The Ledes

Monday, June 30, 2025

It's summer in our hemisphere, and people across Guns America have nothing to do but shoot other people.

New York Times: “A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon in what the local sheriff described as a 'total ambush.' Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned, and officials later found the body of the male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone but did not release any information about his identity or motives.” A KHQ-TV (Spokane) report is here.

New York Times: “The New York City police were investigating a shooting in Manhattan on Sunday night that left two people injured steps from the Stonewall Inn, an icon of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. The shooting occurred outside a nearby building in Greenwich Village at 10:15 p.m., Sgt. Matthew Forsythe of the New York Police Department said. The New York City Pride March had been held in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, and Mayor Eric Adams said on social media that the shooting happened as Pride celebrations were ending. One victim who was shot in the head was in critical condition on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. A second victim was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, she said. No suspect had been identified. The police said it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the Pride march.”

New York Times: “A dangerous heat wave is gripping large swaths of Europe, driving temperatures far above seasonal norms and prompting widespread health and fire alerts. The extreme heat is forecast to persist into next week, with minimal relief expected overnight. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are among the nations experiencing the most severe conditions, as meteorologists warn that Europe can expect more and hotter heat waves in the future because of climate change.”

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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.

Marie: Sorry, my countdown clock was unreliable; then it became completely unreliable. I can't keep up with it. Maybe I'll try another one later.

 

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

Sunday
Aug042013

The Commentariat -- Aug. 5, 2013

Tom Toles of the Washington Post. ViaAnnie Laurie in Balloon Juice. ... Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times: "How divided are Republicans in Congress? So divided, one conservative joked, that it shouldn't be called a civil war: 'It's not organized enough for that.' ... Perhaps the biggest problem the Republicans have is one of leadership. When asked to identify the leader of the Republican Party, the first-place winner in the Pew poll was, accurately enough, 'nobody.'" ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "... Republicans, confronted with the responsibilities of governing, essentially threw a tantrum, then ran off to sulk." ...

... They'll Be Busy While They're Sulking. Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "An array of interest groups has methodically plotted how to use the congressional recess to press causes." ...

... Oh, But They Planned for That. The AP takes a look at the House GOP's planning kit for promoting their agenda during the August recess. It's the usual "bash Washington/blame Obama" stuff. I like the part where it advises them to emphasize their accomplishments.

** Frank Rich: "Washington may be a dysfunctional place to govern, but it's working better than ever as a marketplace for cashing in. And that's thanks, more than anything, to the Democratic Establishment." CW: Thanks to MAG for the link. Rich doesn't say so, but the ONLY thing that could change Them-v.-the-Rest-of-Us is a strict Constitutional amendment requiring public financing of political campaigns & banning private financing. Since, typically, the Congress proposes amendments (state legislatures can do so, too), that clearly is not going to happen. Some have promoted the idea of a "popular amendment" since the Constitution derives from the people, but that won't happen either.

** John Shiffman & Kristina Cooke of Reuters: "A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues..., law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin -- not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.... Federal agents are trained to 'recreate' the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence -- information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.... Legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records." ...

... Brendan Sasso of the Hill: "Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed on Sunday that the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance programs uncovered information about current terrorist threats to the United States." Chambliss tied the closings of most of the U.S. Middle East embassies -- see News Ledes -- to a threat detected by the NSA. ...

... Barbara Starr of CNN: "An intercepted message among senior al Qaeda operatives in the last several days raised alarm bells that led to the closing of embassies and consulates Sunday across the Middle East and North Africa, CNN has learned. CNN has agreed to a request from an Obama administration official not to publish or broadcast additional details because of the sensitivity of the information." ...

... Max Ehrenfreund in Washington Monthly: "Marci Wheeler is speculating openly that these warnings might be politically motivated.... It would be premature to assume anything about the current warning, and it is partly a measure of Wheeler's cynicism that she is speculating. Not completely, though. It's also a measure of the degree to which the military and the intelligence communities have lost reporters' trust over the past ten years, beginning with the invasion of Iraq." ...

