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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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.

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

Saturday
Sep232017

The Commentariat -- September 24, 2017

Football v. Trump. Ken Belson, et al., of the New York Times: "N.F.L. players across the country demonstrated during the national anthem on Sunday in a show of defiance against President Trump, who scolded the league and players on Twitter this weekend. With the support of team owners, players knelt, while others opted to stand and lock arms in a show of solidarity.... President Trump doubled down on his criticism of N.F.L. players who take a knee during the national anthem, saying fans should boycott games unless the players are fired or suspended.... N.F.L. owners, most of them conservative and many of them large donors to President Trump..., backed their players' rights to protest during the national anthem and condemned Trump's criticism. Stay here for live updates."

*****

Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "North Korea's foreign minister warned Saturday that a strike against the U.S. mainland is 'inevitable' because President Trump mocked leader Kim Jong Un with the belittling nickname 'little rocketman.' U.S. bombers escorted by fighter jets flew off the North Korean coast in a show of force shortly before Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho strode to the podium to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York, capping an extraordinary week of militaristic threats from both nations before an organization founded to maintain international peace and security. Ri said that Trump's bombast had made 'our rockets' visit to the entire U.S. mainland inevitable,' and linked it to the Trump's insulting shorthand references to Kim."

Medlar's Sports Report

Ken Belson & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Trump took aim at two of the world's most powerful sports leagues and some of their most popular athletes.... In a speech and a series of tweets, he urged N.F.L. owners to fire players who do not stand for the national anthem, suggested the league is declining because it is not as violent as it once was and seemed to disinvite the N.B.A. champion Golden State Warriors from the traditional White House visit, over their star player Stephen Curry's public opposition to him.... On Friday night, Mr. Trump said: 'Wouldn't you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired,'" the president said at a rally for Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to the Senate this year and is facing Roy Moore in a Republican primary runoff.... the reaction from many athletes was immediate and impassioned, particularly among African-American football and basketball players who have criticized Mr. Trump on race.... In an unusually strong rebuke of the president on Saturday, Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the N.F.L., said the president failed to understand how the league and its players work together to 'create a sense of unity in our country and our culture.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: You know you're a son of a bitch, as Trump would have it, when you need morals lessons from Roger Goodell. Funny how the President of All the People is always directing his rage at the people who just happen to be minorities. And wasn't it way last week that we were all disgusted that a press secretary would weigh in on the employability of a black sports commentator? Well, ha ha, fire all the black people, her boss sez. Anyway, dissing black athletes & Tom Price are nice distractions from the Russia scandal. ...

... Ramona Shelburne of ESPN: "The Golden State Warriors plan to meet as a team this fall to discuss whether they'll celebrate their NBA championship at the White House, team and league officials told ESPN. 'We will meet as a team to discuss it and make a decision,' Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told ESPN." ...

... ** David Remnick of the New Yorker: "Every day, and in countless and unexpected ways, Donald Trump ... finds new ways to divide and demoralize his country and undermine the national interest.... In the midst of an eighty-minute speech intended to heighten the reëlection prospects of Senator Luther Johnson Strange III, Trump turned his attention to N.F.L. players, including the former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and asked a mainly white crowd if 'people like yourselves' agreed with his anger at 'those people,' players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest racism. 'Wouldn't you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired!"'... This was the same sort of racial signalling that followed the Fascist and white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is no longer a matter of 'dog whistling.' This is a form of racial demagoguery broadcast at the volume of a klaxon.... In these performances, Trump is making clear his moral priorities. He is infinitely more offended by the sight of a black ballplayer quietly, peacefully protesting racism in the United States than he is by racism itself."


Price to Temporarily Stop Gouging Taxpayers to Concentrate on Depriving Them of Health Insurance. Dan Diamond
of Politico: "Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told Fox News on Saturday that he'll stop his taxpayer-funded travel on private jets, pending a formal review by his department's inspector general.... Price continued to take charter jets after a Politico investigation identified that the HHS secretary had been chartering private planes to conduct official business for months. The cost of his trips this past week was $56,500, according to a federal contract.... Politico has now identified more than $400,000 in charter jet spending for Price's travels since May." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you thought I was kidding in that headline, read on:

... Time for Some Traffic Problems on Healthcare.gov. Phil Galewicz of Kaiser Health News on CNN: "The Trump administration plans to shut down the federal health insurance exchange for 12 hours during all but one Sunday in the upcoming Obamacare open enrollment season. The shutdown will occur from midnight until noon every Sunday except Dec. 10. The Department of Health and Human Services will also shut down the federal exchange -- healthcare.gov -- overnight on the first day of open enrollment, Nov. 1. More than three dozen states use that exchange for their marketplaces. HHS officials disclosed this information Friday during a webinar with community groups that help people enroll in Obamacare.... The Trump administration has ... cut the enrollment period, slashed money for advertising by 90% and sliced the budget for navigators to help people shop for plans. The fact that HHS is now closing the site for a portion of each weekend upset many consumer advocates. Many working Americans -- the prime target group for ACA insurance — might be shopping at just that time."


