The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

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

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

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

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

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

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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.

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

Wednesday
Jan012014

The Commentariat -- January 2, 2014

New York Times Editors: "Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, [Edward] Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community." ...

... Guardian Editors: "We hope that calm heads within the present administration are working on a strategy to allow Mr Snowden to return to the US with dignity, and the president to use his executive powers to treat him humanely and in a manner that would be a shining example about the value of whistleblowers and of free speech itself." CW: The Guardian's editors seem to suggest President Obama should pardon Snowden.

CW: E. J. Dionne feels a need to explain to moderates why a resurgence of progressive populism is a good thing. Frankly, I don't see a "resurgence." Elizabeth Warren, for instance, isn't "replacing" Republican Scott Brown. She retook Ted Kennedy's seat after a short, anomalous hiatus, and Kennedy was at least as progressive as Warren. And if "moderates" can't figure out why increasing Social Security benefits beats privatizing the program, then they aren't moderates.

Michael Shear & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio has signaled he may embrace a series of limited changes to the nation’s immigration laws in the coming months.... Aides to Mr. Boehner said this week that he was committed to what he calls 'step by step' moves to revise immigration laws, which they have declined to specify. " CW: Whoopdeedoo. This is what makes the top headline in the Times?

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In temporarily blocking enforcement of the part of President Obama’s health care law that requires many employers to provide health insurance coverage for birth control or face penalties, Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday opened a second front in Supreme Court challenges to the provision. The initial front opened in November, when the justices agreed to hear a pair of cases from for-profit companies challenging that provision." ...

We defer to the Department of Justice on litigation matters, but remain confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious employers with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage. -- Anonymous White House Official

... Sandhya Somashekhar, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration faced a fresh challenge to its health-care law just as many of its key provisions took effect Wednesday, after an 11th-hour Supreme Court ruling temporarily allowed some Catholic groups not to cover birth control in their employee health plans.... The ruling applied not only to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a nonprofit group that provides services to low-income elderly people, but also to more than 200 other faith-based groups that use insurance provided by the Christian Brothers Employee Benefit Trust, which adheres to Catholic principles. Most nonprofit groups that challenged the mandate already had received temporary reprieves." ...

... Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "According to the Department of Health and Human Services, about six million people signed up for Obamacare’s coverage expansion so far. It’s not yet clear exactly how many of those people gained new insurance on January 1; some of them may not have paid their first premium yet, and ongoing technical problems with the state marketplaces may delay some people’s coverage from kicking in immediately. Regardless of the official enrollment numbers, however, New Years Eve marked an important milestone for the health insurance industry."

I’m sure you know, the bishop has total control. -- Anonymous Doctor, describing how medical decisions are made at Roman Catholic hospitals ...

... Lori Freedman in the New Republic on medical "mistakes" directed by Catholic doctrine: "The role that bishops play in healthcare is not a narrow, niche issue. Today in the U.S., one out of six hospital patients are treated in a Catholic facility; four of the 10 largest health systems are Catholic. In many places, the Catholic hospital is the only option for care. While some argue that religious groups should be entitled to follow their own doctrine in their own hospitals, this argument is based on the antiquated notion of faith-based care. Catholic hospitals employ and treat people of all faiths with federal dollars...." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. Also, see today's Comments.

Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told The Associated Press in an interview that the Senate will vote Monday on a three-month extension of federal unemployment benefits. Calling the House a 'black hole of legislation,' he offered no prediction on whether the lower chamber would take up the extension as well."

Dan Vergano of the National Geographic: "A decline in ocean cloud cover projected in climate models points to more than 5.6°F (3°C) of global warming coming in this century, on the high end of past global warming estimates, warn climate scientists in a new study."

Lyle Denniston, in a National Constitution Center opinion piece: "The campaign to win marriage rights for same-sex couples that began somewhat hesitantly in Hawaii more than twenty years ago burst forth in 2013 into something close to a constitutional revolution.  The year 2014 very likely will take the issue back to the Supreme Court even as efforts continue to advance the campaign at the state level."