... Wheeler's post is here. CW: I have to admit the second I read that Chambliss, a Southern conservative Republican who is no fan of the administration (and has a dismal ACLU rating), went on the teevee to claim the embassy closings & travel warnings were the result of intelligence gathered "under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to intercept communications between suspected terrorists," I just thought, "Isn't that perfect!" Plus, who do you suppose Barbara Starr's source is? James Clapper's top aide? ...

... Not Exactly News. Glenn Greenwald: "... members [of Congress] who seek out basic information - including about NSA programs they are required to vote on and FISA court (FISC) rulings on the legality of those programs - find that they are unable to obtain it. Two House members, GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, have provided the Guardian with numerous letters and emails documenting their persistent, and unsuccessful, efforts to learn about NSA programs and relevant FISA court rulings." Here's a LOL bit: "In early July, Grayson had staffers distribute to House members several slides published by the Guardian about NSA programs.... But, according to one staff member, Grayson's office was quickly told by the House Intelligence Committee that those slides were still classified..., and directed Grayson to cease distribution or discussion of those materials in the House, warning that he could face sanctions if he continued." ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "... amid a national debate over how much the government should be able to find out about the private activities of its citizens in the name of combating terrorism, the next issue seems teed up for Supreme Court review: Cellphones." CW: courts have ruled in various ways on this, but it seems to me there's an easy answer: to protect evidence, officers should be able to confiscate cellphones found on suspects, but they should have to get warrants to access the data on a confiscated phone unless there is a compelling reason -- say, in a kidnapping case -- to review the data immediately. Ditto for people questioned but not arrested; if you're going to carry around incriminating evidence, you should expect to be incriminated. P.S. When I called up this article, it came with a Galaxy ad. Big WashPo knows I'm interested in cellphones.

Kate Taylor of the New York Times: "Cities and towns across the country are pushing municipal unions to accept cheaper health benefits in anticipation of a component of the Affordable Care Act that will tax expensive plans starting in 2018.... Cities including New York and Boston, and school districts from Westchester County, N.Y., to Orange County, Calif., are warning unions that if they cannot figure out how to rein in health care costs now, the price when the tax goes into effect will be steep, threatening raises and even jobs.... But some prominent liberals express frustration at seeing the tax used against unions in negotiations."

Richard Riordan & Tim Rutten in a New York Times op-ed: "President Obama should propose, and push Congress to establish, a public employee pension reform program..., [which] would essentially serve as an insurance agency. It would not bail out distressed local retirement plans. Instead, cities, and perhaps states, would be permitted to sell bonds to cover their pension liabilities, with the federal government guaranteeing repayment. Participants would pay fees -- a kind of insurance premium -- to finance the program, so there would be no net cost to Washington.... We must avoid demonizing public employees and their unions. "

E. J. Dionne: liberals must be more tolerant of religion so as not to alienate religious progressives. CW: I get that, but religious progressives should be more tolerant of non-religious liberals, too. There is a widespread -- and wholly erroneous notion -- that a person can't have morals or ethics unless based on faith in a higher power and/or an afterlife.

Buh-bye, Burbs? Washington Post: "In her new book, 'The End of the Suburbs,' Leigh Gallagher argues that the suburban way of life, once the epitome of the American dream, is becoming increasingly undesirable. Capital Business reporter Jonathan O'Connell, who has questioned whether Washington can grow up with its 20-somethings, chatted with Gallagher this past week about how Americans choose to live. An abridged version of that conversation follows."

"The Second Guantanamo." Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "The United States holds 67 non-Afghan prisoners there, including some described as hardened al-Qaeda operatives seized from around the world in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. More than a decade later, they're still kept in the shadowy facility at Bagram air base outside Kabul. Closing the facility presents many of the same problems the Obama administration has encountered in its attempt to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Some U.S. officials argue that Bagram's resolution is even more complicated -- and more urgent. The U.S. government transferred the prison's Afghan inmates to local authorities this year. But figuring out what to do with the foreign prisoners is proving to be an even bigger hurdle to shutting the American jail. 'Is there a plan? No. Is there a desire to close the facility? Yes,' Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said in an interview."

