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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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

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The Commentariat -- November 22

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is here. Here's the lede:

Today we have David Brooks at his bipartisan, both-sides-do-it, reasonable, fair-minded best. We are not supposed to notice that his entire column in today’s New York Times is One Big Lie. Well, okay, since Brooks sees 'Two Moons,' he gives us Two Big Lies, with a few subsidiary lies thrown in to bolster the Big Lies.

"Beat Poets, not beat poets." Robert Hass, the former Poet Laureate of the United States, gives a first-hand account of the beatings -- he was a victim -- of Occupy Berkeley protesters:

They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines.NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn’t have dispersed if we’d wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward...

Where's Barack? Karen Garcia: "... when it comes to the United States going whole hog and actually condemning another country's undemocratic actions, I hit the jackpot: more than 9 million Google hits. We've condemned the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador, Sudan's attacks on refugee camps and the violent crackdowns in Bahrain, to name just a few. We have even condemned UNESCO's pro-Palestine vote. But so far, not one federal official has deplored, condemned, expressed chagrin, outrage, regret or shock over the epidemic outbreak of police brutality against Occupy protesters this week."

     ... CW: One reason the White House has nothing to say about police brutality against Occupy protesters is that the White House press corps isn't interested. I read the entire transcript of Jay Carney's press briefing yesterday, and 75 percent of the questions were about the supercommittee and the remainder about the Middle East. ...

... "Occupy the Majority." E. J. Dionne: "... the [Occupy] movement should remind itself of its greatest innovation, its slogan: 'We are the 99 percent.' This is an affirmation that it is trying to speak for nearly everybody. Its tactics should live up to this aspiration by building support among the vast number of Americans who will never show up at the encampments. It should also want to help political figures such as [Elizabeth] Warren, who understood far earlier than most the costs of inequality and of the abuses of financial power. The last thing this movement should want to do is create fodder for the ads and e-mails propagated by Warren’s foes. The occupations have done their work. Now it’s time to occupy the majority." ...

Lt. John Pike, U.C. Davis.... Sam Stanton of the Sacramento Bee: "Lt. John Pike, a UC Davis police officer believed to have pepper-sprayed students on campus Friday, is a former United States Marine who was given an award for valor in 2007 when he saved other officers from a scissor-wielding patient at the school's medical center." CW: I don't usually make comments about someone's personal appearance, but really, could that guy look any more like an oinker?

Charles Pierce of Esquire on the White House's repeatedly blaming "Congress" for the failure to get a deficit deal instead of blaming Republicans: "I'm sure that the Democrats on this prolonged waste of time appreciate how the White House has tossed them into the blame pie with the Republicans. You spend a few months attempting to sell out every bit of progressive government of the past 80 years, and this is the thanks you get from the leader of your party. You get hit in a drive-by swipe about 'Washington' and 'Congress.' I swear to god, sometimes, Barack Obama and the people around him can be the most incredible mixture of insufferable arrogance and obvious political incompetence ever to get elected in this country. Just shut up and at least try to get re-elected. Please."

Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine: "There is nothing in [GOP] behavior over the last twenty years that shows the slightest interest in a bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit. Nor is there any recent evidence. Democrats have continued to offer agreements to reduce spending, including on entitlements, in return for higher tax revenue, which they’re willing to accept in the form of lower tax credits as opposed to higher rates.... The news media is working desperately not to convey this reality."

Right Wing World

Grover Norquist -- the Man Who Really Runs the GOP, a Senate Democratic ad:

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: Despite all their expressed horrors about "the government's taking away your freedoms" by imposing a mandate, "The primary reason Limbaugh and his listeners don't like universal health care is that they reject the basic concept. They simply don't believe in using government to make sure every American has access to affordable health care."

News Ledes

 

I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am governor. -- Gov. John Kitzhaber (D-Ore.)

New York Times: "Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon on Tuesday said he would halt the execution of a death row inmate scheduled for next month and that he would allow no more executions in the state during his time in office." The Oregonian story is here.

The 14th Republican debate tonight will be aired on CNN live at 8:00 pm ET. Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the debate.

New York Times: "In his most blatant criticism yet of Syria’s political repression, the prime minister of Turkey, [Recep Tayyip Erdogan,] said for the first time on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria should resign, raising the pressure on Mr. Assad from a country that Syria had once counted as its friendliest neighbor and economic partner."

President Obama spoke about the American Jobs Act in Manchester, New Hampshire, early this afternoon. ABC News story here. See also Wednesday's Commentariat:

     ... Update: Washington Post: "With taxes set to rise for nearly every American worker, President Obama sought Tuesday to highlight his tax-cutting bona fides, accusing Republicans of hypocrisy if they do not agree to extend a payroll tax cut that is set to expire in January. Obama’s comments were part of an escalating White House campaign against Republicans that is painting them as defenders of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class."

AP: "Students have again put up tents near the site where University of California, Davis police used pepper spray on seated protesters in a conflict that has sparked outrage and calls for the school chancellor's resignation. The encampment was again erected Monday, hours after the campus police chief was put on administrative leave and the chancellor was shouted down at a demonstration while trying to apologize for the incident that happened at a protest held Friday in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement." Related Sacramento Bee story here.

Al Jazeera: "Activists in Egypt are calling for a mass demonstration in Cairo against the country's ruling military council after three days of clashes between protesters and government forces left at least 33 people dead and hundreds injured." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "Three American college students have been arrested and accused of participating in the violent demonstrations that are sweeping this capital city. The protests, now in their fourth day, are posing the greatest threat to Egypt’s military leaders since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last February, and could jeopardize parliamentary elections scheduled for Monday." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update 2: "Egyptians angry over the slow transition to civilian rule have remained in the streets of the capital and other cities, continuing their protests despite apparent concessions offered by the country's ruling military council. Tens of thousands of protesters packed central Cairo's Tahrir Square late on Tuesday night, shouting 'Leave! Leave!', hours after Field Marshal Muhammed Hussein Tantawi, the chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), finished a short speech broadcast on state media." With video.

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