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Overnight News Digest for December 14, 2025 (America needs a superhero edition) [1]
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Date: 2022-12-14
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 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.
So. We could all use a good laugh tonight, eh?
The Former Guy teased a Big Announcement, and the mockery commenced. I thought of posting some of it here, but…. nah.
There’s real news. And real heroes:
x I am forever grateful to my colleagues in the Caucus for their courage to elect the first woman Speaker.
It’s been my honor to help to forge historic progress For The People. pic.twitter.com/nuUciipXuh — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 15, 2022
x To be clear, this is NOT a record for a single session of Congress --
This is more Black women confirmed for the US Court of Appeals in THIS session of Congress than in EVERY OTHER session of Congress COMBINED.
https://t.co/X0RG9xTgQJ — Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) December 14, 2022
Wait — Is there still a chance for sane repubs to join with the dems in the new congress?
Hahahahaha NO.
Nine House Republicans crossed the aisle and joined all voting Democrats in backing the measure: Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), John Katko (N.Y.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Steve Womack (Ark.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.). Kinzinger, Cheney, Jacobs, Gonzalez, Katko, Herrera Beutler and Upton are all leaving the House at the end of this Congress after opting against running for reelection or losing bids for another term. That group of Republicans voted for the stopgap bill despite House GOP leadership recommending a “no” vote. The office of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) sent a notice to all House GOP offices Tuesday night urging members to vote against the continuing resolution.
Just walk away...
COP15 — being held this week in Montreal — was supposed to put together a framework for protecting biodiversity — which is to say, avoiding catastrophic species collapse that could demolish everything on the planet that isn’t cockroaches and rats. (Do you want to eat cockroaches and rats? Neither do I).
Unfortunately, it’s not going well, which should really come as no surprise after global COVID relief packages were hijacked by the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual and then COP27 (I know, it’s confusing, blame the UN) was hijacked by the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual.
x "None of these proposals would be vastly expensive. All would have beneficial effects. Sadly, many will be opposed by corporate and financial lobbyists. That is why they should not be at Cop15 at all. But they will be, in droves." - via @Grouse_Beater
https://t.co/wJYhZlfJjm — Jim McArthur (@JazzerStix) December 12, 2022
In echoes of last month’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt – where countries agreed to create a new fund to compensate loss and damage from global heating in vulnerable nations – countries from the global south left Cop15 talks on Wednesday due to disagreements over finance. ...“Brazil and China are the biggest recipients of GEF funding. Donor countries find it hard to swallow that so much of our overseas aid goes to them. So, we talk about broadening the donor base, ie adding parties like Brazil and China to the donor list rather than the recipient list. “There is no doubt that the Brazilians are enjoying the ride, making it harder to work collaboratively, and perhaps even actively looking to bring down the whole thing. The Brazilian argument for a new fund is motivated in part by a drive to ensure they design a new system and never have to pay.”
..We have made progress on parts of the agreement that are not so controversial, but we have left all of the difficult bits to the final few days of a process that has taken three years. It sets up a dramatic showdown for ministers this weekend and early next week as Christmas gets closer. Late-night bilaterals and in-corridor meetings will soon be with us. ...Canada has done a great job organising Cop15 at the last minute in Montreal. But even though we’ve heard big commitments from the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on a target to protect 30% of the planet, it is not being helpful with the other parts of negotiations. The UN is doing its best. We need political leadership from ministers in the final few days. Someone needs to build enough political will to make a breakthrough. I cannot see where it is going to come from as things stand. Yet, if we can do that, an agreement could be quickly reached. There will have to be late-night negotiations and early-morning secret talks to make it happen. A successful outcome is still possible but we must start making real progress. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.
Going nuclear? Not so fast…
A couple of stories that reflect the fact that, while certain big-money interests are very excited about spending gobs on of money on nuclear energy… wind and solar are cheaper NOW and safer NOW and can actually be built NOW.
