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
powered by Surfing Waves
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

Page Links
Wednesday
Apr092014

The Commentariat -- April 10, 2014

Internal links, obsolete video removed.

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s long-awaited revisions to the Justice Department's racial profiling rules would allow the F.B.I. to continue many, if not all, of the tactics opposed by civil rights groups, such as mapping ethnic populations and using that data to recruit informants and open investigations. The new rules, which are in draft form, expand the definition of prohibited profiling to include not just race, but religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation. And they increase the standards that agents must meet before considering those factors."

Tal Kopan of Politico: "Attorney General Eric Holder strayed from prepared remarks to slam the way he was 'treated' by a House committee the day before, calling it evidence of 'ugly and divisive' civil rights challenges facing him and President Barack Obama. Speaking to the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network at its annual convention in New York on Wednesday, Holder talked about the state of civil rights today and brought up a House committee hearing Tuesday that grew contentious...."

     ... Holder's prepared remarks are here.

Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "A major flaw revealed this week in widely used encryption software has highlighted one of the enduring -- and terrifying — realities of the Internet: It is inherently chaotic, built by multitudes and continuously tweaked, with nobody in charge of it all. The Heartbleed bug, which security experts first publicly revealed on Monday, was a product of the online world's makeshift nature. While users see the logos of big, multibillion-dollar companies when they shop, bank and communicate over the Internet, nearly all of those companies rely on free software -- often built and maintained by volunteers -- to help make those services secure." ...

... Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times: "Like other similar bugs found recently..., the Heartbleed flaw had gone unnoticed for years. As far as researchers can tell, the problem was introduced by a programmer making a routine coding change on New Year's Eve in 2011. OpenSSL, the system in which the error was found, is an open-source program, which means that its code resides online and can be amended by anyone.... Many huge Internet companies depend on free technologies like OpenSSL to run their systems, but they don't always return resources to the small teams that create the code."

Ramsey Cox & Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill crafted by Democrats to appeal to women voters in the midterm election. Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the legislation but fell short in a 53-44 vote. Not a single Republican voted to end the dilatory debate, and Independent Angus King (Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, voted with Republicans.... In a statement, President Obama blasted Republicans for blocking a 'simple yes-or-no vote' on the legislation." ...

... Fair-Weather Friend. Alexander Bolton: "Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, will decide after the midterm elections whether to switch sides and join the Republicans. He is leaving open the possibility of aligning himself with the GOP if control of the upper chamber changes hands." ...

... New York Times Editors: "... wage injustice matters to all Americans, regardless of party, and those who stand in the way of fairness do so at their political peril." ...

... Fox "News": Low Pay = Job Stability. Olivia Marshall of Media Matters: "Fox Business host Melissa Francis attempted to justify the gender wage gap by claiming that women fared better than men during the recession because they make less money, allowing them to hold onto their jobs.... Contrary to Francis' claim..., experts noted that men tended to suffer more unemployment because the recession disproportionately affected professions with large numbers of male workers.... And industries employing mostly women grew more than those employing mostly men, according to the AP." ...

Men Hunt. Women Pee. Guys like to go fishing with other men. They like to go hunting with other men. Women like to go to the restroom with other women. -- Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor (R), Fox "News" host & sometime presidential candidate

John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "Republicans are beginning to nudge GOP Rep. Vance McAllister out of Congress. Just two days after video footage of him in a romantic encounter with a staffer became public, the state Republican chairman has tried unsuccessfully to reach McAllister by telephone to encourage him to resign, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Meanwhile, in Washington, several top House Republican leadership officials do not believe the first-term Republican can survive this scandal." ...

... Eric Lach of TPM: "Backing off his office's earlier statements, Rep. Vance McAllister (R-LA) has decided against asking for an FBI investigation into the leak of a video showing him kissing a female member of his staff."

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Michigan): "[Wednesday], House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced that the Committee, acting under its authority granted in Sec. 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, voted out a criminal referral letter to Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney General Eric Holder regarding actions taken by IRS employee Lois Lerner. Chairman Camp, in sending the letter on behalf of the Committee, urged Holder to take a serious review of the evidence uncovered through the Committee's investigation to determine whether Lerner violated criminal statutes." ...

... Rachel Bade of Politico: "House Republicans on Wednesday accused former IRS official Lois Lerner of breaking agency rules by aggressively urging denial of tax-exempt status to Crossroads GPS, the giant political nonprofit founded by Karl Rove. The House Ways and Means Committee released emails showing the former chief of the tax-exempt unit took a special interest in Crossroads GPS in early 2013 -- inquiring with IRS officials why they hadn't been audited. Around the same time an email suggested she might be applying for a job with a pro-President Barack Obama group, Organizing For Action, though it is unclear if she was joking."

Hilary Stout & Rachel Abrams of the New York Times: "The rising debate over whether the [recalled GM] cars pose a continuing danger reflects not only scattered episodes ... but also a growing uncertainty and impatience about the timetable for repairs and the simple fact that for all the publicity -- thousands of news reports, two federal investigations and a couple of high-profile congressional hearings -- most of the unrepaired cars are on the road." ...

