Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 907

Albuquerque's Walter White Funeral Was Weird

If there was already an obituary, it's only appropriate that Albuquerque residents hold a funeral for fallen fictional father, teacher, drug lord and murderer Walter White, but some objected to the Breaking Bad character receiving a burial plot in a real graveyard. 

The ceremony for AMC's iconic protagonist, organized by Vernon's Hidden Valley Steakhouse, raised a whopping $17,000 for a local charity, Albuquerque's Healthcare for the Homeless, according to KOB4 Eyewitness news. The Albuquerque Journal reports about 200 mourners attended, and some paid to throw dirt over an empty coffin -- and snag an Instagrammable picture of said coffin -- sitting inside a real grave plot, six feet deep, complete with a Walter White headstone. A procession consisting of Walter White's beat-up RV, a black hearse and 80 dedicated Breaking Bad fans drove through city streets before arriving at the graveyard. 

Yes, there was a funeral for Walter White in Albuquerque. Are you surprised? Remember this city also ran an obituary for White. They know how to honor the dead.

The funeral was going to be livestreamed on Youtube to millions of fans worldwide, in an effort to bring in even more donations, but Sony and AMC decided to block the stream at the last minute on copyright grounds. The Journal reports organizers got word about Sony's decision fifteen minutes before the funeral was to begin. 

But not everyone was their to pay their respects. In fact, some are protesting a fictional character being buried next to real people in a real graveyard. "My son is buried about 15 yards from where the makeshift gravesite is," Manuel Montano told KOB4. "This is a place of mourning," Montano added. "It’s not a spectacle."

Oh well, hopefully this is it. The show is officially buried, right? We never have to hear about it again? Oh right, there's the spinoff. And Walter White will be there, too. 

       

The NSA Hacked Into Mexican President's Email

The United States' relationship with Mexico fractured slightly after the initial National Security Agency spying reveal, so this latest one surely won't help. Turns out the NSA has full access to the President's email account. 

That pesky Edward Snowden released more documents to Der Spiegel showing hackers from the NSA's "Tailored Access Operations" department were able to infiltrate and "gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account," at some point during the 2010 summer. From there, NSA agents participating in the operation, internally dubbed "Flatliquid," were able to examine "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system and internal stability," according to Der Spiegel. The NSA called it a "lucrative source," of information. 

But another operation, "Whitetamale," carried out by the same division in 2009, helped U.S. agents craft how to maneuver with the Mexican counterparts. They gained access to high-ranking officials in Mexico's Public Security Secretariat, the division that leads investigations into the drug cartels, that helped U.S. officials craft how to maneuver and negotiate with their Mexican counterparts: 

This hacking operation allowed the NSA not only to obtain information on several drug cartels, but also to gain access to "diplomatic talking-points." In the space of a single year, according to the internal documents, this operation produced 260 classified reports that allowed US politicians to conduct successful talks on political issues and to plan international investments.

Knowing U.S. officials hacked the emails of high-ranking Mexican officials likely won't sit well with current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Previously, Snowden revealed the NSA was intercepting Nieto communications while he was on the campaign trail in 2012. The Mexican president's response was limited to asking President Obama to investigate any improper NSA spying. That was it. He didn't cancel any meetings or anything. Mexico's response to this scandal, so far, has been comparatively measured:

In response to an inquiry from SPIEGEL concerning the latest revelations, Mexico's Foreign Ministry replied with an email condemning any form of espionage on Mexican citizens, saying such surveillance violates international law. "That is all the government has to say on the matter," stated a spokesperson for Peña Nieto.

Whether or not the NSA can still access Nieto's email could change that. 

       

'Gravity' Can't Fall; No One Saw 'Fifth Estate'

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where 'Julian Assange goes to space' is a script we're trying to sell right now. If you know any Hollywood suits, send them this way. 

1. Gravity (Warner): $31 million in 3,820 theaters [Week 3]

It's onward and upward into the stratosphere as Gravity marches closer to the domestic $200 million mark. The movie broke the $200,000,000-zone layer worldwide already, and may actually break the $300 million threshold this week. At this point, not even an asteroid could knock Gravity out of the sky. 

(There, that made up for two weeks of avoiding terrible space jokes and puns.) 

