REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- June 30, 2014

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.”

The Wires

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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.”

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Jun292014

The Commentariat -- June 30, 2014

Obsolete video removed.

ScotusBlog will liveblog the Supremes' announcements of decisions this morning. The liveblog will begin at 9:15 am, with the Court airing its rulings beginning at 10 am. The two cases to be announced are Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn. There was some discussion here yesterday about Harris; also, in today's Comments, P.D. Pepe links this New Republic piece on Harris by Taylor Malmsheimer. ...

... Update: Both decision by Alito. So there you go. Five-four vote on Harris with the liberals dissenting. The decision & dissent are here. Alito reads summary from the bench.

... Update 2: Hobby Lobby: 5-4 ruling. Closely-held corps can't be required to provide contraceptive coverage. "Kennedy's concurring opinion says that the government could pay for the coverage itself, so that women receive it." Three dissents: (1) Ginsburg joined by Sotomayor & partially by Breyer & Kagan, ~~each of whom write separate dissenting opinions~~ who filed together. "Alito reads summary from the bench. "It is extremely likely that the Obama administration will by regulation provide for the government to pay for the coverage. So it is unlikely that there will be a substantial gap in coverage." -- Tom Goldstien of ScotusBlog. "Kennedy's opinion emphasizes that in this particular case, a mechanism for accommodating employers is 'already in place' so that the majority opinion does not require the Govt to create 'a whole new program or burden on the Govt'." -- Kevin Russell of ScotusBlog. Ginsburg is reading from her dissent. The decision & dissents on Hobby Lobby are here. ...

... AP: "The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union's costs of collective bargaining. In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take." ...

... Some Corporations Are People, My Friend. Jason Millman of the Washington Post: "The federal government can't force owners of closely held for-profit companies to provide birth control coverage to female employees if they object to the administration's requirement on religious grounds, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 5-4 ruling, in one of its most contentious cases of the year, recognizes for the first time the religious rights of corporations." The New York Times report, by Adam Liptak, is here.

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Monday will nominate Bob McDonald, a West Point graduate who served as chief executive of Procter & Gamble, to take over as head of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs, according to White House officials." ...

... OR, as Mark Thompson of Time puts it, "Obama to Tap Soap Salesman to Clean Up VA."

James Risen of the New York Times: "Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor's operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: 'that he could kill' the government's chief investigator and 'no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,' according to department reports." ...

... CW: Another chilling example of how things worked under Bush-Cheney. Even after the Nisour Square shooting, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the Blackwater guards were swell. If you connect the dots, you wonder if they threatened his life, too. The "accidental" assassination of a person supposedly under their protection would be pretty easy to accomplish. And this is rich: Crocker told reporters after the mass murder, "I certainly do wish I'd had the foresight to see that there were things out there that could be corrected." Foresight? His embassy had just aborted a State Department investigation of Blackwater, an investigation in which the preliminary findings were devastating.

Hillary Stout of the New York Times: "A $1 million starting point for each death anchors the formula to pay families of those who died in accidents caused by a defective ignition switch in General Motors cars, under a plan unveiled Monday by a compensation expert hired by the automaker. The plan, announced by the expert, Kenneth R. Feinberg, is broad and inclusive, and seems certain to account for deaths beyond the 13 that G.M. has publicly linked to the defect."

Of Pitchforks & Plutocrats. Nick Hanauer, a self-described .01 percenter, in Politico Magazine: "... I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won't last. If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us."

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: We can't predict GDP growth because ... ObamaCare! CW: Now, finally something for which we can legitimately blame the ACA.

Paul Waldman, in the Washington Post: "The idea that Obama is a tyrant wiping his muddy boots on the Constitution as he goes about his project to destroy the United States used to be the province of spittle-flecked talk radio hosts, right-wing Web sites and those chain e-mails your father-in-law reads while he watches 'Hannity.' But it has now moved to the core of the GOP's case against the president":

This is imperial power. This is George III. -- Karl Rove, on President Obama's use of executive authority, speaking on "Fox 'News' Sunday" ...

Fox 'News,' the place where irony gets no purchase. Rove meant George III of England, of course, but I wonder if FoxBots thought he was referring to Pappy Bush I, Duyba II, and Barack III. And speaking of Georges, if you read Tim Devaney's whole report (linked above), you'll see how Rove & George Will are on exactly the same page: the one about Obama's overreach coming in his adjustments to ObamaCare implementation. Hard to know who put out the memo on this one; chronology doesn't help much since Will often seems to get his "ideas" from his contacts. -- Constant Weader

David of Crooks & Liars: On ABC's "This Week," Katrina Vanden Heuvel tells Bill Kristol he should join the Iraqi army. ...