Senate Race

Nate Cohn of the New Republic: "The last few weeks have been full of bad news for Senator Mitch McConnell. He earned a long awaited tea party challenger and, yesterday, two polls showed Allison Lundergan Grimes, the likely Democratic nominee, ahead by 1 and 2 points. As a result, Democrats are starting to believe they have a good chance in Kentucky. They shouldn't get their hopes up. Certainly not yet. Mitch McConnell is a clear favorite because he's a Republican incumbent running in a red state, assuming he wins the primary."

Election 2012

Howell Raines reviews Dan Balz's book on the 2012 election. "Dan Balz's history of the 2012 campaign ends with an astonishing scene from a post-election interview with Mitt Romney. When the reporter brings up his infamous '47 percent.' remark, Romney blurts, 'Actually I didn't say that.' He then retrieves his iPad and leads Balz, line by line, through an excruciatingly delusional exegesis of the speech that crippled his campaign. Balz ... resists the temptation to belabor the obvious. The Republican nominee just didn't understand, then or now, what happened last fall, particularly voters' mystifying insistence on verbal precision. Like his father, George, whose Republican presidential candidacy in 1968 flamed out when he said he had been "brainwashed" by the generals and others about the Vietnam War,' Mitt Romney is a master of the self-immolating quote." CW: The whole review is entertaining.

Local News

Rick Hertzberg on New York City's history of sex scandals. Highly entertaining & beautifully-written, as usual.

News Ledes

San Francisco Chronicle: "BART trains will be rolling for at least another week after Gov. Jerry Brown stepped in late Sunday night to block an impending strike, just hours before the scheduled 12:01 Monday walkout by the transit system's union workers. At the request of BART management, the governor appointed a three-member board of inquiry to investigate the stalled negotiations."

Military Times: The trial of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood & wounded 30 more (which he admits), begins today. ...

... The New York Times has a story on the uniqueness of the trial.

AP: "Prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to present lengthy closing arguments to jurors as they lay out their cases in the racketeering trial of reputed gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger. Closing arguments were scheduled for Monday in U.S. District Court...."

Reader Comments (7)

I am with you, Marie, (and Marci Wheeler) on Saxby Chambliss' not so subtle new "fear campaign." Or should I say repetitive fear campaign. Getting people all psyched up about Al Qaeda threats seems to be the last bastion of the rich, crazy and powerful guys who "run" our country! I am much more concerned about some crazy, drunk guy who is angry and vindictive plowing his car into a group of people innocently walking on the Venice, CA boardwalk! Do people realize at all how much of THAT kind of craziness goes on in our sad little country?

And, of course, there has not been--and never will be--an intelligent discussion in the MSM about why Al Qaeda is so successful at recruiting young jihadists. Because, of course, America is good and well-meaning and "We are Empire." We just happen to kill quite a few Middle Eastern women and children (unavoidable collateral damage) in our wars and drone strikes--by complete accident, because, ya know--Shit Happens!

'Scuze me. Gotta go reload.

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

The lobbyists have control of the mad house.

Related to the WaPo article by Matea Gold that CW mentions, one should check out the new Frank Rich's piece "The Stench of the Potomac" in the New York magazine. He draws from several recently published books (looks like some great summer reading!) Mark Lebovich's "This Town" and George Packer's "The Unwinding."

Rich writes: "... thanks to the Democratic
Establishment...Washington may be a dysfunctional place to govern, but it's working better than ever as a marketplace for cashing in....It was during the Clinton–Rubin–Greenspan–Lawrence Summers deregulatory spree of the nineties that the innovation of bipartisan lobbying shops also took off in earnest, obliterating any remaining distinctions between the financial interests and imperatives of the two parties. "

Or as one lobbyist put it “the rest of the country may be divided into red and blue, but D.C. is green.”

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/this-town-washington-lobbyists-2013-8/

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Regarding the lack of leadership among Republicans, a root cause of this sad predicament is the present sclerotic condition of Right Wing World which, through the sensitive offices of drool radio, Fox "News", and conservative heavy hitters like Bachamann, Palin, Gingrich, Gohmert, Akin, Cruz, Rubio, Paul, Ryan, etc. (heavy on the hitting but light on gravitas or any workable solutions), have nurtured the GOP into its current hideous state of advanced lunacy.

But I have a suggestion!

The good people of Dorset, MN, (pop. 22) have an excellent idea. They pick their mayor from names dropped in a hat. And this year, for the second year in a row, the mayor is Robert ("Bobby") Tufts, four years old (see video below).

