(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest for Weds, April 19, 2023 (pre-Earth Day edition) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-19 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. The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, eeff, rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. 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. Earlier this evening, Speaker-by-a-squeaker Keven McCarthy presented his list of demands for the slow-dance hostage crisis playing out over the debt ceiling (thanks again, Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema! We could have solved this in December, you jerks!). It’s a list, all right. It looks like he asked every member of the GOP caucus for their Christmas list, and then mashed it all up into giant green sack on the back of his sled, like the Grinch, and dumped it on the White House Lawn. The short version: Dismantle the Biden Administration, repeal everything, and go back to the Trump years. The only thing missing: No demand to dismantle Social Security. But the night is young. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday unveiled a bill to raise the debt ceiling into next year, slash federal spending by roughly $130 billion and unwind some of President Biden’s priorities and recent legislative accomplishments, including his program to cancel college student debt. The proposal marks an escalation in the standoff between the House GOP majority and Biden, as Republican leaders harden in their resolve to exploit a key fiscal deadline for political leverage — even at the risk of causing the U.S. government to default. McCarthy plans to bring the legislation to the House floor as soon as next week, estimating it will save the government $4.5 trillion over the next decade. But its path to passage is complicated: Republicans have 222 votes, so the speaker can afford to lose only four to prevail. Democrats, meanwhile, vehemently oppose the measure, ensuring its failure in the Senate. What else is the GOP demanding? More local control! Except for Democrats, of course. In a major escalation of Republicans’ efforts to weaken the state’s bluer cities and counties, lawmakers in the Texas Legislature are advancing a pair of bills that would seize control of local regulations that could range from worker protections to water restrictions during droughts. A bill backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and business lobbying groups, House Bill 2127, would bar cities and counties from passing regulations — and overturn existing ones — that go further than state law in a broad swath of areas including labor, agriculture, natural resources and finance. It passed the Texas House by a 92-56 vote Wednesday after clearing an initial vote the previous day. ...HB 2127 is one of several bills that Republicans filed this session to prevent cities and counties from enacting new progressive policies. For example, the bill would block local ordinances designed to provide more benefits to workers such as mandatory paid sick leave — though the state’s courts have already halted such city rules — and eliminate mandated water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas. x Texas is among worst states in U.S. for workers, study finds The Lone Star State fared poorly in all three categories: wages, worker protections and organizing rightshttps://t.co/xyzu78NdF3 — Teddie 🏔️💙 (@Texttexas) April 19, 2023 The Republican-led House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday struck comments from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and ended her time to speak after she called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a liar. The committee first declined to strike comments from Greene, who spoke after Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., at a hearing on budget requests from the Department of Homeland Security. Greene started her comments by accusing Swalwell of having an affair “with a Chinese spy.” x I know it sucks not having Democrats in control of the House, but if there’s any silver-lining, it’s that they’re playing offense. They’re calling Republicans out. And they’re finally taking off the gloves for the entire nation to see what this Republican Party is doing. — Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) April 19, 2023 ...Greene was previously stripped of her committee assignments after a series of menacing social media posts. She was reinstated after Republicans took back control of the House following the 2022 midterms, named to the Oversight and Accountability Committee as well as the Homeland Security Committee. DeKalb County has released the autopsy results related to the death of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, who demonstrated against the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center earlier this year. ...According to the autopsy sent to ABC News, Teran did not have gunpowder residue on their hands. Officials claimed Teran fired the first shot at a state trooper. Officers then responded with gunfire. x It's now confirmed by the DeKalb Examiner's office that there was no gunshot residue on the hands of Manuel Paez Terán. Activists have long maintained that the State's claim Tort fired first was a lie, and this autopsy supports activist claims. https://t.co/Ke78Nzi2zU — Atlanta Community Press Collective (@atlanta_press) April 19, 2023 ...Teran had at least 57 gunshot wounds in their body, according to the autopsy, including in the hands, torso, legs and head. Former chief Trump strategist Steve Bannon spent "months" encouraging anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run against President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to a report from CBS News. x I've met RFK Jr. and he's no RFK. https://t.co/c9mSnFU51w — Real Peter Gleick💧 (@PeterGleick) April 19, 2023 People familiar with the matter told the outlet that Bannon hoped Kennedy could serve as a "useful chaos agent" in the election while also spreading "anti-vaccine sentiment around the country," according to CBS News' Robert Costa. Kennedy has been accused of playing a leading role in "spreading digital misinformation about Covid vaccines" by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. He also issued an apology last year after saying that Americans hesitant to vaccines had it worse than Anne Frank, who lived through the Nazi occupation of Germany. Black people in counties with more Black primary care physicians live longer, according to a new national analysis that provides the strongest evidence yet that increasing the diversity of the medical workforce may be key to ending deeply entrenched racial health disparities. The study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, is the first to link a higher prevalence of Black doctors to longer life expectancy and lower mortality in Black populations. Other studies have shown that when Black patients are treated by Black doctors, they are more satisfied with their health care, more likely to