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.

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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

Page Links
Wednesday
May042011

The Commentariat -- May 5

Why Are We Talking about Torture? Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Debating whether torture, years ago, was responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden and therefore vindicated ... requires not only putting together a bunch of tenuous connections to make the positive case but ignoring the much more obvious evidence of the costs of the policy along the way that matter even if that tenuous positive case is true. Or, to put it another way: It’s an easy case to make on faith, but sort of preposterous otherwise." Bernstein thinks conservatives are touting torture because (a) they want to divert attention from praise of President Obama, (b) they want to emphasize as issue that divides the parties,  & (c) they feel the need to "profess their faith" in torture "loudly & often." Thanks to Trish R. for the link. CW: And they definitely want to get their names in the paper.

Gail Collins rips into Indiana's Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels who, while flirting with a run for president, is preparing to sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood in the state & further curbing abortion rights. Under the bill, which the Republican-led legislature has passed & Daniels has backed, it will be

impossible for Medicaid recipients to make use of the 28 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state and bans abortions for pregnancies that have reached 20 weeks. Also, doctors would be required to tell women seeking abortions that 'medical evidence shows that a fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks,' that human life begins when the egg is fertilized and that having an abortion could cause infertility.

     I've added a comments page for Collins' column on Off Times Square & have posted my comment on Collins' column. You can comment on Collins or on any other political or news items.

Adam Entous, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "U.S. and European intelligence officials increasingly believe active or retired Pakistani military or intelligence officials provided some measure of aid to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, allowing him to stay hidden in a large compound just a mile from an elite military academy.... 'There's no doubt he was protected by some in the ISI...,' a high-level European military official ... said." ...

... Yochi Dreazen, et al., of the National Journal: "The [Obama] administration had made clear to the military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions.  A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive." ...

Vice Admiral William McRaven. Photo via the Washington Post.... Terrorist Hunter. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post profiles Vice Adm. William McRaven, who oversaw the raid on the bin Laden compound. "He has worked almost exclusively on counterterrorism operations and strategy since 2001, when as a Navy captain he was assigned to the White House shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The author of a textbook titled 'Spec Ops,' McRaven had long emphasized six key requirements for any successful mission: surprise, speed, security, simplicity, purpose and repetition. For the especially risky bin Laden operation, he insisted on another: precision."

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: "Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee today [Wednesday] on the limitations on reducing deficits through changes in the budget process, Senior Fellow Paul Van de Water explained that Senator Corker’s proposed federal spending cap would (among other things) make the economy less stable.... Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder made the same point recently.... [The proposal also] fails to account for basic changes in society and government and would force deep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security...."

The Dumbing-Down of America, Con'd. Sam Dillon of the New York Times: "Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results released on Wednesday."

Right Wing World *

The Ryan plan doesn't cut Medicare. Actually, it increases funding in it.... The only people in this town that have voted to cut Medicare spending are the people who voted in favor of Obamacare. That's a fact. And so the truth is the people. -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), on "Meet the Press"

Paul Krugman: "... now that the [Republican/Ryan] budget has turned out to be both cruel and ludicrous, Republicans have taken to defending it by ... lying about it. Jonathan Cohn catches Marco Rubio declaring that the Ryan plan doesn’t cut Medicare funding — when the Medicare cuts were precisely what supposedly made the plan 'serious'. (We were supposed to focus on that, not on the huge tax cuts or the plan’s reliance on assuming that discretionary spending could be reduced to Calvin Coolidge levels). Here's the Cohn article.

Known and Unknown -- What Will Donald Rumsfeld Say Next? Joan Walsh of Salon: after telling Newsmax on Monday that information that led to finding Osama bin Laden "was not torture and it was not waterboarding," Rumsfeld told Sean Hannity that the CIA got "critically important" information from people the CIA waterboarded." CW: sounds as if after his first remark, somebody told Rumsfeld he should go back to defending torture, as John Yoo, Liz Cheney & other members of the Torture Cult have been doing.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama lays a wreath at Ground Zero:

... AND Vice President Biden lays a wreath at the Pentagon:

New York Times: "After reviewing computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, American intelligence analysts have concluded that the chief of Al Qaeda played a direct role for years in plotting terror attacks from his hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, United States officials said Thursday." The Washington Post story  is here. ABC News story here, with video report.

President & Mrs. Obama hosted a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House this evening.

President Obama participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City earlier this afternoon. Minutes later, Vice President Biden participated in a similar ceremony at the Pentagon. Obama met with 9/11 family members. AP story here. New York Times Update: "... in the wreath ceremony and in a series of meeting across Manhattan on Thursday, the president had a chance to meet one-to-one with the people whose lives were changed most deeply by Bin Laden — relatives of the victims, as well as firefighters and other rescue workers who lost comrades that morning."

Vice President Biden meets with lawmakers from both parties this morning with a goal toward reaching compromise on deficit reduction.

Daily Beast: "The Pakistani Foreign Ministry says it told U.S. intelligence two years ago of suspicions about the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was found.

AP: Fake Osama bin Laden death photographs go viral, global. CW: I have heard that some of the main sites that feature these fake photos contain viruses, so before you decide to entertain yourself looking at fake pictures of a dead terrorist, consider the source. ...

... AND They Fooled Republican Senators. Time: Republican Senators have been passing around the fake photos via their cellphones, & at least three -- Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Saxby Chambliss (Georgia) & Scott Brown (Massachusetts) were duped into thinking the photos were real. Brown even boasted about having seen the death photos in an NECN interview & had to issue a retraction.

Washington Post: "... on Wednesday, leaders of the minority parties in the Senate and House introduced their jobs agendas in spirited fashion. Senate Republicans and House Democrats sought to demonstrate that, unlike the parties that control their respective chambers, they are focused chiefly on one of the top concerns of American voters: creating jobs and stimulating economic growth."

Al Jazeera: "The NATO-backed coalition in Libya has said it would create a fund for rebels running short of supplies and money. Italy, host of Thursday's meeting in Rome of the Contact Group on Libya, said the temporary special fund would aim to channel cash to the opposition administration in its eastern Libyan stronghold of Benghazi."

AP: "Claude Stanley Choules..., the last-known combat veteran of World War I..., died in a Western Australia nursing home Thursday at age 110.

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