... Jennifer Rankin of the Guardian: "Toyota is recalling more than 6.5m cars worldwide to fix a variety of problems, including faulty steering wheels and seats. The company said there had been no reported accidents or injuries relating to the problems identified. Some 27 Toyota models are affected, including the Corolla, RAV4, Hilux, Yaris, Tacoma, Urban Cruiser and Scion xD." ...

... CW: Great. Yesterday I traded in my Chevy van for a Toyota van. Really.

Amy Harder of the Wall Street Journal: "Nearly a dozen [that would be 11] Senate Democrats, including five up for re-election this year, are pressing President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and they say they want a decision by the end of next month."

Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday handily rejected a GOP budget alternative based on President Obama's 2015 spending blueprint. It was defeated 2-413, following a pattern seen in recent years in House votes to overwhelmingly reject Obama's budget proposals.... Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) offered a budget alternative based on Obama's budget plan as a substitute amendment to the House GOP budget. Mulvaney made this move as a way to force Democrats to go on the record about the president's spending plans."

Jonathan Easley & Elise Viebeck of the Hill: "Doctors who have been charged with Medicare fraud over the last 16 months were paid $17 million of taxpayer money in 2012, according to an analysis by The Hill. A majority of the Medicare reimbursements went to Detroit-area Dr. Farid Fata, who took home more than $10 million from Medicare in 2012. Fata is accused of submitting false claims and giving chemotherapy and other cancer treatments to patients who did not need them. He is currently in jail and has pleaded not guilty to charges against him, according to reports." ...

... Frances Robles & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Two Florida doctors who received the nation's highest Medicare reimbursements in 2012 are both major contributors to Democratic Party causes, and they have turned to the political system in recent years to defend themselves against suspicions that they may have submitted fraudulent or excessive charges to the federal government.... Topping the list is Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, 59, an ophthalmologist from North Palm Beach, Fla., who received $21 million in Medicare reimbursements in 2012 alone.... Dr. Melgen's firm donated more than $700,000 to Majority PAC, a super PAC run by former aides to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. The super PAC then spent $600,000 to help re-elect Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who is a close friend of Dr. Melgen's. Last year, Mr. Menendez himself became a target of investigation...."

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused dangerous after-effects to more than a dozen different animals from dolphins to oysters, a report from an environmental campaign group said on Tuesday. Four years after the oil disaster, some 14 species showed symptoms of oil exposure, the report from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) said.... BP released a statement dismissing NWF's findings."

Michael Schmidt & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Russian government declined to provide the F.B.I. with information about one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects two years before the attack that would most likely have prompted more extensive scrutiny of the suspect, according to an inspector general's review of how American intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing."

The Worst Is Yet to Come. Science Daily: "Facing the prospect of racial minority groups becoming the overall majority in the United States leads White Americans to lean more toward the conservative end of the political spectrum, according to research. The findings suggest that increased diversity in the United States could actually lead to a wider partisan divide, with more White Americans expressing support for conservative policies." Thanks to James S. for the link.

Dan Merica of CNN: "Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the Supreme Court's view of campaign finance at a Tuesday event, telling an audience in Portland, Oregon, that the judicial body's ruling will limit the number of people involved in the political process."

Beyond the Beltway

Christopher Baxter of the Star-Ledger: "Two figures central to the state Legislature's investigation of the George Washington Bridge lane closings do not have to turn over records related to the scandal, a state judge ruled today, handing Democrats leading the inquiry a major defeat. In a thorough dissection of the arguments made by the committee leading the investigation, state Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson found no basis to force Bridget Anne Kelly, Gov. Chris Christie's former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Stepien, his two-time campaign manager, to comply with its subpoenas.... A co-chairman of the legislative panel, John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), said in a statement it would consult with its attorney, Reid Schar, on how to proceed." CW: Jacobson is a Republican appointee.

Right Wing World

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: Apparently unaware of that big government program known in some parts as the American Civil War or that the Declaration of Independence is not the same thing as the U.S. Constitution, "Heritage Foundation head Jim DeMint ... insisted that 'no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves.' DeMint, a former US senator from South Carolina, told Newcombe that 'the conscience of the American people' and not the federal government was responsible for the end of slavery."

Fox "News" Sports

Hunter of Daily Kos: "This would just be a typical day in the ongoing horror that is Fox & Friends..., if it weren't for the unfortunate coincidence of Saturday Night Live lampooning Fox & Friends just last weekend with a sketch that included, yes, the fake hosts confusing those exact two groups. So now we have to ask, once again, whether or not Fox News is just putting us on with this whole Fox & Friends show. Is it, in fact, an elaborate, carefully constructed satire of what news delivered by morons might look like?" Thanks to Safari for the link."

