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Overnight News Digest for January 22 (And So It Begins edition) [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-22
The news from Washington has been widely reported on DailyKos, so I won’t be duplicating that coverage here… I’m even going to try to put up a few positive stories, because we need ‘em.
But I’ve just got to put this here at the top, because it really speaks to what we’re up against. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” indeed:
x NBC, Trump’s long time partner, censored Elon Musk’s Nazi salute. Top is the censored NBC version and the bottom is the live version. Censored version: youtu.be/Q04JXqpYYsE
[image or embed] — Anonymous (@youranoncentral.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 9:52 AM
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
North Carolina's Republican-majority state Supreme Court ruled partially against the Republican candidate seeking to join its ranks, rejecting his effort to fast-track a lawsuit that could end with more than 60,000 people have their 2024 ballots thrown out. x 🚨BREAKING: North Carolina Supreme Court DISMISSES Republican effort to throw out 60,000 votes in Supreme Court election. Sends case to Wake County trial court for further proceedings. This is not over, but this is very good news!
www.democracydocket.com/cases/north-...
[image or embed] — Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM The case must go to trial first to collect evidence, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, shooting down what it called an "extraordinary" effort to skip a trial, skip the Court of Appeals, and have the issue decided quickly and directly by the state's highest court. Jefferson Griffin, a Republican judge on the state Court of Appeals, challenged Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs in the November elections. Griffins appears to have lost to Riggs by a narrow margin of just 734 votes, confirmed by multiple recounts. But the election still hasn't been called in Riggs' favor, as Griffin fights to overturn the results in court. x YouTube Video
Renewable energy giants appear relatively sanguine about U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-wind policies, describing the process of replacing fossil fuels with electrically powered products as “absolutely unstoppable.” ...In a standalone executive order, which had been widely expected, the president temporarily suspended new or renewed leases for offshore and onshore wind projects and halted the leasing of wind power projects on the outer continental shelf. “We are not going to do the wind thing. Big ugly windmills, they ruin your neighborhood,” Trump told his supporters at the Capital One Area in Washington on Monday. He previously described wind turbines as an economic and environmental “disaster.” ...“The US currently has around 2.4 gigawatts (GW) of advanced-stage offshore wind developments that have reached final investment decision and are under construction, which are unlikely to be impacted by the order,” Abramov said in a research note published Tuesday.
x I have and will continue to. But you know why I say it here ? Because @bsky.app is 30m strong and growing quickly. The collective wisdom and influence of users here is far greater than any individual democrat. I can't say it enough. Bluesky can be the influence that can counter RW media.
[image or embed] — Mark Cuban (@mcuban.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 4:25 PM
The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back an election law case out of Montana that relied on a controversial legal theory with the potential to change the way elections are run across the country. x The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to take up an appeal filed by Montana Republicans against the Montana supreme court’s decision to strike down state laws that restricted voting rights. apnews.com/article/s...
[image or embed] — Bolts (@bolts.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 11:56 AM ...Montana was appealing a ruling that struck down two GOP-backed election laws. It’s relying on the independent state legislature theory, which holds that state judges shouldn’t be allowed to consider election cases at all. Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen argues that only lawmakers have sway over state elections under the U.S. Constitution. She asked the justices to consider the case after the state’s highest court struck down laws ending same-day voter registration and prohibiting paid ballot collection. The Montana Democratic Party, joined by tribal organizations and youth groups, argued the laws made it more difficult for Native Americans, new voters, the elderly and those with disabilities to vote.
Syria's new leadership has ended a deal which granted Russia a long-term military presence in the Mediterranean port of Tartus. The Tartus port is Russia’s sole naval base outside the former Soviet Union and has played a critical role in Moscow’s military presence in the Mediterranean, but according to Syrian opposition outlet Shaam, citing the Ministry of Information, the agreement was annulled, and the Russians must leave. The deal brokered with Russian company Stroytransgaz under ousted leader Bashar al-Assad in 2017 extended a lease on the port for 49 years for free. However, the removal of the previous government brought the deal's future into question. ...With Turkey restricting military access to the Bosphorus Strait, Tartus was key in reinforcing Russia’s regional presence and allowed Moscow to monitor NATO activities in the Mediterranean.
x It's #SquirrelAppreciationDay? Well then, let's appreciate some squirrels that I see in my area 🧵. First up is the Franklins' ground squirrel, known to some as a "bush gopher" for its preference for semi-open shrublands and aspen forest instead of open prairie...
