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Overnight News Digest for July 19, 2023 (World on Fire Edition) [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-19
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.
The warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date data for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modelers warned decades ago x We can’t wait until 2050.
Governments must Act Now.
🌎🔥🌎🔥🌎🔥 pic.twitter.com/kgO6t7d6td — Hugo Tagholm (@HugoSAS) July 18, 2023 Thirty years ago, the world’s nations agreed to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. But what is “dangerous climate change”? Just turn on the television, read the headlines of the morning paper or view your social media feeds. For we are watching it play out in real time this summer, more profoundly than ever before, in the form of unprecedented floods, heatwaves and wildfires. Now we know what dangerous climate change looks like. As has been said of obscenity, we know it when we see it. We’re seeing it – and it is obscene. x The temperatures in the North Atlantic are as far above the previous record as the previous record was above average. pic.twitter.com/qJ2mDhwPlY — Tom Randall (@tsrandall) July 19, 2023 Scorching temperatures persist across Europe, North America and Asia, as wildfires rage from Canada to Greece. The heat is as relentless as it is intense. For example, Phoenix, Arizona, has broken its record of 18 consecutive days above 110F (43.3C). Even the nights, generally relied upon as a chance to recover from the blistering days, now offer little relief: for more than a week, night-time temperatures in Phoenix have exceeded 90F (32.2C). Meanwhile, severe and deadly flooding has stricken South Korea, Japan, and the north-east United States, from Pennsylvania to Vermont. x I've seen enough:
July will be the warmest month this planet has seen in modern history (and plausibly the past 120,000 years)
https://t.co/42TAWw5NhL pic.twitter.com/PrhiZ1pjEZ — Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) July 19, 2023 ...The only way to avoid crossing these tipping points is to stop heating up the planet. And comprehensive Earth system models show that if we stop adding carbon pollution, the warming of Earth’s surface stops soon thereafter. x Global surface temperatures have now recorded 16 consecutive days above the previously recorded all-time high, today at 17.169°C (62.90°F).
The #climatecasino has an over/under fake wager of 17.25°C. I thought the smart money was on the under. Now, I'm not so sure. pic.twitter.com/PoidIDRJ0h — Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) July 19, 2023 So that brings us back to where we started. Yes, we have failed to prevent dangerous climate change. It is here. What remains to be seen is just how bad we’re willing to let it get. A window of opportunity remains for averting a catastrophic 1.5C/2.7F warming of the planet, beyond which we’ll see far worse consequences than anything we’ve seen so far. But that window is closing and we’re not making enough progress. x National Snow & Ice Data Center: "Sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent continues to be exceptionally low"
(that blue line well below the others is 2023) pic.twitter.com/ZevfMaHqhk — Oliver Milman (@olliemilman) July 19, 2023 We cannot afford to give in to despair. Better to channel our energy into action, as there’s so much work to be done to prevent this crisis from escalating into a catastrophe. If the extremes of this summer fill you with fears of imminent and inevitable climate collapse, remember, it’s not game over. It’s game on. x This is not “just summer”. This is not a “fake coloured map”. This is incredible waves of heat right across the globe driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gases and reductions in aerosol masking. This is a Poly-heat-crisis. pic.twitter.com/4MFwAjChmT — Peter Dynes (@PGDynes) July 19, 2023
Extremist groups are becoming more emboldened—and more violent—all over the country. In the past few weeks, France made international news after riots erupted in the wake of the police killing of a 17-year-old French boy of Algerian descent in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre. Police responded with violent force, drawing condemnation from rights groups. For consecutive evenings, thousands were arrested in Paris, and in Marseille, another young man was killed by a police flash grenade, sparking further protests. x NEW: I wrote for @thenation about the 📈in far-right violence in #France, in the wake of the #Nahel protests, #ReformeDesRetraites & 2022 elections. @ONextdroite catalogued 100 actions by the far-right in first half of 2023, nearly one every three days.
https://t.co/eksNauMjg8 — Phineas James (@PhineasJFR) July 19, 2023 But throughout all this, Raphaël Arnault’s eyes weren’t on the Paris suburbs. Instead, Arnault, a member of the anti-fascist group Jeune Garde and the National Observatory on the Far-Right, was watching smaller cities like Chambéry and Angers, where, in recent years, far-right groups have become increasingly organized and visible. ...These same groups that were once kicked out of the National Front have reconstituted themselves since 2015, riding a global wave of populism, said Erwan Lecoeur, a sociologist at the Pacte, a social science lab at the University of Grenoble Alpes, who studies the far right. “In many countries, these groups are under the impression that their ideas are coming to power,” Lecouer said. “They have to show that they are strong, that they have numbers, and that in general leftists, immigrants, the LGBT community, and everyone they don’t like should be scared.”
