The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”

Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday, leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued into Wednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~

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The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

     ~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

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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.

INAUGURATION 2029

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
Mar072011

The Commentariat -- March 8

More James O'Keefe Shenanigans. Michael Calderone of Yahoo News: "Former NPR executive Ron Schiller slams Republicans and the tea party movement and suggests that NPR would be better off without any federal funding in a hidden-camera video released Tuesday by conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe. Schiller, president of the NPR Foundation ... until just last week, appears on the tape at Georgetown's Café Milano with NPR director of institutional giving Betsy Liley and two men posing as executives from a fake Islamic organization considering a $5 million donation to the network.... 'We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for," said NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm in a statement." Includes O'Keefe's video. CW: frankly, Schiller got it mostly right.

David Sanger & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "Nearly three weeks after Libya erupted in what may now turn into a protracted civil war, the politics of military intervention to speed the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi grow more complicated by the day — for both the White House and Republicans."

Bush III. Dana Milbank: "Not only had [President Obama] revoked his pledge to close Gitmo within a year, but he also had contradicted his claim that a detention policy 'can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone.' His executive order did exactly what he said must not be done, in a style favored by his predecessor in the Oval Office."

** Nancy Gibbs of Time: "... the GOP spending bill does not only cut Planned Parenthood; it kills Title X, the 1970 law that provides family planning for nearly 5 million women every year at more than 4,600 health centers. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that for every dollar invested in Title X — specifically for contraceptive care — taxpayers save a little under $4 in Medicaid costs for mother and baby just in the first year. Title X prevents about a million unintended pregnancies annually, of which about half would likely end in abortion. Consistency is the true test of conviction; anything less is just prejudice dressed up as principle. If pro-life lawmakers kill Title X, they need to accept either the risk of increasing the abortion rate or the cost of growing numbers of children born to poor parents. Their plan also cuts money for prenatal care and slices $750 million for nutrition for mothers and infants."

Walter Shapiro in Politics Daily: "After ignoring the deficit for almost a decade, the new orthodoxy is that Medicare and Social Security must be revamped immediately because 2075 is getting closer every day. With a series of artificial deadlines coming up (March 18 for funding the government and sometime later this spring for raising the statutory debt ceiling), congressional Republicans and the Obama White House are giving lip service to fantasies about long-term fixes. Even if it would not jeopardize the fragile recovery, this is the wrong medicine at the wrong time."

The New York Times Editorial Board: "On Thursday, Representative Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is scheduled to open a series of hearings that seem designed to stoke fear against American Muslims. His refusal to tone down the provocation despite widespread opposition suggests that he is far more interested in exploiting ethnic misunderstanding than in trying to heal it." ...

... Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman of Politico: "The top two House Republican leaders are divided over how to handle the bubbling controversy surrounding Homeland Security Chairman Peter King’s hearing into “radicalization” in the American Muslim community. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress, is squarely behind King.... 'Chairman King is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee' is all [Speaker John] Boehner spokesman Michael Steel would say when asked about the controversy. [Majority Whip Kevin] McCarthy’s office declined to comment." ...

... Bob Herbert says of the King hearings, "America should be better than this. We’ve had all the requisite lessons: Joe McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the demonization of blacks and Jews, the internment of Japanese-Americans, and on and on and on. It’s such a tired and ugly refrain." ...

... Karen Garcia sees King's hearings as part of the Republican scare tactics designed to defeat President Obama in 2012. (He is a Muslim, you know.) Garcia thinks if President Obama quit playing by Republican rules and showed he was a Democrat by going to Wisconsin to stand with the unions, the press wouldn't have time to concentrate on King's little melodrama. ...

... Gene Robinson: "King seems untroubled that the freedoms of religion and association are guaranteed by the Constitution. His public exercise in Islamophobia ... can do no good -- and much harm."

Even the UK is noticing King. You can vote here in the Guardian on whether you think King's hearings are legitimate or "a fear-mongering witchhunt." At the time I voted, 69.3% went with witchhunt.

Goldman Sachs-Government Partnership (Is Not What You're Thinking). Jia Lin Yang of the Washington Post: "To give women [in developing countries] a boost, Goldman Sachs and the State Department are teaming up to offer classes on the basics of business management to help these women drive economic growth in their communities. The partnership, which will be announced Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Goldman's chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, augments an existing program run by Goldman's charitable arm that has so far educated more than 3,500 women in more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Rwanda and China."

President Obama & Prime Minister Gillard visit Wakefield High in Arlington, Virginia. PM Gillard takes questions from students:

Right Wing World

Clarence Thomas Has a Louis XIV Moment. Jonathan Turley in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "Thomas appears to have finally merged his own personality with the institution [i.e., the Supreme Court] itself. Thus, any criticism — even criticism that he is harming the court — is an attack on the institution. It is more than an embarrassing conceit; it can be a dangerous delusion for any justice."

"The Enema Man & Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dogg." Grumpy Grampy Alan Simpson of Catfood Commission fame. Politico has an item here, but the video is priceless:

Local News

Rick Scott Is Not a Constitution-Loving Teabagger. Lizette Alvarez & Gary Fineout of the New York Times: "In his first two months in office, the governor has irritated the [Florida] State Senate’s powerful Budget Committee chairman, [a fellow-Republican,] by selling two state jets without legislative permission, a constitutional no-no.... He annoyed the ambitious Senate president, [also a Republican], as well as a host of leaders in conservative states, by trying to kill off a database to track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs before it was up and running. He did so without consulting lawmakers...." ...

It’s necessary at this time, I think — because our governor’s new — to let him know this is not a monarchy. He’s not a king. This is a democracy. -- Arthenia L. Joyner, a Democratic Florida State Senator

News Ledes

CBS News: Rep. Peter King, who will hold hearings beginning Thursday on home-grown Muslim terror threats, has been getting threats of his own & will receive stepped-up security.

President Obama visited a classroom in Boston, Massachusetts, & made remarks this afternoon. New York Times item here. Update: here's the Times' post-visit story.

AP: "Libyan warplanes launched at least five new airstrikes Tuesday near rebel positions in the oil port of Ras Lanouf, keeping up a counteroffensive to prevent the opposition from advancing toward leader Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli." ...

... Washington Post: "The Libyan opposition said an offer -- purportedly from Gaddafi -- had been conveyed to council elders late Monday in the provisional capital of Benghazi. According to an opposition spokesman, the Libyan leader would agree to step down if granted immunity from prosecution and safe passage out of the country. But opposition officials said they were still trying to establish the veracity of the offer, which came from Jadallah Azous al-Talhi, a former minister in Gaddafi's government."

AP: "The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday. Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008."

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