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Overnight News Digest for January 4, 2023 (Day 2 of popcorn overload edition) [1]

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Date: 2023-01-04

Rep Ted Lieu heads to the House floor to vote for Speaker on Jan 3, 2023. With popcorn

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.

As my grandfather, z’l, used to say, “It couldn’t happen to nicer people”.

The schadenfreude has been almost as thick on the ground in Washington DC as a Lackawanna lake-effect snowfall. And even thought it’s been covered pretty thoroughly by the crew, there’s still plenty of fun headlines we can enjoy on this first Wednesday of the new year.

They made history Tuesday, down in the House chamber. The last time the House failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot, Warren G. Harding was president, Norman Mailer had just been born, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Indian man couldn’t be naturalized because he wasn’t white. ...Uncertainty reigned Tuesday. It’s exceedingly rare to see any vote in Washington where the outcome is in doubt beforehand. The last one of consequence might have been in 2017, when Sen. John McCain dramatically gave the GOP’s plan to kill off Obamacare a thumbs-down. Before the votes, members told reporters they didn’t know what to expect. “We’ll see,” said Republican Rep. French Hill of Arkansas… x It's 4:20 PM in DC and black smoke is still spewing out from the Capitol. No speaker was elected through the 6th ballot although a Karen from Florida caused a scene on her nomination speech.



Jeffries - 212

McCarthy - 201

Donalds - 20

Present - 1 pic.twitter.com/xOBq7Tm49F — Earl's New Year Arc (Inauguration Special) (@EarlBlumerStan) January 4, 2023

Despite his best efforts, the leopards have finally come for Kevin McCarthy’s face. For those not extremely online, I’m referring to a 2015 tweet from YA novelist Adrian Bott: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” x 'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party. — Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn) October 16, 2015 It’s nearly eight years later and McCarthy is learning this lesson the hard way, as his quixotic quest for the Speakership, which spanned most of that time, is falling apart on C-SPAN. Rumors of an affair (which McCarthy denied) might have derailed McCarthy from taking over the gavel from John Boehner in 2015. And again, in 2018, when McCarthy was set up to be Speaker, Republicans lost the House. Now finally, Republicans have a razor-thin majority, but their party is too dysfunctional to govern. McCarthy is finding it impossible to stop a brakeless freight train driven by morons, making a mess of the 118th Congress before members are even sworn in. ...How Republicans in Congress unraveled isn’t a mystery. There’s a straight line from Newt Gingrich to the Tea Party to Donald Trump to a Colorado congresswoman named Lauren Boebert saying she wants a “single-member motion to vacate.” Such a motion would mean that any member of the House, at any time, could call a new Speaker election. In other words: The Speakership would be held hostage by whichever congressperson was feeling craziest that day. McCarthy has already agreed to a five-member threshold for a motion to vacate, which means that five members can get together and throw sand in the gears whenever they want. Not exactly a recipe for legislative success...

The 20 Republicans who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker of the House had something in common before Tuesday’s drama: They are very conservative and scorn the Republican Party establishment. Though the number was somewhat surprising, the roster of McCarthy’s opponents wasn’t. The Republicans who voted against him were, on average, more conservative than 98 percent of the 117th Congress (if they served in it) and more anti-establishment than 93 percent, according to DW-NOMINATE, a political-science metric that uses roll-call votes to measure the ideology of members of Congress.2 (The first dimension of DW-NOMINATE quantifies how liberal or conservative a politician is and the second dimension corresponds to how closely aligned they are to the party establishment.) In other words, the faction that rebelled against McCarthy was ultraconservative and clearly uninterested in handing power to a man who has been part of House GOP leadership since 2009. Interestingly, unlike the Democrats who voted against former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019 — who hailed exclusively from competitive districts — McCarthy’s foes tend to come from solidly red turf. Only three of the 20 were elected in districts with FiveThirtyEight partisan leans3 bluer than R+15, suggesting they aren’t opposing McCarthy for electoral reasons. In addition, 14 of the 20 belong to the House Freedom Caucus, an obstructionist group within the House aligned with the tea party. And it’s likely that after the House gets organized, at least some of the newly elected anti-McCarthy voters, Reps.-elect Josh Brecheen, Eli Crane, Anna Paulina Luna and Andy Ogles, will join the House Freedom Caucus since the group’s PAC endorsed each of them.

