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.

 

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The Commentariat -- July 22

President Obama holds a townhall meeting at the University of Maryland:

Paul Krugman sees the economies of the world continuing in what he calls the "Lesser Depression," a self-inflicted recession/depression brought about by really stupid policy moves:

Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse. In fact, policy makers seem determined to perpetuate what I’ve taken to calling the Lesser Depression, the prolonged era of high unemployment that began with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and continues to this day, more han two years after the recession supposedly ended.

(... Meanwhile, that pompous little know-nothing David Brooks is cheerfully advocating for those very policies that will worsen the economy and hurt ordinary Americans.)

... I've posted a "Lesser Depression" page on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have added comments. Don't miss Garcia on Brooks. ...

      ... Update: Garcia has repurposed her response to Brooks in a blogpost that is even tougher on that little shit.

When Right-Wing Billionaire Energy Moguls Collide. Ken Vogel of Politico: "An increasingly bitter personal rift between billionaires T. Boone Pickens and Charles and David Koch has morphed into an expensive political battle that is testing the commitment of House Republicans to the tea party principles many of them have publicly embraced. The fight centers on legislation backed by Pickens that would grant tax breaks to the natural gas industry, and it is forcing Republican members to choose sides between a traditionally GOP-allied industry and the free-market purism of many conservatives." CW: oh, please, gentlemen, can't we all just get along? I'm sure Republicans can find some nasty little domestic program to gut in the interest of more Breaks for Boone. Food stamps? Pell grants?

John Zogby is a lousy pollster, but I think the central premise in his Forbes column is right: President Obama's legacy may be the withering of the American dream.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones dedicates this tongue-in-cheek (though coincidentally accurate) graph to the Heritage Foundation:

Tidbits

Uh-Huh. Michelle Cottle of the Daily Beast. God is always "calling" Republicans to run for president. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is the latest to get The Word.

Oh. The anti-gay Michele Bachmann's anti-gay husband Marcus is more than likely gay. CW: and what better way to meet attractive gay men who won't tell than providing confidential counseling services to pray away the gay? Stories by Robert Paul Reyes of SOP here and Richard Lawson of Gawker here elaborate. And here's Jon Stewart, who just won't go there:

... Fortunately, Dr. Seinfeld gave Stewart some comedy repression therapy:

Oh My. Greg Sargent. Anti-tax pledge guy Grover Norquist told the Washington Post editorial board yesterday that, "“Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.” That is, Congressmembers who voted to discontinue the Bush tax cuts wouldn't be violating the stupid no-new-taxes pledge they made to him. As soon as the story came out and Democrats began hammering it home, Norquist walked back his assertion, saying, “any failure to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, in whole or in part, would clearly increase taxes on the American people.” So the WashPo released the audio of Norquist and Post writer Ruth Marcus, which is fairly hilarious and relatively unambiguous. ...

     ... Update: Grover Norquist tries to explain himself in a New York Times op-ed. Bottom line: taxes are very, very bad.

Uh Oh. David Leigh & Nick Davies of the Guardian: "James Murdoch appears to have given misleading parliamentary testimony about a key phone-hacking cover-up, according to evidence obtained by the Guardian." Not only did he grossly understate a huge payment to settle a legal case brought against News of the World, he misstated key facts about the negotiations, in which he was apparently intimately involved. ...

     ... Update: Jo Becker & Don Van Natta of the New York Times: "Two former News International executives publicly contradicted James Murdoch’s testimony to a parliamentary committee, saying Thursday that they told him of evidence in 2008 that suggested that phone hacking at one of the company’s tabloid newspapers was more widespread." Guardian story here. ...

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The fury against Murdoch ... [in Britain] reflects the anger of politicians who long have been intimidated by the tactics of aggressive tabloids and who have felt the need to curry favor with powerful media barons, especially Murdoch, to win the support of those newspapers and to shield themselves from their intrusive reporting. In Britain, money plays a smaller role in politics than it does in the United States, and politicians have few ways to communicate effectively with the public outside the media filter. Television advertising plays no significant role in campaigns; for the most part, it is not allowed." ...

