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

Monday
Mar052012

The Commentariat -- March 6, 2012

I'll have a column up on the New York Times eXaminer soon, on Stanley Fish's defense of Rick Santorum. It is not posted yet (at 12:30 pm ET), but there IS other good stuff linked on the NYTX front page. ...

     ... Update: here's my column. AND excellent stuff in today's & yesterday's comments sections!

The Rich Get Richer. Emmanuel Saez via Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Top 1% incomes grew by 11.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.2%. Hence, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery....It is likely that this uneven recovery has continued in 2011 as the stock market has continued to recover....This suggests that the Great Recession will only depress top income shares temporarily and will not undo any of the dramatic increase in top income shares that has taken place since the 1970s."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asserted on Monday that it is lawful for the government to kill American citizens if officials deem them to be operational leaders of Al Qaeda who are planning attacks on the United States and if capturing them alive is not feasible." Holder made a distinction between "due process" and "judicial process," asserting that the Constitution guarantees the former, not the latter. The justification was pretty damned vague -- no footnotes, no case law. ...

... ** Adam Serwer of Mother Jones translates and elaborates. "Who decides when an American citizen has had enough due process and the Hellfire missile fairy pays them a visit? Presumably the group of top national security officials — that, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, decides who is targetable and forwards its findings to the president, who gives final approval." ...

... AND Glenn Greenwald: President Obama makes the case for preventive war.

The "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011” has nothing to do with Mitt Romney's employment of undocumented workers to maintain the lawn on one of his estates, for Pete's sake. The bill -- which passed the House 388-3, with Ron Paul among the three dissenters, & which passed the Senate by voice vote, with no "nays" -- makes it a felony to remain in an area the Secret Service designates "restricted" and covers any person protected by the Secret Service (some presidential candidates). The President has not yet signed it. Some are calling it the anti-Occupy law; Paul says it "could make the First Amendment illegal." Well, that's a stretch; the Constitution trumps Congressional law, but of course it's up to the Supremes to decide whether or not the law is unconstitutional, and they won't be making any decision prior to the party conventions this summer....

     ... AND/BUT according to Gene Howington, a guest blogger on Jonathan Turley's blog, the language is so vague that "This would allow for the arrest of protesters just about anywhere. Outside political rallies, near the hotels of visiting foreign dignitaries, outside sporting or other public events like the Super Bowl." The bill has received somewhere around zero mainstream media attention. Just thought you'd want to know. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the heads-up.

The State of Missouriogyny. CW: I don't usually link to Daily Caller stories, but this one by Caroline May is worth reading: "... the Missouri State Capitol will be honoring [Rush] Limbaugh with a bust of his likeness in the Hall of Famous Missourians.... Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s 2012 senate campaign penned and began circulating a petition to prevent Limbaugh from being inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians. 'No one who disrespects women in this way deserves such an honor. The State of Missouri should condemn this kind of language, not honor it,' read McCaskill’s statement." ...

Adam Peck of Think Progress: Twelve commercial sponsors "have pulled ads from [Limbaugh's] program, and several others are considering following their lead." ...

... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Rush Limbaugh is really sorry that he had to apologize.... House Speaker John Boehner called Mr. Limbaugh’s language (just the language, not the substance) 'inappropriate' – a formulation that the columnist George Will later mocked as 'comical.' Mr. Will said: 'Using a salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate.'" ...

... Open Salon: "... does Limbaugh's brand of misogyny really have a place on government-funded airwaves? Particularly when it's beamed to a military where some 30% of American servicewomen are sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers at some point in their deployment?" The post links to this White House petition, which I also linked the other day.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Two polls out this past weekend show Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) pulling ahead of challenger Elizabeth Warren (D) in the Massachusetts Senate race."

Right Wing World

Here's the New York Times' quick guide to Super Tuesday, state by state.

We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing. It can be here today and gone tomorrow. How I measure riches is by the friends I have and the loved ones I have and the people that I care about in my life, and that’s where my values are and that’s where my riches are. -- Ann Romney

Seriously, Platitudes mean more than Cadillacs. And yes indeedy, Mrs. Williard, a Platitude is a very interesting thing. Even if you can't drive your Platitutde to your lousy job. -- Constant Weader

When Even Billions Are Not Enough. Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: the Cato Institute, a libertarian "think" tank bought & paid for by Charles Koch, et al., is resisting his & Bubba's "attempts to install their own people on the institute’s 16-member board and to establish a more direct pipeline between Cato and the family’s Republican political outlets, including groups that Democrats complain have mounted a multimillion-dollar assault on President Obama. Tensions reached a new level with a lawsuit filed last week by the Kochs against Cato over its governing structure." CW: It is a joy to see the jester turn on the king. Of course, the king(s) may win the round, but the cracks in their kingdom are beginning to show. ...

