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

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Monday
Sep252023

The Conversation -- September 25, 2023

Tracey Tully of the New York Times: "Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, returned Monday to Union City, the community where he rose to political prominence, to offer a clear answer to former allies who have called for his resignation in the face of federal bribery charges: No. 'The allegations leveled against me are just that -- allegations,' Mr. Menendez said at a news conference at a community college not far from where he grew up, the child of Cuban refugees. 'I recognize that this will be the biggest fight yet,' he said, adding that once the judicial process concluded, he expected that 'not only will I be exonerated, I will still be New Jersey's senior senator.'" ~~~

~~~ Tracey Tully of the New York Times: "The word 'gold' appears 26 times in the federal indictment unsealed Friday against Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey along with his wife, Nadine, and three businessmen. There are details about the senator's internet searches for the price of gold and Ms. Menendez's trip to a jeweler to sell gold and photos of the serial numbers stamped on some of the 13 gold bars found in their home. Yet gold is rarely mentioned in the financial disclosure forms he is required to file annually as a senator, showing up for the first time last year."

Rachel Scully of the Hill: "Former President Trump pledged to investigate Comcast, the parent company for NBC and MSNBC, if he is elected in 2024, saying it 'will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.... They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its "Country Threatening Treason,"' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday." MB: I suppose he'll soon be directly threatening particular hosts and anchors. Most dangerous man in the U.S., bar none.

~~~~~~~~~~

Carl Hulse & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "With a potential government shutdown now less than a week away, President Biden and other administration officials this weekend intensified their warnings of the consequences of closing government agencies as they pressed congressional Republicans to find a way out of their spending stalemate. Both the president and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, made public calls for Republicans to resolve their differences before next Sunday, when federal funding is set to lapse. They noted that a shutdown would mean that members of the military would go without paychecks, air travelers could experience disruptions and a variety of programs safeguarding the public would be shuttered. Yet even after a weekend of private haggling at the Capitol, there was no sign that the G.O.P. was moving toward a resolution."

Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: Gen. Mark "Milley, whose four-year tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ends with his retirement this month, will exit center stage as one of the most consequential and polarizing military chiefs in recent memory, leading America's armed forces through a fraught period that included the precarious final months of Donald Trump's presidency, a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Washington's high-stakes standoff with Moscow." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It seems to me that there are times, especially when we have a deranged president*, that the chairman of the joint chiefs must put country before blind obedience to the commander-in-chief, and either act or speak out to right dangerous decisions. In most cases, I would support the chairman, even when I disagreed with his actions or statements. The exception would be when s/he erred toward military aggression.

Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "As the prosecutions of [Donald] Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised 'retribution' to produce violence. Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric. In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was 'justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.' Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent."

News Flash! Miss Margie Is Remarkably Ignorant. David McAfee of the Raw Story: In the spirit of ecumenicism, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted a Hanukkah message to celebrate Yom Kippur. It included an image of a menorah. "'Everyone's making fun of Marjorie Taylor Greene for putting a menorah on her Yom Kippur message, but in her defense she thought it was an eight-pronged Jewish space laser,' [comedy writer Frank Lesser] wrote." MB: Think of it as sending you a birthday card for Mothers Day. It's the thoughtlessness that counts.

Brooks Barnes & John Koblin of the New York Times: "Hollywood's bitter, monthslong labor dispute has taken a big first step toward a resolution. The Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 screenwriters, reached a tentative deal on a new contract with entertainment companies on Sunday night, all but ending a 146-day strike that has contributed to a shutdown of television and film production. In the coming days, guild members will vote on whether to accept the deal, which has much of what they had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows, and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not encroach on writers' credits and compensation." The NBC News story is here.

Presidential Race 2024. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump's standing in the polls is less about his strength than about the weakness of the rest of the field -- and the traditional Republican Party.... It didn't have to be like this, because the strength of Trump's lock on the party is vastly exaggerated.... His primary foes have plainly failed to impress voters. At least as important, they and Trump's (often secret) party critics were unwilling to risk enraging him and his supporters.... That's no way to beat a brawler who'll do anything to win.... In the short term, Republican strategists see no path to rebuilding a more moderate coalition. The party's primary electorate is concluding that in a closely divided country, Trump is about as electable as any of his less-than-stellar rivals."

