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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Friday
Dec252015

The Commentariat -- Dec. 26, 2015

Internal links removed.

Diane Superville of the AP: "In a Christmas Day gesture of gratitude, President Barack Obama told U.S. troops that 'we never take for granted' what they do to keep Americans safe and free. Obama spoke a few days after six American service members were killed this week in a suicide attack at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the largest U.S. facility in the country."

You-Ess-Ay! You-Ess-Ay! Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Foreign arms sales by the United States jumped by almost $10 billion in 2014, about 35 percent, even as the global weapons market remained flat and competition among suppliers increased, a new congressional study has found. American weapons receipts rose to $36.2 billion in 2014 from $26.7 billion the year before, bolstered by multibillion-dollar agreements with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Those deals and others ensured that the United States remained the single largest provider of arms around the world last year, controlling just over 50 percent of the market."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has charged at least 60 individuals this year with terrorism-related crimes, an unprecedented number that officials attribute to a heightened threat from the Islamic State and the influence of social media on potential recruits. Last week alone, prosecutors charged three people and convicted two others on terrorism-linked charges."

Amanda Holpuch of the Guardian (Dec. 24): "Hundreds of undocumented families in the US could be rounded up and deported as soon as January, according to a report that has shocked immigrants rights' advocates and provoked condemnation from Democratic presidential hopefuls. The Department of Homeland Security is preparing for raids that would see hundreds of recently arrived immigrants deported, according to a report in the Washington Post.... Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders roundly denounced the plan." CW: Definitely sounds as if ICE is gearing up for President Trump. ...

... Apparently, the Trumpster thinks so, too. Ian Swanson of the Hill: "Donald Trump was on Twitter for Christmas to for a second day in a row take credit for reports that the Obama administration is planning an effort to deport illegal immigrants."

New York Times Editors: "As untold millions of dollars pour into the shadowy campaign troughs of the presidential candidates, voters need to be reminded of the rosy assumptions of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that legitimized the new spending frenzy.... In the new budget bill, Republicans inserted a provision blocking the Internal Revenue Service from creating rules to curb the growing abuse of the tax law by thinly veiled political machines posing as 'social welfare' organizations.... In another move..., the Republicans barred the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing rules requiring corporations to disclose their campaign spending to investors.... For two years, President Obama has dithered and withheld the one blow he could easily strike for greater political transparency: the signing of an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their campaign spending." ...

... It Ain't Only Republicans. Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "The Federal Election Commission has quietly given the green light to federal candidates who want to solicit contributions for super PACs by meeting in small groups -- so small that there can be just two other people in the room. In addition, the little-noticed advisory opinion gives permission to a candidate's campaign consultant and other aides to solicit large donations for a super PAC, as long as they make clear that they are not making the request at the direction of the candidate. The decisions -- which came in response to a request from two Democratic super PACs, including one with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) -- further erode the boundary between campaigns and their independent allies at a time when they are already engaged in unprecedented collaboration."

He Nabbed Him with the Googles. Nathaniel Popper of the Times: The FBI & the Department of Homeland Security got most of the attention for nabbing Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the online drug bazaar Silk Road, but a young IRS agent, Gary Alford, actually identified Ulbricht. It took three months for other law enforcement authorities to take his evidence seriously. CW: I think you'll enjoy this story.

Paul Krugman: "... space technology is moving forward after decades of stagnation. And to my amateur eye, this seems to be part of a broader trend, which is making me more hopeful for the future than I've been in a while.... [Since the 1970s] there has just been less progress in our command over the physical world -- our ability to produce and deliver things -- than almost anyone expected.... The really big news is on energy, a field of truly immense disappointment until recently." And Marco Rubio is an idiot (paraphrase). ...

... BUT Drones! Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post: "It's a good thing that Santa is now largely out of the American airspace, because many of those drones are now careening wildly through the air, crashing into lawns, cars, roofs and grandmas. Twitter is loaded today with tales of aerodynamic woe." Rosenwald re-publishes some of the tweets. CW: I laughed out loud.

Elliot Hannon of Slate, citing the Center for Global Development: "A 2008 study from the US Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that decorative seasonal lights accounted for 6.6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity consumption every year in the United States. That's just 0.2% of the country's total electricity usage ... It's also more than the national electricity consumption [FOR THE YEAR] of many developing countries, such as El Salvador, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nepal, or Cambodia." CW: Might wanna turn off those icicle lights. The chili lights in my kitchen, however, are staying on. ...

... Besides, when the temperatures are unseasonably warm on the East Coast, we need something to remind us of Christmas. Or not: Peter Schwartzman of the Washington Post found another explanation for the warm weather: "Jesus might be coming back." CW: Maybe climate denialism isn't denialism at all but a twisted expression of longing for the end times. As another woman told Schwartzman, "End times must be on the way. I'm delighted with this." I, for one, am not cheerful about this development, because I'll definitely be banished to hell, which I hope is nicer than the Bible lets on. Not that I won't argue with Jesus about it; I'm pretty damned good at standing up to authoritarian men. Say, how come all those teabaggers who protest every governmental imposition, real & imagined, are willing to let a stranger from heaven determine their eternal fate?