... Alex Pareene of Salon: "Cato is mostly antiwar, decidedly anti-drug war, and sponsors a lot of good work on civil liberties. That … is basically what the Kochs don’t like about them, because white papers on decriminalization don’t help Republicans get elected. As Jonah Goldberg complains in a post that otherwise resolutely refuses to come to a conclusion or have a point, Cato has an annoying habit of not always seeing itself as a natural member of the glorious Republican coalition. (Current Cato headline: 'It’s Not Obama’s Fault That Crude Oil Prices Have Increased.)'”

News Ledes

New Jersey Star-Ledger: "U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, the elder statesman of New Jersey's congressional delegation, died after a months-long battle with colon cancer today, according to his office. The longtime politician was 77."

President Obama will hold a press conference at 1:15 pm ET today. AP: "In his first full news conference of the year Tuesday, Obama was to announce plans to let borrowers with mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration refinance at lower rates, saving the average homeowner more than $1,000 a year." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama challenged his Republican critics to make a case to the American people for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities if they really believe that is the right course to follow, throwing down an election-year challenge to the men who are vying to succeed him and who say that his Iran policy has been too weak." Washington Post: "President Obama sharply criticized his Republican presidential rivals Tuesday for talking 'casually' about going to war with Iran, saying that when such decisions are made for political reasons, 'we make mistakes. What is said on the campaign trail — those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities,' Obama said during an afternoon news conference. 'They are not commander in chief. When I see the casualness with which those folks talk about war, I am reminded of the costs involved in war'.” See Wednesday's Commentariat for video of the full presser. ...

     ... AND Washington Post: "President Obama on Tuesday unveiled two new housing initiatives intended to assist Americans with government-insured loans and members of the military.... Obama announced a new plan to cut refinancing fees for any loan insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The president also outlined a new agreement with banks to review foreclosures for members of the military that have taken place since 2006 and provide compensation to anyone who wrongfully lost a home. Neither proposal requires Congress's approval."

Today is the GOP's Super Tuesday. Here is the New York Times story about it. Here is the Washington Post story, which I am leaving in single-page mode so you can see the accompanying dorky video in which hyperactive Chris Cillizza explains voting to dummies. ...

     ... NBC Update: here's absolutely everything you could possibly want to know about Super Tuesday. And then some. Oh, and it's a pdf.

Reuters: "Iran said it will give the U.N. nuclear watchdog access to its Parchin military complex, ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday, a site where the agency believes Tehran pursued high explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons." ...

... Guardian: "Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, invoked the spectre of Auschwitz as he chided those who question whether Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon and warned that 'none of us can afford to wait much longer' to act against Tehran. In an address to the powerful pro-Israel lobby [AIPAC] in Washington, Netanyahu derided the effectiveness of sanctions hours after a meeting with Barack Obama at which the US president appealed for time for diplomacy to pressure Iran to open up its nuclear programme to inspection."

Reuters: "Dozens of protesters> angry over fee hikes and budget cuts at California's public universities were arrested on Monday night during a boisterous but peaceful demonstration inside the state Capitol building. The arrests capped a day in which hundreds of students and others marched on the statehouse and rallied outside the Capitol before many of the activists moved the demonstration inside the building, clogging hallways in and around the rotunda." The Sacramento Bee story is here.

Reader Comments (6)

Maybe, desperate to make more sense of the tangle of events than there really is, I see similarities and obvious connections even when there are none, but....

Today's simple-minded observation: They're bullies, all of them.
Limbaugh, the Kochs, and rich who are getting richer--the latter of which to no surprise includes the first two. Limbaugh, the schoolyard brawler, who's never fought fair, surrounds himself with a cadre of like-minded goons so no armed enemy can reach him, lobs poisoned rocks from a distance and loves to punch little girls. The Kochs. who specialize in hiring mercenaries with nice-sounding names, like Americans for Progress or the Cato (what the hell's a Cato? Who cares? Sounds harmless, anyway) Institute to fight their battles for them, and who until recently were able to giggle to themselves safely behind the curtain.

Internationally and within our borders, our government has similar tendencies. The international situation may be more complex than domestic politics and economics but war and bullydom do seem to have some characteristics in common. And an ability to arrest protestors anywhere for anything....and we already have domestic drones, those big bullies in the sky.

I thought anti-bullying laws were recently the main dish on every legislature's plate, but I must be wrong.

It must be another failing of my poor memory and overly simple mind. I need to study harder, I guess.

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Dave Weigel has some of the background on the Koch/Cato kerfuffle.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/03/01/behind_the_cato_koch_kerfuffle.html

From wikipedia:

Cato's Letters were essays by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, first published from 1720 to 1723 under the pseudonym of Cato (95–46 BC), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stubborn champion of republican principles.

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterDaveS

The name selected by the Kochs for their “think”tank (I, like Marie, have a difficult time refraining from the use of quotation marks when referring to any institution whose primary aim is the promotion of ideology) offers a unique opportunity to dissect right-wing strategies. I suppose, in the context of ideological domination, groups like Cato are in the business of thinking, but mostly the thinking is about how to screw the other side and make the case for your political point of view as unassailable as possible. This is not a typically intellectual pursuit in which knowledge is sought for its own end. The Cato Institute name gives us a chance to parse some of the stage managed effects used by so many right-wingers to provide respectability and a certain amount of cover to these operations and a look at the ways in which ideological goals serve to massage and remake historical facts in order to provide a better fit with right-wing beliefs.

