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.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Saturday
May262018

The Commentariat -- May 27, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Keith H. points to a story that, um, everybody missed. Jim Dean of Veterans Today: "Congress stepped up to the plate with a surprise unanimous vote [in the House] attaching an amendment to a Defense authorization bill stating that 'no law exists which gives the president power to launch a military strike against the Islamic Republic.'" As the National Iranian American Council noted, "The amendment could be stripped out in negotiations with the Senate...."

Anna Fifield of the Washington Post: "A team of U.S. officials crossed into North Korea on Sunday for talks to prepare for a summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un, as both sides press ahead with arrangements despite the question marks hanging over the meeting. Sung Kim, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and former nuclear negotiator with the North, has been called in from his post as envoy to the Philippines to lead the preparations, according to a person familiar with the arrangements. He crossed the line that separates the two Koreas to meet with Choe Son Hui, the North Korean vice foreign minister, who said last week that Pyongyang was 'reconsidering' the talks."

Trump Tweets Some Stuff, Ctd. Brent Griffiths of Politico: "... Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that the Russia probe has 'devastated and destroyed' the reputations of people, continuing his weekend Twitter assault against the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 'Who's going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt? They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation. ... They went back home in tatters,' the president wrote on Twitter."

Rudy Says Some Stuff, Ctd. Connor O'Brien of Politico: "Asked in an interview with CNN's 'State of the Union' if he believed special counsel Robert Mueller's probe was legitimate, [Rudy] Giuliani responded, 'Not anymore.' 'I did when I came in, but now I see Spygate,' Giuliani told host Dana Bush...."

Cheyenne Haslett of ABC News: "Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he sees 'no evidence' to support President Trump's claims that the FBI used an informant to gather information on his campaign, but that instead the federal probe was focused on 'individuals with a history of links to Russia that were concerning.'"

Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) fact-checked >President Trump's tweet claiming that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe is 'phony,' noting that it has led to several indictments and guilty pleas. 'I hate repeating myself Mr. President, but let me remind you again: Special Counsel Mueller's investigation has either indicted or secure guilty pleas from 19 people and three companies -- that we know of,' Schumer tweeted Sunday."

All the Best People, Ctd. David Pittman of Politico: "The White House official who will shape a large part of the administration's drug price plan worked on many of the same issues as an industry lobbyist, raising questions about whether he violated ... Donald Trump's ethics rules. Joe Grogan -- who has sweeping authority over drug pricing, entitlement programs and other aspects of federal health policy at the Office of Management and Budget -- didn't obtain a waiver from a directive Trump issued during his first week in office that imposed a two-year cooling-off period between lobbying and regulating on the same 'specific issue area.' Grogan worked as the top lobbyist for Gilead Sciences until he arrived at OMB last March, dealing with issues including how much federal health programs would pay for its medicines. Gilead was the company that in 2014 effectively set off the drug price controversy with Sovaldi, its breakthrough hepatitis C cure that cost $1,000 per pill and triggered a lengthy and highly critical Senate Finance Committee probe."

P.D. Pepe pointed out the New York Times' editors' new Guide to Presidential Etiquette in the Age of Trump. Unfortunately, most if it is way worse than eating a New York slice with a fork.

Millions of Republicans Are Delusional/Suckers. Kyle Balluck of the Hill: "Almost half of the Republican respondents in a new poll said they believe millions of voters illegally cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, as President Trump has claimed. Forty-eight percent of Republicans in the HuffPost/YouGov poll said they believe as many as 5 million votes were cast illegally, compared to 17 percent who said they do not. More than one-third of Republican respondents, 35 percent, said they are unsure." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I do think this poll result speaks to the larger point that one has to be delusional (or really, really rich) to vote Republican. Democracy cannot function if one of the two major political parties is fundamentally dishonest.

*****

Peter Baker & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "For more than a year, President Trump has been at war with law enforcement agencies that answer to him, interjecting himself into an investigation in which he himself is a subject. And he has escalated the conflict drastically in recent days by accusing the F.B.I. of placing a 'spy' inside his 2016 campaign, pressuring the agencies to reveal secret information and demanding an investigation of his investigators. The confrontation has no precedent in the modern era and holds great stakes not just for the president but for the relative autonomy for law enforcement investigations established after Watergate.... Since even before taking office, Mr. Trump has disparaged intelligence agencies that concluded that Russia sought to influence the election on his behalf, at one point in effect comparing them to Nazis. He has publicly badgered law enforcement officials to shut down the Russia investigation and instead open inquiries into his political adversaries. But he went even further last week by effectively ordering an investigation into the actions taken regarding his campaign." ...