Addressing Congress, Herzog hailed our ‘beautiful democracy,’ commitment to equality and independent judiciary. Back home, Netanyahu is dragging Israel in the opposite direction ...For Netanyahu, as has been the case from the beginning of last year’s election campaign — when he did everything, including mainstreaming racist, homophobic, misogynistic and Jewish-supremacist politicians, in order to successfully maximize his victory prospects — the equation has always been straightforward: Without sidelining the courts, and subsequently enabling his coalition partners to proceed with legislation that the judges would otherwise strike down, he is politically finished. And Netanyahu has single-mindedly followed his devastating overhaul path from the very first week his Likud, far-right and ultra-Orthodox government took office. When he paused the bills in March, it was out of necessity rather than consensual magnanimity, because his sacking of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for daring to publicly oppose the legislative blitz, had unleashed new highs of public opposition and a brief display of wariness from a minority in the coalition who have since largely fallen into line. His interest is not only personal but also acutely short-term. Just days ago, already forgotten in the insane Israeli news cycle, Netanyahu was in the hospital with dehydration — possibly after collapsing at home; we’ve not been told — and now has a heart monitor. He is 73. Were he incapacitated, who would take over? Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the deputy prime minister? The former deputy PM Aryeh Deri, ousted from the cabinet by the justices because of his recidivist abuse of public funds? Or somebody else even less inclined to respect Israel’s foundational democratic and liberal Jewish values?
Democratic candidate’s recent false claim that Covid could have been ‘ethnically targeted’ is not an aberration but fits long pattern Robert Kennedy Jr, a long-shot Democratic candidate for US president, has a long history of racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, and should be denied a national platform, according to a damning report seen by the Guardian. ...“Kennedy embraces virtually every conspiracy theory in existence,” the report states. “His horrific antisemitic and xenophobic views are simply beyond the pale, and he has frequently met with and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine conspiracies go back decades and have had deadly real world consequences.” x He’s just not who you think he is, people. We all want a candidate who is a climate warrior—but this guy is not only no longer that climate warrior (as much as he wants to campaign on his younger self) but he’s anti gun control, racist, antisemitic, and wildly untethered from…
https://t.co/PGqrvoPaG6 — Jorie Graham (@jorie_graham) July 19, 2023 Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, is running against Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary and has drawn big and enthusiastic crowds and polled as high as 20%. But the Project’s document argues that Kennedy’s recent comments about Jewish and Chinese people, which were quickly hailed by neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers as “100% correct”, were not an aberration but fitted a long pattern.
CRUCIAL QUOTE “Let me be clear: No Labels is trying to use a false message of unity to sow division,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said in a statement Monday. “Their plan to run a third-party ticket in 2024 will pave the path for the most extreme, far-right candidate to win the White House — namely, former President Trump.” CHIEF CRITIC Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) accused No Labels of being a “dark money” political group in a CNN interview on Sunday. The criticism comes after the Arizona Democratic Party filed a complaint last week with the secretary of state’s office asking it to compel the group to register and report its donors as a political party. CONTRA No Labels is registered as a political party, but is incorporated as a social welfare nonprofit, according to NBC, which allows it to skirt federal financial disclosure rules for political organizations. Jacobson told the network the group intends to simply lend its name to a single presidential candidate, not operate a campaign or support other down-ballot candidates. Jacobson insisted “there’s nothing nefarious going on here,” and defended the group by noting the list of big-name political figures affiliated with it, including former Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who co-founded the group. BIG NUMBER 40%. That’s the share of voters who would cast their ballots for Trump in a three-way matchup with Biden and a third-party No Labels candidate, according to internal polling from Citizens to Save Our Republic —with 39% voting for Biden and 21% would vote for a No Labels candidate.
