The Ledes

Monday, March 3, 2025

New York Times: “Pope Francis had two acute respiratory crises on Monday, the Vatican said, stoking further concerns about the health of the 88-year old pontiff, who has been hospitalized in Rome in serious condition for more than two weeks. The pope has been undergoing treatment for double pneumonia and a complex infection in a Rome hospital, and his condition has been alternating between improvements and setbacks.”

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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.

 

Public Service Announcement

Zoë Schlanger in the Atlantic: "Throw out your black plastic spatula. In a world of plastic consumer goods, avoiding the material entirely requires the fervor of a religious conversion. But getting rid of black plastic kitchen utensils is a low-stakes move, and worth it. Cooking with any plastic is a dubious enterprise, because heat encourages potentially harmful plastic compounds to migrate out of the polymers and potentially into the food. But, as Andrew Turner, a biochemist at the University of Plymouth recently told me, black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid." This is a gift link from laura h.

Mashable: "Following the 2024 presidential election results and [Elon] Musk's support for ... Donald Trump, users have been deactivating en masse. And this time, it appears most everyone has settled on one particular X alternative: Bluesky.... Bluesky has gained more than 100,000 new sign ups per day since the U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million users. It's enjoyed a prolonged stay on the very top of Apple's App Store charts as well. Ready to join? Here's how to get started on Bluesky[.]"

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Democrats' Weekly Address

Marie (Feb 23): As far as I can tell, there isn't any. I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like Democrats are so screwed up, they can't even put together a couple of minutes of video to tell us how screwed we are.

Out with the Black. In with the White. New York Times: “Lester Holt, the veteran NBC newscaster and anchor of the 'NBC Nightly News' over the last decade, announced on Monday that he will step down from the flagship evening newscast in the coming months. Mr. Holt told colleagues that he would remain at NBC, expanding his duties at 'Dateline,' where he serves as the show’s anchor.... He said that he would continue anchoring the evening news until 'the start of summer.' The network did not immediately name a successor.” ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “MSNBC said on Monday that Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary who has become one of the most prominent hosts at the network, would anchor a nightly weekday show in prime time. Ms. Psaki, 46, will host a show at 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, replacing Alex Wagner, a longtime political journalist who has anchored that hour since 2022, according to a memo to staff from Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC’s president. Ms. Wagner will remain at MSNBC as an on-air correspondent. Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest star, has been anchoring the 9 p.m. hour on weeknights for the early days of ... [Donald] Trump’s administration but will return to hosting one night a week at the end of April.”

New York Times: “Joy Reid’s evening news show on MSNBC is being canceled, part of a far-reaching programming overhaul orchestrated by Rebecca Kutler, the network’s new president, two people familiar with the changes said. The final episode of Ms. Reid’s 7 p.m. show, 'The ReidOut,' is planned for sometime this week, according to the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The show, which features in-depth interviews with politicians and other newsmakers, has been a fixture of MSNBC’s lineup for the past five years. MSNBC is planning to replace Ms. Reid’s program with a show led by a trio of anchors: Symone Sanders Townsend, a political commentator and former Democratic strategist; Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Alicia Menendez, the TV journalist, the people said. They currently co-host 'The Weekend,' which airs Saturday and Sunday mornings.” MB: In case you've never seen “The Weekend,” let me assure you it's pretty awful. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: "Joy Reid is leaving MSNBC, the network’s new president announced in a memo to staff on Monday, marking an end to the political analyst and anchor’s prime time news show."

Y! Entertainment: "Meanwhile, [Alex] Wagner will also be removed from her 9 pm weeknight slot. Wagner has already been working as a correspondent after Rachel Maddow took over hosting duties during ... Trump’s first 100 days in office. It’s now expected that Wagner will not return as host, but is expected to stay on as a contributor. Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former White House press secretary, is a likely replacement for Wagner, though a decision has not been finalized." MB: In fairness to Psaki, she is really too boring to watch. On the other hand, she is White. ~~~

     ~~~ RAS: "So MSNBC is getting rid of both of their minority evening hosts. Both women of color who are not afraid to call out the truth. Outspoken minorities don't have a long shelf life in the world of our corporate news media."

As we watch in horror the rapid destruction of our democratic form of government, it is comforting to remember there is life outside politics. I took a break a while ago to enjoy a brief lesson in the history of the moonwalk: ~~~

But it may go back even further:

And this chronological account is helpful:

New York Times: “Chuck Todd, the former 'Meet the Press' moderator and a longtime fixture of NBC’s political coverage, told colleagues on Friday that he was leaving the network. A nearly two-decade veteran of NBC, Mr. Todd said that Friday would be his last day at NBC.... Mr. Todd, 52, is the latest TV news star to step aside at a moment when salaries are being scrutinized — and slashed — by major media companies. Hoda Kotb exited NBC’s 'Today' show this month, and Neil Cavuto of Fox News and CNN’s Chris Wallace departed their cable news homes late last year.”

