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.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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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

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Sunday
Oct292017

The Commentariat -- October 29, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Sad! Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, President Trump expressed frustration that his campaign is under investigation over possible ties to Russia's plot to influence the 2016 election but that his former opponent Hillary Clinton is not facing the same level of scrutiny. In four tweets sent over 24 minutes, Trump wrote: 'Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?), the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia, "collusion," which doesn't exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R's are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!'

Frances Robles & Christina Caron of the New York Times: "Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico has asked the governing board of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to 'immediately' cancel its contract with Whitefish Energy, he announced on Sunday. The decision came two days after the Federal Emergency Management Agency expressed 'significant concerns' about how Whitefish, a small Montana company, won a contract for up to $300 million to rebuild part of Puerto Rico's electrical grid after it was severely damaged last month by Hurricane Maria. Whitefish is based in the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke."

*****

A Calendar of His Own: When 10/26/2017 Is Not 10/26/2017. Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "President Trump tweeted Saturday that the sealed files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were released 'long ahead of schedule.' 'JFK Files are released, long ahead of schedule!' Trump tweeted.... The Trump administration released about 2,800 files surrounding the case late Thursday, a date that had been set by Congress in 1992. Trump had blocked the release of about 3,000 of the documents late Thursday. But the administration announced Friday that they would be releasing redacted versions of the documents over the next few months.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: One of the instant tests doctors give patients to see if they are mentally sound -- I just saw it on a teevee show yesterday, so it must be true! -- is whether or not the patients know what day and year it is. Trump just flunked that test, in writing. Twenty-fifth Amendment, please! I'm kinda not kidding, in the the same way Paul Ryan "was sort of joking" when he said Trump's being in Asia would help him get his tax bill passed. Seriously, when a person is so far gone he defends his missteps (or his administration's missteps) by denying what MO/DA/YR it is, there's something way out of whack in the space between his ears.

A Charles Boyer of Our Own (If Not So Debonair). Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "On Friday, while prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, obtained their first grand-jury indictments in their investigation of potential collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia, the President of the United States was busy gaslighting. Trump tweeted, of course, that 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!' The President was referring to an episode that took place in 2010 whereby the Obama Administration gave a Russian firm permission to buy a Canadian company that had the rights to mine a great deal of uranium in the U.S.... I highly recommend this detailed account from FactCheck.org, which concludes, 'Donald Trump falsely accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of giving away U.S. uranium rights to the Russians and claimed -- without evidence -- that it was done in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.'... Trump is once again spreading lies to confuse the public about the Russian attack on American democracy last year.... Trump's typical response to any allegation of wrongdoing is to accuse his accuser of the same crime." ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post also has a very useful "guide to the latest allegations" on "the 'dossier' and the uranium deal." Mrs. McC: These sensible reviews will have no impact whatsoever on Trump or his hair-on-fire Congressional enablers. ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: Pundits have been speculating on the who & what-for special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to indict this week. "What isn't speculation is the fact that, five months into his investigation, Mueller has brought a first set of criminal charges. By the standards of recent special prosecutors, that is fast work, and it confirms Muelle's reputation as someone who doesn't like to dally. Now that he has started arresting people, there is no reason to suppose he will stop. And that is precisely the message he wants to send." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: The video below is super. Many thanks to NJC for linking it. ...

 

 

 

Mueller Drives Trump Pals over the Edge

Violent. Ryan Parker of the Hollywood Reporter: "Roger Stone has been banned from Twitter permanently after a vulgar meltdown Friday aimed at CNN reporters, which included threats, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The close friend and former adviser to Donald Trump went on a tirade after CNN reported Robert Mueller approved the first charges into his investigation on the Russian meddling of the 2016 presidential election.... A source with direct knowledge of the situation told THR the suspension is permanent.... '.@donlemon stop lying about about the Clinton's and Uranium you ignorant lying covksucker !!!! You fake news you dumb piece of shit,' Stone wrote in one tweet." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Speaking of ignorant, lying cocksuckers (she said demurely), it appears from his limited command of the English language that Stone is more ignorant than Trump.

Delusional. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a Saturday morning interview on Fox & Friends, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was asked how he thinks news special counsel Robert Mueller has filed his first charges is being received in the White House. Lewandowski ... responded by insisting that what's needed is new scrutiny of the nonexistent 'Clinton administration.'"


Crooked Donnie, Ctd. Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: "President Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., is expected to launch two residential projects in India for the Trump Organization in the coming weeks, continuing the family's promotion of the Trump empire despite concerns over the president' potential conflicts of interest with foreign governments. The Trump Organization vowed early on there would be 'no new foreign deals' during Trump's tenure as president; these two projects in India were inked before his election. But the high-profile launches demonstrate that the pledge comes with an asterisk -- agreements made years ago can move forward or be revitalized, such as the Trump' 2007 deal to build a luxury beachfront resort in the Dominican Republic that may be revived, according to an Associated Press report."