Tim Egan finds "some snippets of qualified joy" to celebrate.

Salon publishes as excerpt from Alison Greene's No Depression in Heaven: "The greatest power of the Greatest Generation was their collective acknowledgment that they could not go it alone. Nowhere was this transformation more dramatic than in the South. For a moment, the southern Protestant establishment faced the suffering that plantation capitalism pushed behind its public image of planters' hats and hoopskirts and mountains of pure white cotton.... [Franklin] Roosevelt's New Deal threatened plantation capitalism even as it bent to it."

Nicole Winfield of the AP: "Pope Francis issued a Christmas Day prayer that recent U.N.-backed peace processes for Syria and Libya will quickly end the suffering of their people, denouncing the 'monstrous evil' and atrocities they have endured and praising countries that have taken in refugees."

D. C. Clark adds the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir's mashup of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and Coldplay's "Fix You" to our lovely medley of holiday songs. Again, not a Christmas song, but so what? The NHS Choir put together the piece to celebrate the work & workers of Britain's National Health Service. Against long odds, the recording topped Britain's Christmas week chart, after several celebrities, including Justin Beiber, who had a song in the running but urged his fans to buy the NHS's single. If the NHS were a U.S. agency, an inspector general would have charged them with breaking lobbying laws:

Presidential Race

Goldbuggery! Michael Grunwald in a Politico Magazine opinion piece: It isn't just Donald Trump who has crazy ideas. Most of the GOP presidential candidates have proposed wacko policies, right there in the debates for all to see. "The Democrats would say the GOP is simply defying reality -- on climate, on economics, on the ease with which muscular foreign policies can fix the world, on just about everything. Then again, the Republican Party isn't the party that's hiding its debates on weekend nights. Its views may be extreme, but it's airing its views for all to see."

Beyond the Beltway

Washington Post: "Authorities say a fire that caused minor damage to former president Bill Clinton's first childhood home in Hope, Ark., may have been arson."

Nancy Scola in Politico Magazine (first published Nov. 20): Charlotte, North Carolina, has gone green, eschewing bright lights & promoting water conservation. "... Envision Charlotte [is] a non-profit that leaders of the city's largest corporations like Duke Energy are betting will position Charlotte in the urban vanguard of environmental sustainability. If it works, Envision Charlotte will rekindle growth that in the best of times reached 10 percent annually." ...

... Caleb Hannon in Politico Magazine (first published Aug. 15): "The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, better known as the HERC, has emerged as the centerpiece of Minneapolis's own push to be carbon-neutral by 2030, as Minnesota's largest city looks to vault itself into the world's top tier of sustainable cities. In doing so, it hopes to join places like Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm that have a long reputation of balancing the environment and human impact. It's an ambitious goal for the Midwestern city of 400,000, but one that Minneapolis hopes to achieve by transforming its residents' relationship to their own trash, and one that it -- and 17 other global cities, including Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and San Francisco -- all joined together to announce in 2014 during a meeting in Copenhagen when they created the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance pact."

Way Beyond

Ellen Barry & Salman Masood of the New York Times: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an impromptu visit Friday to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan. "It was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in 12 years."

Anne Barnard of the New York Times: "The commander of one of the most powerful Syrian insurgent groups in the suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, was killed Friday in an airstrike, according to the government and its opponents. The death of the commander, Zahran Alloush, is a significant blow to the armed opposition, bolstering President Bashar al-Assad ahead of a planned new round of peace talks.... Local opposition figures reached in Damascus said the airstrikes had been carried out by Russian warplanes, but that information was not immediately confirmed by Russian or Syrian officials.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Pacific Coast Highway north of Ventura reopened in both directions Saturday afternoon after a wind-driven brush fire scorched more than 1,200 acres in the area overnight, prompting mandatory evacuations...."

Washington Post: "The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a written statement Saturday that [Ursula Gauthier,] the Beijing correspondent for French news magazine L'Obs, would not be issued press credentials for 2016, effectively expelling her. Gauthier drew Beijing's ire country by writing an essay that questioned the Chinese government's rhetoric on terrorism."

Weather Channel: "Damaging storms continued to take aim at the South on Christmas Day, bringing severe flooding just days after an outbreak of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms killed at least 15 people across the region." ...

... New York Times: "Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama declared a state of emergency on Friday as heavy rain and flooding paralyzed areas in the central and northern parts of the state." CW: Yes, he's asking the socialist president to be sending more of those federal dollars Alabama's way.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (11)

The latest evolution in the "Citizens United" saga is another nail in the coffin for American-style democracy. What makes this last one truly perverse, as is indirectly stated in the NY Times Editorial linked above, is that 8 of the Supreme Court justices (only Clarence Thomas dissented) pronounced themselves in favor of a further "disclosure" mechanism which would "shine light" on the process and root out potential corruption of the electoral system. Of course, this disclosure mechanism was left up to the money-hungry wolves elected to legislate, effectively putting them in charge of limiting their own donations and thus future electoral opportunities.

