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
Sunday
May082011

The Commentariat -- May 9

See the post below for the full Steve Kroft "60 Minutes" interview of President Obama.

Paul Krugman: "... what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that ... mass long-term unemployment ... is mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness. So this seems like a good time to point out that this blame-the-public view isn’t just self-serving, it’s dead wrong." This is Krugman's most explicit anti-Brooks column. ...

... I've posted comments pages on Off Times Square for Krugman & Ross Douthat. I've also posted my comments on each.

A friend sends me a link to this news item under the title "Salamander Declares Presidential Intentions." So you know what it's about. Kendra Marr of Politico: "The long wait for Newt Gingrich to say what everyone already knew is almost over."

Joann Lublin of the Wall Street Journal: "The median value of salaries, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for CEOs of 350 major [U.S.] companies surged 11% to $9.3 million, according to a study of proxy statements conducted for The Wall Street Journal by management consultancy Hay Group." ...

... What Lublin doesn't mention, but Marie Diamond of Think Progress does, is that "most American families continue to struggle with high unemployment and stagnant wages." CW: what could possibly be wrong with that?

Martin Crutsinger of the AP: "Five years and one financial crisis since the United States and China commenced regular high-level economic talks, fast-growing Beijing might have the upper hand this week in the latest round of discussions between the world's two biggest economies."

** "The Rules of Engagement." Raffi Khatchadouria of the New Yorker has the best answer I've seen anywhere to the question, "Was the killing of Osama bin Laden legal?" This should eliminate some of the hand-wringing by Noam Chomsky (here), et al. It won't. And it does pose a larger issue, as Khatchadouria acknowledges:

To be uncomfortable with such operations is, in a sense, to be uncomfortable with war itself. And to accept that the bin Laden raid was legal, is, in effect, to acknowledge publically that what we are actually conducting in Pakistan is a kind of war. In his death, bin Laden has forced this admission from us.

Jane Mayer has a pretty entertaining story in the New Yorker about "Junior, the clandestine life of America's top Al Qaeda source." She gives you a good look at what life in "an undisclosed location" is like -- for the agents who have to deal with these characters. Mayer's story sort of mirrors some of the film comedies about mobster informants.

David Remnick of the New Yorker has a fine commentary on President Obama's speech announcing the death of Osama bin Laden. CW: Here's one aside that struck me: "To some, it has seemed that Obama’s determination to avoid the vulgar and the cheap is a form of superiority, a bearing designed to make everyone else seem vulgar and cheap." A President gets criticism for almost everything, but this is the first time I've heard of a complaint that he's too serious. Is Donald Trump now going to blame Obama for making him (Trump) seem vulgar & cheap???

Eli Saslow of the Washington Post: "Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of government employees ... have reshaped their careers and restructured their lives around the search for one man — a quest they sometimes referred to simply as 'the hunt.'” Saslow focuses on one former CIA counterterrorism officer, Michael Hurley.

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "In his almost 11 years in office, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has brought about some remarkable changes to a country formerly run by his notoriously ruthless father, fueling perceptions that he is at heart a reformer, albeit one who has been held back by hard-liners intent on preserving the status quo.... Yet in all those years, the younger Assad has implemented not one measure that would relax the ruling Baath Party’s 48-year-long hold on power, lift the draconian laws that enable the security forces to operate with impunity or ease restrictions on free speech."

A Congressional Race Worth Watching. Raymond Herdandez of the New York Times: New York's 26th Congressional District, quickly vacated by Republican Chris "Craigslist" Lee, was assumed to be a shoo-in for popular Republican candidate Jane Corwin. But Corwin has been standing behind the Ryan/Republican gut-Medicare plan, and her Democratic opponent Kathy Hochul has been hitting her hard with it. It's not a shoo-in any more, as evidenced by Speaker Boehner's plans to campaign for Corwin today.

Andrew Kimbrell, writing in AlterNet, lists five right-wing lies President Obama doesn't bother to debunk, so they live on. Here are a couple: (1) government is the problem; (2) global warming is vastly exaggerated/doesn't exist. ...

... E. J. Dionne makes a similar point about "government is the problem," but he blames the media for skewing the narrative & dropping the ball: "Far too little attention has been paid to the success of the government’s rescue of the Detroit-based auto companies, and almost no attention has been paid to how completely and utterly wrong bailout opponents were when they insisted it was doomed to failure."

Right Wing World *

Watch Jim Bullshit, Kids. Jed Lewison of the Daily Kos. Republican Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) loved the individual mandate when it was a Republican idea and said "we should do it for the whole country." Now he's claiming he had no idea Romneycare included an individual mandate; Lewison shows DeMint's labored attempt at an about-face is "bullshit." With video.

Jon Chait of The New Republic: GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has the Courage to Stand up and admit he made "a mistake" about taking a position in favor of cap-and-trade that is unpopular with today's righty-right Republican voters. "It would be interesting to see some reporters try to put pressure on Pawlenty's apology. What exactly did he get wrong? Does he believe that energy producers should be allowed to dump carbon into the atmosphere at no cost whatsoever in perpetuity? That line of inquiry could be illuminating, and probably fun."

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

AP: "Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders have launched a push to ram several years’ worth of conservative agenda items through the Legislature this spring before recall elections threaten to end the party’s control of state government."

"Florida Loses Its Mind. Again." Michael Grunwald of Time: "... the geniuses who run the state have decided that its economic distress is the result of overly strict growth management. So they’re wiping out three decades of growth management laws and making it even easier for developers to build.... It’s hard to imagine how any sentient being who’s visited Homestead or Cape Coral or any of Florida’s other boarded-up foreclosurevilles and seen all the vacant homes with unmowed lawns and mosquito-infested pools could conclude that the housing boom was insufficiently robust."

News Ledes

New York Times: "House Speaker John A. Boehner said on Monday that Republicans would insist on trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts in exchange for their support of an increase in the federal debt limit sought by the Obama administration to prevent a government default later this year."

AP: "Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit as an American Airlines flight approached San Francisco, the third security incident in a day on U.S. planes, authorities said Monday."

New York Times: "In an address to Parliament, Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani on Monday defended Pakistan’s spy agency and indirectly criticized the United States for Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan."

Politico: "The Obama administration will look at tightening security on trains if intelligence collected from Osama bin Laden’s compound about a rail plot is substantiated, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday, as he also outlined plans to redirect $2 billion in rejected high-speed rail money from Florida to 15 other states."

New York Times: "A military crackdown on Syria’s seven-week uprising escalated Sunday, with reinforcements sent to two cities, more forces deployed in a southern town and nearly all communications severed to besieged locales, activists and human rights groups said. Fourteen people were killed in the city of Homs, they said, and hundreds were arrested."

Al Jazeera: "Pakistan's prime minister is set to brief parliament on the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, his first public statement since the attack.... Yusuf Raza Gilani is expected to 'take the nation into confidence' in parliament on Monday, an official told the AFP news agency, amid deepening suspicion in the US that Pakistani officials may have had ties with the al-Qaeda leader." ...

... AP: "Pakistani media have reported what they say is the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad — the second such potential outing of a sensitive covert operative in six months.... The Associated Press has learned that the name being reported is incorrect. Still, the publication of any alleged identity of the U.S. spy agency's top official in this country could be pushback from Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence establishment, which was humiliated over the surprise raid on its soil."

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