Manchin and a group of failed moderate politicians assembled in New Hampshire on Monday to tout No Labels’ 73-page centrist manifesto. ...When I pressed Manchin at the event on whether an appointment was part of his calculus, he told me his former close aide and confidant is “a very sick man.” As Manchin spoke at the town hall, his daughter Heather Bresch — who narrowly avoided prosecution last year for artificially inflating EpiPen prices — paced hungrily in the wings. By the end of the night, No Labels’ real intentions seemed just as occluded as before the town hall. The No Labels drive to gain ballot access has received legal pushback in both Maine and Arizona, where legal efforts are underway to prevent the group from emerging as a viable vote in 2024. My efforts to learn more about Nicholas Connors, the man overseeing the ballot operations, had been stymied by the fact that his personal firm, NSC Strategies, doesn’t appear in online databases, nor does his name appear in any of the corporate registries I’d searched. ...As heads adorned with “common sense” baseball caps bobbed in the evening light, colored blood red from Canadian wildfire smoke, I caught No Labels board member Benjamin Chavis heading out the door. A former assistant to Martin Luther King Jr., I pressed Chavis on how the legacy of King — which included broadening social spending, taxing the wealthy, and opposing endless war in Vietnam — could possibly track with the platform presented by the event’s speakers, two millionaire moderates. “Dr. King was a centrist,” Chavis told me. “If he were alive today, he would be a member of the No Labels party.” I moved to remind Chavis of King’s words in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which he decried the white moderate as one of the main roadblocks to justice. (“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ ‘Councilor’ or the Ku Klux Klanner,” King wrote, “but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”) But before I could get an answer, Chavis was whisked away.
x Goldman: So you not only have no direct evidence connecting Joe Biden to any of Hunter Biden's business deal. You actually had proof that he wasn't involved. That is the proof that you had. pic.twitter.com/GYyYhlQDDb — Acyn (@Acyn) July 19, 2023
x Here's Jamie Raskin debunking the GOP's Hunter Biden conspiracy theories in sweeping fashion in under 2 minutes pic.twitter.com/P0in0yXdCY — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 19, 2023
The Hill had an interesting report this week on Republican senators who are getting a little uncomfortable with the messages they’re receiving from the GOP base. Evidently, their constituents have all kinds of weird ideas — about the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 attack, the FBI, and the CDC, among other things — and it’s left some senators with an uneasy feeling. Or put another way, these Republican lawmakers are starting to feel the kinds of concerns that many mainstream observers have felt for many years. But there was one quote in the report that stood out for me. “I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.” x Lisa Murkowski is a lifelong red state Republican, but her ties to her party appear to be loosening.
Among the senator's striking new quotes: "You have people who felt some allegiance to the party that are now really questioning, 'Why am I [in the GOP?]'"
https://t.co/5ZtwF9yEOY — Steve Benen (@stevebenen) July 19, 2023 The Alaska Republican — who faced right-wing challengers in two recent re-election campaigns, and had to run a write-in campaign in 2010 after losing a GOP primary — went on to say, “You have people who felt some allegiance to the party that are now really questioning, ‘Why am I [in the party?]’”
Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters. Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters. Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans. And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.
x 2. The story of these new merger guidelines begins with the story of a coup.