..The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) admits that nuclear power plants have long construction periods, often 13 to 17 years from the final investment decision. This means Sizewell C is not expected to generate power until between 2036 and 2040 – far too late for our energy and climate crises. And EDF is in deep trouble financially. It is €43 billion in debt, its accounts say, and faces further billions in losses this year, with exponential radioactive waste and decommissioning costs on the horizon. Macron is having to fully nationalise the ailing company, which has an estimated €50 billion bill for its mandatory reactor safety upgrades. ...A recent study from the energy think tanks E3G and Ember also found that wind and solar has produced a quarter of EU electricity since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year, avoiding €11bn in gas costs. Perhaps this is because Lazard has found that while the levelised cost of nuclear-generated electricity averages around $160 per MWh (mega-watt hour), utility-scale solar and wind power comes in at an average of around just $40 per MWh… That’s why renewables supplied 40 per cent of UK electricity in 2021 and a quarter of US electricity during the first half of 2022. All this because utility-scale renewables can be built relatively cheaply, on time and to budget.
A nuclear energy project in Wyoming, backed by Bill Gates and the U.S. Energy Department, is delayed by at least two years amid worries about supplies of a special fuel currently made in Russia, the head of TerraPower, the company building it said on Wednesday. U.S. companies including TerraPower are trying to develop a new generation of small nuclear plants to help cut carbon emissions but only one firm sells the fuel it needs, and it is Russian. The fuel, called high assay low enriched uranium, or HALEU, is enriched up to 20%, much above the up to 5% level today's reactors use. ..."TerraPower is anticipating a minimum of a two-year delay to being able to bring the Natrium reactor into operation," he said. The 345-megawatt plant had been slated to open in 2028. x At some point, people have to start seeing the obvious. We need to replace 80% of all energy by 2030, and new nuclear is useless for helping with that.
Small modular reactor (SMR) goal of 2028 pushed back minimum of 2 years to 2030 or beyond.
https://t.co/1w3zwj1Bv8 @Energy — Mark Z. Jacobson (@mzjacobson) December 14, 2022
x “Despite today’s announcement, fusion is neither commercial nor close to commercial, so it is still vaporware"
Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find a plasma physicist who thinks fusion will be in the mix in the next decade
https://t.co/JD4vfMDKkA @wired — Mark Z. Jacobson (@mzjacobson) December 13, 2022
Muskrat Love
What makes Elon run? How far can he go? How LOW can he go? And what the heck is he thinking?
Published in 1941, [James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World ] predicted that capitalism had reached a terminal stage; the capitalist class’s power would soon decline, giving way to the rise of the “managerial class” — people who direct industry and the complex operations of the state. His examples of this new state were Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, which Burnham believed to be rooted in a more efficient economic model than liberal capitalism. For this reason, he predicted a Nazi victory in World War II was all but inevitable. Burnham’s predictions were wildly wrong, in ways that should cast significant doubt on the viability of his entire theory of “the managerial revolution.” But his conceptualization of an unaccountable managerial class has nonetheless been extremely influential in the right-leaning tech world and in the broader conservative intellectual firmament. Marc Andreessen, a leading tech venture capitalist, called Burnham’s work “the best explanation for the current structure of our society and politics.” Julius Krein, a leading conservative policy intellectual, wrote that Burnham was “enjoying something of a revival” because “David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and Matthew Continetti, among others, have recently pointed to his work as essential to understanding the current political moment.”
You know it’s REALLY a problem when the Capitalist overlords themselves finally start to complain…
The behavior of Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is having more of an impact on Wall Street’s view of the company, as another analyst has come out with a critical opinion of the actions of the man who is the face of the iconic electric-car maker. On Tuesday, Nomura Instinet analyst Romit Shah cut his rating on Tesla to neutral from buy, and slashed his target price on the company’s stock to $300 a share from $400. But what was probably more notable than Shah’s lowering his rating and stock price were some of his comments about the state of Musk’s leadership of Tesla. (Not everyone seems rattled; Space X CEO Gwynne Shotwell on Wednesday called Musk “brilliant.”) In a research note titled, “No Longer Investable,” Shah said the biggest issue facing Tesla is the “erratic behavior” of Musk, which Shah said could be “tainting the Tesla brand.” Shah mentioned some of Musk’s actions in recent months–such as last week’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast in which Musk’s smoked a cigarette that Rogan said was laced with marijuana–as damaging to the most valuable asset Tesla has, its brand. x Musk is going through the same boring, predictable spiral that happens when disordered narcissists learn that negative attention feeds them as much as positive attention and validation from terrible people is easier than validation from good ones. — BikeMilitant (@bikemilitant) December 14, 2022
Joe Manchin’s zombie Dirty Deal is back for one last try. It was scheduled for a vote tonight, but with most progressives vowing to vote it down, and most Republicans happy to hand Manchin a humiliation, the re-re-re-vote has been re-postponed.
