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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
powered by Surfing Waves
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.

Monday
Nov242014

The Commentariat -- Nov. 25, 2014

Internal links, defunct videos removed.

This Week in American Violence

Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "The truth is that the law gives wide berth to the police's use of deadly force.... When you add this climate of legal deference to the particular circumstances of the grand jury trial -- including McCullough's reputation for supporting police officers, and his decision to avoid a recommendation for charges -- the non-indictment was almost inevitable. Barring something extraordinary, Wilson was going to walk free. The judicial system as we've constructed it just isn't equipped -- or even willing -- to hold officers accountable for shootings and other offenses. Or put differently, the simple fact is that the police can kill for almost any reason with little fear of criminal charges." (Emphasis added.) ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging protests in Ferguson & elsewhere in the U.S. ...

... Chico Harlan, et al., of the Washington Post: "A night of rage left behind the kind of scars that Ferguson has witnessed before: smoldering buildings, looted storefronts, fire-gutted cars. What marked even more difficult ground Tuesday was finding a way forward as police braced for more unrest and many African American protesters said their only recourse was the streets." ...

... John Eligon & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "After a chaotic night of demonstrations that erupted in many fires, frequent bursts of gunshots, looting and waves of tear gas, Gov. Jay Nixon said early Tuesday that he would send additional National Guard troops to help quell the worst violence this battered St. Louis suburb has seen since a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in August." ...

... James Queally, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "At least a dozen buildings were burned and 61 people arrested during a night of violence and chaos in Ferguson, Mo., that followed a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer in the killing of an unarmed black man, police said early Tuesday." ...

... St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, speaking at a press conference at 1:30 a.m., said he was grateful nobody was killed but was disappointed at the amount of damage in the Ferguson area. 'What I've seen tonight is probably much worse than the worst night we ever had in August, and that's truly unfortunate,' he said. He said that there was basically 'nothing left' along West Florissant Avenue between Solway Avenue and Chambers Road." ...

... CW: All this violence is just as inexcusable as a policeman unnecessarily shooting dead a citizen. I find it more banal than aggravating, just a bunch of stupid people playing their expected roles. What percentage of these assholes in the streets do you suppose work to make the system better or even vote? The vandals have cancelled out any outrage I might have felt at a completely-expected outcome. Pardon me, but my liberal bona fides do not carry me into excusing violence as an acceptable form of remedial "justice." ...

... Julie Bosman, et al., of the New York Times read through thousands of pages of grand jury testimony & publish their overview here. ...

... Timothy Phelps of the Los Angeles Times: "Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., in a statement released late Monday, appeared to try to distance the ongoing federal investigation into the Ferguson, Mo., shooting death of Michael Brown from that of local authorities. St. Louis County Prosecuting Atty. Robert McCullough, in announcing earlier Monday that no charges were being brought against Police Officer Darren Wilson, repeatedly said that there had been close cooperation between county and federal investigators. 'While the grand jury proceeding in St. Louis County has concluded, the Justice Department's investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown remains ongoing,' Holder said. 'Though we have shared information with local prosecutors during the course of our investigation, the federal inquiry has been independent of the local one from the start, and remains so now," the statement said." ...

     ... Holder's full statement is here. ...

... Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Darren Wilson issued a statement. ...

... For those interested in seeing the pictures, released late Monday afternoon, of Darren Wilson taken shortly after he killed Michael Brown, NBC News has them here. ...

... Here's the transcript of Darren Wilson's grand jury testimony, via Slate. ...

     ... Update: The Washington Post (and other news outlets) now has documents & transcripts of all of the evidence online. ...

... The police are firing smoke bombs at protesters in Ferguson. The officers are wearing gas masks. MSNBC is reporting there are few protesters. Chris Hayes of MSNBC said he heard gunshots in the area of the Ferguson police HQ. Protesters broke into a store, per MSNBC. There's a building on fire on Ferguson (or Florrisant) Ave., & MSNBC is reporting about four blocks of "chaos in the streets." There's a vehicle on fire outside of central downtown Ferguson. ...

... Here's the St. Louis Post-Dispatch liveblog.

Paul Waldman: "Seldom in Barack Obama's presidency has he looked quite so impotent as he did last night, pleading from a podium in the White House for calm while the cable news split screens showed clouds of tear gas enveloping the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. He repeated the same themes as every time he has spoken about this subject -- people have legitimate grievances but there's no excuse for violence, we've come a long way but we have a ways to go, and so on. It never rang more hollow. But ...." ...

