The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”

Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday, leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued into Wednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

     ~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

INAUGURATION 2029

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Tuesday
May142013

Thank You, "Low-Level" IRS Agents

With outrage erupting from every corner, pundits & politicians seem to be missing the point of the IRS exercise: to ferret out applicant organizations which had primarily political agendae & would therefore be ineligible for the tax-exempt status for which they were applying. Fox News reported,

The internal IG timeline shows ... that list of criteria drastically expanding.... It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to 'make America a better place to live.' It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of 'how the country is being run.' By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in 'limiting/expanding government,' education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.

I don't see how an organization interested in "expanding government" or in "social economic reform" or in "making America a better place to live" is necessarily conservative.

In fact, "The IRS says that 300 groups were set aside for extra review. About 75 of them had the words 'tea party' or 'patriot.'" That is, about 25 percent of the groups who received closer scrutiny identified themselves as tea party or "patriot" groups. Since the tea party was expanding rapidly during the time frame in question, it is possible that the IRS under-"targeted" conservative groups.

The so-called scandal does not appear to be an effort to "intimidate political groups," as everyone is braying, but rather an effort to separate true charitable groups from political organizations which might have been trying to obtain undeserved tax-exempt status.

Maybe all these Congressional investigations will reveal some politically-motivated scheme. But right now I don't see any IRS intimidation. I see IRS employees following the law and protecting the government -- and the honest taxpaying public -- from potential tax cheats. I see IRS agents doing their jobs.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

Regarding this IRS "scandal", I couldn't agree more. As a CPA, and a member of a 401(c)(4) which I took through the application process, I can tell you that it sounds to me like the IRS was doing was it is SUPPOSED to do. It took two tries for our tiny little non-profit to get through the application process and receive tax-exempt status, so why shouldn't clearly politically motivated organizations get closer scrutiny as well? What I find scandalous is that all these organizations apparently received their tax-exempt status, no one was declined. Please tell me, what social welfare Glenn Beck's 401(c)(4) is providing.
Those liberal media folks play right into Repub hands by giving this "scandal" any coverage at all.

May 14, 2013 | Unregistered Commentercakers

@cakers: Hear! Hear! You are so correct. I still can't see what "social welfare "many of these groups offer, yet they get tax-exempt status anyway. Chris Hayes had a good overview of what a 501(3)(c) is supposed to be using the IRS guidelines. To fit many of these groups into that is a real stretch. He also pointed out ho much damage the Citizens United decision has done.

Not for the first time, Obama let himself be snookered by the media.

May 14, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

The numbers on my keyboard shifted right. The code sections cited should be FIVE01(c)(4)......

May 15, 2013 | Unregistered Commentercakers

The numbers on my keyboard shifted right. The code sections cited should be FIVE01(c)(4)......

And to clarify further, a 501(c)(3) is a charitable organization and is the only type capable of receiving donations that are tax deductible. A 501(c)(4), is a social welfare organization and while they may receive donations, they are not tax deductible by the donors. Businesses get around that by treating them as a business expense such as "business promotion".

May 15, 2013 | Unregistered Commentercakers
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