have received the preventive care they needed in the past year, and are more likely to agree to recommended preventive care such as blood tests and flu shots. But none of that research has shown an impact on Black life expectancy. The new study found that Black residents in counties with more Black physicians — whether or not they actually see those doctors — had lower mortality from all causes, and showed that these counties had lower disparities in mortality rates between Black and white residents. The finding of longer life expectancy persisted even in counties with a single Black physician. Nestled comfortably inside the extreme-right echo chamber created by Fox News and its fellow media travelers, the Republican Party is unable to detect the electoral storm gathering over the 2024 election. Most state and national GOP leaders have failed to comprehend that the fear and outrage tactics they have employed in recent years have fallen out of favor with a large slice of the electorate. A majority of voters have rediscovered the value of using the government to address real problems, as opposed to being distracted by the fabricated issues dredged up each year by right-wing candidates and media to drive a frightened and/or angry GOP base to the polls. A number of the factors that produced a historic win for Democratic candidates in the 2022 elections will result in another historic loss for Republican candidates in 2024. Democrats will win the presidency, take back the majority in the House, and may even retain control of the Senate. The Senate is tricky for Democrats next year because they must win at least 22 races to retain their majority in that body, but losing just one or two seats will still be a victory. Democrats will also make significant gains in statehouses across the country, except in the reddest of states. “‘Eat bugs, live in a pod,’ is not a meme. It’s their real agenda,” tweeted the conservative provocateur Mike Cernovich to 1.1 million followers last month. The tweet was responding to an anodyne Economist story about the role of meat consumption in global climate emissions. And unless you’re deep into online culture, it’s probably incomprehensible. Cernovich was referring to a theory increasingly beloved by the right’s keyboard culture warriors—that a shady cabal of elite globalists is conspiring to make everyone on earth eat bugs instead of burgers. Why elite globalists would choose this particular plot is unclear; of all the so-called “alternative proteins” that have been suggested as replacements for meat in the American diet, insects are both the option that is already most widely eaten around the world and the one least likely to replace mainstays like pork, chicken, and beef among affluent global north consumers. If replacing BBQ brisket with roach bricks were part of the secret globalist agenda, it would surely rank somewhere way down the list of feasibility after eliminating electoral democracy, implanting everyone with microchips, and replacing football with fútbol—all changes less likely to raise consensus opposition than pissing off American meat-eaters. The obsession with bugs, though, perfectly encapsulates the insipid but dangerous battlefield that meat now represents in America’s perpetual culture war. From right-wing trolls’ disparaging references to effeminate left-wing “soy-boys,” to the stomach-churning embrace of hypermasculine “carnivore” diets, it’s clear conservatives’ darker fantasies aren’t just about threats to a dietary staple but about threats to the liberty, bodily integrity, and masculinity of American men. Earth Day is coming up this Saturday — here are a few cool stories: The interwebs are rife with ways to celebrate Earth Day: Plant a tree, walk to work, pick up trash, recycle. While all of these activities are great (and the latter two we should all be doing every day), I offer you five of the very best ways to celebrate. These are actions that might just ripple through the other 364 days of your year and become habits. They are things you can do—and then talk about with your family and community, so that they feel inspired to pick up the baton, and do them, too. Earth Day is not just a day. It’s a movement and a call to action to do our part and change our culture to fight for the health of our precious planet before things really go south. So put down your phones, log out of Facebook and Instagram, and do one or more (or all!) of these five meaningful things on Earth Day. Because your daily actions do matter and they’re just the beginning. x 🌏 Celebrate #EarthDay with us!🌎 Check out our YouTube playlist for live events all week, including informative discussions and educational videos. AND sign up for reminders to never miss out: https://t.co/jcs4EXiOJM#EarthWeek #InvestInOurPlanet pic.twitter.com/lL59Ku0b4V — EARTHDAY.ORG (@EarthDay) April 13, 2023 According to a new study published in Nature Sustainability analyzing the EPA data shows replacing outdated diesel buses with electric or a cleaner alternative can result in significantly higher attendance. The study estimates that over 350,000 additional student days of attendance were added in the school districts that won the EPA funding lottery. ...The findings from the study are consistent with other data showing cleaner or electric school buses can reduce lung inflammation in riders as well as lower communitywide hospitalizations due to bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia in at-risk populations. In its 150-year history as a science, ecology has increasingly revealed how life functions as an infinitely complex yet always interconnecting process. Affect a single part of nature and we invariably see major, often unforeseen, even counterintuitive, consequences elsewhere. The best recent illustration of this was a study from Germany in 2017 known as the Krefeld report. It showed what impacts had resulted from 60 years’ use of agricultural poison – the so-called pesticides that are a default instrument of intensive agriculture. And revealed that Germany’s insect biomass had declined by 75%. Most alarming was the fact that losses were recorded not among serried fields of chemically drenched maize, but inside the nation’s network of protected nature reserves. No arrangement of our affairs in our heads, or on paper, can gainsay life’s indivisible unity. In nature there is only one place. And it is everywhere, even in our towns and cities. As the most charismatic component of our full wildlife spectrum, birds enjoy major, some would say disproportionate, concern and attention. Our largest wildlife charity is still the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, with 1.3 million members. Yet our so-called feathered friends perform an infallible service to other lifeforms that don’t enjoy the same levels of love such as insects, lichens and fungi. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/19/2164848/-Overnight-News-Digest-for-Weds-April-19-2023-pre-Earth-Day-edition Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/