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

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Friday
Jul012011

The Commentariat -- July 2

The President's Weekly Address: Cutting the deficit & creating jobs:

     ... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama on Saturday repeated his challenge to Republicans to accept higher taxes on wealthy people and corporate interests, as part of a plan to reduce the budget deficit." ...

     ... ** Krugman writes a very short, must-read post on the President's address. I'd copy the whole right thing if it weren't illegal. Here's the closer: "This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies." CW: I've written to Krugman via a comment on this post, begging him to request an audience with the great progressive hope. Why don't you do the same?

** NEW. Prof. Suzanne Mettler, in the Washington Monthly, on the government benefits Americans, especially wealthy Americans, receive through what she calls "the submerged state," a/k/a "tax loopholes." Mettler has published some of these data before, & I've linked the reports, but I highly recommend this article which reader Trish Ramey called to our attention. A sample:

As a matter of budgeting ... there is no difference between a tax break and a social program: both have to be paid for, either by raising tax rates or by adding to the deficit. Eugene Steuerle, a tax economist and political appointee in the Reagan administration, said of the distinction between tax expenditures and direct social spending, 'One looks like smaller government; one looks like bigger government. In fact, they both do exactly the same thing.'

CW: I'm not sure how accurate this is since it's a case of the White House tooting its own horn, but the Council of Economic Advisers released a report (pdf) asserting that the stimulus (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) raised GDP by as much as 3.2 percent as of the first quarter of 2011 and added as many as 3.6 million jobs over its lifetime. According to the claim re: the GDP rise, "These estimates are very similar to those of a wide range of other analysts, including the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office."

Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress: "It appears the U.S. government may finally be getting smarter after decades of failure to develop a coherent approach to the phenomenon of political Islam in the Middle East. Speaking in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was seeking 'limited contacts' with members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood ahead of elections later this year, as well as with Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda." ...

... BUT, gosh, not everybody agrees this is a good idea. Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "Andrew McCarthy [of the right-wing National Review] is claiming that the news ... is ... proof that [President Obama] is secretly a part of their plan to establish a global caliphate (a plan in which killing Osama bin Laden is a key step!) While Karl Rove ... claims that engagement makes the U.S. 'look weak,' a description that presumably does not apply to Rove's former boss when he also communicated with the Brotherhood."

** Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic: "The Supreme Court term that ended this week would have looked very different if Justice Sandra Day O’Connor were still on the bench. Twenty percent of the cases were decided by a 5-4 vote, and, in many of those cases, Justice O’Connor would have voted to swing the result the other way."

It was an instance of extreme injustice. I thought that the court was not just wrong but egregiously so. -- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on the Supremes' 5-4 Connick v. Thompson decision, in which conservative Justices rescinded a $14 million verdict for former death-row inmate John Thompson who was convicted largely because prosecutors illegally withheld exculpatory evidence ...

... Joan Biskupic of USA Today interviews Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Michael Powell of the New York Times: "Some day soon — today, perhaps? — an observant bookie might ask: Who faces longer election odds? Dominique Strauss-Kahn or the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.? The new district attorney’s string of losses and/or embarrassments in high-profile cases has become perversely impressive." ...

... Legal analyst Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic: "The New York Times' story Thursday night ... is a devastating bit of business. Even if portions of it are inaccurate -- and I am not claiming that they are -- the piece virtually guarantees that prosecutors would lose the case if they were to proceed to trial. This is so because the alleged victim's credibility now is forever shattered...." Cohen writes a follow-up post here.

George Will enjoys blaming Democrats for everything, but this time he might be right. ...

... NEW. Contra Will -- ergo contra Morgenson & Rosner -- reader Trish Ramey recommends this May 21 post by Paul Krugman. CW: I would love to see a symposium featuring Krugman & Morgenson.

Tim Egan has a pretty hilarious post on Michele Bachman even if he does make a serious point. Here's a sample:

From her contention that eliminating the minimum wage would mean full employment to her assertion that 'almost all' people in the 'gay lifestyle' have been abused, these things can be explained. Bachmann has a worldview that requires constant reshaping in the face of real life. However, if God is writing the script for her campaign, as she says, He needs a fact-checker.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Chokehold Prosser just can't keep his hands to himself. Yesterday he grabbed the mic of a local reporter who was attempting to question him about the incident in which he allegedly put a chokehold on Justice Ann Walsh Bradley after a heated discussion:

Alexander Burns of Politico: Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's New Hampshire AND Iowa staff quit. CW: Maybe they're going to work for a more serious candidate, like Newt Gingrich.

Lots of Cash but Less than Zero Class:

America needs a president who understands the special sauce of what it is that makes this country great. The fact of his personal story of being half black and all that is a wonderful, inspiriting story. But it doesn’t qualify him to be president. -- Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Jon Huntsman fundraiser & former Hillary Clinton fundraiser

Alexander Burns: "The most valuable asset [former Gov. Tim] Pawlenty [R-Minn.)] has left is his reputation as a solidly conservative governor who balanced budgets without raising taxes. Now, that reputation is drawing new scrutiny amid the spending showdown in St. Paul.... Throughout the day [yesterday], Democratic Party committees and independent groups pummeled the former governor, using the shutdown to intensify a favorite line of attack: that Pawlenty managed the Minnesota budget through a long string of gimmicks and short-term fixes that have now come home to roost." CW: see Star-Tribune story below on the Minnesota state government shutdown.

Local News

Los Angeles Times Editors assail the California legislature's decision to cut the state sales tax by one cent & cut other taxes at the expense of important programs like higher education funding.

Take the Weekend Off, Kids! Baird Helgeson of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "There won't be any holiday weekend resolution to Minnesota's government shutdown. State leaders spent Friday cooling off from the drama and bitter words with which they ended days of negotiations Thursday without an agreement for tackling Minnesota's projected $5 billion budget deficit. And Republican legislative leaders and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton had no plans to talk again until after Independence Day, giving both sides time to regroup and reassess."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Rhode Island's governor [Independent Lincoln Chafee] on Saturday signed into law a controversial bill legalizing same sex civil unions, but said it does not go far enough toward legalizing gay marriage."

New York Times: "Greece will get a vital loan installment by July 15 while work continues on a second bailout for the struggling country, euro zone finance ministers said Saturday. The ministers agreed to their portion of the 12 billion euro ($17.39 billion) loan installment in an evening conference call. The International Monetary Fund is expected to approve its part of the loan next week."

New York Times: "The clandestine American military campaign to combat Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen is expanding to fight the Islamist militancy in Somalia, as new evidence indicates that insurgents in the two countries are forging closer ties and possibly plotting attacks against the United States, American officials say."

Los Angeles Times: "With marijuana sold openly at retail stores throughout California, some advocates, pot growers and even city officials believed authorized commercial cultivation could be next. But the Obama administration dashed that notion this week, making clear it will not allow such operations."

AP: "Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed the governor of the key central city of Hama on Saturday after one of the largest protest gatherings to demand an end to Assad's authoritarian regime."

Reuters: "The U.S. government has sued a former NASA astronaut to recover a camera used to explore the moon's surface during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission after seeing it slated for sale in a New York auction. The lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court on Wednesday, accuses Edgar Mitchell of illegally possessing the camera and attempting to sell it for profit."

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