According to the Cato Institute site the name of the organization is derived not from the Roman statesman who gave Caesar such a pain in his quest for supreme power (and paid a pretty steep price for his gadfly behavior), but from a series of papers written in England in the mid 18th century. The Cato Institute describes these documents, known as the Cato Letters, as being full of modern sounding Libertarian sentiments about the desire for small or non-existent governments and free markets (sounds very Ron Paulish, don’t it?). In fact, the authors of the Cato Letters were writing more against the tyranny they saw in monarchical Britain and the lack of freedom of speech and religion. They were for religious tolerance (not much of a right-wing sentiment these days) and took a decidedly Lockean view of the social contract and the necessity of the government to ensure the protection and fair treatment of all. Not very modern Libertarianist if you ask me, at least not the kind of Ayn Rand survival of the richest and casting off of anyone not in that class, currently in vogue through the offices of such deep thinkers as Rand Paul.

Another interesting problem for Cato is the namesake. Cato (the younger, that is) worked for the government. He was a civil servant (you know, those people most right-wingers believe make hundreds of thousands of dollars by sitting on their asses and clogging up the machinery of free markets), a Quaestor ( a kind of legal position somewhere between accountant and lawyer) who supervised tax collections and various transfers of cash and contractual agreements. Cato was a good one. Contrary to Cato Institute propaganda, Cato did not despise taxes (they paid his salary, after all, and they allowed the continuation and expansion of the Roman Republic, which he loved dearly), he despised corrupt tax collectors and others out to defraud the government. He was a fearless investigator when it came to the rich trying to elide their duty to Rome. Not very modern day right-wing-like if you ask me. In today’s climate, the rich are expected to escape their duty and right-wing politicians—most of them—believe it is their duty to help in that process. Cato would NOT approve.

So the Kochs have attempted to redraw the facts of history in both the case of the Cato Letters (written by devotees of the father of Liberalism, John Locke) which expressly did NOT espouse the kind of Libertarian fantasy world beloved by modern Ayn Randians, and that of the historical Cato himself who did not, as they would love us all to believe, work towards small government and no taxes. Cato had no problem with government. He just wanted it to run properly. No Grover Norquist, he.

What the Kochs and their ilk get for these intellectual sleights-of-hand is this: the respectability that comes with aligning yourself with the ideas of John Locke, whose work proved the most significant influence on the authors of the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. And he was NOT a conservative (but his influence on the sainted Founders bears consideration as a figurehead to be altered and then appropriated). Also they gain historical respect by connecting themselves with a figure of virtue (a huge deal in Republican Rome) and steadfast honesty such as Cato the Younger.

It all looks great on paper.

Now that they have their symbols, they can work as hard as possible changing the world to reflect views distinctly anathema to those who provide their umbrella of honorable standing and intellectual grandeur and gravitas.

One interesting coda is that some of the researchers and writers now working at Cato have decided to spit the bit, so to speak, and go their own way. Something not at all acceptable in right-wing world where the lowly do what they are told by the Masters like the Kochs. So we shall see what we shall see. In any event, even if the Cato has a few embedded apostates, they will no doubt be cast down with the sodomites soon enough; besides there are plenty of other “think” tanks to serve the right’s goal of ideology above all, more money for the masters and their lackeys, and less for everyone else. I suppose the actions of the Kochs count as a form of intellectual bullying. So Ken's observation holds up in this area as well.

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

And furthermore, Akhilleus....

When intellectual bullies hop on a time machine and rewrite history to suit, I see them as historical imperialists, who not satisfied with the immense power they have in the present also wish to control the past. Hijacking history might be another way to put it. It's a familiar pattern for autocrats, far Right or too far Left, to follow.

And thanks for the reminder about the Cato Letters and the Cato Institute's real history.

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Marie, as usual you did a great job debunking the so called logic of Stanley Fish. I have a NYT's rule. I never read Fish, Brooks or the Doughnut but I do like to read the comments. Today Fish was nailed over and over again. He not only ignored the truth but he conjured up his own fake reality. The reason, Fish is another Santorum both in beliefs and behavior. But that is what religion is all about, the ability to pick and choose to uphold your fantasy.

P.S. If the number of atheists in America is as small as polls show, every one of them comments in the NYT

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

I am proud of our President tonight. He put a step over toe hold on candidates pandering to the Israeli lobby. In essence he told the candidates, Romney, Santorum and Gingrich that if you want to follow Netanyohu into war, tell the people and tell them what it will cost and who will pay in lives and treasure.
If the Dems could get together with any message , this would be a good one. Of course the Dems never try to get together to sell anything. They catch it, they never pitch it.

March 6, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle
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