Steve Coll of the New Yorker discusses a new memoir by John Rizzo, a CIA lawyer for more than three decades. Rizzo counters George W. Bush's claim that he was the "decider" on harsh interrogation techniques.

Gail Collins publishes her year-end quiz -- with answers.

Local News

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "Bill de Blasio, whose fiery populism propelled his rise from obscure neighborhood official to the 109th mayor of New York, was sworn into office on Wednesday, pledging that his ambition for a more humane and equal metropolis would remain undimmed." The Times has an interactive page, with video, analyzing de Blasio's inaugural address.

Bryce Covert of Think Progress: "With the new year came the implementation of a new bill: Rhode Island’s paid family leave legislation, passed in July, is now in effect. That means that three states have paid family leave programs in place, as Rhode Island joins California, whose law went into effect in 2004, and New Jersey, which started its program in 2009."

Senate Race

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Daniel K. Inouye, the most revered and powerful figure in Hawaii political history, had a deathbed wish: that Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) would appoint his protegee, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, to replace him in the Senate. But Abercrombie upended this island state’s political order by tapping the younger Brian Schatz, then the lieutenant governor. Now, a year after Inouye’s death, the former senator’s ghost lingers large over a bitter feud that is dividing Democrats along ethnic and generational lines.... With the outspoken support of Inouye’s widow, Hanabusa is giving up her House seat to challenge Schatz in the 2014 primary."

Reader Comments (10)

So lets see, the only moral issue facing humanity is the need to make as many humans as possible. That is the order presented 5000 years ago and of course nothing has changed. We currently have 7 billion so 14 billion or 21 billion makes no difference.
Forget the effect on climate, we have an infinite supply of food and water. No problem.
I mean there are two choices, we either adapt to reality or religion admits it got it wrong. So the conclusion is clear. Happy New Year is a phase that will not exist in 100 years.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

Re: Sign o' times; 2014. Thousands of angry citizens raise up in mass protesting the exile of a true patriot (codenamed "Duckboy").
Same angry citizens took thousands of selfies in response to an another exile's (codenamed "Snow goose") claim of government spying. It's what's important that matters.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

Snowden "deserves better". Yeah, its rather difficult to do the talk show circuit and market a book in his current circumstance. As for doing this country a great service, I suppose that's a debatable issue domestically - minus the great. Its pretty clear he f-ed up relations with other countries to no one's benefit. I'm stickin' with my original assessment, he's an immature little prick.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

Yesterday Marie gave me a link to a NYT's article on background of Sotomayor which helped me understand her stance re: the contraceptive business. I should have figured that out myself since I was aware she was a product–-if one can use that term–-of Catholic upbringing and Catholic schooling*. It seeps deep into the pia matter and stays there like a stubborn burr. (Yes, I am aware that many have gotten an excellent education at these schools). Below is a link to a piece by Lori Freedman who discusses new research into medical decisions at church-run facilities.

*My two older sons, at the time nine and ten, received a smattering of Catholic school discipline when they were enrolled in a school in N.C. ( a brief sojourn due to their father's corporate dealings) and were regularly hit on the hands with rulers when they didn't know the answers. I never knew about this until after the fact which still makes me furious even today. And Sotomayor being slapped because she wouldn't eat the rye bread seems to correspond. Yet––my husband and I just finished watching (for the 5th time) the Italian film, "Cinema Paradiso" in which there is a scene where a group of young boys in a classroom are having a jolly old time laughing at their think-headed classmate who is standing before a blackboard trying to do sums and after each wrong answer the female teacher bangs his head against the board. He has a permanent sore spot on his forehead. And we laugh.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116034/catholic-hospitals-lawsuit-usccb-doctrines-determine-care

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/02/1266225/-5-Tips-for-Living-in-a-Surveillance-State#

Ruben Bolling in Daily Kos on how to behave in a surveillance state. IMHO NSA is more money squandered. Does what they do keep us safer? They always seem to fall back on "that's classified" whenever pressed for an example of actually foiling a terrorist plot. How convenient!

