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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Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Thursday
Oct202011

The Commentariat -- October 21

This just in: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) cancelled his speech on income inequality scheduled to be held this morning at the University of Pennsylvania when he learned the University would allow poor people to attend. -- Reality Chex -- Where We Occasionally OutFox Fox

** "The Austerity Class Rules Washington." Ari Berman of The Nation: "... how, in the midst of a massive unemployment crisis ... did the deficit emerge as the most pressing issue in the country? And why, when the global evidence clearly indicates that austerity measures will raise unemployment and hinder, not accelerate, growth, do advocates of austerity retain such distinction today? An explanation can be found in the prominence of an influential and aggressive austerity class — an allegedly centrist coalition of politicians, wonks and pundits... [some of whom get massive funding from right-wing benefactors]. ...

... I keep thinking he’s a few weeks away from proposing serious tax reform and entitlement reform. But each time he gets close, he rips the football away. -- David Brooks, Prince of Austerity, on President Obama ...

... Right now, front-loaded deficit reduction would be a disaster. But a commitment to future deficit reduction, if it’s out of tune with the economic recovery, as Bowles-Simpson was, would also be a disaster. Even if it happens in the future, it could have an adverse effect today. People will say, If I’m going to be poorer in the future, I’m going to have to put more money away today. -- Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress posts two charts, the second of which is a testament to the effectiveness of Occupy Wall Street. "A ThinkProgress review of the media coverage of the last week of July found that the word 'debt' was mentioned more than 7,000 times on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and 'unemployed'' was only mentioned 75 times":

     ... BUT here's what the sam news channels were talking about the week of October 10-16. Look at the Top 4:

... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Despite the best efforts of trained pundits..., Americans seem remarkably unperturbed by the menace of Occupy Wall Street. In fact, the majority supports the protesters. According to a National Journal poll, 59 percent of Americans agree with Occupy Wall Street, while 31 percent disagree — a level of support comparable to that found by a Time magazine survey last week. The Post’s Greg Sargent has thoughtfully broken down the data and found that the group that should resent the occupiers most — working-class whites — doesn’t resent them any more than anyone else does.... Occupy Wall Street ... is channeling ire — our ire — where ire should go: toward the banks that have fostered and profited from America’s decline." Thanks to Janice K. for the link. ...

... Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "The Occupy Wall Street protests that began as a nebulous mix of social and economic grievances are becoming more politically organized — with help from some of the country’s largest labor unions. Labor groups are mobilizing to provide office space, meeting rooms, photocopying services, legal help, food and other necessities to the protesters. The support is lending some institutional heft to a movement that has prided itself on its freewheeling, non-institutional character. And in return, Occupy activists are pitching in to help unions ratchet up action against several New York firms involved in labor disputes with workers." ...

Photos via NBC News.... "'Tax Me, I'm Good for It': Rich Join Occupy Protest. Miranda Leitsinger of NBC News: "United under the banner 'We are the 1 percent: We stand with the 99 percent,' a band of entrepreneurs, trust fund babies, professionals and inheritors has taken to the web to share their abhorrence of corporate greed and support for tax code changes that would see them pay a higher share of their considerable wealth. Among other things, they’re posting their stories on a Tumblr page created by Wealth for the Common Good and Resource Generation, two groups dedicated to working for 'fair taxation and just wealth distribution.'" ...

... Robert Reich: the GOP presidential debates are giving Republicans a lot of free air time to tout their regressive programs while "the President’s answers don’t nearly match up to the magnitude of the crisis.... The nation needs a real jobs plan, one of sufficient size and scope to do the job – including a WPA and a Civilian Conservation Corps, to put the millions of long-term unemployed and young unemployed to work rebuilding America." Reich presents a laundry list of progressive policy initiatives that would put the U.S. back to work & reduce income inequality. "If Americans stand together and demand real reform, we can have a real national debate in 2012."

CW: if you're wondering why "moderate" Republicans would vote against jobs legislation that would help most of their constituents & would be paid for by a small "millionaires' surtax," Jonathan Foser of Political Correction has one answer: Olympia "Snowe's [R-Maine] vote against a jobs bill that would greatly help Maine simply because it would raise taxes on about 375 of the state's richest residents doesn't make much sense — but it's certainly easier to understand if Snowe and her husband are among those fortunate few."