The New York Times story on the Darren Wilson grand jury decision is here. CW: So far, seems as if everyone is performing to type. No surprises anywhere. Earlier today, the Onion (thanks to James S.) got this part of the story right: "Ahead of a grand jury's decision over whether to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, police in the city of Ferguson have reportedly heavily increased their presence this week to ensure residents are adequately provoked. 'We've deployed additional officers throughout Ferguson in order to make absolutely certain that residents feel sufficiently harassed and intimidated,' said St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar, assuring locals that officers in full riot gear will be on hand to inflame members of the community for as long as is necessary." (Satire) ...

... As Joe Concha of Mediaite points out, McCullough's decision to make the announcement at night is "borderline reckless." CW: Yeah, but it sure fits in with the Onion "story." Moreover, the fact that McCullough & Gov. Jay Nixon "announced the announcement" hours ahead of time allowed for maximum trouble. The disinterested observer surely suspects the power structure there was going for "provocation" & "inflaming members of the community."

... The New York Times has live updates here. The Guardian has live updates here.

... McCullough is telling his version of what happened in the confrontation between Wilson & Michael Brown. He says a number of witnesses made statements inconsistent with the physical evidence; some changed their statements after news media reported the physical evidence. Wilson fired 12 rounds at Brown. ...

... Beth Ethier of Wonkette captures the essence of McCullough's presser: "St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch announced that Wilson will not face charges relating to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, as the grand jury found 'no probable cause' to charge him with anything. Social media, however, is definitely guilty. McCulloch spent 10 minutes on a laundry list of all the great things he did when he presented the case to the grand jury and how Ferguson is just a huge pit of liars, and how lucky the world was that he, Bob McCulloch, was able to guide the grand jury through the hellscape of deception to the sweet Land of Truth, where they found that physical evidence showed Officer Wilson had not committed any crimes." ...

...Alana Horowitz of the Huffington Post: "CNN legal expert Jeffrey Toobin called the press conference 'an extended whine' and 'entirely inappropriate and embarrassing.'" ...

... See also Charles Pierce's post on Utah police killings, linked below, for his view on Bob McCullough's performance & record. ...

... McCullough announces that the grand jury decided that no probable cause existed against Wilson & returned a no-true bill. So there ya go. Here's the Washington Post story. ...

... McCullough is dragging this out but so far it sounds as if the grand jury did not return an indictment. ...

... St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCullough will announce the grand jury's decision in the Darren Wilson case sometime after 9 pm ET Monday. The New York Times is carrying the announcement live on the front page. ...

... Julie Bosman & Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "Records show that Officer [Darren] Wilson, 28, and Officer [Barbara] Spradling, 37, were married on Oct. 24. One of the two witnesses at the ceremony was Greg Kloeppel, one of Officer Wilson's lawyers. Christopher B. Graville, a municipal judge in Oakland, Mo., performed the ceremony." ...

... ** Think about This. Erin Alberty of the Salt Lake Tribune: "In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members. Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse. And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives -- 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan -- than has violence between spouses and dating partners. As the tally of fatal police shootings rises, law enforcement watchdogs say it is time to treat deadly force as a potentially serious public safety problem.... Nearly all of the fatal shootings by police have been deemed by county prosecutors to be justified. Only one -- the 2012 shooting of Danielle Willard by West Valley City police -- was deemed unjustified, and the subsequent criminal charge was thrown out last month by a judge." ...

... Charles Pierce: "There is something gone badly wrong in the way police are taught to look at civilians these days. This is the logic of an occupying power being employed on American citizens. Ever since 9/11, when we all began to be told that we were going to have to bend a little bit, and then a little bit more, to authority or else we'd all die, the police in this country have been militarized in their tactics and in their equipment, which is bad enough, but in their attitudes and their mentality, which is far, far worse. Suspicion has bled into weaponized paranoia, especially in the case of black and brown people.... Dick Cheney's one-percent idea brought to American cities and towns until Salt Lake City, of all places, winds up with cops who are deadlier on the streets than drug dealers." Pierce also has a few unkind words to say about Bob McCullough. ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: In its first examination of the limits of free speech on social media, the Supreme Court will consider next week whether, as a jury concluded, [Anthony] Elonis's postings [on Facebook] constituted a 'true threat' to his wife and others." ...

... David Carr of the New York Times calls out the media, including himself, for enabling Bill Cosby's alleged serial assaults & rapes. ...

... Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg View: "The default response when powerful men behave badly is to say they didn't: priests, presidents, athletes, TV evangelists and movie stars." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick on the Rolling Stone article on a University of Virginia gang rape (I write "a" because there was more than one): "Our confusion about the objectives in addressing campus rape problems has led to confusion in the solutions we have forged. If the purpose of the current internal adjudication [as opposed to going through the criminal justice system] is to increase transparency and reporting, that runs against the most basic institutional incentive to hide bad news. If the object is to counsel and support survivors, it's not clear that has worked very well either. And if the object is to keep the campus safe, it has failed spectacularly." ...

... Lithwick's summary of UVA's reaction to the Rolling Stone piece is telling:

A passive statement issued by President Teresa Sullivan was full of deflection and jargon, with a promise to have the police investigate the substance of the Rolling Stone charges. Then came Rector George Martin's staggering decision to appoint as independent counsel a former federal judge named Mark Filip. Immediately after which it was revealed that Filip had once been rush chair of a different chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity at the center of the campus' gang-rape scandal. Filip was taken off the job the next day. Last week Phi Psi voluntarily suspended its operations. On Saturday, Sullivan announced in a letter to students and alumni that all the school's fraternities have been suspended effective immediately."

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Rudy 9/11 Giuliani's "insights" about black-on-black crime: "The American people have one of the highest murder rates in the industrialized world. Almost all of these people are killed by other Americans. War hustlers and Bin Laden pimps love to go around screaming, but 9/11! Three thousand people died on 9/11. Nearly 15,000 Americans were killed in 2012. Americans perpetrate roughly five 9/11s against other Americans every year." ...

... CW: It's impossible to quantify, but I always wonder how many Americans have been killed because of the gun lobby & its politician-enablers. ...

... BUT. The crime rate has actually dropped dramatically over the past several decades. Dana Goldstein of the Marshall Project lays out "10 (not entirely crazy) theories explaining" the decline. Via Paul Waldman.


Mark Landler
of the New York Times: "Right after President Obama announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the White House on Monday, he walked over to a meeting of his entire National Security Council staff, where he told the embattled group that they were critical to an ambitious foreign policy agenda. The timing was a coincidence, but it seemed an unmistakable sign that Mr. Hagel's departure does not portend a broader internal shake-up. If anything, it may represent the final triumph of a White House-centric approach to national security.... With his core team intact, and with none of the candidates to succeed Mr. Hagel likely to show the independence of Mr. Obama's first defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, the White House seems likely to keep a tight leash on foreign policy for the remainder of Mr. Obama's presidency." ...

... Shane Harris of the Daily Beast: "... President Barack Obama's decision to replace Hagel ... doesn't come as much of a shock. But the timing is conspicuous and fuels allegations that Hagel is being made a scapegoat for the myriad foreign policy crises that the White House has bungled, from the rise of ISIS to the resurgence of a nationalist Russia to the response to an outbreak of Ebola. Hagel wasn't brought in to tackle these crises, and some defense sources say he simply wasn't up to it. The presumption at the beginning of his tenure was that he would be a drawdown defense secretary -- something that world events ultimately wouldn't allow." ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM interviews Steve Clemons on Hagel's departure. Clemons cites several factors that contributed to Hagel's uneasy fit in the Obama administration. ...

... Dana Milbank: "When Barack Obama looks in the mirror these days, he must see a terrifying visage staring back at him: that of George W. Bush. In a cruel echo of history, Obama is morphing into the president whose foreign policy he campaigned to overturn. Obama on Monday morning sacked his Pentagon secretary, Chuck Hagel, after huge midterm election losses in the sixth year of his presidency -- just as Bush did in sacking Donald Rumsfeld after midterm losses in the sixth year of his presidency. As with Bush, the ouster comes as a war in the Middle East is going badly -- then, the Iraq war, now, the bombing of the Islamic State terror group. Rumsfeld's ouster led to the surge in Iraq, and Hagel's departure comes amid signs of an expanded role for U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. And, as under Bush, this guarantees that Obama will leave his successor an ongoing U.S. war in the Mideast -- quite possibly the sort of ground war Obama vowed to undo."

Gruber v. Issa. This Should Be Amusing. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "Jonathan Gruber, the former ObamaCare adviser in hot water for his comments about the 'stupidity of the American voter,' has agreed to testify at a House panel next month, setting up a healthcare showdown in what could be the final week of this Congress. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will also hear from Obama administration official Marilyn Tavenner, who is under fire this week for using inflated enrollment figures for the healthcare law."

