What’s coming up on Sunday Kos…
- Factions of the Democratic Party must find common ground and rules, by Egberto Willies
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The most common misunderstanding newcomers have about politics, and how to overcome it, by David Akadjian
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A dishonorable discharge for Commander-in-Chief Trump, by Jon Perr
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Stress in America, or how Donald Trump is making us sick, by Susan Grigsby
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We know Trump used troops as props to win votes. Will those who claim to revere soldiers punish him? by Ian Reifowitz
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Give 30 years of your life to a company, no severance; drive a company into the ground, get millions, by Mark E Andersen
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Gun safety proposals taking shape for new Democratic House, by Sher Watts Spooner
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The presumption of innocence comes with a hefty price tag. The Bail Project aims to change that, by Dawn R. Wolfe
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'Muses' and support for the arts in Puerto Rico, by Denise Oliver Velez
• Rain helps quell Camp Fire, but the search for human remains goes on, with 475 people still missing: More than 800 volunteers on Thanksgiving combed through the rubble of the burned-out shell of Paradise, the northern California city that was 90 percent destroyed by a roaring inferno that has—since November 8—consumed more than 154,000 acres and 19,000 structures, most of them residences. It was the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in at least a century. So far, with the fire 95 percent contained, the death count is 84. In southern California, where the Woolsey Fire killed three, burned 97,000 acres, and destroyed more than 1,600 buildings, mostly residences, the evacuation order for the Malibu area, which once covered 250,000 people, has been lifted, and the fire is 100 percent contained, authorities say.
• Woman whose baby was the last born at the now incinerated Paradise hospital as Camp Fire started tells her story.
• Saudi royal says in AP interview that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is here to stay.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Sixty years ago, the Pentagon battled with scientists and the press over publicizing high- altitude detonation of nukes secretly designed to create artificial radiation belt:
Sometime in the summer of 1958, Hanson Baldwin, a longtime military correspondent for The New York Times, uncovered the Pentagon’s latest, biggest secret. Dubbed Operation Argus, it was the brainchild of the eccentric Greek-American physicist Nicholas Christofilos, a response to the fears of a possible Soviet missile attack that gripped the United States in the wake of Sputnik the previous autumn. Argus would detonate atomic weapons in outer space, creating an artificial radiation belt in Earth’s magnetic field that would supposedly fry incoming Soviet warheads in flight. Already, in utmost secrecy, an enormous naval task force was assembling in the remotest spot on the planet, the frigid South Atlantic, to launch nuclear missiles from the rolling deck of a ship in a crazily ambitious Cold War gamble.
• An unbelievable, record-breaking backflip!!!
• Bill introduced to cut New York City’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions:
A top New York City lawmaker unveiled landmark legislation Tuesday to dramatically decrease emissions from big buildings, the city’s largest source of climate pollution.
If passed, the bill would set a new standard for cities around the world and mark the most aggressive climate action yet taken by the nation’s largest and most financially and culturally influential city. [...]
The bill takes a more ambitious approach than what was set out in August under a first-of-its-kind agreement between the city’s real estate lobby and affordable housing advocates to support legislation that would mandate 80 percent cuts to big building’s pollution by 2050. If the same coalition backs the legislation, it’s expected to pass sometime in the coming months.
• Surprise! Trump regime downplays and calls into question scientific rigor in latest report on the climate crisis: The 1,600-page Fourth National Climate Assessment Vol. II released on Friday after Thanksgiving in an apparent attempt to limit news coverage, concludes that climate change impacts are happening now and will get worse. Among the many predictions in the dense 29 chapters of the report is that disruptions of climate change will intensify extreme weather, cause more wildfires, reduce U.S. agricultural production by 25 percent and have negative economic impacts in the hundreds of billions of dollars, including a 10 percent drop in gross domestic product. But a White House spokeswoman said the report is “largely based on the most extreme scenario, which contradicts long-established trends by assuming that, despite strong economic growth that would increase greenhouse gas emissions, there would be limited technology and innovation, and a rapidly expanding population.” A climatologist and report co-author at Texas Tech University, Katharine Hayhoe, said the statement was “demonstrably false.” She tweeted: “I wrote the climate scenarios chapter myself so I can confirm it considers ALL scenarios, from those where we go carbon negative before end of century to those where carbon emissions continue to rise.”