... Driftglass: Nonetheless, Kristol will endure. No matter who fires him, there is another major media outlet to hire him.

Rachel Bade of Politico: In back-to-back appearances on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday Darrell Issa (RTP Calif.) & William Taylor, the attorney for former IRS official Lois Lerner, accused each other of being assholes. (Paraphrase.) "Appearing just before Taylor, Issa (R-Calif.) accused Taylor of lying about Lerner not printing out official emails.... 'This is election-year politics; it's convenient to have a demon that they can create and point to,' Taylor said...."

Robinson Meyer of the Atlantic reports "Everything We Know About Facebook's Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment."

Beyond the Beltway

What's the Matter with Kansas? Paul Krugman: Gov. Sam Brownback (RTP) & his wingnut legislature still follow the long- & oft-disproved theory of supply-side economics, brought to them by ALEC & discredited economist Arthur Laffer. "... faith in tax-cut magic isn't about evidence; it's about finding reasons to give powerful interests what they want." ...

... Josh Barro of the New York Times on Kansas's small-business tax exemption. Um, "If you cut taxes, you get less revenue." The exemption has not proved to be a job-creator; Barro gives one example of why not. It does, however, encourage some firms & individuals to change their filing status to make themselves tax-exempt.

New York Times Editors: "Time and again, [New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie] has used dubious strategies to avoid raising taxes (sparing him from inevitable criticism by party conservatives).... Such tactics have not helped the state. New Jersey's bond rating took another hit when Mr. Christie, facing a big budget shortfall, rejected the usual remedies -- cutting costs, borrowing money or raising taxes -- and instead cut state contributions to the public employees' pension fund.

News Ledes

How do you say, "Sanctions, Schmanctions" in French? Reuters: "About four hundred Russian sailors arrived in western France on Monday for training on Mistral amphibious assault ships before the first of two is delivered to Moscow by the end of the year. The United States and some European partners have urged Paris to reconsider the 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) sale to Moscow following Russian action in Ukraine, including its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March."

Reuters: "The U.S. Justice Department is expected to announce on Monday a settlement with BNP Paribas involving a record fine of nearly $9 billion over alleged U.S. sanctions violations by France's biggest bank...."

AP: "A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman...."

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Here's a pretty comprehensive article on the other important case (besides Hobby Lobby) to come down today: Harris v Quinn––the article doesn't specify the union fees Harris is required to pay each month but I looked it up and it appears to be $50.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118456/harris-v-quinn-what-it-would-mean-unions-and-workers

June 30, 2014 |

PD Pepe

So what is more important in this country today? Fairness, justice, equal treatment under the law, generations of precedent, or smirking hyper partisan victory for far right ideology?

Don't bother.

This morning I halfway convinced myself that there was a chance--just a chance, mind you--that at least one or two of the usual suspects might not be on wingnut autopilot, kind of like a kid hoping that that bulge in his Christmas stocking was something besides a lump of coal.

Coal it was. And two lumps, not one.

Yesterday I commented that this Supreme Court has furiously busied itself with a radical restructuring of life in America in alignment with the requirements and desires of corporations, the gun lobby, the religious right, with anti-democratic, and anti-American interests. The redrawing of the moral and legal map of the country continues apace.

The wingers on the court don't even bother anymore with trying to cover up their reactionary, activist agenda. They're flying their partisan Jolly Rogers high up on the mast. If you're not a winger, you walk the plank.

The dominoes have been falling. More will fall. Wingnut groups who wish to challenge pretty much anything on ideological grounds will be giddily lining up with every sectarian complaint and petty challenge they can muster.

Very shortly we'll all be living in Right Wing World whether we want to or not. The Supremes' map of America is morphing to fit the contours of conservative political demands.

So much for the hand over the heart promises by Roberts and Alito that they had an idea of what stare decisis meant and that they could adjudicate cases without knee jerk resort to partisan ideology.

Lying fucks.

June 30, 2014 |

Akhilleus

I don't know why I listen to anything Bill (Always Wrong) Kristol has to say except that it was great to see someone confront him directly for his part in the atrocities and war crimes that were foisted on both the US and Iraq during the Bush Debacle, cheered on with lusty bloodthirstiness by bobble-head pundits like Kristol.

But if there's any more blatant evidence that these people inhabit a different, fanciful, farcical universe, than this statement: "President Bush made mistakes, he was punished for those mistakes electorally as he should have been in 2006, and perhaps in 2008. He also had the courage to order the surge in 2007, which made up for those mistakes, and left things peaceful", I have yet to see it.