CW: I've covered this before, but it bears repeating. Norm Ornstein in the Atlantic on the "sweeping steps" Mitt Romney promised he would take to disable the ACA. "... Romney would have acted unilaterally to thwart the intent and specific language of the law. Compared to extending protections from deportation to family members of those already under the umbrella of protection, or making choices about deportation when Congress, by providing much less funding for that purpose than necessary to deport all undocumented people, explicitly gives the president discretion to make choices, Romney's proposed moves were more daring, more cutting edge, more of an application of executive power to the max. I have searched to find cases of conservative lawmakers like Ted Cruz, or constitutional scholars, much less columnists like Charles Krauthammer, raising alarm bells about this brazen plan to short-circuit the policy process, give the middle finger to the Senate, and thwart a duly enacted law, or raising questions about an imperial president-to-be shredding the Constitution. Strangely enough, I can't find any." ...

... CW: So, "conservative family values" look like this: allowing people to suffer & die by depriving them of healthcare coverage -- A-Okay. Keeping families intact -- un-fucking-constitutional.

Peggy McGlone of the Washington Post: "President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- to a diverse and distinguished group of activists, artists, scientists and public servants Monday afternoon, including actress Meryl Streep, Congressman John D. Dingell, physicist Mildred Dresselhaus and musician Stevie Wonder." ...

... Here's a list of the winners. CW: Sadly, Tom Brokaw was among them. The only thing I can say in Brokaw's defense is that he once reported on the capture of a guy who "assaulted" me. Maybe I'll comment on that. ...

... White House: "President Obama honors the 16 recipients of this year's Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the Nation's highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors":

Peter Beaumont of the Guardian: "A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been approved by cabinet despite warnings that the move risks undermining the country's democratic character. Opponents, including some cabinet ministers, said the new legislation defined reserved 'national rights' for Jews only and not for its minorities, and rights groups condemned it as racist. The bill, which is intended to become part of Israel's basic laws, would recognise Israel's Jewish character, institutionalise Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and delist Arabic as a second official language." ...

... Juan Cole: "Netanyahu’s measure is much worse than that of Mississippi fundamentalists who want to declare Mississippi a principally Christian state and want to celebrate the white-supremacist Confederacy as part of the state's heritage.

Presidential Election

Arlette Saenz & Jeff Zelany of ABC News: "Sen. John McCain is prodding one of his closest allies in the Senate to consider a run for the White House -- Sen. Lindsey Graham. 'I think he is looking at it, and I am strongly encouraging him to take a look at it,' McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC News. 'I know of no one who is better versed and more important on national security policy and defense than Lindsey Graham, and I don't think these challenges to our security are going away. He is eminently qualified,' McCain added." CW: Aah, McCain is just finagling for my First Lady spot.

Charles Pierce sees Rudy 9/11 Giuliani as the Republicans' 2016 law-and-order candidate, a stance Pierce reckons will find an audience "in the rural precincts of Iowa," especially if Ferguson blows up (CW: as it apparently is doing as I write).

News Lede

Washington Post: "This week's winter storm is shaping up to be a travel nightmare for Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving and the busiest travel day of the year. A coating to several inches of snow could accumulate along the I-95 corridor on Wednesday. While temperatures have been unseasonably warm early this week, snow is still likely to accumulate along coastal interstates, especially during periods of heavy snowfall."

Reader Comments (25)

Too late to post on yesterday's thread... This is just a strong suggestion that you read the two part Sontag NYT article (Marie linked).

You can add North Dakota to your list of states run by the corrupt and insane.

We've got to become accustomed to being a two-bit washed up nation that is unwilling or just can't figure out how to fix bridges, roads, and airports.

November 24, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon

Re our two-bit washed up nation, please include the corporate media. In the follow up to McCullough's "remarks" tonight--way too smooth and way too late--our corporate media asked a bunch of irrelevant questions, that they knew could not be answered. I was amazed and upset that NOT ONE asked how it was that Michael Brown's body was allowed to lie uncovered in the street where he was shot down for over four hours--with no police intervention--his blood running down the pavement.

This never would have happened had it been a young White man. We are beyond crass and cruel in our system of policing and "justice." More is the sad. I wonder what Bill Cosby has to say about this?

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Huff Post has picture of Wilson in ER. Appears he suffered one slightly reddened cheek. I don't know how to copy and paste the pic.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon

Link to pictures of Wilson's injuries.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/photos-show-officer-darren-wilson-after-michael-brown-shooting-n255486

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon

..."the simple fact is that the police can kill for almost any reason with little fear of criminal charges."

