The Ledes

Monday, June 30, 2025

It's summer in our hemisphere, and people across Guns America have nothing to do but shoot other people.

New York Times: “A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon in what the local sheriff described as a 'total ambush.' Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned, and officials later found the body of the male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone but did not release any information about his identity or motives.” A KHQ-TV (Spokane) report is here.

New York Times: “The New York City police were investigating a shooting in Manhattan on Sunday night that left two people injured steps from the Stonewall Inn, an icon of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. The shooting occurred outside a nearby building in Greenwich Village at 10:15 p.m., Sgt. Matthew Forsythe of the New York Police Department said. The New York City Pride March had been held in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, and Mayor Eric Adams said on social media that the shooting happened as Pride celebrations were ending. One victim who was shot in the head was in critical condition on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. A second victim was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, she said. No suspect had been identified. The police said it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the Pride march.”

New York Times: “A dangerous heat wave is gripping large swaths of Europe, driving temperatures far above seasonal norms and prompting widespread health and fire alerts. The extreme heat is forecast to persist into next week, with minimal relief expected overnight. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are among the nations experiencing the most severe conditions, as meteorologists warn that Europe can expect more and hotter heat waves in the future because of climate change.”

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Marie: Sorry, my countdown clock was unreliable; then it became completely unreliable. I can't keep up with it. Maybe I'll try another one later.

 

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.

 

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Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Wednesday
Jan262011

The Commentariat -- January 27

Bill Keller, the New York Times executive editor, write a story for the Times Magazine about Times' reporters encounters will Julian Assange. Watch the video here. ...

... John Cook at Gawker has a pretty good take on Bill Keller's literary effort. It would be a fair guess that Cook is not hoping for a job at the Times.

Scott Wilson & Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration is openly supporting the anti-government demonstrations shaking the Arab Middle East, a stance that is far less tempered than the one the president has taken during past unrest in the region." CW: this is more evidence that the Obama Administration was delighted with WikiLeaks. ...

... Related News. New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States on Thursday as part of an investigation into an international group of computer hackers who attacked corporate Web sites last year in a show of support for WikiLeaks."

Speaking of Leaking... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Two hours before President Obama delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday..., a full-length draft of the speech was posted on a news Web site without White House knowledge. And for a moment, one of the most scripted acts of Washington stagecraft was thrown off balance. The leak of the speech ... appeared on NationalJournal.com at 7:14 p.m.... The National Journal was keeping tight-lipped about how it obtained the speech, saying only that it came from a Democrat." ...

... Ben Smith: "If there's one thing President Obama did go on about a bit about in the State of the Union, it was American exceptionalism -- as the National Journal's Ron Fournier noted at some length. Two who didn't entirely notice were Speaker John Boehner and Kathleen Parker.... It should also be noted that Obama called Boehner Speaker of 'The Greatest Nation on Earth.'" ...

... Here's is Parker interviewing Speaker Boehner. The exchange in which they bemoan the President's not acknowledging American exceptionalism begins 5 minutes in:

     ... Greg Sargent: "What's amusing about this ongoing assertion from the right is how easily debunked it is, and how casually its proponents simply pretend that the historical record doesn't exist." ...

... Hey, here's a new criticism of the President's SOTU speech, from Alvin Felzenberg, a Princeton historian & veteran of two Republican Administrations: plagiarism. "Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean. Once again, our public affairs are such that we have one standard for presidents and another for undergraduates." Huf-fy! ...

... David Meadvin, writing in Political Wire, explains why the snap polls showed such a positive reaction to the President State of the Union speech.

"On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner talked to The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel about the [President's] initiative [to equalize & reduce the corporate tax rate]. Mr. Geithner emphasized the administration's insistence on offsetting the corporate rate, now 35%, by eliminating deductions, credits and incentives."

Amanda Terkel: "Although President Obama avoided talking about the contentious issue of gun control in Tuesday's State of the Union address, his top advisers say he will soon be jumping into the debate. In a discussion with a small group of bloggers and reporters on Wednesday at the White House, Senior Advisor David Axelrod said there was 'no doubt' the President will address the gun issue at a later date."

Raw Meat for Republicans. AP: "... Social Security will run at a deficit this year and keep on running in the red until its trust funds are drained by about 2037, congressional budget experts said Wednesday in bleaker-than-previous estimates."

Raw Meat for Democrats. Frank Newport & Lydia Saad of Gallup: "Prior to the State of the Union address, a majority of Americans said they favor cutting U.S. foreign aid, but more than 6 in 10 opposed cuts to education, Social Security, and Medicare. Smaller majorities objected to cutting programs for the poor, national defense, homeland security, aid to farmers, and funding for the arts and sciences."

Matt Yglesias: print more money & get the unemployed off the couch.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "President Obama vowed during his State of the Union address Tuesday to end enforcement of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy this year, providing the clearest indication yet that the ban on gays openly serving in uniform will end in a matter of months, not years as some have feared."