... AND/BUT as Driftglass remarks, "If you think anything is going to happen to Murdoch on this side of the Atlantic, you're living in a Frank Capra movie.... Murdoch owns a majority share of the Party of God, has had most of its candidates for President on the payroll, and more importantly, owns the souls of every bigot, lunatic and slack-jawed imbecile who gets his opinion piped directly into his tiny, tiny brain via Fox News."

News Ledes

Can they say yes to anything? -- Barack Obama ...

... Breaking. Obama says Boehner breaks off talks, wouldn't return Obama's phone call. NBC News: "Gridlock stubbornly held the high ground in the steamy capital Friday, as Republican House Speaker John Boehner called President Barack Obama to announce that he is withdrawing from the debt ceiling talks." C-SPAN has Speaker Boehner's (obnoxious) remarks on the House floor here.

Bloomberg News: "The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will halt some operations at midnight after the House of Representatives and Senate adjourned today without agreeing on legislation to extend the agency’s authority. The disagreement means the FAA has to furlough as many as 4,000 workers tomorrow and stop collecting about $200 million a week in airplane-ticket and other taxes until it is resolved, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday. Air- traffic controllers, considered essential employees, would remain on the job." CW: the article doesn't say so, but the "disagreement" is Republicans' objections to union organizing. (See this Daily Kos article I linked earlier in the week.)

New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on Friday across Syria, residents and antigovernment activists said, with enormous protests in two of the country’s five largest cities suggesting a growing momentum that the government of President Bashar al-Assad seemed at a loss to stanch." Al Jazeera has a liveblog here.

Politico: "President Barack Obama on Friday formally certified that the military is ready to allow gays to serve openly in the armed forces, clearing the way for an end to the 17-year old 'Don’t Ask Don’t Tell' law in September.... Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen both signed off on the certification on Thursday."

The Hill: "The Senate voted 51-46, along strict party-lines, on Friday to kill the House Republicans' 'cut, cap and balance' legislation. The measure would have cut spending by $111 billion in 2012, capped spending over the next decade and prohibited more borrowing until Congress had passed a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. President Obama had threatened to veto the bill, which was dead on arrival in the Senate." Here's the New York Times story, which also includes news about President Obama's townhall meeting this morning. The Washington Post story is here.

Reuters: "A huge bomb devastated the main government building in Norway's capital Oslo on Friday, and state radio said two people were killed and several others wounded. Though the attack was on the very heart of power in the small Nordic state, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was safe. There was no claim of responsibility." ...

     ... Update: "A bomb ripped through Oslo's central government district on Friday and a gunman dressed as a policeman then opened fire at a youth camp on a nearby island, killing at least 17 people altogether." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Norway suffered a pair of devastating attacks on Friday when powerful explosions shook the government center here, killing seven people, and shortly after a gunman stalked youths at an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party, killing at least 80. The police arrested a Norwegian man in connection with both attacks, the deadliest on Norwegian soil since World War II.... After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island.... He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page."

President Obama held a townhall-style meeting at the University of Maryland late this morning.

Politico has a pretty good rundown of what the various factions have said in the past 24 hours about the deficit reduction/debt ceiling catastrophe of Washington's own making.

I’m the Senate majority leader — why don’t I know about this deal? -- Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to Obama OMB Director Jack Lew

AP: "House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that Republicans controlling the chamber are willing to compromise on legislation increasing the government's borrowing authority." CW: This is almost a sick joke. According to news reports, Obama has cut a "deal" which does not require any compromise whatsoever. ...

... Now, contrast the Obama plan to cut trillions from programs for poor & middle class people with this good news: AP: "General Electric Co. said Friday that earnings grew 21 percent in the second quarter as its GE Capital lending arm continued to recover from the recession." GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, heads President Obama's Jobs Commission. GE has sent thousands of American jobs offshore.

AP: "Pentagon chief Leon Panetta has decided to end the ban on gays serving openly in the armed services and certify that repealing the 17-year-old prohibition will not hurt the military's ability to fight, officials said Thursday."

Who Needs NASA? New York Times: "Spurred by a $30 million purse put up by Google, 29 teams have signed up for a competition to become the first private venture to land on the Moon.... At the very least, a flotilla of unmanned spacecraft could be headed Moonward within the next few years, with goals that range from lofty to goofy."

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