CNBC: “ CNN plans to lay off hundreds of employees Thursday [Jan. 23] as it refocuses the business around a global digital audience.... The layoffs come as CNN is rearranging its linear TV lineup and building out digital subscription products. The cuts will help CNN lower production costs and consolidate teams, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic changes. Certain shows that are produced in New York or Washington may move to Atlanta, where production can be done more cheaply, said the people. For the most part, the job cuts won’t affect CNN’s most recognizable names, who are under contract, said the people. CNN has about 3,500 employees worldwide.... NBC News is also planning cuts later this week, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic changes. While the exact number couldn’t be determined, the job losses will be well under 50....”

 

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The Commentariat -- February 14

Short-sighted & Wrong-headed. Paul Krugman: House Republicans have decided to "focus [budget] cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy." ...

... Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama drew fire Sunday from congressional Republicans and independent budget experts for his reluctance to advance a plan that would tackle the nation's biggest budget problems in the spending blueprint he will submit to Congress on Monday." ...

... Lori Montgomery: "will roll out a $3.7 trillion budget blueprint Monday that would trim or terminate more than 200 federal programs next year and make key investments in education, transportation and research in a bid to boost the nation's economy and reduce record budget deficits." ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama ... on Monday released a fiscal year 2012 budget that projects an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion before government shortfalls decline to 'sustainable' levels for the rest of the decade." ...

... "Fighting Fire with Gasoline." Robert Reich in Salon on how Obama got the budget wrong: "Obama [has allowed] Republicans to frame the debate as how much federal spending can be cut and how to shrink the deficit. The President has to reframe the debate around the necessity of average families having enough to spend to get the economy moving again. He needs to remind America ... we’re still in a jobs crisis...." Reich offers a proposal on what the FY 2012 budget should look like. ...

... The President's budget proposal just came up online. Start here.

... AND OMB Director Jack Lew explains why his budget proposal is really, really a good one:

** Felix Salmon in a New York Times op-ed: "... the stock market is becoming increasingly irrelevant — a trend that threatens the core principles of American capitalism.... What the market is not doing so well is its core public function: allocating capital efficiently.... To invest in younger, smaller companies, you increasingly need to be a member of the ultra-rich elite [which don't trade on the NYSE]."

Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. President, Love forever, Fox "News." Here are the results of a Fox presidential match-up poll, via Brooklyn Mutt:

Obama 54% - Jeb Bush 34%

Obama 48% -  Mitt Romney 41%

Obama 49% - Mike Huckabee 41%

Obama 55% - Newt Gingrich 35%

Obama 56% - Sarah Palin 35%

... Here's a related story from Andy Kroll at Mother Jones: Republican dreams of a Jeb Bush run don't look so hot.

David Kirkpatrick & David Sanger of the New York Times report on the pan-Arab youth democracy movement which has been years in the making & centers on nonviolent techniques. ...

... Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times: "Governments across the Middle East are scrambling to step up political concessions, dole out financial benefits and — when that fails — deploy riot police in an attempt to ease instability and buy time.... Protesters from Morocco to Iran are setting aside the region's traditional religious and geopolitical divides to take on common culprits of corruption, police violence, political repression and vast gaps in wealth." ...

... Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy: "The Obama administration also deserves a great deal of credit, which it probably won't receive. It understood immediately and intuitively that it should not attempt to lead a protest movement which had mobilized itself without American guidance, and consistently deferred to the Egyptian people. Despite the avalanche of criticism from protestors and pundits, in fact Obama and his key aides -- including Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power and many others -- backed the Egyptian protest movement far more quickly than anyone should have expected."

Mark Lacey & James McKinley of the New York Times report some of the details of Gabriel Giffords' rehabilitation. ...

... Malcolm Ritter, a science writer for the AP, on Gabrielle Giffords' rehabilitation. "Too little has been revealed and it's too early to say if Giffords might be able to return to her job in Congress. One expert questioned whether that would be the best thing for her to do. Most people with such injuries have some level of impairment for the rest of their lives." ...

... which is why stories like this one, that Politico ran over the weekend, pretty much irritate me.

Right Wing News

Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones: "Two years ago, Tea Party Patriots got its start as a scrappy, ground-up conservative organization....Lately..., TPP has started to resemble the Beltway lobbying operations its members have denounced. The group's leaders have cozied up to political insiders implicated in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and have paid themselves significant salaries. TPP accepted the use of a private jet and a large donation of anonymous cash right before a key election, and its top officials have refused to discuss how the money was spent. And recently, the group has hired several big-time fundraising and public relations firms that work for the who's who of the Republican political class...." Part 1 of a 3-part series.