Bobby seems like a fine upstanding young man who likes to fish and ride the horsey outside the general store and has a girlfriend named Sofia (no tweeting of pee-pee pictures, as far as we know). I'm pretty sure he's not installing any environment murdering oil pipelines or legislating against people just because they don't like the same kind of fish as he does.

So I'm all for this form of selection for states and local governments which have seceded from the real world. They couldn't do worse.

Oh wait a minute. Maybe they could. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a Republican version of this lottery system was more Shirley Jackson than Bobby Tufts.

Never mind.

Hizzoner, the mayor

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I'm one who has criticized Mr. Dionne when he lets his religion get in the way of his usual good sense. I do not mean I object to his having his beliefs. They're not for me, but I have no problem with his devotion of Things Unseen and Unknowable--as long as they don't interfere unnecessarily with my life.

When some months back he wrote the Obama administration should be more accommodating to the Catholic Church's reluctance/refusal of include birth control in their health insurance plans, for instance, he was supporting church doctrine over the progressive values he usually espouses. For God's (or Zeus') sake, the female employees of Catholic schools and hospitals don't have to take the darn pills. They have a choice, the essence it seems to me of progressivism, and it is the church in this case that was/is by denying woman that choice anything but progressive. Sadly, Dionne fell in line and helped circle the Church's wagons. And I thought looked silly doing so.

Here in the Skagit Valley, the whole church thing is particularly sensitive right now, as local public hospitals consider allying with Providence or Peace Health, two Catholic institutions. Last week six hundred citizens attended a public forum on the issue; most attendees had concerns about the possible effects of Catholic control over the vital matters of birth and death hospitals exist to deal with.
I expect Mr. Dionne would tell me not to worry, but I am. Regardless of Dionne's enthusiasm for Pope Francis, when it comes to the beginning and the end of life, the Church is hardly progressive.

That said, Mr. Dionne's recent book "Our Divided Political Heart" is worth a read. No original research but a good, occasionally insightful summary of the strains of American political thought and behavior from the Founders to the present. I'd recommend it.

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

I'd like to recommend this new post by Ian Welsh:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/bin-ladens-insights-and-the-egyptian-coup/.
It can also be found at http://ianwelsh.net/
Best to all,
Keith Howard

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterKeith

I would agree with Marie that toleration of any religious group should be the order of the day but I would also hope that religious progressives, if they don't already know, should acquaint themselves with what's being preached in many fundamentalist churches. Liberals are doing the devil's work, trying to convert their children to a secular lifestyle that includes homosexual indoctrination and hatred of god and country, that people who don't agree with this will burn in hell and deserve it. Religious progressives, by the way, are lumped into that group as well. Don't believe what we believe? Don't interpret the Bible the way we do? You're all fucked.

I don't think progressives of a religious bent would, in fairness, lack understanding if liberals didn't feel so warm and cozy towards those who characterize them as evil incarnate and, in certain instances (planned parenthood workers, abortion providers), wish death upon them.

This isn't a case of "they started it first" but Mr. Dionne should recognize that the kind of narrow-mindedness preached in many churches of the Christian right goes way beyond simple intolerance into raging bigotry and venomous hatred.

Do many liberals have a warped view of some right-wing Christian groups? Sure. But I don't think they advocate death or call them traitors and pawns of the devil. The opportunistic and cynical political wing of this faction is one of the primary reasons for decline in this country encouraged by willful ignorance and obdurate intransigence, and if religious progressives are unhappy with that, they need to acknowledge that the dark side of religion is far more dangerous than perceived or actual liberal prejudice.

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

After reading Frank Rich's piece I am almost ready to throw in the towel. Our "green" DC is fraught with two degrees of separation and the handshakes are all warm and cozy on both sides. When reading the Teddy Roosevelt biography by Edmond Morris I recall he said this about Washington at the turn of the 19th century: It was prized for social splendor, a power center in an increasingly powerful country. POWER, not breeding, was the basis of protocol in this democratic town. And today outside of DC proper are ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives whose air is thick with the stench of all those deals and handshakes that favor themselves above all. Are we surprised?

August 5, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
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