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.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Tuesday
Sep202011

The Commentariat -- September 21

John Dickerson of Slate thinks this time the President really means what he says -- because "the previous approach [of caving] didn't work." CW: yeah, we noticed. ...

... I've posted a "Does He Really Mean It This Time?" page on Off Times Square today. You can write on this or something else, as usual. ...

... David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "President Obama's proposal for a new tax on millionaires echoes a call in many countries struggling with budget deficits and overwhelming debts to make the wealthy pay more. Britain and France have imposed new taxes on their highest earners — and Italy, Spain, Greece and Japan are considering similar moves.... Obama ... has also framed his plan as a way to make the system more equitable. Specifically, his proposal would counteract decades of tax reductions for most Americans that have given the wealthy the most benefit. But the idea being embraced by much of the world faces strong opposition in the United States from Republicans and other conservatives who say it would harm the economy and cost jobs." CW: another he said/he said report. ...

... Steve Benen finds some cracks in the Republicans' no new taxes ever policy. Benen notes that this is because all the polls are against the GOP policy; Americans want the rich to pay more.

** "Doom!" The Lessons of History Fall on Deaf Ears. John Judis has an excellent long piece in The New Republic: "Unless there is a fundamental — and difficult-to-imagine — change in the way our politics interacts with our economy, the United States and much of the world are headed for a very grim future." I highly recommend it, especially to our conservative readers who are trying to decide which Republican candidate will do the least harm. Answer: None of 'em. ...

... Paul Krugman recommends Judis' article & adds, "The amazing thing now is not that we’re having a crisis, it’s the fact that we’re having the same crisis, and making the same mistakes. A lot of the blame goes to the economists, by the way, who abandoned what they used to know — and many of whom are giving bad advice now, I firmly believe, based more on ego and political affiliation than on analysis. That is, I believe that we’re looking at a moral failure as well as an intellectual failure."

David Corn, in The New Republic, parodies & takes down David Brooks for his nasty little lies about the Obama deficit-reduction plan. ...

... Tim Noah, also in The New Republic, is just plain sick of Brooks' bullshit about the rich paying all the taxes & how Obama is being "mean and intransigent" because he won't give the rich a break. Noah writes, "Oh, please. The top 10 percent pays nearly 70 percent of all income taxes [about which Brooks whined] because the top 10 percent makes half the income." ...

... AND ...

... "you people" being Brooks. Krugman writes, "Tax policy has very much leaned into that growing inequality, not against it — and anyone who says otherwise should not be trusted on this issue, or any other." (Emphasis added.) CW: it is stunning that one NYT columnist would call another completely untrustworthy, and that's what Krugman said about Brooks today: that David Brooks cannot be trusted to be honest about any issue.

New York Times Editors: "Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for the 1989 killing of a police officer in Savannah, Ga. The Georgia pardon and parole board’s refusal to grant him clemency is appalling in light of developments after his conviction: reports about police misconduct, the recantation of testimony by a string of eyewitnesses and reports from other witnesses that another person had confessed to the crime.... The board’s failure to commute Mr. Davis’s death sentence to life without parole was a tragic miscarriage of justice." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Salon on the implications of Davis' impending execution for the death penalty -- and, implicitly -- what it says about Americans.

President Obama should take a moment out of his very busy schedule today to commute the sentence of Mr. Davis to life without possibility of parole. Yes, he can. -- Constant Weader

CW: Bob Reich agrees with me (almost word-for-word! -- see today's Ledes): "Whatever shred of doubt you may have harbored about the determination of congressional Republicans to keep the economy in the dumps through Election Day should now be gone. Today, in advance of a key meeting of the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee to decide what to do about the continuing awful economy and high unemployment, top Republicans ...  stated in no uncertain terms the Fed should take no further action to lower long-term interest rates and juice the economy.... Besides, they've never met a government institution they don’t mind trashing." ...

... Steve Benen: "... the leaders of a major political party appear eager, if not desperate, to prevent steps that may improve the economy. The top four GOP members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House, practically demanded yesterday that no steps be taken at all as our anemic growth stalls and the job crisis intensifies. [CW Note: all links that follow are Benen's, & they point to the evidence of his assertions.] The 'sabotage' question comes up from time to time, and this certainly won’t help. As things stand, Republican leaders, some of whom have admitted that defeating President Obama is their single highest priority, now want the Fed to sit on its hands, want to strip the American Jobs Act of its most effective measures, and want to raise middle-class taxes. Oh, and they’re threatening to shut down the government, too. These are just the positions they’ve talked up over the last week." ...

