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Overnight News Digest for November 2, 2022 (In between election storms edition) [1]
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Date: 2022-11-02
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and now moi, JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
We’re deep in the dark jungle of election season. We’d all love to know what it all means, but we’ll just have to wait, I suppose.
(I remember the morning of Election Day 2000… I spent a few minutes checking out the tea leaves being prognosticated on various of the proto-blogs, including what later became Talking Points Memo. The news about GW Bush’s drunk driving arrest had broken over the weekend, and everyone was wondering how much it would matter… I sighed to myself and muttered, “Well, at least after tonight it’ll all be over and we’ll have an answer.” Yeah, that worked out REAL well...)
Elections are rarely satisfying, but Brazil gave us something to be thankful for over the weekend:
Da Silva, the 77-year-old co-founder of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), became the first challenger to defeat an incumbent president since the restoration of democracy in 1985. His campaign overcame a rampant social media-driven disinformation campaign, political violence including the assassination on Friday of a PT congressional candidate, and what observers called massive Election Day voter suppression by federal police to win a third term for the man Brazilians endearingly call Lula. Bolsonaro—who has threatened to reject the results if he lost—and his far-right nationalism will remain a powerful force in Brazilian politics despite his ouster. Derided by critics as the “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro’s tenure was marked by accelerated environmental destruction, especially of the Amazon rainforest; gross mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more people in Brazil than in any other country save the United States; disdain and disregard for the rights of Indigenous peoples; rampant bigotry; and incessant flirtation with authoritarianism. x “Brazil & the planet need a living Amazon. A standing tree is worth more than tons of wood illegally harvested by those who think only of easy profit…
A river of clear water is worth more than gold extracted at the expense of mercury that kills fauna and risks human life.” — jonathanwatts (@jonathanwatts) October 31, 2022
Meanwhile, in Israel, the results were almost equally close, but unfortunately fell in the other direction.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the authoritarian dickhead who had forced five elections in the past four years by lying, cheating, alienating his natural allies and attempting to retain power while dragging out his own corruption trial, appears set for yet another dark victory. The left and the right got almost the same number of votes, but by taking advantage of Israel’s arcane electoral system to splinter the left and pull every rightist, no matter how racist, homophobic or anti-democratic into his big bad tent, he appears to have won.
Politico has a decent summary of the ins and outs:
Israel’s longtime former prime minister and current opposition leader appears to have engineered a surprising victory in the country’s fifth national vote since 2019, thanks to help from an extremist far-right party. This alliance could have profound implications, though — potentially ending his legal troubles at home while antagonizing friends abroad. But Netanyahu, who has been opposition leader for a year and a half, worked diligently to shore up his bloc of allies with a series of cooperation deals and mergers to ensure that no votes were lost. His ultra-Orthodox religious allies, who joined him in the opposition, worked hard to ensure heavy turnout. Politicians on Israel’s left, in contrast, were riven by infighting, leaving one or two small parties below the threshold required to enter parliament. That means that all of their votes are lost. As a result, Netanyahu is expected to control as many as 65 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
And what does this mean for the US election?
We sure don’t have a mastermind pulling the strings (unless it’s everyone’s favorite immigrant, Rupert Murdoch).
But there are tea leaves aplenty to be read, mostly boiling down to the question:
Have the media (and their billionaire overlords) managed to convince US voters that inflation is the most important issue (even though it’s a global phenomenon driven by large corporations profiteering on the backs of Vlad Putin), which means you should vote for the party backed by large corporations (and Vlad Putin)?
Or have Democrats made the case that this election is about protecting Democracy, the fundamental right to privacy and bodily autonomy, and the HEALTH OF THE BLOODY PLANET WE LIVE ON?
But, you know, THE PRICE OF EGGS! THE PRICE OF GAS!
