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
Sep172011

The Commentariat -- September 18

I've posted an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "... the debate [over the U.S. tax code] has revolved around 'loopholes' for corporate jets and ending 'carve-outs' for well-heeled special interests. But if the goal is debt reduction, that’s not where the money is. Broad tax breaks granted to millions of families at all income levels dwarf the corporate giveaways. Over the past two years, largely because of these popular benefits in the federal income tax code, the government has reached a rare milestone in tax collection — it has given away nearly as much as it takes in. The number of tax breaks has nearly doubled since the last major tax overhaul 25 years ago, with lawmakers adding new benefits for children, college tuition, retirement savings and investment. At the same time, some long-standing breaks have exploded in value.... All told, federal taxpayers last year received $1.08 trillion in credits, deductions and other perks while paying $1.09 trillion in income taxes, according to government estimates." ...

... Steve Benen on tomorrow's speech in which President Obama will roll out his deficit-reduction plan: "Everything we’ve seen from Obama this month suggests this White House has chosen a new posture when dealing with the GOP..... For those who’ve been urging Obama to adopt progressive principles and show a willingness to fight, it’s worth appreciating the fact that the president is doing exactly as they recommended."

Former President Bill Clinton speaks to ABC News' Christiane Amanpour about the Clinton Global Initiative, which will concentrate on American jobs this year. Clinton "says that partisanship in Washington is hampering any ability to reach economic solutions for the country":

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Sylvia Nasar, in a New York Times op-ed, on economist John Maynard Keynes, whom she describes as "the Winston Churchill of economics, radiating optimism when things looked bleakest, never so happily engaged as in a national or global emergency." Unlike earlier economists, who practiced "the dismal science," the school of economics Alfred "Marshall pioneered and Keynes and others innovated was a genuine revolution in human thinking that changed the lives of everyone on the globe."

Charles Darwin. Illustration by Carl Wiens for the New York Times.Rivalry of the Fittest. Economist Robert Frank in the New York Times: Naturalist Charles Darwin's "understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than [economist Adam] Smith’s.... Darwin ... understood that competition often favored traits that brought misery to all.... Frank then uses his Darwin-as-Economist theory to argue that market competition is often wasteful, & a "progressive consumption tax" would cause less waste than the income tax. CW: This sounds like a scam to make the super-rich richer (especially because Milton Friedman -- according to Frank -- thought it was a good idea), but I'd have to ask Krugman. ... Update: okay, I will ask Krugman. Update 2: so I did ask Krugman, who is traveling now, if he'd speak to the consumption tax in a blogpost. Anyway, the illustration is cute.

Bryan Burrough of the New York Times: Retirement Heist, a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Ellen Schultz, reveals that "many of the largest American companies have systematically plundered their employees’ pension funds, at once robbing their workers of hard-won benefits and enriching their own profits." Burroughs doesn't think much of the narrative flow of the book, but the facts are outrageous & heartbreaking.CW: And buried in his own less-than-fabulous narrative style, is the fact that you can blame Washington for letting corporations get away with this massive heist. ...

... The Alternate Plan. Becca Aaronson of the New York Times: "Government employees in Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda Counties [Texas] have controlled their private retirement plan for 30 years. They opted out of Social Security before Congress changed the law in 1983 to prevent others from withdrawing.... Both the G.A.O. and Social Security studies concluded that lower-wage workers, particularly those with many dependents, would fare better under Social Security, while middle- and higher-wage workers were likely to fare better, at least initially, under the Alternate Plan." ...

... Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "Most of the top Republicans running for president are embracing plans to partially privatize Social Security, reviving a contentious issue that fizzled under President George W. Bush after Democrats relentlessly attacked it."

NEW. Peter Wallsten & Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Obama administration officials scrambled Friday to hunt down copies of a new book scheduled to be released next week that paints an unflattering portrait of a dysfunctional and acrimonious White House that sometimes stymied President Obama’s effort to rescue the country’s economy. The book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President,” by journalist Ron Suskind, comes at an inconvenient time for an administration that increasingly finds itself on the defensive over questions of effectiveness." ...

[OMB Director Peter] Orszag told Suskind, according to the book: 'Larry [Summers] just didn’t think the president knew what he was deciding.' Meeting over dinner at the Bombay Club one night, Summers told Orszag..., according to the book. 'I mean it,' Summers said. 'We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.' ...

... ** David Dayen of Firedoglake: "I actually laughed out loud when I read that last part. Because the seeds of the Great Recession were planted while Clinton was 'the adult in charge' — at the urging of none other than Larry Summers (and his partner in crime, Robert Rubin).... Unfortunately, Obama may never recover from appointing people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner in January 2009."

Barbara Blaine in the Guardian on why her group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has brought a suit in the International Criminal Court at The Hague charging the Pope & the Vatican with crimes against humanity.

Prof. Cynthia Tucker re: the impending execution of Troy Davis: "... there are ... compelling arguments that point to Davis' innocence -- that suggest, instead, he was set up by the actual triggerman and witnesses who lied to protect themselves. That's the problem with this case: There is now reasonable doubt. The American criminal justice system ... isn't well-equipped to handle such doubts after a man has already been convicted by the proverbial jury of his peers. So Davis is set to die by lethal injection on Sept. 21 unless the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, his last hope, grants him clemency."

Chrissie Thompson of the Detroit Free Press analyzes the GM-UAW contract. "Both General Motors and the UAW can claim victories with the tentative labor contract they reached Friday night after seven weeks of sometimes-exhausting negotiations. GM is giving workers $5,000 signing bonuses, adding thousands of jobs and dishing out a $3-an-hour raise for entry-level workers. But by adding more low-cost, entry-level workers, buying out highly paid skilled-trades workers and denying the union a cost-of-living adjustment, GM should be able to build each car more cheaply for years to come."

Right Wing World *

Both Gail Collins & Maureen Dowd comment on Rick Perry; Dowd concentrates on his dumbness, & Collins on his provincialism.

Making Up Stuff. Again. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Besides President Obama, the biggest villain in the early Republican debates has been a Republican: Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, who was first appointed by George W. Bush and previously served as a Bush adviser.... Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney accused Mr. Bernanke of devaluing the dollar through inflation. Newt Gingrich, former House speaker, called Mr. Bernanke 'the most inflationary' chairman ever." But in fact, "Under Mr. Bernanke, inflation has been lower than under any other Fed chairman in the past 40 years — and lower than in the five years before he took over." CW: they just don't like someone who dares to suggest helping the economy during a Democratic presidency is patriotic.

* Where dumb & provincial are winning attributes.

News Ledes

New York Times: "President Obama will unveil a deficit-reduction plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce government spending by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years.... The plan ... is the administration’s opening salvo in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not struck by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.... Aides said Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy." Washington Post story here.

NBC News: "Texas congressman Ron Paul won the California Republican straw poll Saturday after making several speeches at the GOP state convention...."

Oh, how could I have missed this? Politico: "Rick Santorum captured a home-state straw poll win of Pennsylvania Republicans on Friday night. Santorum, the two-term Pennsylvania senator, won 36 percent of the vote from state committee members, beating Mitt Romney’s 25 percent and Rick Perry’s 18 percent. No one else here cracked double-digits." CW: ... which gives you a glimmer of how important straw polls are.

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