2. Captain Phillips (Sony): $17.3 million in 3,020 theaters [Week 2]

This fall's box office success has been strange because the most bankable movies are all potential award contenders. Gravity and Captain Phillips are both expected to pick up multiple nominations and they've dominated the box office so far. As we'll see below, lighter fare is being left behind. 

3. Carrie (Screen Gem): $17 million in 3,157 theaters

Like this, the unnecessary Carrie remake. Halloween's less than two weeks away. (Do you have a costume yet? We don't. Please help.) Horror movies should be raking in money like its raking a lawn with three maples trees. And yet here we are, all the way back in third. Do teenagers not get allowance anymore? 

4. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Sony): $10.1 million in 3,602 theaters [Week 4]

5. Escape Plan (Lionsgate): $9.8 million in 2,883 theaters

...

8. The Fifth Estate (Beuna Vista): $1.7 million in 1,769 theaters

And the worst opening for any movie released this year playing in more than 1,500 theaters goes to... Not even cracking $2 million this weekend means it "played nearly empty," according to Nikkie Finke, and it didn't do much better globally, either. "We’re certainly disappointed by the results," Disney distribution head Dave Hollis told Variety, "and we’re still trying to figure out the 'whys'."

       

McCain Says GOP Must 'Move Forward'; Cruz Tells Him to Take a Hike

The fractures within the Republican were on full display Sunday morning, as young troublemaker Ted Cruz told party leadership what he thinks about their plans as they tried to move past the disastrous government shutdown. 

Let's start with Sen. John McCain, appearing on CNN's State of the Union, urging his fellow Republicans to "move forward" after their plan to defund Obamacare with a government shutdown failed miserably. "What we need to do is move forward with immigration reform, get a positive agenda for America, continue the fight against Obamacare, get taxes down, address this whole issue of sequestration which is devastating our military," McCain said. The Arizona Republican was asked about Cruz's recent comments indicating he'd like another government shutdown. "He can exercise his rights as a senator, but it will not happen," McCain said. The party leader acknowledged the divisions splitting the party in two. "You’ve got to have some straight talk. There are some divisions in the Republican Party. We’ve had them in the past. The Democrat Party before Bill Clinton had them. It’s very regrettable because our adversary is not each other, and we will probably have to go through this discussion and debate," McCain said. But he said he's confident they could come back unified, like they did under Reagan. "I am confident that the party of Ronald Reagan will come back strong. We’ll get a positive agenda. We’ll get an agenda that unites the party, and we can move forward. I am absolutely confident of that."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised on CBS's Face the Nation there will not be a government shutdown sequel the next time a budget fight approaches. "Shutting down the government, in my view, is not conservative policy," McConnell said. "I don't think a two-week paid vacation for federal employees is conservative policy. A number of us were saying back in July that this strategy could not - and would not - work, and of course it didn't. So there will not be another government shutdown. You can count on that."

But here comes Sen. Ted Cruz, that rascal, indirectly telling McConnell and McCain where they can stick their advice. State of the Union interviewer Dana Bash asked the freshman Texas lawmaker whether he's bothered by the friction with the Republican party. "Not remotely, because... I work for 26 million Texans. That’s my job to fight for them," Cruz said. "I don’t work for the party bosses in Washington. I work for the people of Texas and I fight for them." Cruz implied some of his colleagues aren't being honest about their views while news cameras are rolling: "You know what was very interesting about some of those closed-door discussions? What I said in those closed-door discussions, I would’ve said the exact same thing if CNN's camera was sitting in the room. What I say privately to my colleagues is the same thing I say publicly," he said. "And you know what’s interesting? Virtually every person in that room, that was criticizing what Mike Lee and I were doing, would’ve said very different things if a camera was in this room. Because what they’re telling their constituents is very different from what they’re saying behind closed doors," he added. Later he said he wouldn't "play that game," of exchanging insults with fellow Republicans.

On Fox News Sunday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who voted with the Tea Party against reopening the government and raising the debt limit, affirmed his support for established Republican leadership. "I do support Sen. McConnell's bid for reelection," Rubio said on Fox News Sunday. "I think he's trying to lead our conference. It's a diverse conference with a lot of different opinions. That's a tough job to begin with. And of course, he's got to represent his own state." Tomorrow, Rubio will attempt to have his cake and eat it too. 