It was 1982, and the Reagan administration was bent on undermining and erasing our strong antitrust laws. But it couldn't convince Congress to do so. So it set about killing the law on its own. — ron knox (@ronmknox) July 19, 2023
If Fervo Energy’s field results work at commercial scale, it could become cheaper and easier to green the grid. In late January, a geothermal power startup began conducting an experiment deep below the desert floor of northern Nevada. It pumped water thousands of feet underground and then held it there, watching for what would happen. Geothermal power plants work by circulating water through hot rock deep beneath the surface. In most modern plants, it resurfaces at a well head, where it’s hot enough to convert refrigerants or other fluids into vapor that cranks a turbine, generating electricity. x Geothermal startup @fervoenergy says it achieved a technology breakthrough at its Nevada project site — one that could help accelerate efforts to tap 24/7, carbon-free energy from deep down in the earth. My latest for @CanaryMediaInc
https://t.co/xpJb7KXWkn — Maria Gallucci (@mariagallucci) July 18, 2023 ...The results from the initial experiments—which MIT Technology Review is reporting exclusively—suggest Fervo can create flexible geothermal power plants, capable of ramping electricity output up or down as needed. Potentially more important, the system can store up energy for hours or even days and deliver it back over similar periods, effectively acting as a giant and very long-lasting battery. That means the plants could shut down production when solar and wind farms are cranking, and provide a rich stream of clean electricity when those sources flag.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne failed to address manipulated papers, fostered unhealthy lab dynamic, Stanford report says Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign effective Aug. 31, according to communications released by the University Wednesday morning. He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.” x EXCLUSIVE: Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s Alzheimer’s research was called “the miracle result.” Now, colleagues allege that a 2011 internal review found “falsified data” and Tessier-Lavigne “walked around…with a broom and swept up the footprints in the dirt.”
https://t.co/95L9Pes3jO — Theo Baker (@tab_delete) February 17, 2023 According to Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Tessier-Lavigne will step down “in light of the report and its impact on his ability to lead Stanford.” Former Dean of Humanities Richard Saller will serve as interim president. In a separate statement, Tessier-Lavigne defended his reputation but acknowledged that issues with his research, first raised in a Daily investigation last autumn, meant that Stanford requires a president “whose leadership is not hampered by such discussions.” x Amazing work by rookie freshman reporter @TheoBaker uncovered this: Stanford president resigns over manipulated research, will retract at least three papers
https://t.co/qn9rEhA788 — Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) July 19, 2023 “At various times when concerns with Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged—in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-2016, and March 2021—Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record,” Stanford’s report said, identifying a number of apparent manipulations in Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscientific research. The report concluded that the fudging of results under Tessier-Lavigne’s purview “spanned labs at three separate institutions.” It identified a culture where Tessier-Lavigne “tended to reward the ‘winners’ (that is, postdocs who could generate favorable results) and marginalize or diminish the ‘losers’ (that is, postdocs who were unable or struggled to generate such data).”
x So, I did a #TEDtalk . Its's titled "Climate Action Should Focus on Communities, Not Just Carbon" and the gist is: carbon markets & other tech fixes are distracting us achieving tangible climate justice.
https://t.co/UWKNx4VG3r — Jade Begay (@_jadebegay) July 19, 2023
The phrase "Taco Tuesday" is now free to use after a taco chain restaurant relinquished its trademark on the popular phrase. Taco John's has held the trademark since 1989, in all U.S. states except New Jersey. Taco Bell filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to have it reversed, arguing that no one should have the rights to a common phrase. x Strong contender for best legal filing I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/FvFzkVBptq — Becky Hammer (@beckyhammer) July 19, 2023 In a statement released Tuesday, Taco John's conceded and said they are "lovers, not fighters." "We've always prided ourselves on being the home of Taco Tuesday, but paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn't feel like the right thing to do," Taco John's CEO Jim Creel said.
x When the rain falls in a sea containing bioluminescence, it's beautiful😳 pic.twitter.com/7omcVhlcb4 — Debbie_banks (@Debbie_banks30) July 19, 2023
Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and other current and former Tesla board members agreed to return over $735 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit that alleged Tesla directors "grossly" overpaid themselves. The Tesla directors, who also include Musk's brother Kimbal Musk, further agreed to forego stock options and other compensation for board service in 2021, 2022, and 2023. "Musk has installed his family and friends on the Company's Board and through them he dominates and exercises control over Tesla and is able to avoid independent oversight of the way he runs the Company," the 2020 lawsuit alleged. "In return, with Musk's blessing and vote as a director, the Director Defendants have consistently paid themselves unfair and lavish compensation" that "grossly exceeds norms for corporate board compensation." x And you Elon simps won't get a penny
https://t.co/fWhJa4qicu — Rocketgirl 🚀 (@Rocket_Grrrl) July 19, 2023 The settlement filed Friday in Delaware Court of Chancery provides for $458,649,785 in returned options and $276,616,720 in "returned cash and/or returned stock." The money will be returned to Tesla.
What are YOU repaying tonight? Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
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