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Fusion GPS, the research firm behind the dossier containing allegations about ... Donald Trump and Russia, its bank and the House intelligence committee have reached an agreement over the panel's subpoena of Fusion's financial records. The agreement comes amid revelations that Perkins Coie -- the law firm representing Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee -- and the conservative Washington Free Beacon separately paid the firm to conduct research on Trump."

They Really Don't Know What They're Doing. Kimberly Kindy & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "As Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in late August, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director William 'Brock' Long said he wanted to avoid a repeat of Katrina-style temporary housing that shattered New Orleans communities.... But less than a week later, FEMA went on a mobile home-buying binge, spending nearly $300 million on 4,500 units, the largest purchase of the homes since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, federal contracting records show. Another 1,700 mobile homes in FEMA's inventory were also readied. Yet most of those homes remain warehoused. FEMA has made the hunt for permanent rental housing its top priority and is reluctant to deploy the notorious homes and trailers.... That decision is crippling recovery efforts in states where thousands of people remain in shelters and hotels more than six weeks after massive hurricanes destroyed their homes. Now in Texas and Florida -- where rental stock is inadequate -- state officials are cranking up the pressure on FEMA to release the mobile units." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course, if the object was to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on items which FEMA deemed unusable, then they do know what they're doing. AND it's worth remembering that last month "The federal government auctioned off disaster-response trailers at fire-sale prices just before Harvey devastated southeast Texas, reducing an already diminished supply of mobile homes ahead of what could become the nation's largest-ever housing mission."

Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "That fishy contract to rebuild Puerto Rico's electric grid is now a bona fide scandal.... the U.S. government is scrutinizing PREPA's [Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority] decision to award such a large contract to such a small and deeply shady company. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general to review the contract, and a congressional committee is investigating whether any 'inappropriate conduct' led to the decision. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also said it has 'significant concerns' with how PREPA procured the deal. It was suspicious enough that the $300 million contract, as The Washington Post revealed earlier this week, had been awarded to Whitefish Energy, a tiny and unknown company based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown in Montana. The Daily Beast then reported that Whitefish's CEO is friends with Zinke, and that the company is primarily financed by a large donor to ... Donald Trump.... The contract also shields Whitefish from legal liability if they screw up the job, and prevents government authorities from auditing the company."

The GOP Is Dreaming up Ways to Screw You. Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: Congressional Republicans' "tax bill includes giant reductions in business taxes. Figuring out how to pay for tax cuts is ... especially complicated in today's bitterly partisan atmosphere. Republican lawmakers intend to push through a bill without any Democratic support -- but there is a catch. The single-party strategy in this case triggers a rule that requires the policy to have no impact on the budget at the end of 10 years. To make the math work, lawmakers need to come up with the revenue to pay for the cuts sooner rather than later. That's where 401(k)'s come in. Rather than allow workers to continue delaying their tax payments, the Republican leadership wants to collect tax revenue on most new contributions upfront so they can use it to pay for those expensive corporate tax cuts. That's the equivalent of a middle-class tax increase." The GOP plan also would "cap the amount of tax-deferred [401(k)] contributions at $2,400 a year...." Emphasis added.

NEW. Peter Keating of New York: "The new[ly-released Kennedy] papers do add to the case for a cover-up, but it's a different cover-up than buffs brought up on Oliver Stone's batshit-crazy JFK are looking for: It's not a plot to kill Kennedy that government officials have spent the past 54 years hiding, it's all kinds of other dirty pool."

Beyond the Beltway

Doug Stanglin & Stephanie Ingersoll of USA Today: "Opponents outnumbered white nationalists Saturday in peaceful 'White Lives Matter' rallies in Tennessee that were punctuated by taunts and chants from both sides. In Shelbyville, the site of the first rally, some 200 white nationalists -- met by nearly twice as many counter protesters -- carried a Confederate flag and chanted for closed borders and deportations at a mid-morning gathering.... The protesters showed up here and in Shelbyville, 25 miles south, despite comments by Gov. Bill Haslam that 'these folks' were not welcome in the state." ...

... According to this report by Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post, it would appear that counter-protesters not only outnumbered the bigot brigade, they also out-prepared them. So finally, "In Murfreesboro..., a second set of counterprotesters lined the roadway, ready to challenge attendees of the second rally. But the rally didn’t happen; the bus of white supremacists never showed up."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (10)

I'm thinking president* trumptheliar probably fired Roger Stone
when he saw that tattoo of Richard Nixon on Roger's back and was
really, really jealous that it wasn't of himself.