House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi criticized the Obamacare roll out during her appearance on ABC's This Week, but said she's confident it'll succeed in the end. "As far as the Affordable Care Act as I call it, the fact is that, yes, what has happened is unacceptable in terms of the glitches," the former Speaker said. "They were overwhelmed to begin with. There is much that needs to be done to correct the situation." Pelosi said the high traffic, despite the glitches, suggests once things start running smoothly then the law will eventually become a success. "This has to be fixed but what doesn't have to be fixed is the fact that tens of millions more people will have access to affordable quality health care," she said.

       

Nikki Finke's Not Protesting, She's Still on Vacation

Nikki Finke's been quiet lately, but that doesn't mean she's going to roll over and let other gossip columnists write about her ongoing feud with her boss without a response. Especially when some of Finke's favorite foes — Richard Johnson and Sharon Waxman — are all loosely involved. 

Finke followers may have noticed an absence of Finke's personal flourish on Deadline.com over the last few weeks. The only place to consistently find Finke's distinct, cutting voice is in the weekly box office round-up reports. Page Six's Richard Johnson noted this absence in an item about Finke's boss, Penske Media Corp. CEO Jay Penske, turning down an opportunity to buy The Wrap, an entertainment site run by Finke foe Sharon Waxman. (Waxman reported Finke was fired this summer, setting the Finke-getting-out-of-dodge countdown clock.) 

"The unhappy Finke — in an apparent job action — has nearly stopped writing," Johnson said Saturday, taking a slight dig at his longtime rival. "Mathematical sources say she’s been responsible for only 7 percent of recent posts."

Penske's decision to turn down The Wrap — instead of buying and then closing it with prejudice — likely angered Finke. Waxman has long been a thorn in her side. But who knows, really? Penske buying Variety, the old-school entertainment trade, led to the current tension with her boss. Finke wanted, and expected more control over Variety's operation after Penske purchased the trade. Her vision saw Deadline as the go-to source for trade scoops and Variety as a home for top-flight industry analysis. Instead, she's still competing with the legacy paper for scoops. Now Finke wants to buy Deadline back from Penske or be cut loose into greener, independent pastures. Her Deadline silence has helped keep the labor feud from boiling over.

But the rarely quiet Finke felt the need to respond to Richard Johnson's little jab Saturday afternoon. "Apparently [Johnson] is the last person to get a clue that I am on vacation and using up the 19 weeks which I’ve banked since selling Deadline Hollywood in June 2009," Finke explained in a short post on Deadline, while thanking the rest of her team for picking up her slack. "I’ve continued doing box office because no one else at DH wanted to do it – and because, for some sick sad reason, I still love putting my own spin on it," she added.

As for Johnson, she had this to say: "How does this waste of space stay employed?"

Finke has been on vacation since June or July, depending on who you ask. By our count her 19 weeks are very nearly up. She declined to mention Penske's potential Wrap purchase.

       

New York Post Falls Deeply in Love with a Thought Catalog Writer

The New York Post put a somewhat controversial Thought Catalog writer on the cover of Saturday's paper. By mid-afternoon, the Post tracked the girl down again to get her reaction to being put on the cover of the New York Post.

[image error]"Maybe I’ll get a publicist, I don’t know," rich 20-year-old college student Rachael Sacks told the Post on Saturday afternoon, after Post reporters tracked her down for the second time in 24 hours, and after she graced the paper's cover.

She's arguably doing OK without one. She has a byline on Thought Catalog and an essay that went viral, and she became the subject of plenty of blog posts and newspaper columns thanks to her unapologetic diatribe about being a spoiled brat.

"I am sorry that I was born into great financial circumstances and my father likes to provide for me," daddy's little girl wrote Thursday for the always awful Thought Catalog. "I am sorry I don’t have to go to a state school to save my parents money."

Sacks described the hardships she faces as a well-off college student who doesn't know what it means to work for money, like the time two girls looked at her differently because she's rich. (They could tell.) Hey essay was picked up by a lot of newspapers and blogs, with Gawker's Hamilton Nolan noticing Sacks is "pretty racist" on Twitter.