Right Wing World

Gee, here's Marco Rubio, signing election documents qualifying him to run for the U.S. Senate. Seated next to him is his father Mario Rubio, the supposed "exile" from the horrors of Castro's Cuba. The Post story suggests Sen. Rubio fingered his parents for making up the story of their forced immigration. Right.U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tells a compelling story of his family's immigration to the U.S. from revolution-torn Cuba. Trouble is, it isn't true. Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "He was the 'son of exiles,' he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after 'a thug,' Fidel Castro, took power. But ... documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 2-1/2 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959. The supposed flight of Rubio’s parents has been at the core of the young senator’s political identity, both before and after his stunning, tea-party-propelled victory in last year’s race for the U.S. Senate. Rubio — now considered a prospective 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee and a possible future presidential candidate — mentions his parents in the second sentence of the official biography on his Senate Web site. It says Mario and Oriales Rubio 'came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.'"

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "... Rick Perry and Mitt Romney both refused to even mention [President] Obama's name in their statements on Libya. And rising GOP star Marco Rubio made the conservative party line even more explicit: 'Let's give credit where credit is due: it's the French and the British that led in this fight, and probably even led on the strike that led to Gadhafi's capture, and, or, you know, to his death.' And Obama? Well, he didn't do enough and took too long to do it etc. etc.... What the hell is their problem? Obama has escalated our presence dramatically in Afghanistan; he created a massive drone air force that's all but wiped out al-Qaeda in Pakistan; he killed Osama bin Laden; he approved a multilateral military operation in Libya that ended up killing Muammar Qaddafi; he sent a SEAL team out to kill Somali pirates; he assassinates U.S. citizens in foreign countries who are associated with al-Qaeda; and he's done more to isolate and sanction Iran than George Bush ever did. Crikey. Just how bloodthirsty do they want the guy to be?

Flip-Flop-Flip-Flop-Flip. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "The one consistency [in Mitt Romney's positions on US involvement in the NATO mission is Libya] has been criticism of President Obama. But beyond that, he’s seemed a bit all over the Libyan map." Tapper lists five evolving positions Romney has taken since March, the last being similar to the first. ...

... ** Jed Lewison of Daily Kos, who is a master at capturing Republicans on tape, follows the Flip-Flop King on health care:

... Back when Mitt Romney was an environmentalist:

     ... But that Mitt Romney, as Paul Krugman points out, "has been replaced by a Republican pod person. Or maybe he never existed — as the YouTube caption points out, this was in 2003, and those stiffer regulations never materialized."

Lauri Apple of Gawker: Tea Party Nation, one of the major tea party organizations, is urging small businesses to pledge not to hire workers "until Obama's 'war' against their businesses and their country ends.... [The] main point is that Obama and the 'Democrat-controlled Senate' are a bunch of traitors who have joined up with Occupy Wall Street/a global socialist movement and various unnamed Hollywood celebrities to achieve the redistribution of wealth.... Stop socialism by stopping capitalism. Makes total sense. I dare you to come up with a better idea." CW: so with millions out of work, it would be a good idea if we artificially put millions more out of work. Reader Jeanne B., who sent me the link, would like to hear what tea-party-backed Members of Congress think of this plan. So would I.

The GOP Jobs Plan = More Pollution! Paul Krugman: "So what is the G.O.P. jobs plan? The answer, in large part, is to allow more pollution. So what you need to know is that weakening environmental regulations would do little to create jobs and would make us both poorer and sicker." ...

... Rachel Maddow interviews Krugman on the Republicans' competing over who can come up with the most simple-minded flat tax:

The Tax Policy Center analyzes Herman Cain's 999 plan. Herman Gleckman summarizes (via Krugman):

A middle income household making between about $64,000 and $110,000 would get hit with an average tax increase of about $4,300, lowering its after-tax income by more than 6 percent and increasing its average federal tax rate (including income, payroll, estate and its share of the corporate income tax) from 18.8 percent to 23.7 percent. By contrast, a taxpayer in the top 0.1% (who makes more than $2.7 million) would enjoy an average tax cut of nearly$1.4 million, increasing his after-tax income by nearly 27 percent. His average effective tax rate would be cut almost in half to 17.9 percent. In Cain’s world, a typical household making more than $2.7 million would pay a smaller share of its income in federal taxes than one making less than $18,000.

Uh-oh. Another question Herman Cain "misunderstood": Wednesday he indicated he was personally opposed to abortion but was pro-choice because he opposed government interference on social matters. Today he's not pro-choice anymore. (See yesterday's Commentariat.) A day before that, he "misunderstood" Wolf Blitzer's question when he said that as president he would negotiate with terrorists. (See Wednesday's Commentariat.) Now, if someone can get Cain to admit he misunderstood his 999 tax plan....

