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.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

INAUGURATION 2029

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Tuesday
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The Commentariat -- January 3, 2012

** NEW. If you're an Iowa Democrat, you should caucus tonight, too, beginning at 6:30 pm (CT, I presume). John Nichols of The Nation tells why. You can find your caucus site here.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Frank Bruni's apologia for Mitt Romney's flip-flops. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here, and I hope you do.

 

** Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented American journalist, in a Guardian op-ed on "the changing face of Iowa."

Peter Maer of CBS News: "The Obama campaign is mapping out plans for the president to speak to his supporters via live web chat at locations across Iowa Tuesday night. A campaign official told CBS News the effort will use technology that was not available four years ago. Screens will show the president, in Washington, communicating with people simultaneously at various gathering places in the Hawkeye State."

Right Wing World

Greg Sargent: rabid Tea Party leader Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa) publicly admits to Congressional Tea Party hostage-taking strategy.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: in Right Wing World, the tail -- being the Tea Party -- is wagging the dog -- the GOP presidential candidates.

Here's Nate Silver's final forecast on the Iowa Caucuses.

In case you think campaign advertising doesn't matter because Americans (a) are smart enough to see through them and/or (b) can make up their own minds -- Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Anyone seeking an explanation of GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's recent drop in Iowa polls may find answers in a new analysis of Iowa political advertising. The survey, conducted by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, finds 45% of all political ads in Iowa have been attack spots against Gingrich. Only 6% were supportive of the former House speaker." ...

... M. J. Lee of Politico: on CBS News' "Early Show" today, Newt called Mitt a liar. Update: here's the videotape:

The Rupert Bump? Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "The media mogul Rupert Murdoch signaled his support for Rick Santorum on Monday evening, calling him the 'only candidate with genuine big vision' for the United States. His comments were significant not only because Mr. Murdoch controls Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal, but also because they were made on Twitter, a Web site that allowed for his support to be forwarded far and wide on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. Mr. Santorum was a paid analyst for Fox News before he announced his bid for the presidency last year." ...

Ron Paul does not want [Iran] to have a nuclear weapon, but the question is do you want someone who’s trigger happy to be your commander in chief? He's also someone who never served in the military. Ron Paul served in the military, will use force against our enemies if it’s required and if Congress approves of it, but I’m a little concerned about someone who didn’t serve in the military like Santorum, who’s a little over-eager to bomb countries because I don’t think he’s maturely thinking through the process and the consequences of war. -- Sen. Rand Paul, Son of Ron on Iowa talk radio (Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link) ...

... BuzzFeed: "Ron Paul -- poised to finish strong in the Iowa caucuses -- has begun to implement a quiet, complex plan to force a long battle with Mitt Romney for delegates to the Republican National Convention in August. His advantages: Experience, organization, and the legacy of the 2010 Tea Party revival, which convinced Republicans that anti-government figures like Paul just aren’t as weird as they’d thought. Paul is following the roadmap set by Barack Obama's 2008 strategy: Start early, learn the rules, and use superior organization and devoted young supporters to dominate the arcane but crucial party procedures in states your rivals are ignoring...."

Burgess Everett of Politico: despite their constant criticisms of President Obama's jobs creation plans, none of the GOP presidential candidates has anything to say about programs to help repair the nation's infamous "crumbling infrastructure."

News Ledes

     ... Update: here's a full transcript.

The Des Moines Register is probably the go-to place for news on the Iowa caucuses. Especially if you are an Iowa Republican, the Register is helpful for such musts as where to find your caucus location.

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, and with it the Obama administration’s vision of the military that the United States needs to meet 21st-century threats, according to senior officials. In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once."

New York Times: "Giving its first major public sign that it may be ready for peace talks, the Taliban announced on Tuesday that it had struck a deal to open a peace mission in Qatar. The step was a sharp reversal of the Taliban’s longstanding public denials that it was involved or interested in any negotiations to end its insurgency in Afghanistan."

AP: "Iran’s army chief on Tuesday warned an American aircraft carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf in Tehran’s latest tough rhetoric over the strategic waterway, part of a feud with the United States over new sanctions that has sparked a jump in oil prices."

New York Times: "The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist party, edged closer to winning a controlling majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament as voters went to the polls Tuesday in the final round of the first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak."

New York Times: "An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced the daughter of the country’s former president to six months in prison for spreading what it termed 'propaganda against the Islamic system,' the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.... The sentencing of [Faezeh] Hashemi was the latest in a series of moves by Iran’s leaders to stamp out potential dissent ahead of planned parliamentary elections in March, the first ballot since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 that sparked national protests and a vicious government crackdown."

Los Angeles Times: police have arrested Harry Burkhart, a 24-year-old German suspected in the spree of arsons in Los Angeles. There have been no additional suspicious fires since Burkhart's arrest. More L.A. Times related stories here.

Los Angeles Times: Benjamin Colton Barnes, "a troubled veteran of the war in Iraq suspected in the fatal shooting of a park ranger, was found dead Monday near a steep, snowy slope not far from Mt. Rainier, ending an intense, 24-hour manhunt that left tourists locked down in fear at a visitors center while 200 law enforcement officers combed the wilderness with dogs and planes." The Seattle Times story is here.

Look past the bias of the reporter when you read this CBS News report on "Occupy the Rose Parade." And if you're really, really afraid of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, no need to worry: "Behind the protesters came three truckloads of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in riot gear but no arrests were immediately made and the protest was noisy but peaceful."

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