In other words, she was perfect for the Post. Reporter Kathryn Cusma tracked down daddy's little girl for the Saturday cover story and got Sacks' exclusive reaction to her essay's reaction. Maybe I didn’t frame it in the right way," Sacks told the Post, "because people are missing the point: Which is no one should have to pretend they are what they aren’t." She does briefly entertain that thought during her short scribe, but any point she makes is quickly drowned out by everything else she says. "I’m a spoiled brat, like, that’s what I am," she said to Cusma. This also happened:

Then with the world’s smallest violin playing in the background, Sacks added: “People have been very mean to me. But people have been mean to me my whole life, so what. They think I’m a spoiled brat, and I am.”

[image error]So that was it, right? The Post had a new villain and a cover story, and this fame hungry 20-year-old had her exposure. The only thing missing was a bow to tie everything neatly together. But no, things didn't end there, because the Post -- in a move we'll begrudgingly deem brilliant -- sent yet-another reporter to Sacks' doorstep, this time to get her reaction to her Post cover story. It was then when Sachs let her guard down and shared her most honest moment yet:

“I don’t even have a publicist yet,” exclaimed Sacks, whose doctor dad back home in Maryland is footing all her bills as she pursues a writing degree at the New School.

“Maybe I’ll get a publicist, I don’t know,” she mused holding up The Post and smiling as she flipped the bird to haters. “People are suggesting that to me.”

On how she looks in her cover photo: "Like, if you’re going to get photographed for something, they like have someone like fix your hair and maybe fix your makeup. Not me," she told the Post Saturday. "This is ugly normal people right now."

They're a match made in heaven. 

[Insets via the New York Post]

       

JPMorgan Will Pay Record Breaking $13 Billion Justice Department Fine

JP Morgan Chase has agreed to pay a record breaking fine to the Justice Department to settle federal and state lawsuits over the bank's mortgage-backed securities business at the height of the financial collapse, according to multiple reports. This is everything we know so far. 

The Wall Street Journal reports J.P. Morgan Chase lawyers reached a tentative agreement late Friday night for a record breaking $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department that would relieve the bank from many state and federal lawsuits and investigations, after weeks of heated negotiations between lawyers representing both sides. This is the largest settlement ever paid to the federal government.

Attorney General Eric Holder, his deputy Tony West, and Stephen Cutler, the bank's general counsel, knocked out the initial terms of a deal last night, though things are still being finalized. The Journal explains what the settlement gets JPMC out of:  

The deal does include a roughly $4 billion agreement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency to settle allegations that J.P. Morgan misled Fannie Mae FNMA +0.65% and Freddie Mac about the quality of loans it sold them in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the person said.

The deal would also resolve a separate suit brought by New York state's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, the person said.

So that equals out to $9 billion in fines and that separate $4 million going to relief for struggling home owners. Reuters is reporting the same numbers. 

The settlement does not relieve JPMorgan from the Justice Department's ongoing criminal investigation of "the bank's issuance of mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007," the Journal says. The criminal probe had lawyers for both sides at a gridlock: JPMC wanted the investigation dropped, but Holder refused, and then squeezed the bank for money, according to The New York Times: 

The penalties eclipse what the bank previously offered to pay. Until now, JPMorgan was offering about $11 billion in total. And it was refusing to increase its offer until the Justice Department dropped a parallel criminal investigation into the bank’s sale of troubled mortgage securities to investors.

What this record breaking settlement means for JPMorgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon remains unclear. The bank recently set aside $23 billion to settle its numerous ongoing legal battles, and this single settlement took a major chunk out of that war chest. As Quartz's Tim Frenholtz outlined recently, this deal is really only the tip of the iceberg for JPMC, which is not a good sign for Dimon. 

The pundit sharks have been swirling around Dimon lately, smelling blood in the water calling for his head on a platter. Few presented the argument against Dimon as articulately as Salon's Alex Pareene during a recent CNBC appearance: 

I think that any time you’re looking at the greatest fine in the history of Wall Street regulation, it’s really worth asking should this guy stay in his job. In any other industry — I can’t think of another industry. If you managed a restaurant, and it got the biggest health department fine in the history of restaurants, no one would say “Yeah, but the restaurant’s making a lot of money. There’s only a little bit of poison in the food.”

One person defending Dimon recently was the godfather of modern investing, Warren Buffett. If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket,” Buffett told Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview on CNBC this week. "And you’ve had a lot of cops been following a long time and they’re going to write some tickets."

Now Dimon has biggest ticket in history. So what happens next?