So the 2007 surge made up for everything--the lies, the subterfuge, the treasonous outing of CIA personnel for political reasons, the torture, Abu Ghraib, the Green Zone, malfeasance, gouging of the US military by Dick Cheney's own company, murder of civilians by Bush soldiers of fortune, displacement of millions, tens of thousands of Americans dead or wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded, the profligate loss of trillions of dollars--those everythings?--and "left things peaceful"?

My definition of peaceful is a tad different than Wrongway Bill's.

According to Kristol's understanding of "peaceful" the Balkans, after the breakup of Yugoslavia was a freakin' paradise of peace.

But guys like Kristol still gets paid for opening their fat mouths and spewing raw sewage across the airwaves.

It truly is Right Wing World.

June 30, 2014 |

Akhilleus

So, Hobby Lobby. Two take-aways (among many others) from the majority:

(1) Corporations, if closely held, are capable of religious conviction.
(2) It is less of a substantial burden to have the government pay for contraceptive coverage (as it does for employees of religious institutions) than to require the corporation to violate its religious beliefs.

I suppose since making money is sort of a religion for certain types of people, saying that an entity (corporation) created for profit- making can exercise religion makes some sense (not sense under law and precedent, but "feels right" to the zealous).

But saying that the taxpayer should foot the bill to relieve the burden? How can you square that with a sanctified belief in limiting government?

Ginsburg is correct in her dissent, the court calendars are going to fill up with specious demands for exemption on everything you can think of. God help us. Lawyers stand to make billions.

June 30, 2014 |

Patrick

Guns are people too, my friend.

Dateline: Bloomsburg, PA

"Gun vendor shoots woman at gun show. As punishment, vendor is asked to leave. Had the woman been killed, he may not have been invited back again."

What, you might think, is the point of a a gun show if you're not going to shoot someone? After all, guns are people too. They exist for one reason only. To fire ammunition at high velocity into a (not for long) live body. So why can't they "express themselves", you know, just like people?

The vendor was distressed. Not because he shot someone, but because people might think gun shows are not safe. Also, he was sure the weapon he was demonstrating wasn't loaded. Sure! Positively sure! It must have been someone else who put that bullet in. Oh wait. Maybe the gun loaded itself. Yeah! That's the ticket.

The truly sad thing about this is that the woman who was shot--apparently another gun fondler herself--feels bad. Not bad about the fact that she was shot by a knucklehead demonstrating a loaded weapon in a crowed exhibition hall. She's feels bad for the guy who shot her. The poor man! He wasn't able to make as much money as possible selling deadly weapons.

This is the same planet, isn't it? I mean, do we live on a different planet from these people?

Any day now the Supreme Court will make it against the law to complain about being shot at a gun show. In fact, shouldn't guns be able to vote? And not have to pay union dues? And get a religious exception to obeying the laws? Anything can happen in Right Wing World.

June 30, 2014 |

Akhilleus

Job Security. The Neocon Way.

The web is a constant source of hints and suggestions about best practices for landing and keeping jobs. What not to say at interviews ("My last four bosses were incompetent jerks"), how to negotiate a raise, and how to keep your present job if layoffs loom large.

But I have yet to see the kind of practical advice those Blackwater Bush-Cheney BFFs implemented for keeping their jobs. Threaten to kill the person who could get you fired.

Why didn't I ever think of that?

No wonder Republicans are never concerned about unemployment when they're in charge. They must figure if someone's about to lose their job, the road to job security is to stick a gun in the boss's ear.

Problem solved!

Man, Right Wing World has an answer for EVERYthing!

June 30, 2014 |

Akhilleus

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/29/free_markets_killed_capitalism_ayn_rand_ronald_reagan_wal_mart_amazon_and_the_1_percents_sick_triumph_over_us_all/

It's worse than we thought. Thomas Frank ("What's The Matter With Kansas?") interviews Barry Lynn ("Cornered") who specializes in monopolies. In almost all industries, a few companies decide who can do business. It all started with who else? St Ronald of Reagan. The damage he did boggles the mind.

June 30, 2014 |

Barbarossa

I asked google if anyone was boycotting Hobby Lobby.
Got this facebook page. Note - I do not belong to facebook
I glances at its page.... it raised my despair, a tad.
Yet social media could be hot air.

https://www.facebook.com/HobbyLobbyBoycott
It has a great pix of the SC, with the hash tag "not my boss's business".
CW? I tried and failed to copy paste the pic. Sorry.
mae finch

June 30, 2014 |

mae finch

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