Congressional leaders agreed to a funding deal Wednesday that would prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend, extending the expiration dates for federal finances until later in March as lawmakers iron out the final details of a $1.7 trillion spending package.
Roughly 20 percent of the federal government — including the Departments of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture — is set to shutter at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, unless Congress approves new spending legislation.
Under this agreement between House and Senate leadership, funding for those departments and the Commerce, Justice and Interior departments would expire on March 8 instead, a week later than planned. Funding for the rest of the government, including the Defense and State departments, would be extended until March 22.
...The purpose of the extension is to give lawmakers more time to finalize full-year spending legislation for those agencies. But now the agreement will set off a mad dash on Capitol Hill to approve the extension, called a continuing resolution, or CR, before the clock strikes midnight on Friday and sets off even a brief shutdown. Even after the deal was reached, it’s not certain that Congress will be able to act in time.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) floated the extension Tuesday to Democrats, who reacted favorably — but only to a point.
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.
Senate Republicans blocked an effort Wednesday to pass legislation that would federally protect access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) sought to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which meant that any one senator could object and scuttle the effort.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) objected, saying the legislation is an overreach full of “poison pills” that would go far beyond ensuring access to IVF.
“It would legalize human cloning. It would legalize commercial surrogacy, including for young girls without parental involvement. It would legalize gene edited designer babies and lift the federal ban on the creation of three parent embryos,” she said.
Duckworth said Hyde-Smith was misinterpreting the bill.
...US lawmakers have not yet passed funding packages agreed in 2023 with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), in a move some argue is opening the door to China to build its influence in the Pacific region.
The support is part of the Compacts of Free Association (Cofa) agreements which the US has in place with the three nations in the north Pacific. Under Cofa, Washington provides visa-free residential and employment rights, economic assistance and other support to the nations, in return for exclusive military access to large and strategic areas of the Pacific.
Asked about the impact of the Cofa funding delay, Heine said: “At the moment [the US-Marshall Islands relationship] is gradually being destroyed by party politics in the US Congress.”
...Cofa is seen by some in the Pacific as a test of Washington’s commitment to the region. In the Marshall Islands, the delay has affected funding for health, education and other services, while also inflaming concerns that the US doesn’t support it – something Pacific politicians are sensitive to.
...It’s clear that Trump is looking for an RNC leader who won’t hesitate to disenfranchise voters, rig elections or dismantle our democracy. And Whatley certainly fits that bill. As chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, he has helped lead efforts to defy the will of the people and infringe on North Carolinians’ rights. I would know because I’m the 26-year-old chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and I’ve seen the dangers of Whatley’s version of leadership up close.
...For years, the Republican-led Legislature and Supreme Court have focused their agenda on taking away North Carolinians’ rights and hurting our economy. To protect their power, Republicans in North Carolina have worked repeatedly to take away the right to vote, and schemed to create rigged maps so that elected officials pick their voters — not the other way around. And when they’ve faced opposition, including from our twice-elected Gov. Roy Cooper, they’ve taken outrageous steps to expand their power.
...The silver lining for Trump’s foes is that, amid Whatley’s efforts to undermine democracy, he’s done a very bad job of running a state party. After North Carolina Democrats elected me chair, we’ve outraised him and outnumbered him in candidate recruitment this cycle. In this latest round of fundraising, we easily outraised the North Carolina GOP, and Whatley’s operation spent $500,000 more than it took in. As Democrats build momentum in the Tar Heel State, voters just aren’t buying what the Whatley-led NCGOP are selling.
As Ronna McDaniel prepares to leave her post as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) next week, Republicans are left with a big problem that may end up costing them the 2024 election. Even if the GOP wanted to fix it, it may be too late. The best part: they have only Donald Trump to blame.
...Republican operatives, who had mastered large scale mail-in voter drives initially saw an opportunity. That is, until Trump — seemingly out of nowhere — started attacking mail-in voting at every turn in the lead up to the 2020 election.
The result was a divide over mail-in voting in 2020 that continues to grow. While 43% of Americans cast their ballot by mail in 2020, women were more likely to do so than men. Hispanic and Asian Americans were more likely than white voters. College educated voters utilized vote by mail in higher proportions than those who did not complete college. By the 2022 midterms, only 38% of voters over the age of 65 were taking advantage of a system largely designed to cater to their needs.
...Republicans in New York spent months suing in vain to block no-excuse absentee voting for the congressional special election to fill George Santos’ seat. When a snowstorm hit the district on Election Day, the Democrat cruised to an easy victory. While Democrats had “banked” their mail-in votes, Republicans were left scrambling to rent snow plows on the morning of Election Day.
In the Department of WTF HOW DO YOU JUSTIFY THAT HEADLINE? (Emphasis added by moi):
Tesla has been slashing prices. Ford just cut the price of its Mustang Mach-E, too, plus it cut back production of its electric pickup. And General Motors is thinking about bringing back plug-in hybrids, possibly taking a step back from GM’s earlier commitment to shifting straight to pure EVs.
...To be clear: The American market for EVs is not collapsing. In the last quarter of 2023, EV sales were up 40% from the same quarter a year before, according to Cox Automotive. In fact, EV sales in the United States hit a record last year, topping 1 million for the first time.
But the EV market has nevertheless become a major disappointment. There is a troubling gap between expectations and reality.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, for instance, had projected sales of 1.7 million plug-in vehicles in 2023, but only 1.46 million ultimately sold. (BNEF’s figures include plug-in hybrids, but the large majority are fully electric vehicles.) The trend line isn’t slanting upward as sharply as many had predicted so the industry is lowering future estimates.