There you have it. Did we think it would be otherwise? All those shots into the body of a boy whose only weapon was some stolen cigars and his body bulk––enough to open fire, not to wound him, but to kill him. Made sense to Darrell. Then why not leave the victim's body lay for hours in the road with his blood oozing in trickles designing the road in roadkill art. Perhaps the Brown family will have a federal court hearing and somehow this travesty will be turned around. That Ferguson will be forever tainted is a given; that its police force will change its methods is not.

If the media hadn't run with this story last night–––so many stations carried it except "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Voice" carried on as usual, we would have had more Hagel and Fox would have had their usual fun. Stay tuned for catch-up on this story.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Thanks for the come back Whyte about carbon and renewables. Since the day liquid hydrocarbons came online everything else has been playing catch-up. And will for a long time. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change. Nowhere do the authors talk about the 'pass' the carbon generators have been given when it comes to the externalities of corruption and pollution and concentration of political power in the hands of a few white men (check any boards of directors of carbon generators) non-renewable companies enjoy. In the IEEE article they write, "We’re hopeful, because sometimes engineers and scientists do achieve the impossible." That's good.

"When the legends die the dreams end, when the dreams end there is no more greatness." I heard that quote the day before yesterday at the Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota and before that I was in North Dakota seeing the carbon profligate bastards fuck up an otherwise nice place. As a long term subscriber to "Home Power" magazine (published by very nice, dedicated hippies from Ashland, OR)I see that different people see the impact of lowering their carbon footprint as an expression as unity with planet earth and away from concentration of power in the hands of corrupt white men.

I think what gets my attention about the article by Ross Koningstein and David Fork is the lack of complete context for their assertions about low/no carbon future and quotes like "We’re not trying to predict the winning technology here, but its cost needs to be vastly lower than that of fossil energy systems." There is a lack of art in their use of metrics to pooh, pooh pursuit of a lower carbon future when liquid hydrocarbon fuels and their concentrated energy and ease of transport to end use locations has only been around for a couple hundred years. Said another way, humankind made lots of inventions before the wide spread adoption of oil and gas changed the economics of just about everything else. We shouldn't hope for a similar paradigm shift again any time again soon. I don't think that the renewable decisions made by the governments of Germany, Denmark, or China should be overlooked. The authors seem poised to disappear down a pro-nuclear hidy hole and the conveniently missing elements of pollution, concentration of power absent from their metrics.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCitizen625

Thank you for your comments about the vandals in Ferguson.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJack Fuller

As PD suggests, did anyone think the outcome in Ferguson would be different?

And Sunday, in Cleveland, another black kid (12 years old!) was shot twice in the chest because he had a toy gun. The person making the 911 call told the dispatcher that it looked like a toy gun, but like that guy (black, of course) in a Wal Mart who was shot down for the crime of standing against a wall, minding his own business, holding a toy gun that Wal Mart sells (!!), this kid had to be taken out, because....well, because black. And Fox bots and wingnut opinionators shake their heads in bafflement that black people in America are angered by this intolerable bullshit.

I think Charlie Pierce is on to something about the militarized "shoot first" mindset of too many contemporary police departments.

I don't know exactly what transpired in that playground in Cleveland, but I think it could have been handled a lot differently. Two shots in the chest? A 12 year old?

I suppose it's not as bad as 12 shots into the body of Michael Brown. 12 shots. Really? 12 shots? Just point your finger and say "bang" 12 times. You could kill a whole platoon of guys with that much ammo. But Officer Wilson wanted to make sure this boy was DOWN. And DEAD. Honestly, shooting someone 12 times (he must have been down on the ground after 2 or 3)? This guy is a dangerous fucking psycho.

But he'll be back out there in Ferguson like nothin' happened, making sure no other black kids are allowed to walk the streets unmolested. Or alive.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

I think ya got him, Darren. Good job. And good job to that prosecutor, way to stand up for the public. Heckuva job, Bobby.

Oh, and before I forget, the common thread tying together the Wal Mart, Ferguson, and Cleveland killings of unarmed people by police? Yeah, I mean besides the fact that they were all black....

According to police in all three instances, the victims, ie, the dead guys, are to blame. The cops in Cleveland are blaming the kid but also his parents. Might as well spread it around, right?

In no instance is it ever the cop's fault, or the fault of shoddy and willfully antagonistic police procedures which choose violence as the first solution. In no instance is there an acknowledgment that things could have been handled differently. Shooting first is always supported as The Right Way. That Onion piece about amping up the antagonism is right on. Remember all the incidences of Ferguson police cars running into and over memorials to Michael Brown. Just imagine the fucking outrage if some black residents took it upon themselves to destroy a memorial set up in honor of a murdered white boy.

