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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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

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Wednesday
Dec122012

The Commentariat -- Dec. 13, 2012

I'm getting complaints that I'm boring & all the commenters are interesting. Couldn't agree more. -- Constant Weader

Hans Nichols of Bloomberg News: "Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has emerged as the leading candidate to become Obama's next Secretary of Defense and may be nominated as soon as this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. Hagel, who served as an enlisted Army infantryman in Vietnam, has passed the vetting process at the White House Counsel's office, said one of the people. The former Nebraska senator has told associates that he is awaiting final word from the president, said the other person."

Greg Sargent: "The Senate Democratic leadership is announcing today that [Elizabeth] Warren will be given a seat on the Senate Banking Committee."

Another Big Win for Mitt. Angie Holan of PolitiFact: "Lie of the Year: the Romney campaign's ad on Jeeps made in China.... PolitiFact has selected Romney's claim that Barack Obama 'sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China' at the cost of American jobs as the 2012 Lie of the Year.... And they stood by the claim, even as the media and the public expressed collective outrage against something so obviously false."

Fabulous News out of Washington: Joe Lieberman gave his final Senate speech Wednesday. Something about compromise and bipartisanship. But the fabulous news is Joe Lieberman gave his final Senate speech Wednesday.

Felicia Sonmez & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "The conservative groups that supported Michigan's new 'right to work' law -- winning a stunning victory over unions, even in the heart of American labor -- vowed Wednesday to replicate that success elsewhere. But the search for the next Michigan could be difficult. National unions, caught flat-footed in the Wolverine State, pledged to offer fierce opposition wherever the idea crops up next.... In addition, few Republican governors who could enact such legislation seem eager to bring the fight to their states." CW: I think the writers are underestimating the persuasive powers of the Koch boys. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... the way Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and the Republican Michigan Legislature rushed right-to-work through a lame-duck session was insidious.... Snyder had avoided taking a stand on right-to-work until just last week, when he miraculously discovered that it would be a first-rate economic development measure. The law was included as part of an appropriations bill to make it much harder for voters to challenge it in a referendum. The political motivation here is obvious. Union families are the premier cross-racial Democratic constituency. Nationwide, President Obama carried union households by 18 points but non-union households by only one point -- a 'union gap' of 17 points. In Michigan, the union gap was an astonishing 32 points: Obama won union households 66 percent to 33 percent, the rest of the electorate by 50 percent to 49 percent."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Harold Koh, the top lawyer in the State Department, will step down early next year and return to teaching at Yale Law School, a department official said on Wednesday. His impending departure is part of a major overhaul in the Obama administration's national security legal policy team, including the announcement last week that the Pentagon general counsel, Jeh C. Johnson, is resigning."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "There will be no big star-studded concert on the National Mall to celebrate President Obama's second inauguration next month, several of his inaugural planners said Wednesday.... Mr. Obama, mindful of the difficult economy, has set a more low-key tone for his 2013 inaugural festivities."

Linda Greenhouse makes a compelling argument that the DOMA & Prop 8 cases the Supremes have agreed to hear are not about gay marriage but about standing; i.e., whether the parties in the cases have the capacity to bring suit as outlined in Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution. CW: so my little prediction that the Supremes will "do the right thing" may be moot; they may do nothing, thus leaving the status quo, well, status quo.

Cliff Notes

Greg Sargent: "I spoke this morning to an official familiar with the fiscal cliff talks. He tells me that ever since Republicans rejected the first White House fiscal offer, White House negotiators have been asking Republicans to detail both the spending cuts they want and the loopholes and deductions they would close to raise revenues while avoiding a hike in tax rates for the rich. According to the official, Republicans continue to refuse to answer.... How on earth can there be any progress under these circumstances?"

The "Logic" of Raising the Medicare Eligibility Age. Paul Krugman: "When I look at this whole discussion I keep thinking of a line from 'Yes, Minister': 'We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it.' And there's a real possibility that this kind of logic will lead to huge suffering for hundreds of thousands of older Americans.... It would inflict vast hardship on the most vulnerable, while saving the federal government remarkably little money, and would actually raise overall health spending, basically because private insurers have much higher administrative costs and much less bargaining power than Medicare...."

