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.

 

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Saturday
Oct012011

The Commentariat -- October 2

The Open Thread continues on Off Times Square.

** Jonathan Turley in a Washington Post op-ed: "The fears of the Danbury Baptists, [whose letter to President Thomas Jefferson prompted him to respond that the First Amendment built "a wall between separation of church and state"] appear to have been realized, with political campaigns, federal programs and judicial decisions moving away from a clear separation of church and state." Turley goes on to cite many examples of today's politicians interjecting religion into their rhetoric. "The danger of explicit appeals to faith in politics isn’t the establishment of an official religion; that remains highly unlikely. Rather, faith-based politics can become faith-based laws that enforce morality codes, expand public subsidies for religious institutions or sideline religious (or non-religious) minorities." ...

... CW: if you haven't read Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, a transcript is here. A photo of the original is here:

The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. -- John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

And then, hearing any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation and poking an ally like Israel in the eye, it's mind-boggling to see some of our nation's actions recently. -- Sarah Palin, her mind apparently boggled by the founding father cited above, while criticizing, misrepresenting & misquoting this guy:

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square. -- Barack Obama, a "Constitutional scholar," June 28, 2006

Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent on diversity in all other aspects of life, seems bent on eliminating the diversity of moral judgment, particularly moral judgment based on religious views. -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, last week (cited in the MoDo column below)

... Maureen Dowd: "The most Catholic Supreme Court in history celebrates one of Washington’s most intriguing rituals, an annual merger of church and state." ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court, which has been focused in recent terms on the rights of corporations and on curbing big lawsuits, returns to the bench on Monday with a different agenda. Now, criminal justice is at the heart of the court’s docket, along with major cases on free speech and religious freedom.... Still, the shift in focus toward criminal and First Amendment cases will soon be obscured if, as expected, the justices agree to hear a challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law. That case promises to be a once-in-a-generation blockbuster. In the meantime, the justices will hear an extraordinary set of cases that together amount to a project that could overhaul almost every part of the criminal justice system." ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court convenes Monday for what could be the most significant term of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s six-year tenure, with an agenda that both reflects the nation’s political landscape and offers the potential to reshape it. The dominant theme is the one that has divided the country and fueled the debate between tea party Republicans and President Obama since the 2010 election: the extent of the federal government’s power. The justices are being asked to decide the constitutionality of the landmark health-care act, the ability of states to enforce strict immigration laws and whether the government can continue to monitor the airwaves for indecency."

Occupy Wall Street

CW: Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times gets a do-over. And, well, she sure botches the lede:

During their first week, members of Occupy Wall Street, the ideologically vague and strategically baffling effort to redress social inequities, put together a library on the north end of Zuccotti Park whose disparate offerings included 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'; Gay Talese’s article in The New Yorker on the collaboration of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga; and Abbott’s Digest of New York Statutes and Reports, Volumes 4, 9, 33 and 34.

     ... The ensuing prose improves. A little. I wonder what the report would look like if the Times had sent, say, a sports reporter instead of an arts critic like Ballafante. ...

FreakOutNation: "The New York Times has been part of the problem – in this image, note that within 20 minutes, the writer changed and the blame was shifted onto the protesters.... Natasha Lennard, a writer for the New York Times was allegedly among those arrested, so we can assume they will assign blame to her as well:

Graphic by FreakOut Nation.     ... CW Update: in an e-mail to me, Karen Garcia said that Natasha Lennard, the "Times reporter" who was arrested on the bridge yesterday is a stringer; i.e., not a regular staff reporter. So I'm thinking the Times won't give Lennard the full Judith Miller treatment (i.e., high-priced lawyers, First Amendment violation suits, supportive editorials, major news stories, etc.). ...

... A Felicitous "Coincidence." Yves Smith of naked capitalism: JPMorgan Chase "recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation." Smith figures the JPM Chase donation could represent as much as 3 to 4 percent of the foundation's total donations ever since its founding in 1971. "And what sort of benefits might JPM get? ... Today [Saturday], OccupyWallStreet decided to march across the Brooklyn Bridge (a proud New York tradition) to Chase Manhattan Plaza in Brooklyn.... Over 700 of the marchers were arrested," in an operation that many protesters [and Gawker] say was deliberate kettling; i.e., confining hundreds of protesters to the bridge, then arresting them before they could get to the Chase site. 