... It's Working! Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "President Trump is waging a war of attrition against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation. If his goal is to poison the reception to whatever Mueller's findings turn out to be, as seems evident from what he and his allies have done, he is making progress. The slow but steady separation of public opinion underscores the degree of success in the president's strategy. Through constant tweets in which he has used exaggeration, distortion and outright falsehoods -- combined with the activities of his congressional supporters in hectoring the Justice Department and the FBI -- Trump hopes to turn the ultimate confrontation into one more partisan battle.... Step by step, week by week, the president and his allies cross lines that legal experts insist should not be crossed. The president's ongoing conflict with the Justice Department and his inflammatory tweets about the Mueller investigation have become so commonplace that it can be easy for people to forget how abnormal it all is." ...

... This Russia Thing, Ctd. Spanish Edition. Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News: "The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia's Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, that led to a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby's annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday. Spanish organized crime said that bureau officials in recent months requested and were provided transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a convicted Russian money launderer.... Asked if he was concerned about Torshin's meetings with Donald Trump Jr. and other American political figures, [José] Grinda [of the Spanish police] replied: 'Mr. Trump's son should be concerned.'... Torshin has been the subject of intensifying U.S. government and congressional scrutiny over the past year and was recently among a lengthy list of oligarchs and Russian political figures sanctioned by the Treasury Department."


Jonah Shepp of New York: "Less than a year and a half into his term..., Donald Trump has done more damage to U.S. foreign policy credibility than even the right-wing bogeyman version of [President] Obama managed to do in eight years. Yet, strangely, few of these credibility hawks seem particularly perturbed by his choices.... Under Trump, the world is finding that we can no longer be trusted to engage in consultation, deliberation, or dialogue of any kind. Instead, we do whatever we want (or whatever he wants) with no real concern for the impact our decisions have on other countries, be they allies or adversaries. When other countries behave this way, we ... call them rogue states." ...

... Robin Wright of the New Yorker: "In the fifteen months of Trump's Presidency, the United State has witnessed a stunning undoing of long-standing norms — of the U.S.-led world order, core alliances, trade pacts, principles of nonproliferation, patterns of globalization, world institutions, and most of all, U.S. influence. A lot of it began in 2003, with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But it has accelerated with breathtaking speed since Trump took office. And, in virtually every case, there is increasingly no alternative to replace the institutions, ideas, accords, and relationships that Trump is undoing." ...

... Masha Gessen of the New Yorker ponders how to cling to reality in the Trump era, when many are inclined to react to "an outburst as though it were politics, a tantrum as though it were diplomacy, and a delusion as though it were aspiration."

Brent Griffiths of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday urged voters to pressure Democrats into accepting an immigration deal on his terms, appearing to cite his own administration's 'horrible' policy of stepping up the separation of families held at the U.S.-Mexico border. 'Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS,' the president wrote on Twitter.... "The law does not remotely require the administration's family separation practice,' [Lee Gelernt of the ACLU] said. 'The administration is trying to shift the blame to Congress. [But] it's the administration's own choice to seperate [sic.] families. This law his been in effect for years but no prior administration believed it required family separation.'" ...

... Daniel Politi of Slate: "Even though his attempt to shift blame on Democrats for his own policies may be galling, it was hardly new. Earlier this month [Trump] did the same while talking to California officials about immigration policy. 'I know what you're going through right now with families is very tough but those are the bad laws that the Democrats gave us,' Trump told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. 'We have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law. It's a horrible thing where you have to break up families.' Factcheck.org declared that statement was 'false.'"

... Lost Children Not Our Concern. Dakin Andone of CNN: "The federal government has placed thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children in the homes of sponsors, but last year it couldn't account for nearly 1,500 of them.... That's more than 19% of the children that were placed by the ORR. But [Steven] Wagner[, acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families,] said HHS is not responsible for the children. 'I understand that it has been HHS's long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care,' Wagner said."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump falsely accused The New York Times on Saturday of making up a source in an article about North Korea, even though the source was in fact a senior White House official speaking ... in the White House briefing room... [to] about 50 reporters, with about 200 or so more on a conference call.... The rules of the briefing imposed by the White House required that the official be referred to only as a 'senior White House official.'... The article, headlined, 'Trump Says North Korea Summit May Be Rescheduled,' said that the United States was 'back in touch with North Korea' and that the meeting might yet happen. Mr. Trump posted on Twitter to denounce part of the article, which reported in the 10th paragraph that 'a senior White House official told reporters that even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible, given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed.' In a tweet, the president took issue with that sentence, saying, 'WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.'... Mr. Trump's attack on The Times was only the latest of many efforts by the president to discredit reporting by news organizations by questioning the validity of their sources." ...