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Rupert Murdoch and his sons survived a shareholder challenge to their control of News Corp. Following the company's annual meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, News Corp. announced that Murdoch, his sons James and Lachlan, and the remainder of the board had been reelected -- despite calls from some shareholders for their ouster." The Guardian story (here) calls shareholder dissent "a blow" to Murdoch: "... he was berated by shareholders and some of the world's largest investors voted against his re-election, and that of his sons, to the News Corp board." More from the Guardian here on the "shareholders' revolt."

Los Angeles Times: "Moammar Kadafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, about $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, according to senior Libyan officials." ...

... Guardian: "Bloodied, wearing just a pair of khaki trousers, and dumped on a cheap mattress, Muammar Gaddafi's body has become a gruesome tourist attraction.... Hundreds of ordinary Libyans queued up outside a refrigerated meat store in Misrata, where the dead dictator was being stored as a trophy.... Wounds on Gaddafi's body appeared to confirm that he was indeed killed in cold blood in the chaotic minutes following his capture on Thursday."

President Obama honored the recipients of the National Medal of Science & National Medal of Technology & Innovation this afternoon. See video here.

ABC News: "President Obama today announced that the United States will pull all its troop from Iraq by the end of the year.... 'The rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,' the president said. 'After nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.'” See video in today's Commentariat.

AP: "The burial of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi has been delayed until the circumstances of his death can be further examined and a decision is made about where to bury the body, Libyan officials said Friday, as the U.N. human rights office called for an investigation into his death. The transitional leadership had said it would bury the dictator Friday in accordance with Islamic tradition. Bloody images of Gadhafi's last moments in the hands of angry captors have raised questions over his treatment minutes before his death." Guardian story here. Al Jazeera story here. ...

... New York Times: "A small group of fighters from Misurata, the vanguard of the force attacking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s former hometown and final hide-out, Surt, said they had stumbled upon him hiding in a drainage pipe. He was bleeding from his head and chest, but he was well enough to speak, with his trademark indignation. 'When he saw us, he said, "What’s happening?" Those were the words that he spoke,' said Omran Shaaban, a 21-year-old Misurata fighter who said he and a friend were the first men in their unit to find the colonel." Al Jazeera story here.

AP: "The Senate voted early Friday to reject a Republican effort to prohibit the United States from prosecuting foreign terrorist suspects in civilian courts, handing a victory to President Barack Obama. By 52-47, senators turned aside a proposal by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (AY-aht), R-N.H., that would have forced such trials to occur before military tribunals or commissions."

New York Times: "For the second time in 10 days, the Senate on Thursday rejected Democratic efforts to take up a jobs bill championed by President Obama. The vote to advance the bill was 50 to 50. Democrats needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. This time, the bill was narrowed to provide $35 billion to state and local governments to prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers and firefighters. To offset the cost, the bill would impose a surtax of 0.5 percent, starting in 2013, on income in excess of $1 million."

New York Times: "Germany and France, still at odds over a more forceful response to the sovereign debt crisis, postponed a decision-making summit meeting for several days amid signs that the complexities of European politics may block an all-encompassing resolution."

AP: "The Obama administration on Friday intensified pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Islamist militants destabilizing Afghanistan, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan for too long. For the second time in two days, Clinton pressed Pakistani authorities to step up efforts against the Haqqani militant network...."

AP: "The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns. The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade and those who did not."

New York Times: "After trying to mollify its critics in recent years by offering better health care benefits to its employees, Wal-Mart is substantially rolling back coverage for part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many full-time staff." CW: Another reason not to shop at Wal-Mart.

New York Times: "The annual News Corporation shareholders meeting ... is expected to be the company’s most contentious in years, with frustrated shareholders taking the microphone to demand accountability after a phone-hacking scandal in Britain that has embarrassed the company." News Corp. is Rupert Murdoch's company. The meeting is to be held today in Los Angeles.

Guardian: "The world is getting warmer, countering the doubts of climate change sceptics about the validity of some of the scientific evidence, according to the most comprehensive independent review of historical temperature records to date. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, found several key issues that sceptics claim can skew global warming figures had no meaningful effect. The Berkeley Earth project compiled more than a billion temperature records dating back to the 1800s...."

Guardian: "The American state of Alabama has put to death a prisoner who over many years showed signs of mental illness – in spite of the US supreme court outlawing the execution of mentally ill people on the grounds it is unconstitutional. Christopher Johnson died by lethal injection at Holman prison in Atmore, Alabama."

Al Jazeera: "Turkey and Iran have vowed to collaborate in their fight against Kurdish fighters, as thousands of Turkish troops resumed their air and ground offensive against the armed groups in northern Iraq for a second day. The foreign ministers of the two countries announced plans to co-operate against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Iranian wing, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) during a joint news conference held in Ankara on Friday."

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