@Diane: My opinion of Snowden is the same as yours.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

@P.D. Pepe: Thanks for the link. I'll re-post it in a moment. If I recall correctly, I previously linked to a story about the same case highlighted here. One of the major downsides of ObamaCare is that it has probably accelerated hospital mergers, & one of the bigger buyers are Roman Catholic-affiliated hospitals, as this August 2013 New York Times report says.

The most obvious bad effect for this is for pregnant woman, but I'm concerned end-of-life decisions may be affected, too. I haven't seen a definitive report, but I've read quite a few anecdotes claiming staff at Roman Catholic hospitals ignore DNRs (do-not-resuscitate orders) & living wills. This 2009 article by David Dayen for Firedoglake suggests to me why medical staff may be confused about end-of-life treatment. In one claim I read, the family of a woman who had signed a DNR had to go around the Catholic-run hospital seeking out a doctor who would honor her DNR, after other staff insisted, "We don't honor DNRs here."

Marie

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

Is the War on Christmas over yet?

Being away visiting family allowed me to institute a self-imposed media blackout for nearly a week so imagine my surprise to find out upon resurfacing, that wingnuts, sadly, had to give up screaming about the War on Christmas--that holiday being over--but were in high dudgeon (is there a low dudgeon mode?) about the War on Them, because aren't they always the victims, even when they're running things?

Was I surprised to see that Duck Bigotry had won its battle to salt the media soil with racist and homophobic poison? I have to admit that I was. Not so much that A&E caved, but at how quickly they caved. I guess they couldn't have been too concerned about the Bearded Churls because they ran an all-day Christmas marathon of their shows which apparently stacked greenbacks by the truckload (does anyone else see the apparent contradiction here? Joy, Peace, homophobia, and racism to the World, y'all). So it also appears that advertisers don't give two shits either. Which leads me to wonder if the whole thing was some kind of set-up to gin up the ratings for a show that may have seen its audience of drooling stars and bars haters peak.

The biggest lack, for me, and not just about these idiots, but about all the hatred and poor-me victimhood bullshit oozing out of Right Wing World is the deafening silence in the mainstream media which has no problem siding with A&E's decision because, hey, money. They're not silent about the situation, just about the morality involved. And if they're not concerned about ignorant bigots representing a major American media outlet, then why be the least bit embarrassed by any stupid thing they say?

So I suggest that A&E not censor another word uttered by these blowhards. Let them go on and on about Jesus and homos and happy nee-groes and any other doltish idiocy they see fit to spit out. Let 'er rip. The rednecks are unhappy about "censorship" and the War on Them? Fine. Let's see these pig fuckers in all their boorish illiberality.

My favorite line following A&E's slavish kowtow to wealthy ignorant pricks came from one of those same pricks who allowed as how he was willing to forgive A&E and all those evil godless unAmerican lib'ruls who just don't get that the country was founded by Jesus and George Washington, that Christians run things and can do and say whatever in the fucking hell they want.

So I guess the War on Christmas is never over. It just becomes the War on Christians.

Boo fucking hoo.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Marie notes, in reference to E.J. Dionne's linked piece ("The Resurgent Left") that ' ... if "moderates" can't figure out why increasing Social Security benefits beats privatizing the program, then they aren't moderates."

Serendipitously, in the paper Washington Post, right next to Dionne's, George Will's column is basically a regurgitation of points made by Ilya Somin's paper "Democracy and Political Ignorance."
[ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-price-of-political-ignorance/2014/01/01/7dbe2936-7311-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html ]

I normally don't read Will, because I consider it a waste of time. And Will's opinions in this column, and Somin's, are also crap (Bottom line: If we have smaller government people can do a better job of voting for a more effective government).

But there are some facts in that Somin piece, the primary one being that research supports things we have been noting on Marie's space these many days ... that indicate that the mass of voters are really ignorant.

So to get back to Marie's comment ... "then they aren't moderates" ... she is correct ... they aren't. They are ignorant.