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida, California. Luz Lazo of the Washington Post: "Rail company Brightline began operating trains Friday from Miami to Orlando, using the fastest American trains outside the Northeast Corridor to become the first privately owned passenger operator to connect two major U.S. metropolitan areas in decades. The debut of the 235-mile, 3.5-hour ride completes a $6 billion private investment in Florida. With the Orlando segment complete, Brightline says it will move to advance a $12 billion high-speed railway project from Las Vegas to Southern California, with a goal to put trains traveling at 186 mph on America's tracks by 2028."

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Reader Comments (21)

Time once again to see how the Trunpy Supreme Court will screw the country this term. Let us count the ways, and boys and girls, there are many.

One of the best is to make sure predatory lenders have no impediments to their scams and grifts. A few years ago, Elizabeth Warren helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to, well, protect consumers. But a case that the court has eagerly taken up for consideration sez consumer protection is now unconstitutional.

Yup. And not just consumer protection.

The plaintiffs in this case “…claim that an entire federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), is unconstitutional. And they do so based on an interpretation of the Constitution that would invalidate Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and countless other federal programs. As the Justice Department notes in one of its briefs, the 2022 legislation funding the federal government contains more than 400 provisions that are invalid under these plaintiffs’ reading of the Constitution.”

But first, who is bringing this suit? A pack of rat bastard pocket pickers called the Community Financial Services Association: pay day loan sharks. I’m betting mafia dons are gnashing their teeth wishing they had thought of something this insidious.

From Wikipedia:

“A central criticism of the CFSA member companies has been that payday loans are ‘designed to keep borrowers in debt’.While payday loans are marketed as ‘one time’ or ‘emergency loans’, the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending has found that ‘borrowers who receive five or more loans a year account for 90 percent of the lenders’ business’, and ‘lenders…collect 90 percent of their revenue from borrowers who cannot pay off their loans when due, rather than from one-time users dealing with short-term financial emergencies’.”

In other words, once they get you, you stay got. And these crooks are pissed that something like consumer protection is even a thing. So let’s go to our pals on the Supreme Court for help!

As Ian Millhiser points out in this piece (really worth a read for a number of reasons), it’s unlikely that the court will agree with all of the demands and arguments (doozies, btw) in this suit, but the fact that their interpretation of the Constitution could allow the administrative state haters on the court (lookin’ at you Neil, Sam, Clarence) to kneecap vast portions of the government could be the reason they picked this case in the first place. As with Dobbs, these guys don’t choose cases to validate the status quo. They’re looking to upend every bit of progress since the age of the robber barons.

Eyes peeled.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

From the Hold my Beer Dept. case no. 7,459

Party of Traitor psychos will not be upstaged. If someone says “Put (whichever target of the week they hate the most) in jail!” Someone else will come back with “No! KILL THEM!”

This Kill (whomever) idea has caught on in a big way. Now they all want to kill someone.

Lately, iniquitous quisling and perennial liar Paul Gosar, taking a page from Fatty’s playbook, sez “Hang Mark Milley!!”

Because why not? Anyone who stands in the way of their lies needs to die.

DeSantolini is all for extra-judicial killings. If he sees someone he thinks is a drug dealer, Sheriff DeSantolini is gonna kill them “stone cold dead”. Ooooh…so tough.

But then there’s this guy, some anal cyst on BlazeTV who wants to go straight to the hangings…no trials!

Hangings for…?

Covid vaccines. Yup.

See, it’s not enough that they disagree with someone. That person has to be strung up. No trial. Straight to the hangings.

Think all this crazy talk about just going out and killing people you don’t like has any effect?

Yeah. Exactly.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Return of the Grammar Police:

Many times, our publisher, editor and chief reporter has had to correct various professional word-people for the misuse of "hung" and "hang."


Paul Gosar can be excused, for he is an idiot, but he still needs correction. In "a better society" Milley would not be "hung" (although, maybe Gosar's homophobia is at play here? Hmmm?), but, rather, he would be "hanged."

And for what its worth, Milley should get a gold star for holding the line against insanity in high places. And, when the WaPo headline had him "exiting center stage" I confess I thought of him doing a closed curtain back-out a la Loretta Young. There is no other way other than to fall into the orchestra pit. (OK, or fly out on wires like Mary Martin, but, sheesh). Metaphors: tricky tricky.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

@Patrick: Perhaps a trapdoor. I picture Milley standing center-stage on a trapdoor. A noose drops from the fly tower to encircle his neck, whereupon the trapdoor opens, and Milley is hanged while exiting center-stage. And the orchestra plays him out. Cymbals required, I think.