     ... CW: Actually, Matt, I think the story of the day is the execution of Troy Davis -- a man who may be innocent (see links above). I am physically sick about it.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren appeared on Morning Joe today. And she sticks it to assholes Mark Halperin & Joe Scarborough who think they're going to hit her with a gotcha question:

Josh Boak of Politico: Contra a Republican Congressional parade of industrial whiners, "Federal regulations may not be so bad after all. Challenging a flood of firsthand business testimonials about the burden of federal red tape, new research by environmental and consumer groups suggests some regulations might even lay the groundwork for a lasting economic recovery." Thanks to Doug R. for the link.

Steve Thomma of McClatchy News: "A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that Obama looks increasingly vulnerable in next year's election, with a majority of voters believing he'll lose to any Republican, a solid plurality saying they'll definitely vote against him and most potential Republican challengers gaining on him." CW: Hmm, maybe progressives should be defending Obama more. ...

... AND Andy Borowitz of the award-winning Borowitz Report, always a reliable source for public polling results: "Frustration with President Barack Obama has grown to the point where some voters are now considering replacing him with people who appear to be blatantly brain-damaged, according to a new poll released today."

AlterNet: "Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity ... for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company [which] ... was under contract to the Department of Defense.... The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Wednesday, September 21, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across [the] Internet." CW Warning: horrendous photos accompany the article.

What Ron Suskind wrote in his book on the Obama White House:

Looking back, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace.... Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace for women. -- Anita Dunn

What Dunn actually told Suskind, based on his recorded interview of Dunn, which Washington Post reporters reviewed:

I remember once I told Valerie [Jarrett] that, I said if it weren’t for the president, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace.... Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women. -- Anita Dunn

     -- Via Kevin Drum of Mother Jones. CW: Substantive difference? You betcha.

A Sweatshop in Allentown. Spencer Soper of the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call documents conditions in Allentown's Amazon.com warehouse where summer temperatures regularly rise to 100 degrees with a heat index well above that,they keep a team of paramedics [in an air-conditioned room] to deal with all the heatstroke victims, there have been numerous OSHA complaints including at least one from a doctor who treated heatstroke sufferers, Amazon demands workers perform at super-human speed even under such conditions, and most workers are temps, many of whom get fired & marched out in front of others as examples. CW: Now wonder they call it "Amazon." Allentown has always been a factory town, & it's had a high unemployment rate for decades. There is a high immigrant population there, and it's rough. When I lived in nearby Western New Jersey, politicians used to like to scare their constituents by warning, "If we don't do [whatever], they'll bus people in from Allentown." You might want to think twice before you buy your next book or doodad from Amazon. I'm boycotting the bastards. Thanks to Kate M. for the link.

Would you buy a $16 muffin or pay $8.24 for a cup of coffee? Oh, wait, you already did. But somebody in the DOJ ate it. Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "A report released Tuesday by the [Justice] Department’s acting inspector general, Cynthia A. Schnedar, is full of what she called 'wasteful or extravagant spending' at 10 law enforcement conferences spanning the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Descriptions of cookies and brownies costing the government nearly $10 each and beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres at $7.32 per serving struck a nerve in Washington, where austerity and belt-tightening are the watchwords at a time of economic hardship."

Ed Kilgore, the Democratic Strategist, has a fairly funny piece about Phony Pundits Universal, Ltd. a few of whom immediately crawled out of jumped from the woodwork to decry Obama's dastardly "shift to the left."

Right Wing World

Israel is our oldest and most stable democratic ally in that region.... I also as a Christian have a clear directive to support Israel. So from my perspective, it's pretty easy. Both as an American and as a Christian, I am going to stand with Israel. -- Rick Perry, September 20 ...

... Rick Perry, Way Dumber & More Dangerous than Bush. William Saletan of Slate: "By framing U.S. foreign policy in terms of a religious alliance between Christians and Jews, Perry is validating the propaganda of Islamic extremists. He's jeopardizing peace, Israel, and the United States. [President George W.] Bush understood that the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 wanted a religious war. The key to defeating them wasn't to wage that war, but to refuse it. That's why Bush constantly praised Islam, emphasized American freedom of religion, and dismissed Osama Bin Laden as a renegade killer of Muslims."

Dahlia Lithwick in Slate: "The same Republicans who are dubious of government's ability to do anything right have an apparently bottomless faith in the capital-justice system. Everything is broken in America, they claim—except the machinery of death." CW Note: Lithwick wrote her post before the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Duane Buck, another person Perry was sure it was fine to send to his death.