The 4 of the 5 Supreme Court justices who created the "Citizens United" catastrophe did so while assuming a "disclosure" mechanism would later be put into place, recognizing the dangers that could arise if such a measure of transparency didn't exist. And yet, now, we have the same group of spineless, self-interested legislators doing exactly the OPPOSITE (anyone surprised here?) of what the justices themselves had recommended, cementing the dark world of political bribery and buckling down the hatches to ensure no light actually does seep in. Any word from those justices while they sit high on their thrones, perched above our crumbling democracy while they enjoy their safe spaces to collude about their next coup?

On a related note, according to Justice Kennedy: "by definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

Another good quote to think about with Matea Gold's article linked above, because now the FEC is blinking green lights to federal candidates to solicit bribes, er, uh, "contributions" from dark money Super-duper PACs, AS LONG AS the two parties aren't found in bed together. To further show their seriousness, the FEC is OK with allowing federal candidates to discuss tag-teaming with "social welfare" organizations to rake in unlimited dark money AS LONG AS there are only a few people in the room while the deal goes down. I'm now starting to understand what Mitt Romney was talking about with his reference to "quiet rooms". The farce deepens...

And to wrap up the knee-capping of our democracy, I invite you to read on about one exemplary saga of the this back-door dealing, conspirational and transparency-hating world of shadows that exists behind the façade of our democratic institutions. It's one uncovered through quality, connecting-the-dots journalism that is a depressingly rare species today. Worthy of a Hollywood film, it's a true story in a continuing series of Bully Billionaires and their Underlings.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-christmas-story

P.S. @Ak and Pepe, thanks for the heads up about the article I linked a few days ago re: Sy Hersh. I don't know him very well but I did a quick Google to see if he was considered a serious journalist because his accusation in the article were pretty serious. The initial information I gleaned was a storied writer who had written on some serious investigations but I hadn't read about him apparently going off the rails with age. I haven't read anything else picking up on his wild accusations so I'm assuming its another case of become overly dependent on one well-placed "anonymous source" and being taken for a ride.

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered Commentersafari

If I may submit a late entry to the Holiday Music thread, don't miss this one:

https://youtu.be/T8qHXlShfUQ

Full story here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35177842

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterD.C.Clark

@safari: Just finished reading "the Christmas Story"––holy cow, what a tale to weave. I had to laugh when it turned out that the town of Bristol's local paper's top gun done shot his wad via Addelson. We had just traveled to Bristol last weekend to watch our grandson play a basketball game against Bristol's "Hornets." The problem was we had one devil of a time trying to find the high school––GPS says, "turn left on Maple Avenue"-––but no Maple could be found. Evidently the street signs are as absent as some of the minds of men who fancy themselves as masters of the universe––or little papers in little towns.

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Another late entry, "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" sung by Leann Rimes:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?autoplay=1&v=z6THETNMsok

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Great story about Gary Alford. Remind you of another smart guy with a non traditional background?

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

@safari: Thanks for the link to Josh Marshall's "Christmas Story." We've linked to a couple of stories on Adelson's takeover of the Las Vegas Review-Journal & the Bristol Press, but Marshall adds more context: I didn't know about the fake quotes, much less the fake "reporter," of the Bristol Press's Adelson love-letter.

@PD Pepe: Hey, everybody in Bristol knows where Maple Street is. Street signs are redundant!

Marie

December 26, 2015 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Flawed justice, indeed. Mob rules. Sickening human (?) behavior in the name of religion. Despicable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/world/asia/flawed-justice-after-a-mob-killed-an-afghan-woman.html

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Marie,

If you want some cheering up about conditions in, and likely inhabitants of, the Christian heaven and hell, you can't do better than Shaw's 'Man and Superman':

“Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.”

“Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation”

And my all time favorite description of the pious:

“Your friends are all the dullest dogs I know. They are not beautiful: they are only decorated. They are not clean: they are only shaved and starched. They are not dignified: they are only fashionably dressed. They are not educated: they are only college passmen. They are not religious: they are only pewrenters. They are not moral: they are only conventional. They are not virtuous: they are only cowardly. They are not even vicious: they are only “frail.” They are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They are not prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal, they are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, only patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive; not generous, only propitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; and not truthful at all: liars every one of them, to the very backbone of their souls.”

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterD.C.Clark

D.C.

Twain was more succinct.

"I'd take Heaven for the climate but Hell for the company."

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

"Vladimir Putin Goes Shirtless Again For New 2016 Calendar
Russian President also shows off sensitive side in shots. "

Huh? Why always a big deal over a guy who looks like he has sagging man boobs? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vladimir-putin-calendar-2016_567e5d2fe4b0b958f6597836

Hey, Vlad...yeech! It's getting really embarrassing!

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

@MAG,

Couldn't agree more. Looks like Putie needs to get himself a bro-ssiere.

Was wondering too if BFF Trumpet received a personally autographed copy of the calendar to hang in his man cave.

December 26, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterUnwashed
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