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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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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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.

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.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Wednesday
May142014

The Commentariat -- May 14, 2014

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9-11 Museum Opens Tomorrow

After a decade marked by deep grief, partisan rancor, war, financial boondoggles and inundation from Hurricane Sandy, the National September 11 Memorial Museum at ground zero is finally opening ceremonially on Thursday, with President Obama present, and officially to the public next Wednesday. It delivers a gut-punch experience -- though if ever a new museum had looked, right along, like a disaster in the making, this one did, beginning with its trifurcated identity.

One disaster that actually did occur was the response to the events of 9-11, something that also bears remembering. The sociopaths who took us to war without ever making any effort to go after the real perpetrators, or the individual most responsible (he was later killed by actions taken by a Democratic administration) are still around, living lives of ease while the millions affected by their lies have had their lives ended or destroyed.

Bush's Dog's Brain

One of the major figures responsible for the debacle of the Bush administration that brought us war, death, destruction, economic disaster, and serious loss of standing in the world was Bush's so-called brain. According to Joan Walsh on Salon, he's not looking too brainy these days. Maybe he was actually the brain behind Bush's dog. Rove has been a dirty trickster since the days of Tricky Dick. Rove was one of the slimier dicks, and that's saying a lot when you look at all the other dicks around the big one back then. " Let]s consider what it says about the Republican Party today that Karl Rove, once known as 'Bush]s Brain,' is forced to do his dirty work himself these days. It's seems a demotion, or a variety of devolution, for the lordly impresario of American Crossroads, the man who rose to power to run presidential campaigns, not be their hit man or their ratfucker (that's Donald Segretti's lovely old word for the team of trolls Richard Nixon used to smear and gaslight his enemies)."

But....according to Peter Beinart on the Atlantic site, Rove's sliminess pays off, which, of course, is why he does such repulsive things. The Modern GOP. Models of decorum and honesty.

Mitch and Elaine. Such Nice People

Jason Horowitz in the New York Times submits a puff piece about Mitch McConnell and his wife, former labor secretary, Elaine Chao. Horowitz seems to want us to think that she's a wonderful, inspirational person but she comes across as more Leona Helmsley than Mother Theresa.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog is not impressed. " Apart from that blocking-everything-they-want thing, McConnell and Chao are just fine with people who aren't right-wing."

One Reason and One Reason Only

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, reminds us of why the GOP insists on Voter ID laws. "Iowa Republicans conducted a study trying to show voter fraud, and found essentially no voter fraud of any kind and literally no fraud that would be prevented by Voter ID laws:...in conclusion, here are the reasons why Republicans want to enact Voter ID laws: Vote suppression. That's it."

Science and the GOP. Don't laugh...

Several Reality Chex commenters yesterday submitted their thoughts on politics and science. Seems we were on a similar wavelength to Charlie Pierce who offers a well researched piece reacting to a column by former Bush hack, Michael Gerson, who wonders how anyone could be so willfully stupid when it comes to science. I mean, who does that? "Michael Gerson, the pious former word-'ho for the worst president in history, is still writing columns for Fred Hiatt's Hiring Hall For Unemployables. Today, Michael is confounded by something he apparently just noticed. Watch him write this whole column without once mentioning the word, "Republican." It's dazzling, like watching a guy pull out the tablecloth without disturbing the flatware."

Hillary, Hillary! HILLARY!!...

It didn't take long. Now that Karl Rove has gotten the ball rolling on Hillary Clinton's brain damage, the rest of the clowns are getting in line to see how many of them can pile into the circus car that will be rolling around the big top for the next two years. Dana Milbank informs us that, in case you didn't know it, Hillary is to blame for those girls being kidnapped in Nigeria. Also for global warming. Well, if they actually believed it existed. "Conservatives have reached the firm conclusion that Hillary Clinton is to blame for those Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram, 14 months after she left office. All they have to do now is fill in the details."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

Re: Forked tongues; silver spoons and pie holes; "...it was always, for me, an important part not just of my responsibility but my privilege to be a friend of Israel,” she said. Hillary Clinton cited from a speech to the American Jewish Committee forum.
Hate to say it but Hillary is either a lying sack of politician (yea, yea it's a speech to the choir, so?) or Oh, wait there is no "or".
Sorry all to hell, she's scum. How would you react to her quote if you were from the Middle East AND not Jewish? How about, "Thanks for the balance."
I'd like her a whole lot better if she said get the settlements out of Palestine but she can't, can she? And we're worried about the Koch brothers running the country?

May 14, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/05/climate-change-will-eat-your-lunch

Faux News says more CO2 is really a good thing. As the above link points out--not so fast, Sparky!

May 14, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

@JJG-
Here is a matter on which I am quite cynical: Politicians and Israel. And particularly the creepy power evidenced by their fealty to AIPAC. Hillary has probably never talked to a Palestinian activist, nor would she waste her time talking to Jimmy Carter about the apartheid in which Palestine is held by Israeli right wingers.

Yeah, I know. We gotta vote for her--but it will be while I am holding my nose and crossing my fingers. LOTE--period. My mantra is as last time: "Supreme Court!"

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Rebecca Traister of the New Republic "sort of hopes we find out that Jill Abramson was robbing the cash register"–––trying to explain this singularly humiliating firing from the NYT.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117767/jill-abramsons-firing-was-singularly-humiliating

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

JJG &Kate: At this point in our country's trajectory it really doesn't matter that Hillary isn't all that we want her to be ( at least she doesn't need the constant stroking her husband needs and gets). If she runs and I expect she will we as Democrats will vote for her even if some of us are holding our noses while we do it. There isn't another contender on our side that will be able to cut the mustard and the few that could haven't thrown their hats into the ring. Kate's singular concentration of the Supremes is crucial and if nothing else it's reason enough.

Re: Carl Rove: His dirty tricks in Texas during the Jim HighTower campaign led to Hightower losing and Rick Perry winning. Before this as we all know Rove orchestrated a vicious campaign against Ann Richards; same against McCain, Max Cleland, and had his dirty little paws in the Swift Boat business and possibly with the Valerie Blame outing. In all these instances there was never an actual paw print left––Rove was a master in deciminating information that appeared to come from other sources. This time with his suggestion that Hillary is a bit brain damaged the media has not been fooled––except on Fox where all the hens are cackling their support.

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Where's Marie today?

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterNancy

Re: Marie. I'm sure she's busy. We get so used to RC always being there, we forget she does have a life that doesn't involve us.

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa
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