..voters shared mixed opinions with Fox News over who's to blame for rising costs…. "I blame the left, not Joe Biden himself," Erica, from New Jersey, said. "Because there's not just one chief in the kitchen." But Susanna disagreed. "I blame the president, but that's my opinion," she said in Washington state. x Memo to the Fed: Interest rate hikes aren't working because inflation is being driven by corporations using it as cover to price gouge the people. — Robert Reich (@RBReich) November 2, 2022
What’s really causing inflation?
x .@POTUS continues to hold Big Oil's feet to the fire for their greedy price gouging:
"In the last six months while the rest of the country has gone through hell, six of the largest oil companies made more than $100 billion of profits." pic.twitter.com/DZrX4oS08P — Climate Power (@ClimatePower) November 2, 2022
x Here’s the script: (1) gouge consumers; (2) make billions; (3) send a cut of those billions to Republicans; (4) get them to blame Biden for prices that Big Oil actually sets; and (5) go back to gouging — it’s quite a performance. — Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) October 28, 2022
Meanwhile, Simon Rosenberg decided that rather than consult the tea leaves/election polls, he’d look at the only poll that matters: The way people are actually voting. And what he found is very encouraging for Democrats. To whit — our people are out there casting ballots at early polling stations in record numbers (even if the ‘likely voter’ screens won’t pick them up, since their first-time or infrequent voters mobilized by the GOP’s scorched-earth policies)
x While I'm more focused on the early vote, polling over past week has been good for Ds.
We've had good Senate polls in AZ/GA/NV/PA/WI. Good youth and Hispanic polls. Majority of national tracks last week were +D.
I'd still rather be us than them. 2/
https://t.co/iBGXNUEIqz — Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 1, 2022
And yeah, he also pointed out how GOP pollsters are (again) flooding the zone with garbage polls in order to create a media narrative of “Red Wave Resurgent”
x How much of a difference could the GOP's gaming of the averages have?
This study suggests it could be as much as 3-4 points. That's a lot.
I remain flabbergasted media election folks got played so badly. 8/
https://t.co/t47Y9IXQow — Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 1, 2022
So what do we do? GOTV.
Keep at it, wherever you are (I’ll include links at the end of this News Digest)
x Republicans' next move is to ban contraception.
Are we allowed to be shrill alarmists yet?
https://t.co/KAnOUYZwcC — 🌻Joel יואל🌻 (@Academia_Nut) November 1, 2022
Here’s a helpful graphic to show all the fossil fuel shills who keep trying to argue that “Sure, fossil fuels are awful, but clean energy is equally bad”
x I see people saying on Twitter that solar & wind are a bad idea because of their environmental impacts.
"Compared to what?" we often ask @RegAssistProj
Recent meta-review led by @BenjaminSovaco1 shows fossil electricity has much bigger environmental impacts than renewables. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/baTW9zu4Nh — Jan Rosenow (@janrosenow) November 2, 2022
Meanwhile, the NON-GOP polls are looking… decent!
Here’s another fun, if somewhat limited poll: 14 family members of Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt step up to endorse his Democratic opponent, Catherine Cortez Masto (because they know, best of all, what a jerk he is):
x I’m honored to have the support of @BarackObama AND the Laxalt family in this race. pic.twitter.com/dDnGrqKYpM — Catherine Cortez Masto (@CortezMasto) November 2, 2022
I know I bang this drum a lot, but… it needs banging.
COVID is not over. Please wear masks.
Hawkeye taught us that when your world is disintegrating, it is not only possible but utterly necessary to crack a joke — to create a counterpoint to what would otherwise be overwhelming. In his oscillations between laughter and gut-wrenching anguish, I recognized a shadow version of myself. He planted the seed of the idea that I would become a doctor. From the first day I wore my white coat, I used humor as a grenade to lob at situations that were too awful for words, startling patients and families into laughter in ways that would have made Hawkeye proud. I channeled Hawkeye’s anger, raging bitterly at a broken system and colleagues who cared more for textbooks than for patients. But I didn’t always know how to cope with that rage. As impossible as it sounds, I hadn’t known that Hawkeye has a nervous breakdown before the war ends; I didn’t catch the final episode, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” until I was already a physician. I wasn’t sure how to interpret this development in the context of my devotion to him, except that laughter alone was not enough.
x An estimated 35 million Americans have long Covid.
More than 5 million have lost an immediate family member to Covid.
650,000 without insurance have been hospitalized due to Covid.
1/4 of the workforce is dealing with pandemic death, illness, and debt.
https://t.co/LPpG7iA6Mg — Ted Genoways (@TedGenoways) November 1, 2022
If you had COVID, NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE, you should be taking a buffered children’s aspirin every day. Take it with food so it won’t mess up your stomach lining. It could prevent a fatal heart attack or stroke.
x ALL men+ women in their 40s+ who get covid need to be on high alert for signs of heart attack+ stroke in the 6 months following. Maybe longer. — Dr. Sarah Parcak (@indyfromspace) November 2, 2022
And meanwhile, kids are filling hospitals with RSV infections (which may be exacerbated by earlier COVID infections, we just don’t know!)