       

Larry Summers Snubbed Netanyahu's Offer to Run Israel's Banks

If the U.S. didn't want Larry Summers, Israel would have loved to have the former U.S. treasury secretary run its banking system. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Summers turned him down. 

Reuters' Dan Williams cause a minor storm Saturday after he disclosed that Netanyahu offered Summers the Bank of Israel governor job. Summers wasn't necessarily a lock for the position, according to the Jerusalem Post: he still needed approval from the Turkel Committee heading the search. The bank’s acting governor, Karnit Flug, is also in the running.  But calm your fears: Summers reportedly turned the job done, according to Israel’s Channel 2, by way of The Hill. The Times of Israel reports there's a different front runner anyway:

Hebrew media speculation has it that the leading candidate for the influential post, in a process that has dragged on for over days, is Professor Zvi Eckstein. Eckstein is the dean of the School of Economics at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), and served as the Bank of Israel’s deputy chief between fron 2006-11.

Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid plan to announce Stanley Fischer's new successor on Sunday. Stanley Fischer, the previous central bank governor, announced his departure earlier this year and left the job in June.

It seems Summers is in high demand but can't quite land a steady job. Summers was in the running to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chair, but he dropped out after some public outcry. The job eventually went to the people's candidate, Janet Yellin, who was Federal Reserve vice chair under Bernanke.

       

Texans Still Love Their Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz isn't very popular nationally, or within the Republican party, but there's one place that has so far stood by him through this very difficult, profitable time for the junior Senator. He's doing just fine back in his pseudo-home state of Texas. (Let's not forget that he is Canadian after all.)

Cruz and his followers led the Republican Party into a 16 day government shutdown that nearly forced the country to breach the debt ceiling, default on its loans, something that by all accounts would have decimated the world economy. As a result, Republican approval ratings across the board are in the basement. Cruz is especially unpopular with the country as a whole. The Republican establishment also kind of hates him. But Cruz also made a million bucks off this mess, and despite his other economic shortcomings, the support for Cruz in Texas hasn't wavered. 

"I was proud of him," Bruce Labay, a 55-year-old oil business man, told The New York Times. "I wish they would have held firm, and we’d still be shut down." The Times found many of his fellows Texans, especially the Republicans, appreciate Cruz's Washington wrangling: 

“For a lot of us, this was refreshing,” said Mike Gibson, chairman of the Republican Party in Fort Bend County in suburban Houston. “We had a politician who said what he was going to do and then did it. Most Texas Republicans have been tired of our elected officials talking tough in Texas and then going to Washington and going along.”

Of course, not everyone loves Ted Cruz in Texas. The vastly outnumbered Texas Democrats think he's a terrible, no good politician. The Houston Chronicle was openly having second thoughts about its 2012 Cruz endorsement to replace former 20-year Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Some Republicans want him gone, too. "I grit my teeth and bear it," said an anonymous Texas Republican, who is "prominent" within the party, according to the Times. "I really hope he implodes sooner rather than later."

       

Dick Cheney Was Worried Terrorists Might Hack His Heart

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has unique health issues, in so far as his doctor once modified his care to ensure terrorists don't hack into the former lawmaker's defibrillator and kill him. Yes, you saw the same thing happen on Showtime's Homeland. Apparently this story is new and already happened on TV before it happened in real life. 

The former Vice President is promoting his new book, Heart: An American Medical Odyssey, about the vast strides medical treatment of heart problems has taken over the last few years. On Sunday's 60 Minutes, he'll share a story nearly beyond belief. 

Cheney's cardiologist was worried terrorists might hack into the wireless feature of his implanted defibrillator from another room in the hospital and electroshock him into cardiac arrest at one point during the many hospital stays the 72-year-old Cheney has suffered through his long heart problem history that nearly took his life. "And it seemed to me to be a bad idea for the vice president to have a device that maybe somebody on a rope line or in the next hotel room or downstairs might be able to get into— hack into," Dr. Jonathan Reiner says, according to the show’s transcript obtained by Politico. "And I worried that someone could kill [Cheney]."

If this scenario sounds strangely familiar, you're probably a Homeland fan. Spoiler alert, but at some point the show's vice president is killed exact the same way. To some, that might sound ridiculous -- terrorists hacking a heart machine, pfft -- but Cheney knew the plot point wasn't too outrageous from his personal experience. "Because I know from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible," Cheney says.