I think it's absolutely wrong, and the public should understand that the president has enough power; he should back off and let us do what we do. -- Harry Reid, on President Obama's pledge to veto earmarks

Two posts on the Democrats' cave on filibuster reform:

     Sam Stein: The window to change the Senate rules during this session through a simple majority vote ended without action ... as lawmakers in the chamber agreed to adjourn the first day of the 112th Congress." Unfortunately, Stein uses the passive voice to the point he doesn't really reveal why this happened.

     Jon Walker of Firedoglake: "Senate Democrats had the ability to easily solve the problems they spent the last two years endlessly complaining about, but choose not to.... Every single procedural problem [Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell causes Democrats in the next two years is ultimately the fault of Senate Democrats because, despite knowing his modus operandi, they still choose to leave themselves at his mercy." ...

... Related News. New York Times: "... Senate ... leadership on Thursday promised to temper the procedural warfare that has consumed the chamber in recent years and increased partisan tension. The bipartisan agreement left intact the filibuster.... But the Senate approved other changes Thursday in rules intended to quicken the pace of action, including new limits on a single lawmaker’s ability to anonymously block legislation and nominations." ...

... Speaking of Stupid Senate Stuff, Ian Millhiser of Think Progress reports that the Republican leadership has put Mike Lee (R-UT) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is the guy, Millhiser quips, who defines a sentence as "a noun, a verb, and 'unconstitutional.'” "Lee has recently claimed that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution."

Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post: "It is the narrowly divided Democratic-led Senate -- not the Republican House -- that is most likely to tackle the bipartisan initiatives Obama laid out Tuesday, including free-trade deals, border security and immigration reform, and an overhaul of the corporate tax code."

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "By voting Wednesday to abolish public financing for presidential campaigns, House Republicans endorsed a policy that could cause serious problems for ... fellow Republicans hoping to run for the White House in 2012":

For the major candidates, the best-known candidates, the system is irrelevant at this point. The ones who are relying on it now are the more marginal candidates. . . . The question is whether the Republican leadership is happy not to finance those people. -- Lawrence Noble, former SEC counsel

Rick Pearson & David Kidwell of the Chicago Tribune assess the political leanings of members of the Illinois State Supreme Court & how their political affiliations may influence the justices' decision on the Rahm Emanuel petition to remain on the Chicago mayoral ballot.

Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: a "string of political miscalculations ... have left [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai a diminished and more isolated leader, members of Parliament, Western diplomats and analysts say. At the very least, they say, the outcome seems certain to signal the beginning of a potentially more precarious period in Mr. Karzai’s relations with Afghanistan’s power brokers."

Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "A coalition of rabbis wants Fox News chief Roger Ailes and conservative host Glenn Beck to cut out all their talk about Nazis and the Holocaust.... The rabbis have called on ... Rupert Murdoch to sanction his two famous employees via a full-page ad in Thursday's editions of the Wall Street Journal -- one of many other media properties controlled by Murdoch's News Corp."

News Items

Washington Post: "Opposition activists in Egypt vowed to defy a government ban and turn out by the thousands for demonstrations Friday, prompting authorities to apparently cut access to the Internet in an attempt to limit their ability to organize."

Washington Post: "Sporadic anti-government protests continued across Egypt Thursday, with demonstrators facing off against police outside the lawyers' guild in central Cairo and activists reportedly setting fire to a police post in the eastern city of Suez."

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that the military could be ready this year to carry out the repeal of a ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces, and that he has accelerated efforts to revise training and regulations."

Chicago Tribune: "The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that Rahm Emanuel can stay on the ballot for mayor of Chicago, saying in a unanimous decision that he meets the state's residency requirements despite spending most of the last year as White House chief of staff." ...

... NEW. Here's a facsimile of the Illinois Court's decision.

Politico: "President Barack Obama on Thursday named Jay Carney, communications director for Vice President Joe Biden and former Washington bureau chief for Time magazine, to replace Robert Gibbs as White House press secretary. Carney’s new posiition was announced in an email from chief of staff Bill Daley that detailed more than a dozen other personnel moves made as part of a broader White House staff reorganization." Here's the full text of Daley's e-mail.

New York Times: "Yemen, one of the Middle East’s most impoverished countries and a haven for Al Qaeda militants, became the latest Arab state to witness mass protests on Thursday, as thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in the capital and other regions to demand a change in government."

New York Times: David Kato, "an outspoken Ugandan gay activist whose picture recently appeared in an anti-gay newspaper under the headline 'Hang Them,' was beaten to death in his home, Ugandan police said on Thursday."

The President speaks in Wisconsin:

Here's the Los Angeles Times report of Obama's visit to Manitowoc, Wisconsin yesterday. AND here's the AP report. New York Times report on President Obama's trip to Wisconsin. Video above. ...

     ... Politico Related: "White House officials will travel across the country in the days after President Obama’s State of the Union speech in an effort to promote some of its key themes.... Obama [is] visiting Wisconsin and Vice President Biden [is] heading to Indiana." New York Times story here.

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