Heather Parton a/k/a Digby in Al Jazeera: "Elizabeth Warren cemented her reputation as a person who knows how to speak to Americans about progressive values in a way that seems to have eluded almost every other public figure in America. There's just something about the way she talks in plain prairie English that makes people listen - and scares even the most hardened businessman and compromised politician into paying attention."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... when [New York State Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman, 56, rejected a proposed nationwide settlement releasing some of the country’s biggest banks from a lawsuit brought by the states claiming misconduct in the mortgage markets. Almost overnight, he found his own name mentioned in a series of laudatory articles in publications as varied as Rolling Stone, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and the Web site Gawker." CW: Feuer doesn't mention it, but on Friday, California AG Kamala Harris also rejected the national settlement deal.

Right Wing World

CW: this story, by Stephanie McCrummen of the Washington Post, leaves me speechless, which is just as well: "In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance. 'Niggerhead,' it read. Ranchers who once grazed cattle on the 1,070-acre parcel on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River called it by that name well before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s.... The name ... did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.... How, when or whether [Perry] dealt with it when he was using the property is less clear...." Seven people, mostly Perry allies, say he did not have the name obliterated as he claims. ...

... Federales, Sí. Rich Oppel of the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said on Saturday that as president, he would consider sending American troops into Mexico to help defeat drug cartels and improve border security. He indicated that any such action would be done 'in concert' with the Mexican government." CW: finally, Perry finds some use for the federal government: invade Mexico!

If Your Name Is Mitt Romney, You Just Might Be a Hypocrite. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: while he was Governor of Massachusetts, Romney and his "administration relentlessly scoured the tax code for more loopholes, extracting hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to help close budget gaps.... It was only after Mr. Romney was gearing up in 2005 for a possible White House bid that he backed away from some of his most assertive tax enforcement proposals amid intensifying complaints from local companies and conservative antitax groups in Washington. Mr. Romney’s campaign against the tax loopholes, like no other period in his career, put him at odds with the values and expectations of the corporate world.... Today, in seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Romney promotes himself as the pro-business candidate who understands what companies need and how to create jobs."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign spent Sunday deflecting scrutiny of a report in The Washington Post detailing a West Texas hunting camp he once leased with his father that includes a racial epithet in its name.... One of Perry’s rivals for the GOP nomination..., Herman Cain, criticized Perry in appearances on 'Fox News Sunday' and ABC’s 'This Week.' Civil rights activist Al Sharpton called for Perry to explain more fully his relationship to the property or bow out of the presidential race." (See today's Right Wing World in the Commentariat.)

Washington Post: "Former vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday called last week’s CIA drone strike against al-Qaeda operative Anwar Awlaki a validation of the George W. Bush administration’s terrorist-fighting strategy, and said that President Obama should apologize for his past criticism of those policies." CW: new definition of -- and a very high bar for -- "shameless": expecting an apology from those who criticize you for torturing people.

AP: "Syrian dissidents on Sunday formally established a broad-based national council designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Syrians took to the streets in celebration, singing and dancing." Al Jazeera story here.

Al Jazeera: "The Greek government has acknowledged that it will miss its targets for reducing the budget deficit for this year and next year despite massive job cuts."

Reuters (via the NYT): "Israel accepted on Sunday a call by the Quartet of international peace mediators to resume talks with the Palestinians, an official Israeli statement said."

Fox "News": "Police have arrested two dozen protesters for trespassing during a demonstration against Bank of America's foreclosure practices at the banking giant's offices in downtown Boston. The Boston Herald reports that the event was an act of civil disobedience that the organizers intended to send the message that the lender's practices were unfair. 'They wanted to be arrested, and we obliged,' Boston police Commissioner Edward F. Davis told the newspaper. Organizers say about 3,000 people joined the protest." See also stories on Occupy Wall Street, NYC, in yesterday's Ledes & Commentariat. ...

Gothamist has a very good liveblog that details yesterday's Occupy Wall Street events, with lots of photos. BTW, the Gothamist reporter says the "little girl" who was arrested looks 15-18 year of age. CW: from her height & closeups of her face, I would guess she is 12 or 13, at the most. I can't find any news stories that ID her. ...

... AND here's the Firedoglake liveblog for today.