The Koch Bros. Don't Have Funny Bones. Noam Cohen of the New York Times: they have gone to court to shut down a pretty harmless parody site. CW: kinda reminds me of Bill O'Reilly & Fox "News" suing Al Franken. The judge laughed their suit out of court. ...

... Speaking of lawsuits, here's one we like. Peter Finocchiaro of Salon: "Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against conservative firebrand and web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. The suit stems from the notorious video Breitbart posted online last year, showing an out-of-context excerpt from a speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP Freedom Fund in March 2010. The clip suggested she had used her position at the Department of Agriculture to discriminate against white farmers.... The NAACP denounced Sherrod and the Obama administration fired her. The charge was, in fact, entirely untrue."

Mitt Romney lies even when he's telling the truth:

"President Obama has stood watch over the greatest job loss in modern American history, and that, my friends, is one inconvenient truth that will haunt this president throughout history." -- Mitt Romney ...

     ... BUT Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post writes, "Romney's statement is technically correct but lacks context, making it meaningless. He attributes some job losses to Obama that are arguably not Obama's fault. And just using raw numbers is misleading, especially when, placed in context, the job losses under Obama are about the same at this point as under Romney's hero, Ronald Reagan."

Haley Barbour might not have given much thought to black civil rights BUT Michael Scherer of Time reports that he has a consistent history of favoring a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. With video. CW: this is good with me, but how good will it be for Republican presidential primary voters?

Don't Pick on Palin. CW: as is my habit, I've tried to stay in the Palin-free zone, but Andy Barr's February 12 Politico story on the political costs of criticizing Sarah Palin is germane to the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Besides, it's about two of the worst presidential candidates ever:

Rick Santorum, in a little-watched Web radio interview, on why Palin wasn't attending CPAC: “'I have a feeling that she has some demands on her time, and a lot of them have financial benefit attached to them.' He added that Palin had 'other business opportunities' as well as 'all these kids' to look after as a mother, both of which caused constraints on her time.

Sarah Palin on Fox "News": "My kids don’t hold me back from attending a conference. I will not call him the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. I’ll let his wife call him that instead.”

Local News

Rick Scott & the nasty rich guy Charles Montgomery Burns. A number of writers have pointed out Scott is meaner than Burns; Scott looks & acts like super-villain Lex Luthor. Karoli of Crooks & Liars: Florida Gov. Rick "Scott's budget is so draconian to the poor and middle class and so enriching to corporations and their wealthy overlords that he makes Simon LeGree look charitable. And as Ed Kilgore notes, the entire budget is intended to redistribute wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 10%."

Steve Benen: "The governor's plan cuts billions from already-underfunded public schools, cuts billions from Medicaid, would close a third of the state's public parks, and would eliminate every penny of funding that currently goes to assist the homeless and prevent teen suicides."

The President's speech this morning in Baltimore:

     ... Here's the transcript from the White House.

News Ledes

Buh-bye, Birther Bill. Arizona Republic: "An Arizona Senate committee rejected a proposal to require candidates for the presidency to show their birth certificates. The bill by Republican Sen. Ron Gould of Lake Havasu was defeated in a 3-to-5 vote Monday by the Senate's judiciary committee.... The bill was aimed at making President Barack Obama prove his nationality by birth.

New York Times: "The House on Monday voted to reauthorize and extend through Dec. 8 three ways in which Congress expanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.... Sixty-five Democrats voted for it..., and 27 Republicans voted against it...."

AFP: "The possible heirs of Egypt's uprising took to the streets Monday in different corners of the Middle East: Iran's beleaguered opposition stormed back to central Tehran and came under a tear gas attack by police. Demonstrators faced rubber bullets and birdshot to demand more freedoms in the relative wealth of Bahrain. And protesters pressed for the ouster of the ruler in poverty-drained Yemen." ...

... AP: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has expressed support for the tens of thousands of protesters in Iran's capital, saying they "deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright." ...

... NBC: "Clashes between Iranian police and tens of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran on Monday with security forces beating and firing tear gas at opposition supporters looking to evoke the recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia."

AP: "Egypt's military rulers called for an end to strikes and protests Monday as thousands of state employees, from ambulance drivers to police and transport workers, demonstrated to demand better pay in a growing wave of labor unrest unleashed by the democracy uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak's regime." ...

... AP: "More than 1,000 people protested in Yemen for a fourth straight day Monday, demanding political reforms and the ouster of the U.S.-allied president in demonstrations inspired by the upheaval in Egypt."

... AP: "Egypt's ambassador to the United States says Hosni Mubarak may be in 'bad ealth,' the first word on the 82-year-old ousted president's health."

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