But you can bet Fox will be all over those parents in Cleveland. Wagging fingers, tossing out blame, absolving the cops. Just like they're blaming the black community in Ferguson and pinning medals on what, in all ways, seems to be an out of control police department; a haven for violent, poorly trained racists.

No. I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined Darren Wilson would be held accountable for firing a dozen bullets into an unarmed teenager. Nor do I have hope for the next dozen kids killed by cops because black. Because this is the world that the Right hath made.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

C625, here's the rub: Another letter in NYTimes today extolling hydrogen fuel. By the time I took chem 1 in 1964, I knew that hydrogen from splitting water returned a little less energy than it took to split the water. Energy from what? Same with the fuel ethanol scam, which in addition contributes to the rape of the prairies. We will reform when the Devil comes to collect his due.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterWhyte Owen

Completely apart from any similarities of actions between the Bush and Obama administrations (only one has lied us into war, so far), that composite Bush/Obama picture is creeping me out. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Ferguson is our future. As inequality creates more and more poor and a richer and richer minority taking a larger portion of our GDP, control of the unhappy becomes a larger priority.
The contempt shown by McCullough and The State of Missouri for the general population, their citizens, was frightening. "In your face," was the attitude of the DA and the state and city.
Control of dissidents is the new objective of the establishment. Cops will shoot their brothers in their roll as defenders of the establishment from those defined as " domestic terrorists." All those people demonstrating in the street are in danger of being described as "domestic terrorists."
It is later than you think.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle

For many years I was an avid reader of the NY Times, the dead tree edition, of course, seeing as for most of that time, there was no other version. Over the last few years, I've been able to break that addiction. There are many obvious reasons (The Mustache of Wisdom, Our Miss Brooks, Maureen Dowd, etc.), but yesterday, for some reason, I did something I try normally to avoid, mostly because of the headline. I read something by Wall Street scutboy and official keeper of the government/bankers revolving door, Andrew Ross Sorkin.

It seems Sorkin is dismayed that Elizabeth Warren is not jumping for joy that the president has nominated an investment banker whose resume includes crafting deals that allow corporations to give America the finger, to be under secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance. The president continues his string of hiring Wall St. gangsters whose careers have been made by playing Americans like marks in a confidence game, for jobs protecting those marks. Fox in the hen house doesn't begin to cover it.

Aside from the relative merits of Mr. Antonio Weiss, who recently worked a merger that will allow giant corporation Burger King to become a Canadian company, thereby making use of American infrastructure and services but paying no taxes, Sorkin makes the case (as he always does with Wall St. Masters of the Universe) that Weiss is a "nice guy". He knew George Plimpton and he likes poetry. Awwww.......

And Sorkin is aghast--aghast, I tells ya--that Sen. Warren is so upset. "Misplaced rage" he calls it.

I for one, say "about fucking time someone is saying 'enough is enough' to these revolving door self promoters."

Something is misplaced, but it has nothing to do with Elizabeth Warren. Oh, look. It's Sorkin's sense of the job of journalism! That's what's misplaced.

Sorkin, don't forget, was the guy who praised Little Timmy Geithner's fucking over of the American public and who, when Geithner was surfing around for a cushy place to land after racing to save Wall Street but dragging his feet on Main Street, waved his pom-poms and ripped anyone who complained about Wall St. big wigs being given government policy gigs which they used to help out their buddies, and then going back through the revolving door to reap the benefits. Sorkin's side job involves writing fact-free, gauzy, maudlin portraits of scheming billionaires, concentrating on what "nice guys" they are (oh..he owns a dog...and he even feeds it! whadaguy.) and how unfair everyone is to them.

Sorkin is also the guy who wrote "Too Big to Fail" which decreed heroic stature on Goldman and people like Hank Paulson for "saving" America. He's also the guy who waved the pom-poms again for AIG pirates, who helped bring down the economy, being given enormous bonuses but sniffed that auto workers, who actually contribute to the economy, should bend over and gratefully accept their ass fuckings of reduced pay and benefits.

Andrew Ross Sorkin is just another malignant tumor on the hide of American journalism. Just ask Matt Taibbi, a real journalist.

Another reason my broken addiction to the Times ain't nearly as bad as I once thought it might be.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

One more thing about the violence in Ferguson.

I don't condone it, especially if it's a knee jerk reaction, but I get it.