Across the country, children have for weeks been slammed with a massive, early wave of viral infections—driven largely by RSV, but also flu, rhinovirus, enterovirus, and SARS-CoV-2. Many emergency departments and intensive-care units are now at or past capacity, and resorting to extreme measures. At Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, in Maryland, staff has pitched a tent outside the emergency department to accommodate overflow; Connecticut Children’s Hospital mulled calling in the National Guard. It’s already the largest surge of infectious illnesses that some pediatricians have seen in their decades-long careers, and many worry that the worst is yet to come. “It is a crisis,” Sapna Kudchadkar, a pediatric-intensive-care specialist and anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins, told me. “It’s bananas; it’s been full to the gills since September,” says Melissa J. Sacco, a pediatric-intensive-care specialist at UVA Health. “Every night I turn away a patient, or tell the emergency department they have to have a PICU-level kid there for the foreseeable future.” I asked Chris Carroll, a pediatric-intensive-care specialist at Connecticut Children’s, how bad things were on a scale of 1 to 10. “Can I use a Spinal Tap reference?” he asked me back. “This is our 2020. This is as bad as it gets.” x Allison Hanes: Situation in Montreal's pediatric ERs is 'like a horror film' | Montreal Gazette
https://t.co/YXyt4CFQpl — Theresa Boyle (@theresaboyle) October 31, 2022
And while we’re at it:
it may be possible to build a home with perfectly vented gas appliances, and there may be a “safe” level of NO2, but in the real world — in the homes that we all actually live — this is probably the rare exception. The more likely norm is unused range hoods, furnace flues that spill chemicals into the air we breathe, and ultimately higher rates of illness. I began this research as a skeptic. Why? For the same reasons you may be skeptical right now. Accepting that a gas stove or any other fossil-fuel appliance makes a home less healthy isn’t simply an abstract intellectual exercise. It has practical consequences like forking up the time and money to replace the thing — an option that, like so many other health improvements, isn’t available to all. But as I’ve learned more about this topic, my skepticism has faded. Every rigorous review of the research points to the same conclusion: Most homes have unsafe levels of nitrogen dioxide and that results in higher rates of respiratory illness (especially amongst children). Or to borrow a quote from John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do?” x In 2013 another meta-analysis on the topic came out.
This time the authors concluded, “Children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma.” — Michael Thomas (@curious_founder) January 13, 2022
Doom much? Here’s 172 years of climate change in 90 seconds
And here’s Greta:
x Watch Greta‘s speech presenting ‚The Climate Book‘, to which I had the honor to contribute as one of over 100 scientists.
https://t.co/824Pc2MjoO pic.twitter.com/vowkDs5tfn — Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏🇺🇦 (@rahmstorf) October 30, 2022
In case you missed out on the meme, Russian soldiers have been stealing… washing machines. From Ukraine. Because apparently that’s one big-ticket item that is really hard to get in the paradise of the former Soviet Union. So...
x It’s only fair.
In the Czech city of Litomerice, unidentified people painted a washing machine on the pedestal of the monument to Soviet soldiers.
“Now the monument displays a typical Russian soldier.“#RussiaIsLosing #CzechRepublic #RussiaisATerroistState #Russia pic.twitter.com/0sD3ugvJPu — News of Ukraine (@uasupport999) October 26, 2022
x early voting is now open.
there’s more on the line than ever in these midterms — reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, environmental policy, supreme court…i want a world that’s different than whatever this fucked up shit is.
more info here —
https://t.co/J9CuWsQksE https://t.co/XLwIt1NEg2 — Maggie Rogers (@maggierogers) October 29, 2022
Who is Maggie Rogers?
x YouTube Video
What do YOU want?
Do you want bodily autonomy?
Do you want a functioning democracy?
Do you want a livable planet for your parents to grow old in and your children to grow up in?
Follow the links and DO SOME STUFF over the next 6 days!
Click here for the entire list of actions you can take RIGHT NOW to help get pro-choice, pro-climate and pro-democracy Democrats elected up and down the ballot this year — and tell us in the comments what actions YOU’RE taking!
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