[image or embed] — Janet Hill (@saskajanet.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 8:25 PM
While the primary focus of tackling climate change is on carbon dioxide (CO2), a group of other greenhouse gases and aerosols – known as “super pollutants” – is having a profound impact on both global temperature and human health. They are responsible for around 45% of global warming to date, as well as millions of premature deaths each year. x #ResistanceEarth #Voices4Victory It's not just CO2. We must address the "super pollutants" that are responsible for 45% of climate change and contribute to millions of premature deaths each year. It's a public health crisis of epic proportions. www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-h...
[image or embed] — Shooti (@bambooshooti.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 6:25 PM Cutting emissions of these non-CO2 pollutants, which include methane, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon, is seen as one of the quickest ways to tackle climate change. Studies have shown how global action to reduce emissions of super pollutants could avoid four times more warming by 2050 than decarbonisation policies alone. At the same time, it could prevent some 2.4 million deaths a year caused by air pollution.
..The editorial brief for this memo was “advice for the incoming president that he might actually take.” Does such a thing exist within the climate arena, Mr. President? I polled some Bulletin contributors to see what they would suggest. x "Memo to Trump: Five reasons to act on climate" by Jessica McKenzie for @thebulletin.org: thebulletin.org/2025/01/memo...
[image or embed] — Michael E. Mann (@michaelemann.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 7:37 PM Consider the real estate. “My $0.02 for the incoming president would be that if left unchecked, climate change will certainly impact golf courses and real estate values in Florida,” writes Toby Ault, the director of Graduate Studies for Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. Researchers have estimated that US real estate is overvalued by $121 to $237 billion because of flood risk alone—and that figure doesn’t even take into account the risks from wildfire or other climate-related disasters. This creates a giant property bubble that could spell disaster for the US financial system, if and when it pops. And that golf courses comment sounds like a joke, but it’s really not. In 2021, Jason Straka, the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, told CNN that many golf courses in Florida were having to close more frequently due to flooding and were at risk of permanent inundation. “If they don’t go out and literally lift their footprint up in the air, they’re going to be in a perpetually deeper and deeper bathtub,” Straka said. “If they think they have problems now, in 10 years, they’re going to be a swamp.”
x "The guy who ran Facebook when it was a great way to form communities and make friends... is the same guy who who has turned Facebook into a hellscape... by all accounts, Zuck was a monster from day one... What changed? What caused Zuck to enshittify his service?" pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/c...
[image or embed] — Jeremy Bloom (@leftrightgreen.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 12:59 PM ...As cartels and monopolies took over our economy, most government regulators were neutered and captured. Public agencies were stripped of their powers or put in harness to attack small companies, customers, and suppliers who got in the way of monopolists' rent-extraction. That meant that as Facebook grew, Zuckerberg had less and less to fear from government enforcers who might punish him for enshittification where the markets failed to do so. But it's worse than that, because Zuckerberg and other tech monopolists figured out how to harness "IP" law to get the government to shut down third-party technology that might help users resist enshittification. IP law is why you can't make a privacy-protecting ad-blocker for an app (and why companies are so desperate to get you to use their apps rather than the open web, and why apps are so dismally enshittified)... IP law's growth has coincided with Facebook's ascendancy – the bigger Facebook got, the more tempting it was to interoperators who might want to plug new code into it to protect Facebook users, and the more powers Facebook had to block even the most modest improvements to its service. That meant that Facebook could enshittify even more, without worrying that it would drive users to take unilateral, permanent action that would deprive it of revenue, like blocking ads. Once ad-blocking is illegal (as it is on apps), there's no reason not to make ads as obnoxious as you want. ...This is what changed: the collapse of market, government, and labor constraints, and IP law's criminalization of disenshittifying, interoperable add-ons. This is why Zuck, an eternal creep, is now letting his creep flag fly so proudly today. Not because he's a worse person, but because he understands that he can hurt his users and workers to benefit his shareholders without facing any consequences. Zuckerberg 2025 isn't the most evil Zuck, he's the most unconstrained Zuck.
If you’re fed up with Meta right now, you’re not alone. Google searches for deleting Facebook and Instagram spiked last week after Meta announced its latest policy changes. These changes, seemingly designed to appease the incoming Trump administration, included loosening Meta’s hate speech policy to allow for the targeting of LGBTQ+ people and immigrants. If these changes—or Meta’s long history of anti-competitive, censorial, and invasive practices—make you want to cut ties with the company, it’s sadly not as simple as deleting your Facebook account or spending less time on Instagram. Meta tracks your activity across millions of websites and apps, regardless of whether you use its platforms, and it profits from that data through targeted ads. If you want to limit Meta’s ability to collect and profit from your personal data, here’s what you need to know. ...Take These Steps to Limit How Meta Profits From Your Personal Data Although Meta’s surveillance systems are pervasive, there are ways to limit how Meta collects and uses your personal data.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists 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 (RIP), 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 since 2007, 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
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