I think Dionne's basic argument is correct. The public narrative for the past few years (heck, 30 years) has been that government can't be trusted to call you a cab, and that government efforts to address big social issues may be well-intentioned but become wasteful, self-perpetuating, suffocating and ineffectual in practice. So voters are wise to just vote for the folks who will keep those programs down (conservatives.) But now, the past few years have revealed that doing nothing is worse than doing something, and the conservative mantra is revealed as not good for you, the average voter. Dionne is saying that the left is once again able to find it's voice and illuminate how things actually work (or not) based on the track record of the past decade -- which doesn't look good for conservatism. Worse for the conservatives, they can now be tarred with the epithet of being "politicians" rather than "doers", because of evident linkages between conservative ideology and problems people are waking to (jobs, education, housing, health), all while conservative goals are met (low interest rates, smaller government, low inflation, low wages, primary selection of candidates ...)

The "moderates" will remain basically ignorant. One of the great things about living in the U.S. is that you can be completely politically ignorant and civilly uninvolved and you will most probably do as well, personally, as if you were politically involved and informed. But their ignorance in the recent past has attached to the comforting Reaganite idea that voting (or polling) conservative provides them a more comfortable vision of their personal future. They didn't have to think about it, just accept the vision. But now, those on the left have a good chance of replacing that ignorance with a "progressive ignorance" which will spread the prejudice that the government has problems, but at least it cares and is doing something. Like the New Deal persuaded the mass of voters that doing something, no matter how inchoate, was better than doing nothing.

Even the most ignorant organisms learn to avoid pain when it is repeatedly applied, and those "moderate ignoramuses" will learn to avoid the pain engendered on the 99% by conservatism when liberal politicians can point to the source of the pain. Which I think is Dionne's point.

Finally, my aunt (b. 1908 d. 1995) once said "If it weren't for the Democrats we'd all be eating dirt." She was just observing history she was personally familiar with, she was not a partisan.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Patrick,

Your aunt stuck her landing with that observation. She knew whereof she spoke.

Reading your comment about "moderates" or anyone else who finally comes to see the futility of acquiescing or capitulating to a political party, its economic interests, and media apparatus, which regularly threatens their livelihood, health, and ability to flourish, raised, in my mind, one more reason so many conservatives (mostly the social kind but also the opportunistically craven ones as well) despise the concept of evolution.

Darwin's primary point was that the species most able to adapt will survive and thrive, not necessarily the richest, the strongest, most religious, or the most well connected.

Adapting requires the species to take stock of changes both large and small in its environment and act accordingly. If a competing species in that environment steals your food, destroys your habitat, makes you sick, and loses no opportunity to diminish your chances for survival, your kind either dies out, looks for a new ecosystem, or finds a way to fight back and protect itself. Survival, in any event, requires some form of adaptation and change, qualities anathema to conservatives. "If only 'they' would leave us alone and things could go back to the way they were, everything would be fine again."

They crave stasis, not progress, immutability, not adaptation, and will willfully choose ignorance over knowledge if it helps them preserve their belief system. Which is why more and more wingnuts believe--need to believe--that evolution is a hoax.

Darwin was right and they hate him for it.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Perhaps because we're not yet far enough into the new year for me to have been battered by weeks of bad news, I take a more optimistic view than some of the possible revival of progressivism. It's not as if the majority of Americans have shared in the market and corporate rebound that has followed the 2008 Crash. They have, in fact, fallen farther behind. Even the trickle that was supposed to raise their dinghies along with the yachts of the uber rich no longer drips, and the resource gush remains very apparently upward. My optimism is rooted in the belief that the unfairness is so great it is becoming undeniably obvious to all. Hence in polls the increasing support for raising the minimum wage and even some understanding that ballooning corporate profit is inversely related to lower or stagnant wages.

Granted, the divergence between the popular will and Congressional action is great, particularly so in the House and its gerrymandered districts, but I'd guess the tension between the two will continue to increase until something snaps, if not in 2014, then down the road. Signs are the Right is certain that's what the future holds. Hence, their initiatives to keep big money in politics and to limit the franchise as much as the Supremes allow.

We'll see. For me though it's too early in the new year to uncross my fingers...and despite occasional bouts of politically induced depression which I fully expect events to prompt from time to time, I'm still enjoying the show.

In large part because of RC (definitely not Roman Catholic) and its faithful followers. Thanks to all...and

Happy New Year.

January 2, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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