's basement."

ABC News: "President Obama [last] night got a boost from some of his loyal allies in the film and fashion industries with an exclusive multimillion dollar campaign fundraiser at the home of actress Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband, actor Matthew Broderick."

Think Progress: Senate Republicans say that they will block votes on all of President Obama's judicial nominees between now & the election.

Reader Comments (3)

Watched a bit of the Show of Shows last night: Jamie Diamond being grilled in front of Congress, but to my surprise (tongue lodged in teeth) there was no grilling , just a quick sauté. When the guy being questioned for losing lots of money is harder on himself than the guys who are questioning him, then one scratches one's head and says WTF? It reminded me of a stage set: Ok, people, know your lines, know your place, lights, camera, action! Bob Corker took the Oscar for his performance when he kept asking Jamie if Dodd Frank has made it safer clearly wanting Diamond to say no since old Bob was one who voted against many of the regulations in that bill. Jamie finally said, "I don't know." As the curtain fell, all the fellas shook hands and smiled–––we could hear clapping in the distance and money singing from JPMorgan.

P.S. and that idiot Jim DeMint said he knew how Diamond felt losing all that money because "we here in Washington lose millions every day." Yep, government spending money is just like losing money. Yikes!!!!!!

June 15, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Spending money on the needs of the American people is “losing money” according to the Republican playbook as preached by that paragon of probity, Jim DeMint. I read that DeMint, in a servile gesture of obsequious toadying to wealth and power, then went on to ask Dimon to “…please, please, Mr. Genius Banker, help guide us in this area of which we know so little. Tell us exactly which regulations to remove so we can get this awful government monkey off your silk-shirted back.”

But the controlling meme “losing money” will be the only thing reported by Fox and the rest of the media. The image of DeMint as a running-dog, boot-licking lackey of the plutocratic, imperialist hordes will be etch-a-sketched away in the LCD glare of the Fox idiot box.

Republicans control the political narrative. Their antipathy to facts, to truth, to any kind of reality, inoculates them against the difficulties of attempting to explain problematic decisions and complex situations to the voting public. Much easier to make it up. Besides, “Washington loses billions a day” is a much snappier story title than “The realities of a pluralistic society require a careful balancing of government resources and the many claims on the government for assistance, from public schools to the Pentagon, and in turn demand that smart people make the best decisions possible based on a variety of sometimes conflicting data.”

That’s a hard sell. So you’ll never hear that on Fox. Or any other network either.

And this is the problem liberals have. Many of us consistently believe that once the public knows the truth about Republicans, they’ll throw them out of office. But it ain’t necessarily so. If that were true, Poppy Bush would never have been elected after the Iran-Contra cluster fuck. He lied through his teeth but we still put him in the White House. His war mongering, election stealing, deserter-in-time-of-war son lied for the first four years and we still sent him back (Oh, wait. That was the second presidential election he stole. Sorry.) Why did so many people go along with Reagan when he happily told them he was about to shove a red hot poker up their asses, take their jobs and then take their money and give it to his rich friends? They lined up to say “Go Ron!” TWICE!

Why?

The story he told was simplistic but one priced to sell.

“Undeserving black women on welfare are driving Caddies on your dime.” Same with Poppy Bush. It didn’t matter that he had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost or that he helped subvert the constitution and US law by selling weapons to terrorists. “Black Rapists are being freed from prison by Democrats to attack decent white women!”

Now Romney and the Republicans are selling their latest stories and people are buying. "Government bad, taxes evil, rich people good." Obama is trying, like the professor that he is, to reason with people. Sorry. That never works. Remember when Walter Mondale tried to explain what taxes do for the American people? Craaaaash and burn.

I’m not against political narratives. They provide much needed focus. What was Pericles’ funeral oration but a way to bolster the Athenians for another decade of war on the Peloponnesus? A narrative of civic pride. What was the Gettysburg Address but a way to craft a vision and a rationale for the Civil War, to steel the public for the war’s endgame and its aftermath? A narrative of national grief and assuagement.

We need a vision. We need a storyline, a narrative; a way to sell our ideas. Not smoke and mirrors, but some good copywriting that will communicate why voters should buy what we’re selling.

The character Winston, in the novel 1984, describes freedom as the ability to say that two plus two is four. In other words, to be able to make a statement based on fact. What we really need is to be able to say that two plus two is four, and have people listen and believe it.

June 15, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Akhilleus: One must hope, but if reason most often trumped belief, if fear and selfishness did not generate more powerful emotions and impulses than courage and generosity, if Gandhi and Sister Theresa were better known than Donald Trump, and....it would be much easier to construct a convincing liberal narrative.

It's not just the words we choose. A thumbnail sketch of our nations' history would reveal dozens of American liberal heroes, and few on the Right. These are the folks that gave us unions, civil and voting rights, the ones who turned the nation against ill-conceived and unjust wars. But their heroism was born and bathed in a struggle so common and so public that people knew it was theirs, too, and it was the public nature of those struggles that provided their narratives' drama.

If we even know who they are, we grant them their heroism and their place in history. We put their faces on stamps but their stories no longer inspire; they have lost their juice.

And today there is nothing similar on the national menu. That is not to say, we're not in the middle of a very consequential war but our struggle is mostly fought by flinging soundbites into the airwaves, not lived in the trenches of people's lives. To put it bluntly, not enough of the people we know are starving, not enough them are dying to make people notice and fear the right things. The liberal narrative is there but it is not heard because it does not speak directly to enough people's daily experience. They are not miserable enough to take notice.

Consider the Iraq War. It could and did go on as long as it did because we had no draft. The deaths and destruction were for most people abstract, far away, a colorless statistic... and important as they are, numbers alone are not compelling to most people. If they were, the statistics describing the deepening chasm between the very, very wealthy and the rest of us would already have hundreds of thousands more of us Occupying the streets.

I may be concluding that absent a stark illustration, a common experience so hurtful it cannot be ignored, the liberal narrative's core of open-heartedness and -mindedness is always the more difficult sell because today it is too seldom about immediate self-interest and its intended audience, that is, most of us, have a hard time thinking or seeing very far into tomorrow.

I may be concluding that...but as I said, I still choose to hope otherwise.

June 15, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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