Here's what I wish.

I wish that the pundits and "experts" and apologists for and supporters of deadly violence from the other side (not just a few burnt storefronts, but bodies on the street), spent as much time warning those whose job it is, supposedly, to protect the peace and serve the public, to behave with dignity and respect, as it does warning those who protest the very clear inability of those forces to do so.

You want the people of Ferguson, or Cleveland, or wherever to behave themselves, to act with dignity and restraint?

How about instructing police departments to back off this shoot first mentality? How about pointing out that none of these things had to happen, that there's another way, a way that worked in many communities for a long time, but which seems to have been left for dead like Michael Brown's body on the street.

Rage and violence won't help the cause of the Ferguson protesters, but continued rage and violence directed at them and other black Americans is surely the road to something fiercely bad.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Marie: I respect your liberal bona fides but I must tell you: I will kill your damn children whenever they get out of line forever. It is after all, free, there is no penalty. Why should I stop?
Brown is the "Bigger Thomas" of our time. a perfect victim, a large black man that frightens white people. I can kill Bigger with impunity.
If they burn the towns down, the public will demand I stop doing this. Of course, the defiled minority has few other options.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle

@Akhilleus: Thanks for your well-researched commentary on Andrew Sorkin. Couldn't agree more. The Times, because it really is the best general-purpose newspaper in the U.S., gets away with foisting "reporters" like Sorkin on us, & the casual reader is never aware s/he's being had. On the contrary, most Americans who read the Times think they are reading the "received wisdom" of the day. The receipt, however, is oftentimes pretty devoid of wisdom.

Characterizing Warren as some kind of off-the-wall flamethrower is far from the truth. Warren is hardly that; rather, she is a person willing to work within the system-that-is to try to make a difference. That she protests the revolving-door elevation of another Wall Street insider is her job. She is both informing the public (I never heard of Weiss before I read her opinion piece) & highlighting what millions of American voters are at least vaguely aware of: the enduring & unholy alliance between Wall Street & Washington.

I keep wondering what Obama is planning for his next job. I can't help but think he's looking to find himself & the Missus on a lot of corporate/financial boards of directors -- "jobs" that require no work, other than maybe an annual shmoozefest, for hefty remuneration.

Marie

November 25, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Since suspicion goes hand in hand with the cops killing citizens,
anyone else know of the department of HomeLand Security setting up road blocks- 50 or so miles away
from border, and just stop cars, "are you a citizen? will you pull over please?"
On you tube, you can see the people who disobey- just say nothing or just no or "are you investigating me?"
Imagine having to traverse this harassment every day to and from work?
I am stunned at this.
It is not just om the southwest area. Even up here in good one New England.... they are stopping peeps.

http://www.privacysos.org/node/987
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz0Wbm6-Zy4
I first heard about this on This American Life last Sunday.
The United States of America is almost there... a police state.

discouraged,
mae finch

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered Commentermae finch

@Carlyle: As I've tried to point out, via linked stories that make exactly that point, it is the police who have a license to kill. not ordinary citizens. The Supreme Court, state laws, local prosecutors & police "training" all conspire to give police officers extraordinary discretion to shoot first & not ask questions because they've shot the guy dead.

So, no, unless you're a law enforcement officer, you can't shoot my children with no consequences.

And, yes, the "defiled minority" does have other options. You could ask Martin Luther King about that, but somebody (maybe with a little help from "law enforcement") shot him dead, too.

Did our so-called justice system provoke the rioting in Ferguson? Of course it did. But nobody forces you to take up a dare. Rioting, looting, arson -- those are personal choices. Righteousness requires the victim to be better than the victimizers.

I don't think you read the stories I link. You just swoop in with uninformed opinions.

But thanks a bunch for threatening my offspring. That's a pretty constructive way to criticize my opinion.

Marie

November 25, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Marie: Threatening to kill your children was an attention getting device. May I remind you that MLK has been dead a long time and they are still killing the children. They will continue to kill the children until there is a serious public objection.
Killing the children is still free. Why would the authorities stop if they can do it forever. I am sure you have seen the statistics from Utah.
Rioting, looting and arson are a way to exact a cost for killing black youths. What passive response will cause the police to stop and think before they shoot black children?

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle

@Carlyle: Among the stories you don't bother to read is the one linked above by Robert Barnes of the Washington Post. The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on whether your "attention getting device" constitutes a threat. Maybe you'd better write a brief in support of Elonis, the Facebook threatener.

BTW, if your threat had been to any other reader, instead of to me, I would have zapped it.