Mixed Signals. Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "On her visit to a traffic-signal plant Monday, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called it an example of how President Obama's policies are 'continuing to dig us deeper into the hole toward another recession.' Standing before a row of shiny orange trailers carrying portable solar-powered traffic lights, she said her plans for a smaller government with fewer rules and lower spending would help OMJC Signal Inc. 'grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.' ... OMJC thrives on the kind of road and bridge spending that Obama has promoted as a key remedy to the nation's economic slowdown. As much as 80% of OMJC's revenue comes from government, according to the company's chief executive, Arlen Yost..., a conservative Republican.... Yost acknowledged that his company has profited from the infrastructure spending promoted by the president." CW: I'd day Bachmann & Yost are tied for Dumbest. But I'll warrant it's a close one.

Listen to Jerry Brown, Mr. Obama. Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: California Gov. Jerry Brown, who served two terms as governor three decades ago, "has told friends he was unprepared for the extent, in his view, to which Republicans have not made sufficient efforts to accommodate him on critical issues, like putting on the ballot measures to extend taxes to avoid budget cuts.... Again and again, he said, he has found that approaches that once worked ... were no longer effective." CW: the local leaders of Right Wing World want you to fail, Governor.

Not a big deal, BUT ... Juana Summers of Politico: "... a new poll by Public Policy Polling ... showed [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry with a negative approval in Texas: while 45 percent of the state’s voters approve of Perry’s job performance, 48 percent of Texas voters say they don’t approve."

News Ledes

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is updating their Webpage on Troy Davis. The New York Times is also updating their story regularly. You'll have to refresh the pages. Pete Williams on MSNBC-TV just (at about 7:15 pm ET) said it appears Georgia is waiting to hear whether the U.S. Supreme Court will grant a stay. At 8:00 p.m. ET, MSNBC is still reporting Davis' execution has been delayed pending the U.S. Supreme Court decision. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The United States Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch request to step in late Wednesday to stay the Georgia execution of Troy Davis, who was convicted of gunning down a Savannah police officer 22 years ago, after Mr. Davis filed an eleventh-hour plea Wednesday with the high court." ...

     ... At about 10:50 pm ET, Pete Williams of NBC News said it was likely Mr. Davis would be executed tonight. ...

     ... MSNBC Update: Davis was executed at 11:08 pm ET. This is a tragic day for the nation.

President Obama at the U.N.:

     ... The White House site has videos of President Obama meeting in New York City with other world leaders.

President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly this morning. The text of the speech, as prepared, is here (pdf). New York Times: "President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa."

Reuters: "The Federal Reserve on Wednesday looks set to launch a fresh effort to invigorate the faltering economic recovery, embarking on what could be the first in a series of incremental steps to foster stronger growth." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The Federal Reserve announced a new plan Wednesday to stimulate growth by purchasing $400 billion in long-term Treasury securities with proceeds from the sale of short-term government debt, defying Republican demands to refrain from new actions. In extending its campaign of novel efforts to shake the economy from its torpor, the Fed said that it was responding to evidence that there was a clear need for help." CW: What? And ignore extraordinary pressure from Republicans to let the country go to rack and ruin? I guess Ben Bernanke is "almost treasonous," after all. Good for him. (See next link.)

... BUT New York Times: "Even though the financial markets have been counting on the Federal Reserve to take action, Republican Congressional leadership sent a letter to the Federal Reserve chairman on Tuesday evening urging it not to engage in further stimulus." CW: this should end any lingering doubts you might have that Republicans don't really want the economy to tank. Yes, they do.

Washington Post: "The Obama administration has sharply warned Pakistan that it must cut ties with a leading Taliban group based in the tribal region along the Afghan border and help eliminate its leaders, according to officials from both countries. In what amounts to an ultimatum, administration officials have indicated that the United States will act unilaterally if Pakistan does not comply."

Washington Post: "The two Americans held in Iran for more than two years will be freed within hours, their lawyer said on Wednesday. After waiting several days for a judge to return from vacation, lawyer Masoud Shafiei secured a second signature that was needed to free Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal on $1 million bail." ...

     ** New York Times Update: "Two Americans arrested while hiking along the Iran-Iraq frontier two years ago and sentenced to eight years for espionage were released Wednesday on $1 million bail by the Iranian authorities, news agencies reported. The men, Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal, both 29, were seen by reporters for The Associated Press leaving Evin prison in a diplomatic convoy including Swiss and Omani officials. Press TV, a state-controlled broadcaster in Iran, also said that the men had left the prison and were headed in the direction of Tehran’s international airport."

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