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: Bill O'Reilly explains why students at UConn & Kentucky rioted after the big game: "The main driver of the destructive mind-set is grievance and entitlement. The USA is now being portrayed by powerful people as an unfair country that oppresses minorities, women, the poor and so on. That message is sinking in. Thus, disrespect is rising." O'Reilly says Democrats exploit this "grievance industry. Also at fault: Stephen Colbert: "The primary grievance right now is alleged inequality. Progressives selling the myth that folks cannot get a fair shake in America because the system is rigged against most citizens. The left-wing media legitimizes that nonsense, and one of the biggest mouthpieces for the progressive movement is Stephen Colbert." With video.

Senate Race

For some reason this Iowan independent candidate for U.S. Senate was unable to get enough signatures to run as a Democrat:

News Ledes

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "The alleged kidnappers of a North Carolina man rescued late Wednesday from a southeast Atlanta apartment complex sent the victim's wife a photo of him tied up and threatened to torture and dismember him, then return him to her in six boxes, federal authorities said Thursday. An elite FBI team rescued 63-year-old Frank Arthur Janssen from the Forest Cove Apartments ... in southeast Atlanta just before midnight Wednesday, FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch said in a statement. He was kidnapped from his home in Wake Forest, N.C., on Saturday." ...

... Raleigh News & Observer: "Five people have been charged with kidnapping Frank Janssen, 63, in a plot involving a North Carolina prison inmate who was prosecuted by Janssen's daughter, the investigators said."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (5)

Cynical Republican governors and/or legislatures have refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA. This failure is leading to deaths, including that of a young mother of three in Florida, described in this TPM piece:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/09/3424629/florida-medicaid-charlene-dill/

April 9, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Re the Science Daily article, "Facing the prospect of racial minority groups becoming the overall majority in the United States leads White Americans to lean more toward the conservative end of the political spectrum, according to research. "

No shit Sherlock. Ya think?

Chrissakes, the things we waste money on.

April 10, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterNancy

Victoria,

Yesterday Charlie Pierce referenced an interview that originally appeared on healthinsurance.org with Jon Gruber, an MIT economist who had a hand in crafting the Massachusetts healthcare system. One comment from that interview is very much worth repeating.

Governors in states (all red, naturally) that have rejected Medicaid expansions through the ACA are doing it to spite the president and win bragging rights with other wingnuts. But what are they bragging about? The result of their inaction is that the poor get it right in the neck. They are turning down a chance to dramatically improve the lives of their least well off citizens by providing them with health care at NO COST to their states. But, according to Gruber, there is a connected issue that these rejections impact:

"There are larger principles at stake here. When these states are turning - not just turning down covering the poor people - but turning down the federal stimulus that would come with that...They are not just not interested in covering poor people, they are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy* in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness."

Jon, we can forget the "almost".

Punishing poor people. One of our two major political parties expends political capital, rejects a huge influx of federal dollars into their economies, and denies millions the opportunity to improve their lives in order to punish the most vulnerable members of society.

This truly is some evil shit.

Complete Gruber interview. Worth a read.

*Texas, according to the Commonwealth Fund, is turning down over $9 billion (way to go Rick), Florida, over $5 billion (another dick, I mean Rick), Georgia and Virginia nearly $3 billion each. Poor ass states like Louisiana are turning down almost $2 billion! And we can thank Little Johnny and the Dwarfs for this ridiculous state of affairs. And there is no way they didn't think this through. They may be able to say to each other, well, we did it for state's rights (that shit again?) so fuck all those poor people. Because none of them know any poor people or give two shits about them. More evil bastards.

If only Dante's poem was a documentary. We could hope that Roberts, Scalia, and every one of those governors would be frozen in the ice of the Ninth Ring with all the worst traitors in history.

If only.

April 10, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Just a thought about the stabbing attacks yesterday in a Pennsylvania high school.

What if this kid had had access to a gun? Or several guns? I checked out one gun nut site to see what the loons are on about. Of course, they're making fun of the whole thing. "Ooooh. I hope it wasn't a high capacity knife. That would have been really bad....bwah-hah-hah."

I don't know where these people come from, aside from the fact that making fun of a potentially deadly attack is asshole in the extreme. Their logic is even stupider. It goes like this:

Because in this case a knife, or knives, were used, gun control is useless.

What? What does that even mean? "It snows in January. I woke up early today."

This doesn't even qualify as a logical fallacy. Most of those at least sound like they might work. This is dunce cap material.

But the fact that an apparently disturbed kid was restricted, for whatever reason, in his choice of weapon, made a huge difference for those students and their families.

Otherwise there would be a very different headline today. Something else for the gun fondlers to make fun of.

Christ, these people!

April 10, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

More on the seriousness of Heartbleed: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/technology/flaw-calls-for-altering-passwords-experts say.html?hpw&rref=technology


And, here's a direct link for Brian Krebs, I've been a fan since he was with the Washington Post years ago and have regularly followed his site to learn about security issues. He's a tremendous help for staying on top of these problems: http://krebsonsecurity.com/ In fact, he is one of my top ten bookmarked Web pages!

There are more details posted on his site.

April 10, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMAG
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.