On Tuesday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the putative leader of the Republican House caucus, began moving into the speaker's office. Later, of course, the House voted for speaker, and McCarthy lost three times. Which is when McCarthy's transparent and predictably maladroit attempt to create a fait accompli via office furniture came to the beady-eyed attention of Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of McCarthy's most implacable opponents. He dashed off a WTF? letter to the architect of the Capitol. ”I write to inform you that the Speaker of the House Office located in the U.S. Capitol Building is currently occupied by Rep. Kevin McCarthy. As of this morning, the 117th Congress adjourned sine die, and a Speaker from the 118th Congress has not been elected. After three undeciding votes, no member can lay claim to this office. What is the basis in law, House rule, or precedent to allow someone who has placed second in three successive speaker elections to occupy the Speaker of the House Office? How long will he remain there before is considered a squatter? First of all, "undeciding" isn't a word. And Gaetz is certainly no diplomat. But the man does have a point. By any measure, McCarthy has no more right to that office than I do. In fact, he has less of a right to it than I do. Anyone can be speaker, and McCarthy's lost three more votes for the gig than I have. I suspect some half-bright staffer suggested the move as a way to demonstrate McCarthy's strength as a candidate. McCarthy, not being the brightest bulb in the political chandelier on his best day, went for it. Now he stands more than a fair chance of starring in one of the most embarrassing photographs ever taken in the Capitol: his belongings' being hauled out of an office he'll never occupy.

The longer the GOP dawdles over the Speaker selection, the longer we have TWO amazing women first and second in the line of Presidential Succession:

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) may be the closest to the presidency she’ll ever get — even if it’s only for a brief moment. That’s because the position of House speaker lies unclaimed for now with no timeline for a resolution. Murray, who assumed the position of Senate president pro tempore on Tuesday, therefore sits right behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential line of succession until Republicans pick their speaker. Murray said in a statement she is “truly honored” to assume the pro tem role, which is now held by a woman for the first time in history. Harris, the first woman vice president, administered the oath of office to Murray — wearing her trademark tennis shoes — on Tuesday as her predecessor, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), stood behind her.

In other happy news, Lula da Silva DID win his election in Brazil, and elections have consequences:

x Lula da Silva is fulfilling campaign promises by putting Indigenous peoples and their policies front and center in his administration. One of the largest changes is the creation of the new Ministry of Indigenous Affairs led by the Indigenous activist Sônia Guajajara. 2/ pic.twitter.com/GxodBkwDSS — New Amauta (@AmautaNew) January 3, 2023

Meanwhile, the indigenous of Australia are facing yet another disaster. This year, instead of insane wildfires, it’s insane flooding:

Outback towns and rivers across the Kimberley region of Western Australia are facing record breaking floods that have left towns cut off, forced road closures and transformed the landscape into an inland sea. The rain is being driven by Ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie, which made landfall two weeks ago but has caused "incessant rain" across the region. ...It comes after 831 mm of rain was recorded at a gauge at Dimond Gorge, north of Fitzroy Crossing over a week-long period.

x Emergency situation declared in Western Australia as outback transforms into inland seahttps://t.co/GIyNoOlmAj — Doomer Girl News🐀 (@SaraHor76174949) January 3, 2023

And you’ve probably heard all the naysayers questioning the benefit of EVs. Well, guess what? The market is sitting up and taking notice: EVs are cheaper, as well as cleaner and better for the climate.

Hertz discovered that electric vehicles are between 50-60% cheaper to maintain than gasoline-powered cars. Rental car company Hertz is shifting into high gear on the road to electric vehicles (EVs). Already, it has seen a 12% increase in yearly profits as the globe-spanning rental car company accelerates its transition to EVs and lower costs. ...There are fewer moving parts on EV vehicles than gas-burning cars, which means there are fewer failure points on components that can make for costly replacements. Additionally, the less time a vehicle is receiving repairs at the auto shop means it’s spending more time on the road and thus has more opportunities to make money as a rental.