... There's a Recording. The "Phony Source" Has a Name & a White House Badge. A.J. Vicens of Mother Jones: "As pointed out by freelance journalist Yashar Ali, the official that Trump says 'doesn't exist' was actually Matt Pottinger of the National Security Council, and Pottinger's statement was recorded (and subsequently posted by Ali)."

Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, said during a surprise summit meeting that he is determined to meet President Trump and discuss a 'complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,' South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday.Mr. Kim met unexpectedly with Mr. Moon on Saturday to discuss salvaging a canceled summit meeting between Mr. Kim and President Trump, a new twist in the whirlwind of diplomacy over the fate of the North's nuclear arsenal."

John Bowden of the Hill: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is using his personal attorney, formerly his administration's attorney general, to block the release of correspondence between his office and the company formerly managed by White House adviser Jared Kushner.... Kushner Companies, a real estate firm now managed by Kushner's brother, benefited under Christie's administration, during which it was the recipient of a $33 million tax credit for the development of One Journal Square Project, a planned skyscraper in Jersey City.... Experts in New Jersey's open records law told the news outlet that Christie's use of his personal lawyer to shield the release of documents from his administration was 'disturbing.'"

Way Beyond the Beltway

Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "Ireland voted decisively to repeal one of the world's more restrictive abortion bans, the prime minister said Saturday, sweeping aside generations of conservative patriarchy and dealing the latest in a series of stinging rebukes to the Roman Catholic Church. The surprising landslide cemented the nation's liberal shift at a time when right-wing populism is on the rise in Europe and the Trump administration is imposing curbs on abortion rights in the United States. In the past three years alone, Ireland has installed a gay man as prime minister and has voted in another referendum to allow same-sex marriage." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nice to see Ireland come crashing into the 20th century as we recede into the 19th.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

The editorial board of the New York Times has compiled a loooong list that they cite as "Donald Trump's Guide to Presidential Etiquette:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/25/opinion/editorials/Donald-Trumps-Guide-To-Presidential-Etiquette.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

It's extraordinary to wade through and when done you have to sit back and heave a big sigh of despair or your cookies––maybe both. It's the "Twilight Zone" in 2018––-and it's happening now and we keep saying how can this be going on? Marie's mention of Ireland's crash into the 21st century while we recede into the 19th is accurate and pitiful.

But tomorrow we'll have the parades, concerts, flags flying, singing, picnics, all to celebrate something––I forget just what.

May 27, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

The Times Sunday Business section has an article and supporting table on CEO pay vs. median pay for most of the 200 highest paid CEOs in the country.
https://nyti.ms/2J5ZTRX
Total compensation ranging from $17.5M to $103M. Ratios from 64:1 up to nearly 5000:1. The article notes that the 64:1 is a small pharmaceutical company where production and distribution are subcontracted so the ratio is not a fair comparison to Mattel, which owns its overseas factories and employs the workers.

It takes a special kind of person to be able to sleep knowing that the median employee would have to work for hundreds or even thousands of years to approach the income one makes in 12 months.

May 27, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterNiskyGuy

The most important piece of the Ireland abortion vote is the exit poll.
From CNN:

Support appeared to decrease with age. The exit poll said repeal was supported by 87.6% of voters 18-24 years old; 84.6% of voters 25-34 years old; 72.8% of voters 35-49 years old; and 63.7% of voters 50-64 years old.
Voters over 65 were the only age group overall not supporting the amendment, with 58.7% voting no, the poll said.

The new world, the one where all ideas are not based on 2-5 thousand year old words.

May 27, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

This is actual news, passed by the US House unanimously. Below is a link to the press release on Keith Ellison's webpage.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/05/25/us-house-passed-amendment-blocking-war-on-iran-story-buried/

https://ellison.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/us-house-makes-clear-that-there-is-no-authorization-for-use-of-military

May 27, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterKeith Howard
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