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.

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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

Page Links
Tuesday
Jan032012

The Commentariat -- January 4, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' "Real America." The NYTX front page is here. Also, please consider making a contribution to NYTX, which is doing a very good job of keeping 'em honest over at the Times. ...

... Case in Point: Mike Elk: "The New York Times Company gave departing CEO Janet Robinson a nearly $15 million severance package while demanding that its current employees take benefit and pay cuts."

Prof. Amar Bhidé, in a New York Times op-ed, writes "bring back boring banks" with "radical, 1930s-style measures.... If the average examiner can’t understand it, it shouldn’t be allowed." Bhidé reminds us that "Deposit insurance was also a long shot in 1933 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Treasury secretary, the comptroller of the currency and the American Bankers Association opposed it. Somehow advocates rallied public opinion."

Driftglass on Glenn Greenwald & Andrew Sullivan: "Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Sullivan both exist quite comfortably in a parallel dimension made up of dorm rooms debates bolted together with abstractions, and where the ugly specter of imperfect political reality does not intrude. It is a fine place, safely above it all, where you can fire in all directions with impunity, and impugn the motives of anyone who disagrees with you with all the righteous fury of the perfectly pure."

David Kirkpatrick & Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times: "With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt’s new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests."

Right Wing World

Borowitz Report: "Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was overjoyed today after finishing the Iowa caucuses in a virtual tie with a walking joke who wears sweater vests. 'The eight people have spoken!' exclaimed Mr. Romney, who was joined by supporters celebrating his .0006% margin of victory." Thanks to Haley S. for the link.

Andy Rosenthal, New York Times editorial page editor: "There has been a racist undertone to many of the Republican attacks leveled against President Obama for the last three years, and in this dawning presidential campaign."

Art via or by Driftglass.Melinda Henneberger in the Washington Post: "Have you ever seen a glummer or grouchier bunch of presidential aspirants than the current GOP crop? You’d be working those frown lines, too, I guess, if you thought, as Rick Santorum does, that this year’s race will decide “whether we will be a free people.” Or believed, as Michele Bachmann told Sean Hannity on Monday, that Iran might go nuclear before Inauguration Day. Of course, Ron Paul is as cataclysmic as ever...."

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "There was a dark side to Mitt Romney’s close finish in the Iowa caucuses. After first approaching Iowa with reservation and then scrambling hard in the final weeks to win, he leaves here with about the same share of votes he snagged four years ago in the Republican presidential caucuses.... His Iowa showing — finishing just eight votes ahead of former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) — highlighted the big problems that still dog Romney: suspicions about his avowed conservatism, struggles to connect with voters and an inability to rally more Republicans around his candidacy." ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate with some lessons Republicans should learn from Iowa. ...

... Main lesson, from Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner: "Though turnout was up from the 2008 caucuses, it was only up by a few thousand votes, even as GOP voter registration grew, more candidates were contesting the state and more Democrats and independents voted on the Republican side because there was no competitive Democratic race this time. Romney actually got six fewer votes this time than he did four years ago...."

... Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "All year long the story of the Republican race for president was Mitt Romney and a rotating cast playing the role of Someone Else. On Tuesday night, Someone Else was played by two candidates: Rick Santorum, the longtime champion of social conservative issues that were supposedly taking a backseat in this jobs-centric presidential race, and Ron Paul, the noninterventionist Texan who represents an almost 180-degree turn from the Republican Party’s direction." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "It is jarring, in an age of irony and nuance, to hear Mitt Romney conclude his stump speeches with a riff on the hymn, 'America the Beautiful.' ... He sees its vision as matching his, and that is where he makes a serious mistake.... The lyrics were written in 1894 by the Massachusetts poet Katharine Lee Bates, an ardent feminist and lesbian who was deeply disillusioned by the greed and excess of the Gilded Age. Her original third verse was an expression of that anger:

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

      ... Bates’ revulsion at the inequality and corruption she saw around her ... became the core of the Progressive Movement. President Obama ... has a better claim to the spirit of the song than does Mr. Romney, who appears to have no problem with inequality." Thanks to Bill C. for the link.

Quote of the Day. I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. -- Rick Caucasian Santorum

Steve Benen: when Newt Gingrich called Mitt Romney a liar on CBS, the hosts Nora O'Donnell & Bob Schieffer were visibly "shocked." And that's the really shocking story: that Newt did what the media will not: regularly call out candidates for lying. ...

... Benen on Mitt Romney's lies about jobs -- with charts. ...

... Paul Krugman on Mitt Romney's lies about jobs -- with charts. Seriously, read both posts. CW: If you thought Willard was a benign Ken doll, you may want to change out your toy collection for a Willard voodoo doll. He is just one smarmy, hateful liar.

Paul Krugman on "Wingnut Welfare." Why are Republicans willing to take far-out, radical-right positions that could cost them elections? Because there is always a far-out, radical-right special-interest "think tank" jobs waiting for them.

News Ledes

Gut-sy! The White House announces NLRB appointments: "President Obama announced today his intent to recess appoint four individuals to fill key administration posts that have been left vacant.

• Richard Cordray, Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Sharon Block, Member, National Labor Relations Board
• Terence F. Flynn, Member, National Labor Relations Board
• Richard Griffin, Member, National Labor Relations Board"

President Obama will speak about the economy in Cleveland, Ohio, at 1:15 pm ET. There are hints afloat he may make a recess appointment of Richard Cordray, former Ohio AG, as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Wall Street Journal: "White House attorneys have concluded they have the legal authority to make a recess appointment despite Republican efforts to block the move, Democrats said Tuesday, and administration officials say they reserve the option to install Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without Senate approval." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama will challenge Republican foes of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by naming Richard Cordray as its director while Congress is out of town." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "In a bold act of political defiance, President Obama installed Richard Cordray as head of a new consumer watchdog agency Wednesday, bypassing Republican opposition in the Senate that derailed his nomination last month. Obama cast the move as an effort to protect the interests of middle-class Americans who have suffered as a result of the Great Recession, which stemmed in part from abuses in the financial system."

Washington Post: "Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) were deadlocked for the lead in the Iowa caucuses late Tuesday night, ahead in a splintered and increasingly fractious field as the GOP presidential primary race moves to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. With all but two precincts reporting at 1:20 a.m. Eastern, former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) was in a virtual tie with Romney, leading him by just 18 votes. Both hovered around 24.5 percent of the total. Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) was headed for a close but disappointing third-place finish...." ...

... Update: On MSNBC at 1:50 am ET, Chris Hayes said Santorum's lead over Romney had been reduced to 4 votes. ...

... Update 2: at 2:30 am ET, the Iowa Republican party leader announced that Mitt Romney won by 8 votes. No link. (Both he & Santorum will get 11 delegates, whom the party will choose later.) ...

... The New York Times has the final numbers here. ...

... Arlington, Texas Star-Telegram: "Gov Rick Perry was heading back to Texas today after his fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and aides said he could decide as early as Thursday whether to remain in the 2012 presidential race." ...

     ... San Francisco Chronicle Update: "After perhaps the shortest presidential campaign reassessment on record, Texas Gov. Rick Perry bounded out of Iowa on Wednesday saying he will continue his run for the White House, convinced he can still emerge as the leading conservative in the GOP race."

... AP: "Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has cancelled her South Carolina trip and will hold a press conference at 11AM ET according to NBC News." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Mrs. Bachmann said on Wednesday morning that she would not continue her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination."

New York Times: the NYPD has arrested a man who has admitted to making five firebomb attacks in Queens.

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