Reuters: "The State Department issued a worldwide travel alert on Saturday warning of the possibility of anti-American attacks in response to the killing of two top al Qaeda members."

AP: "The Afghan government needs to see Pakistan making 'tangible progress' on pledges to use its influence to help end the Taliban insurgency, a foreign ministry spokesman said Sunday. The statement came a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was giving up on trying to talk to the Taliban directly and that the key to ending the war is mediation by Pakistan."

AP: "A government warplane has mistakenly bombed an army position in southern Yemen, killing at least 30 soldiers and wounding many more, military and medical officials said on Sunday.... Heavy fighting has been raging in the area for days as part of the army's monthslong campaign to seize back Zinjibar from the militants."

AP: "Sent to death row 20 years ago as a convicted cop killer, Troy Davis was celebrated as 'martyr and foot soldier' Saturday by more than 1,000 people who packed the pews at his funeral and pledged to keep fighting the death penalty." Savannah Morning News story here.

Los Angeles Times: "California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris will no longer take part in a national foreclosure probe of some of the nation's biggest banks, which are accused of pervasive misconduct in dealing with troubled homeowners. Harris removed herself from talks by a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies investigating abusive foreclosure practices because the nation's five largest mortgage servicers were not offering California homeowners relief commensurate to what people in the state had suffered, Harris told The Times on Friday."

AP: "The Pentagon has decided that military chaplains may perform same-sex unions, whether on or off a military installation. The ruling announced Friday by the Pentagon's personnel chief follows the Sept. 20 repeal of a law that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military."

President Obama spoke at an event honoring outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen late this morning. Voice of America: "U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey will be sworn as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Friday. President Barack Obama will be in attendance when the 37-year veteran becomes the nation's top uniformed officer, replacing retiring Navy Admiral Mike Mullen. Mr. Obama nominated Dempsey to succeed Mullen in May, only a month after Dempsey assumed the post of chief of staff of the Army."

** New York Times: "In a significant and dramatic strike in the campaign against Al Qaeda, the Defense Ministry [in Yemen] said American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading figure in the group’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning. In Washington a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was dead. But the circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear. It was not immediately known whether Yemeni forces carried out the attack or if American intelligence forces, which have been pursuing Mr. Awlaki for months, were involved in the operation." ...

     ... ** Updated Lede: "Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who was a leading figure in Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate and was considered its most dangerous English-speaking propagandist, was killed in an American drone strike that deliberately targeted his vehicle on Friday, officials in Washington and Yemen said. They said the strike also killed a radical American colleague traveling with Mr. Awlaki who edited Al Qaeda’s online jihadist magazine." (Emphasis added.) ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Yemen’s official news agency reported that the young Web-savvy American thought to be behind Inspire, a magazine for Al Qaeda, was killed in the same Friday strike that killed the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The report, citing an unnamed defense official, said the man, Samir Khan, was killed in the strike, along with two other people, and identified him as an American citizen and a computer specialist."

Washington Post: "Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged Thursday making the final decision to allow [Solyndra,] a struggling solar company, to continue receiving taxpayer money after it had technically defaulted on a $535 million federal loan guaranteed by his agency.... Also Thursday, a law enforcement official confirmed that the criminal probe of Solyndra is focused on whether the company and its officers misrepresented the firm’s finances to the government in seeking the loan or engaged in accounting fraud."

Washington Post: "After a remarkable run as the most successful atom smasher in the world, the Tevatron — a four-mile underground ring about 50 miles west of Chicago — will smash no more. At 2 p.m., Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, the Energy Department facility that operates the Tevatron, will command the shutdown of the mammoth machine. Operators will switch off dual beams of particles that have been colliding since 1985, sprouting terrific sprays of fleeting particles that offered a glimpse of the subatomic world."

The Hill: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment Democrats in Congress don't have enough votes to pass President Obama's jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change." The WLS Radio report is here.

Can You Hear Us Now? Crain's New York: "The city's most experienced agitators — the labor and community groups that typically organize local marches, rallies and sit-ins — have been largely missing from the Occupy Wall Street protest.... But that's about to change. A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week.... The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks...."

Los Angeles Times: "Pakistani political leaders meeting Thursday in the capital [Islamabad] denounced U.S. allegations that the country's premier spy agency assisted insurgents in attacking American targets in Afghanistan, but also stressed the need to keep lines of communication open with Washington."

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