September 25, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Animal cruelty
"From cage-free chicks to puppy mills and Avian flu: Republicans are trying to roll back animal protections
A proposed federal law would wipe out existing state laws that prevent farm animal brutality and the spread of disease"

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

"Mother mother of the Nebraska teen who was arrested for self-managing an abortion has been sentenced to two years in prison for helping her daughter."

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Forgive me father...

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

@RAS: re: the mother sentenced to jail for assisting her daughter's abortion: I'm of two minds about this. The daughter was "well past" 20 weeks pregnant when she aborted, and mother and daughter buried the fetus in the back yard. IOW, the fetus might have been viable. Thus, this case strikes me as rather problematic, though of course I don't know the details.

September 25, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Reminder of yesterday's reminder for anyone who wasn't here
yesterday: Starting today, Sept 25, covid tests are available for the
new variant.
Go to 'covidtests.gov' and they will start shipping in early Oct.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterForrestMorris

@Marie: You are right about the Nebraska mother's story being problematic, but it also showed the future of how social media will be used against women taking control of their bodies and how abortion providers or family and friends are likely to be targeted by the law or the bounty hunters for any help they give.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

@RAS: Re: Biden & Bibi: Now, that's ecumenicism, Miss Margie! (Because Joe knows what he's doing. And, no, that's not the sign of a three-pronged Jewish space laser plus booster.)

September 25, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Chinese opera cymbals, accompanied by the jinghu!

"Fly tower" - thanks for the new (to me) word.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

In a better society, dangerous, violence encouraging loonies like Gosar wouldn’t be elected community pooper scooper.

As for an orchestral send off for this idiot, I’m thinking something more along the lines of a sad trumpet (wah-wah) or maybe a kazoo. But if an orchestral accompaniment to Gosar’s exeunt for the sulfur infused climes is desired, perhaps Merrie Melodies or Loony Tunes music, closing with a Porky Pig “Th, th, that’s all, folks”.

Although I’d be fine with a Loretta Young-like finale before the sign off, as long as it had Gosar in a dress with wig and full makeup.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

I imagine Gosar then as somewhat Divine.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed

Unwashed,

Nah. Divine had class.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Soft core porn dud and former Christmas hating First Lady, Melanie has been trying her best to scam, scrounge, chisel, and dizzle with her racist, rapist, traitor hubbie.

But…The grift is weak with this one.

It seems Melanie’s latest NFT scam, some bullshit “We landed on the moon” whoop-di-do (an illegal one, btw—but of COURSE it is!) has inveigled a whopping 75 MAGA morons to buy her crap.

But this latest debacle mirrors an earlier grift which was so transparently stoopid, she had to buy up her own bullshit so as not to look like a cheap loser crook.

That scam was “classic Melania: weirdly formal and a flagrant money grab gone awry.”

Losers R Us. The entire Trump Crime Family is composed of losers, liars, and sad scam artists.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

On the Biden conspiracy, for what it's worth:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/25/biden-ukraine-impeachment-fox-news/

A case of whom (which liar?) do you trust?

Nice to see Kilmeade discomfited, tho'.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Priorities.
"As little as I have loved Republicans the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress,” @kathleenparker writes"

The Fetterman discussion has shown once again that many in government and the media do not have their priorities straight and do not take the threats to our democracy and rights seriously.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

RAS,

The Right would far rather fight about something other than democracy or wealth inequality or voting rights or abortion or gun safety or any substantial policy issue. They know they'd lose.

So...dress codes? They are all over that.

Long hair vs. 50,000 Americans killed in Vietnam?

I think we've seen this before.

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Hiroko Tabuchi and Blacki Migliozzi, in the New York Times, in the 4th of a series "on the causes and consequences of disappearing water" , describe the consequences of "monster fracking".
Given that Project 2025 apparently calls for doubling down on oil and gas (once the orange monster is back in office), its especially disheartening to read what is already occurring to our environment. Considering a move next year if the rs prevail seems more and more logical. Monster Fracking

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered Commenterlaura hunter

@ laura

Thanks.

But don't forget the dress codes.

Who cares about water?

September 25, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes
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