Responding to today’s announcement that HSBC, the UK’s biggest high street bank and one of the world’s biggest financers of fossil fuels, will no longer finance new oil and gas fields, Jeanne Martin, Head of the Banking Programme at responsible investment NGO ShareAction, said: “HSBC’s announcement sends a strong signal to fossil fuel giants and governments that banks’ appetite for financing new oil and gas fields is diminishing. It sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net zero. “However, HSBC’s announcement only applies to asset financing, and doesn’t deal with the much larger proportion of finance it still provides to companies that have oil and gas expansion plans. We expect to see HSBC come forward with new proposals that will address this as soon as possible. Over the last six months, ShareAction has been engaging with HSBC on the contents of its new energy policy. These productive engagements contributed to HSBC committing not to finance new oil and gas fields and new metallurgical coal mines, to introduce strict requirements for new clients relating to oil and gas exploration, and to set an absolute thermal coal on balance sheet financed emissions target of 70 per cent reduction by 2030, among other things. However, other elements of the bank’s new energy policy need improving. x 🚨BREAKING: @HSBC sends shockwaves to fossil fuel giants & governments by committing not to directly finance new oil & gas fields
HSBC's announcement sets a new minimum level of ambition for all banks committed to net-zero
👋👋@Barclays @BNPParibas
https://t.co/Ybz5Przwbj — Jeanne Martin (@JeanneMartin25) December 14, 2022
One more climate reminder, from James Hansen:
x it’s amazing how many people have wilfully ignored warnings that we are gambling with our future - we’re currently losing. They’ll blame everyone else when it becomes unavoidable soon pic.twitter.com/x9n2wHc8tV — Matthew Todd 🌏🔥 (@MrMatthewTodd) December 14, 2022
Here’s why I always find it maddening when people say “There’s no difference between the two parties!”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she is commuting the sentences of all of the state's 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying their death sentences will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Brown, a Democrat with less than a month remaining in office, said she was using her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences and that her order will take effect on Wednesday. “I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison," Brown said in a statement.
I did not know this one:
x Found this out the hard way, when my son was stillborn in June 1983... pic.twitter.com/QvWoDrY3gQ — Thursday (@ennui365) December 13, 2022
And if you needed yet another reminder of just how badly the New York Democratic Party totally failed in its GOTV operation for 2022, the state actually swung 15 point TO THE GOP (and no, it wasn’t because of strong GOP candidates, it was because of a weak Dem Party):
x new york officially had the largest swing to the right in the country...
https://t.co/sTaadbEFSR — aaron from queens 🫡 (@aaronnarraph) December 14, 2022
Looking to do some good this holiday shopping season? Triple Pundit has you covered:
Whether you're wishing your loved ones holiday greetings in person or from a few time zones away, yet again we’ve got you covered with our annual sustainable holiday gift guide. From zero-waste options to gifts that give back and support local artisans, start checking off your holiday gift list with these suggestions that are fun and festive yet light on impact. Buy local. Think pre-owned. We say it every year: You’ll be hard-pressed to find more responsible and sustainable holiday gifts than items that already exist and would otherwise go to waste. Fortunately for shoppers seeking to avoid waste, a bevy of companies have embraced re-commerce and are making it seamless to shop secondhand without sacrificing style. Retailers like Patagonia and REI have a rich selection of pre-owned outdoor gear, while The North Face and Eileen Fisher have long been solid options for finding clothing and outerwear that are worthy of a second life. Don’t dismiss portals like Poshmark and, of course, Etsy if you’re patient — you could be surprised! Check out more of our favorite re-commerce shops here. If you can't buy used, consider buying local. Many small businesses are still struggling after the pandemic, and all the chatter about inflation and a possible recession isn’t helping. Your support can offer them a lift. x Local, artisan, women-owned, Black-owned: We’ve got a smattering of gift ideas in our annual #HolidayGiftGuide, courtesy @LeonKaye:
https://t.co/YEyeUN22CI — TriplePundit.com (@TriplePundit) December 14, 2022
What are you giving this year? Any hot leads on cool gadgets or tasty treats?
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