Adam Davidson
of the New Yorker: "Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer in charge of representing President Trump in matters related to the Russia investigation, told Bloomberg's Margaret Talev, 'It would be truly shocking' if [Paul] Manafort 'tried to monetize his relationship with the President.' Cobb's shock is, surely, of the 'Casablanca' variety.... It has become clear that allowing hangers-on to monetize their relationship with him was, essentially, Trump's business model.... The Trump Organization ... seemed willing to do business with pretty much anybody, no matter his background.... When the company began aggressively pursuing international deals, over the past decade, it relied on a loose grouping of people who were authorized -- formally or not -- to travel around the world seeking deals in Trump's name. Pocketing a little for themselves on the side was part of the arrangement." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Not sure if Trump named his business the "Trump Organization" because (a) he aggrandizes & lies about everything; (b) the name was designed to pretend he headed an actual organized company; (c) he wanted to emphasize his connection to & affinity for organized crime; or (d) it was unintended irony.

Battle of the Deplorables. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Steve Bannon is heading to Alabama Sunday night to rally for Judge Roy Moore on Monday night with Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty.... This rally is three days after President Trump ... was in Alabama rallying for Moore's opponent -- Mitch McConnell's favored candidate Luther Strange. For Bannon to make a rare public appearance in such close proximity to Trump shows how invested he is in this race specifically, and attacking McConnell more generally. Another former White House adviser, Sebastian Gorka, rallied with Sarah Palin for Moore on Thursday." Mrs. McC: The only fun part is that Bannon has to spend some time with the Duck Dick. But these are the bedfellows he chose, so he deserves it.

Beyond the Beltway

Scott Destroys Evidence. Jim DeFede of CBS Miami: "The voicemail messages left on Gov. Rick Scott's personal cellphone by a Hollywood nursing home where at least 11 people have died following Hurricane Irma, were deleted, according to the governor's office. There were a total of four voicemails left during the 36 hours before the first patient died, and they would have been a critical piece of evidence in the ongoing investigation into the patient deaths. Natasha Anderson, a vice president with The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, says she called the governor's cellphone to say the nursing home needed 'immediate assistance' in restoring the power to their air conditioning system. Scott said at no time did anyone from the nursing home suggest there was a crisis or that patients were in danger.... The governor's office said the voicemails were deleted in accordance with the state's public records law." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sounds as if Florida's public records law reads, "Don't keep 'em."

Benjamin Oreskes & Javier Panzar of the Los Angeles Times: "Organizers of a far-right festival planned for the UC Berkeley campus have informed school officials that all speaking events scheduled for the coming week have been canceled, the university said Saturday. Representatives of the student group Berkeley Patriot informed the school that Free Speech Week, which was scheduled to kick off Sunday, will not take place, Dan Mogulof, a campus spokesman, said in a statement. There was no reason given for the cancellation."

News Lede

Washington Post: "Liliane Bettencourt, a French heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune who became embroiled in a family feud that exploded into a financial and political scandal involving former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, died Sept. 20 at her home near Paris. She was 94."

Reader Comments (3)

I keep wondering why we haven't heard from countries like China,
Japan, Canada, S. Korea, etc. regarding trump's threats to
annihilate North Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_North_Korea
North Korea has deposits of over 200 mineral types including
gold ore, iron, copper, zinc and coal. We're talking millions of
tons and billions of $. Just one of these companies, Mitsubishi of
Japan, extracts 2 million tons or iron ore per year which is then
exported to China.
I'll bet trump knows nothing of North Korea's friends around
the world. Sad.

September 24, 2017 | Unregistered Commenterforrest morris

I'm confused (daily). Other than the pathetic egos of two ten year olds, what exactly are the US and NK fighting about?

I have a prediction. Shortly, millions are going to respond to the National Anthem on one knee.

September 24, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

So I was flipping thru the teevee dial (quaint reference to days of yore) when I saw where there was a re-run of this morning's Press the Meat. I paused. Todd was interviewing a guy I'd never seen before, & Todd had asked a question he had posed before I landed on MSNBC. At the pause of my remote, the first three words out of the guy's mouth -- which didn't give a clue to question or answer, just a preamble or something -- and I knew the guy was about to tell a lie & would do so without batting an eye. (What might have helped me form this snap judgment was that the guy looked like he had just changed out of his Nazi pjs to do the show.)

Sure enough, the guy was Marc Short, a White House Congressional liaison. He was about to say, repeatedly, that really, really, there was no way pre-existing conditions wouldn't be covered in every state's healthcare requirements under Graham-Cassidy. Todd finally gave up, & at least managed to look disgusted.

You shall know them by their smirk.

I'm looking for the day when one of the networks announces it's going to try really hard not to invite congenital liars on its "news" shows. I think CNN banned Kellyanne Alternative-Facts Conway for a while.

How about a little disclaimer at the top of the show, like "We couldn't find any Republicans to defend the Such-&-Such bill because they all lied about it. Our guests today are Kirsten Gillibrand & Al Franken."

September 24, 2017 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns
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