Boehner Forgets Who Won the Election Again. Dana Bash of CNN: "One of the reasons Tuesday night's conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner did not go well was because the GOP House speaker sent the White House a fiscal cliff proposal calling for a permanent extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, including for incomes in the top 2%, a Democratic source said Wednesday." ...

... The Republican War on Christmas. Robert Schoeder: "With the fiscal cliff unresolved and the clock ticking, House Speaker John Boehner is telling his fellow Republicans not to make holiday-season plans, reports said." The House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said basically the same thing.

I'm getting increasingly concerned that one of the reasons the Speaker is deciding to, I think, string out these discussions is that he wants to wait til January 3 when the election for Speaker takes place. -- Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland)

Jonathan Chait: "When the only cuts on the table would inflict real harm on people with modest incomes and save small amounts of money, that is a sign that there's just not much money to save.... The spending cuts aren't there because they can't be found." And Republicans don't seem to understand this.

Oh, there are ways to cut back. Laura Gottesediener of AlterNet list seven "absurd ways the military wastes taxpayer dollars.... There are 963 generals and admirals in the U.S. armed forces....

... each top commander has his own C-40 jet, complete with beds on board. Many have chefs who deserve their own four-star restaurants. The generals' personal staff include drivers, security guards, secretaries, and people to shine their shoes and iron their uniforms. When traveling, they can be accompanied by police motorcades that stretch for blocks. When entertaining, string quartets are available at a snap of the fingers. A New York Times analysis showed that simply the staff provided to top generals and admirals can top $1 million -- per general. That's not even including their own salaries -- which are relatively modest due to congressional legislation -- and the free housing, which has been described as 'palatial.'

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post : Monday, the White House backed off its 2011 proposal to allow $17.9BB in Medicaid cuts. Kliff explains how the Supremes accidentally saved Medicaid from cuts.

Local News

Max Read of Gawker: "Steven Crowder, the frequent Fox News contributor and YouTube comedia[n]..., insert[ed] himself in the middle of a tense argument between protestors and staffers of Americans for Prosperity, the anti-union group funded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. And then he got punched in the face." Crowder was whining about it on Fox "News" yesterday, but Read thinks he should take his licks for getting "between billionaire-funded know-nothing ideologues and people whose livelihoods and stability are being threatened by the insatiable greed of the super-rich and the blind extremism of their wooden-headed political allies. In exchange, liberals will buy you a band-aid ... re-iterate that Punching Is Bad." ...

Punching is bad. -- Constant Weader ...

... Not surprisingly, it appears Crowder faked what actually happened, editing the video to make events that happened hours apart appear to be sequential.

AND Adam Sandler puts in a performance at the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief:

News Ledes

New York Times: "Susan E. Rice, the Obama administration's ambassador to the United Nations, has withdrawn her name from consideration for secretary of state, in the face of relentless opposition from Republicans in Congress over her role in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya."

New York Times: "The Swiss financial giant UBS is close to finalizing a settlement with authorities over the manipulation of interest rates, a deal that is expected to include at least $1 billion in fines. UBS is in discussions with United States, British and Swiss authorities, and an announcement could come as early as Monday...."

New York Times: "N. Joseph Woodland, who six decades ago drew a set of lines in the sand and in the process conceived the modern bar code, died on Sunday at his home in Edgewater, N.J. He was 91." Read the obit.

New York Times: "European leaders gathering [in Brussels, Belgium] on Thursday for their year-end summit meeting hailed an agreement to place euro zone banks under a single supervisor, calling it a concrete measure to maintain the viability of the currency as well as a step in laying the groundwork for a broader economic union."

New York Times: "Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's top envoy for Syria, said on Thursday that President Bashar al-Assad's government was losing control of the country and might be defeated by rebel forces."

Reuters: "North Korea's next step after rattling the world by putting a satellite into orbit for the first time will likely be a nuclear test, the third conducted by the reclusive and unpredictable state. A nuclear test would be the logical follow-up to Wednesday's successful rocket launch, analysts said."

AP: "A nurse duped by a hoax call from Australian DJs about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was found hanging in her room and left three notes, a coroner's inquest was told Thursday."

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