In the face of continued legal action from states across the country, 3M, a Fortune 500 manufacturing company, will discontinue the use of “forever chemicals” by 2025. 3M makes Scotchgard and other water-repellent products which contain a class of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that do not break down in the environment. PFAS has been found in nearly every state in the country and in everything from polar bears to fast food wrappers. Research has shown a link between these chemicals and public health concerns such as high blood pressure in mid-life women, stunted developmental growth, infertility, as well as kidney, liver, and testicular cancers. In a statement, the St.Paul-based company said the decision comes on the heels of an “evolving external landscape,” which includes increased regulatory pressures. In the past year, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, released a PFAS Strategic Roadmap, which plans to create new policies to protect public health and the environment while holding polluters accountable. In addition to the increased federal pressure, 3M has been the target of various lawsuits directed at PFAS manufacturers.

I’m gonna keep posting Covid stories as long as idiots keep saying “It’s no worse than the flu”. (And please, PLEASE wear masks out there. Even if the mask just prevents you from getting a week of misery from the flu, isn’t THAT worth it?)

x 2/ These data explain how the COVID virus places our bodies at risk for macro (large) blood clots in acute dz (which we see often), brain disease due to down-stream micro-clotting, and possibly later cardiovascular dz.



What did these London investigators find? pic.twitter.com/6xZbSujjfC — WesElyMD (@WesElyMD) January 3, 2023

How’s your sense of dread this week? I’m feeling better and better — I’m more convinced than ever that young people are going to see us through this mess, even as the clueless old farts try to grab one last pointless payout on their way out the door:

..The desire for spices such as pepper drove European expeditions eastwards, to cut out the middlemen who brought them overland. Ultimately, the desire to own and amass riches from these spices and similar goods drove colonialism. The unknown “east” became known and ownable. In a sense, those first pepper-filled ships marked a turning point, a period when the western world shifted, after which there was no going back. Elizabeth I’s charter for the East India Company was for 15 years, but her heir, James I, extended it indefinitely with only one rule: the company had to turn a profit to keep the charter. As the historian Alex von Tunzelmann has written: “Thus a beast was created whose only objective was money … pure capitalism unleashed for the first time in history.” In another passage, she writes: “It was a private empire of money, unburdened by conscience, rampaging across Asia, unfettered into the 1850s.” ...So where does pepper really come from? It comes from hot, tropical landscapes. It comes from Subang’s small family farm upriver from Kapit, Sarawak, where pepper prices have dropped so much she is farming less and less. It comes from the Parameswaran family farm in Thiruelly, Kerala, where they have been farming for 35 years and hand harvest just as berries ripen. The answer feels infinite, but ultimately pepper comes from people and communities. x And to find out more of course listen to my @whetstoneradio podcast on the subject… this piece has a bunch of extra, background that didn’t make it into the show too. — Anna Sulan Masing (@AnnaSulan) January 4, 2023

And for one more round of Schadenfreude…

..In an apparent attempt to impress a Bumble match, Andrew Quentin Taake boasted about his apparent role in the siege, telling an anonymous woman on the dating app that he was among the insurrectionists from "the very beginning," prosecutors said. After the pair's online conversation fizzled, the unnamed woman contacted the FBI on January 9, 2021, sharing screenshots of Taake's own admissions via messages between the two, according to a July 2021 criminal complaint. In one exchange, the Texas man told his potential paramour about being pepper-sprayed outside the Capitol: "I was the very first person to be sprayed that day, all while just standing there," he claimed. … But there is perhaps no case more baffling than that of Thomas Fee, a retired New York City firefighter who texted his girlfriend's brother — who also happened to be a federal agent with the US Diplomatic Security Service — a selfie showing him inside the Capitol rotunda during the riot.

How much popcorn did YOU chow down on over the past two days? Fill us in down in the comments...

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/4/2145452/-Overnight-News-Digest-for-January-4-2023-Day-2-of-popcorn-overload-edition

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