I'm not going to answer your question because the answers are self-evident to any thinking person who has the slightest knowledge of human history, especially recent human history.

Anyone who thinks violence perpetrated by the victims is an effective way to countering violence by our criminal "justice" system has not been paying attention. Since you only comment on this site but don't read the articles linked, why don't you find another place to pitch your justifications for "exacting a cost"? The cost, of course, will be borne by taxpayers & insurance-policy holders, not by the police. You are promoting -- nay, insisting upon -- perpetuating a cycle of violence, and that in my estimation is phenomenally stupid.

Obviously, I have failed you, but in the end, you have failed yourself, and that should be what is important to you, although society is the worse for it.

Marie

November 25, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

My small (96 students) high school class ('61) had three bullies. Two became cops. 'nuf said?

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterWhyte Owen

@carlyle; You firebrand you. Go set fire to the nearest Stop and Go minimart in your neighborhood. Price of beer and ciggies just went up, damn. "Shooting your kids" is a threat only as dumb as; well, shooting kids. Justice in America is not fair or equal or evenhanded. WE KNOW. Cops will continue to shoot people they feel threatened by. Burning down the local stores is a great release of tension but in the long run burning doesn't do a thing for change. Instead, get some young black men on the local force. Just a start. Of course, who wants to be a cop? But don't tell me there is not a half dozen or more local kids twenty years old with high school degrees that don't want a job that has good bennies and not bad pay.
Instead of riot gear and tear gas how about recruitment stations? Sure that's pipe dream, but it beats the fuck out of shooting kids.
PS. The system is broken, I agree but pissing on the embers doesn't get you anywhere.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/23/us/ferguson-woman-kills-herself/

The white folks be ready!

Sure that gun will protect you even if you don't know how to use it!

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

On Ferguson, a little different context. Did the cop do the wrong thing. Yes. How about just wait for a backup. But something that happened about 40 years ago in NJ reminded me of the other piece no one talks about. So Michael Brown is just arrested and he in currently in jail on charges of robbery, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Does that qualify the description of just a 'teenager'. What got me to write this was the rage of his parents. You see that 40 year ago event was similar and I never forgot. A 14 year old was shot and killed by a cop and his parents were outraged. But nobody seemed to mention that the 14 year old was killed a 1AM on a school night. The parents are just outraged? Who lets a 14 year old on the street at that time.? Who raises the drug using aggressive thief? That counts for nothing?

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

So because MLK was assassinated by the institutions of racism he fought against, we should forgot all his accomplishments and the lessons he taught us in nonviolent protest methods? Seems pretty radical and extremely short-sighted. Ferguson is a tragedy and I can try to understand the rage of systemic injustice pulsing through the veins of those living under this oppression, but I think one of the biggest problems we're witnessing is the trap of the neverending present. An all-encompassing, 24 hour news cycle present that perverts our vision of daily strife, that manipulates our comprehension of mediatized events by suppressing the history hidden within the events. Instantaneous media has morphed our sense of reflection and now pundits and the public alike lash out in emotional bursts while leaving contemplation and reasoning for mere afterthoughts.

Raw emotion is a normal response to these injustices that cut deep to the bone, but any effective response is going to take community organization, results-based projects, and a social cohesion to bring the momentum to positive advancements. Furthering racial animus by destroying the community you have to live in while fracturing the cohesion of the supporters your dependent on for change seems like a temporary release followed by prolonged pain. The oppressive system is only furthered along by these acts of anarchy, inflating their role as necessary soldiers of social order and the coming chaos exemplified by mindless rioters. Voices need to be heard, but antagonizing the Ferguson police dept. with destruction can't be the answer.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered Commentersafari

Barbarossa,

Oh my god, this is so stupid as to almost transcend the tragedy of it all.

Fear of BLACK people (according to photo taken by a St. Louis Post Dispatch photog, the dead woman was white, and was photographed back in August contending with police) and the constant bombardment by the conservative media about how blacks will be firebombing your house, raping your women, and shooting your men, and all the usual right-wing claptrap, caused an ill prepared, unschooled Ferguson woman, obviously oblivious to proper firearm use, to arm herself.

NRA attacks on anything resembling public safety salted the ground under Ms. Campbell, who felt free to wave her newly purchased firearm around, getting ready to shoot herself some ungrateful black people, in a bouncing car, causing it to go off, taking most of her head with it.

The number of rat bastard calumnies stemming from dangerous, vindictive, racist right-wing ideology connected to this situation would outweigh a black hole.

November 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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