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered Commenterforrest morris

@forrest morris: You have proved many a time that you have a great sense of humor, so naturally I thought you were kidding about the Nixon tattoo on Stone's back. Uh, no, it's real. Nothing weird about that.

October 29, 2017 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Since it's Sunday–– the Lord's day–--here is the extraordinary story of "The Lost Children of Tuam––Ireland's buried, shameful past revealed. This piece from the NYT is lengthy, has pictures, and has a documentary embedded. Many of us have known about this but perhaps did not know the real story of the woman who was responsible for the dogged detective work that was need to unravel the horrors.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/28/world/europe/tuam-ireland-babies-children.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Some amusement for your Sunday viewing pleasure:
https://twitter.com/puestoloco/status/924297805979705344

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterNJC

@PDPepe: Read it yesterday, really horrible what happened back in Ireland. Ghastly how these children were disposed of with little or no medical care amidst their suffering.

Another take on some additional references as to how things transpired under the care of the 'Church' in Ireland and the secrecy it involved, is the film "Philomena" with Judi Dench.
But, this story has a happier conclusion. (On Netflix).

@Mrs.McCrab(bie): Mind if I call you that for short?
Week to week, day to day...we are exposed to the idiots in the Trump administration or known associates with disreputable histories. Corey Lewandowski, Scott Brown, Flynn, Manafort, and the list goes on. Please, 'Bobby Three Sticks' let the indictments begin.

Yeah, and the 2-man Montana firm that ended up with a $300-million-dollar contract in Puerto Rico...nah, nothing suspect there!

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Oh Wow! NJC. That video is FUNNY!

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

@MAG, did you mean "Philomena" had a happier conclusion?
If you consider that "happier" I'm not sure I want to watch the other story!
One take-away from the Philomena story is that her son (despite being gay) ended up being one of the Republican architects of the plan to take over the State governments via gerrymandering. What-ifs abound.

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered Commentercakers

Taking a cue from Shelley’s quote about seeing the the future by looking at the past, I am, this weekend, moving back and forth from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. I am having a hell of a time (literally) gliding through a new (for me) translation of Dante’s Inferno (the Pinsky), I am reminded that, as he painted the Last Judgement, Michelangelo hired someone to read the Inferno as accompaniment to his depiction of that apocalyptic event, triggering a passing fancy involving one of Bob Mueller’s warriors doing the same as he mounts his case against the little king and his band of traitors and liars and hypocrites.

Speaking of hypocrites, in Canto XXIII, as Dante and Virgil enter the 8th Ring where miscreants punished for sins of fraud stumble through eternity, they wear bright, decorous orange (!) cloaks, but inside they are turned to lead, an appropriate fate for hypocritical con men. Ahh...would that life could mimic art.

Leaping across two centuries, I move from hell to Poland, a wonderful book on Copernicus’ uncentering of the earth, written by the peripatetic William T. Vollmann who applies his typical blend of unusual thought processes with a prose style to die for. Considering the limits of empiricism for scientists of Copernicus’s age, he remarks on how far he was able to get without access to a telescope (and the problems that lack inscribed into his work) and reminds readers of the many who refused to look through Galileo’s once that instrument became available. The fear was that new information would challenge their comfortable worldview.

Sound familiar?

Well, enough dilly dallying, it’s back to the inferno for me.

What does it say about the Age of Trump that one can find relief by going straight to hell?

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Cakers: Yes, there's always that ...yeah, but... to every story.
And now I do recall some of the rest. Thanks for the reminder!

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Just spent two hours hauling and storing squash in a heavy fog. Might be a beautiful fall day out there but as of 11AM, it's still impossible to tell.

Not reading Dante, Akhilleus, but the fog did engender a few thoughts. First, whence the name "Foggy Bottom?" for the State Department, now foggier than ever? Had to look it up because I didn't know. Turns out the department moved in 1947 to a section of D.C. already known for its fog. Blame the Potomac. In the minds of the pundits anyway, it was a natural fit. Curiosity satisfied.

But then there's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and its fog machine, in fact and metaphor so central to its plot and message.

Today's somnambulating State Dept is foggy enough, but the machine that generates only obfuscation and untruth 24/7 resides in the White House. In fact the machine is the WH, and its effect is so great, so widespread, it's hard to tell if the national fog machine is doing its work at the behest of the WH's criminal inhabitants or has now overcome its operators.

With each tweet, even the Pretender, always the foggiest of all, seems to get mistier and more untethered with each passing day.

October 29, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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