Industry experts cite a number of reasons for this, including vehicle price, lack of charging capacity and confusing tax credit rules.
Meanwhile, back in reality:
Three things must happen for the EV revolution to be complete — cheaper batteries, faster charging batteries, and more EV chargers that actually work. CATL and BYD are both on a path to decrease battery prices this year by as much as 50%, meaning battery packs at the end of 2024 could cost half what they did at the end of 2023.
...There has been much consternation and handwringing lately about the state of the transition to electric cars. The US and the EU have both backed off on their next round of exhaust emissions standards in the face of pressure from automakers and fossil fuel industry groups. GM and Ford are pushing back the timeline for introducing new battery-electric vehicles, particularly pickup trucks.
...Lately, there have been scary headlines about the cheap Chinese electric cars built in Mexico which the Association of American Manufacturers calls an existential threat to American car companies and all the workers who support the auto industry. Capitalists always favor capitalism as long as they are protected from competition. Yeah, that’s illogical, but there you go. Ideology always yields to self interest.
Meanwhile, RFK Junior goes further and further off the deep end…
RFK Jr. has filled a top campaign position with an anti-vaccine activist named Del Bigtree who has called global warming “an enslavement system.”
...Here’s what we know about [RFK Jr’s] chief communicator. Del Bigtree is an LA-based producer of conspiracy theory content. He leads the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a well-funded advocacy group that spreads vaccine misinformation, including baseless claims that childhood vaccines cause autism. He hosts the group’s podcast, “the Highwire,” and he produced the 2016 pseudo-documentary “Vaxxed.”
He’s dabbled in election denial. He told the crowd at the “MAGA Freedom Rally D.C.” near the Capitol on Jan. 6, “we’re being led off of a cliff.” “I wish I could tell you that [Anthony] Fauci cares about your safety…” he said. “I wish I could believe that voting machines worked… but none of this is happening.”
These election fraud and anti-vaccine conspiracies converge with some far-out ideas about climate science.
...He goes on to say, “global warming is a control—an enslavement system.” Here, as well as in other episodes (like one called “COVID Today, Climate Change Tomorrow,”) Bigtree argues that climate advocates are seeking a “climate change lockdown.”
Respect for science matters and this staffing choice shows definitively which side RFK Jr. is on when it comes to the war on scientists….
Taylor Swift was not the only high profile Kansas City chiefs fan to enjoy incredible access to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas earlier this month. Like the pop megastar, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) watched the game from a luxury suite and celebrated on the field. However, unlike Swift, who is dating one of the team’s star players and broke all kinds of records with her ongoing multibillion dollar tour, it’s not quite clear how (or if) Sanders and her family paid for tickets to the most expensive football game of all time.
...There are several glaringly obvious reasons why Sanders’ expenses as a public official matter. First, if her bill for the game was footed by someone else, it would be a major gift that could put the giver in a position to influence the governor or curry favor with her. For this reason, Sanders and other public officials in her state are subject to rules laid out by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that prohibit them from receiving gifts in excess of $100. Anything above this amount would need to be reimbursed — that includes the tickets for other members of Sanders’ immediate family.
With Sanders seemingly having passes that were only available for the Chiefs or via brokers, she either got them at a steep markup or via an insider. Even if the tickets came from someone who got them for free rather than paying a broker’s premium, they still count as an extremely expensive gift for regulatory purposes.
The Arkansas ethics rules specifically include children and spouses and they note “tickets to sporting events and shows” are considered gifts that “are valued at their face price.”...
Meanwhile, Vice Media folds, following in the digital footsteps of The Messenger
...The absolute best that can be said of any of Vice's grotesquely enriched stewards over the years is that some of them believed in the value of the work; unfortunately that belief too often took the form of cocaine fantasies of conquering all of media, and inspired its leaders to recklessly burn through actual billions of dollars of investment capital. This was no less destabilizing for Vice's workers, who might otherwise have been able to guide their excellent publications through the industry's tumults if they hadn't been subject to the whims of captains who make Ahab look like Andy Griffith. Meanwhile, the solutions for sustainable digital media are out there, even amid all the carnage and panic of the collapse of the advertising economy. 404 Media, the excellent worker-owned tech publication birthed from the ashes of Motherboard, once a jewel in Vice Media's portfolio, needed less than a year of operation to achieve profitability, and thus stability*. It is entirely possible for journalists to earn enough from the sale of their work to make a living and to continue in their vocation; it just may no longer be possible for the sale of that work to also fund the extravagant ambitions of swirly-eyed, would-be moguls and grifting MBA-havers and entire constellations of make-work consultants. But those are the people in charge, and they are simply never going to fire themselves.
Admirers of Vice's journalism—Vice News and Motherboard, both of which were largely kerploded during Vice's bankruptcy, had made themselves essential with years of excellent reporting—have long daydreamed about a future where its owners and executives stopped trying to turn it into a leprechaun's pot of gold and just allowed it to be a good website. The Vice Media story is almost the opposite of the story of The Messenger, that other recently shuttered digital publication that wasted the work of hundreds of talented journalists. Where Jimmy Finkelstein was a dopey old washed-up idiot whose visions of scale and dizzyingly obsolete concept of digital publishing effectively ruled out any possibility of The Messenger ever becoming a good publication, the various creeps atop Vice over the past decade already had a good product. Instead of protecting it as responsible stewards, they treated it more or less the way Paul Cicero treated the Bamboo Lounge in Goodfellas, fattening themselves at its expense until there was nothing left to rob, and then burning it to the ground.
A journalism professor blames Wall Street for the newspaper industry’s collapse.
Newspaper executives pressured by private equity investors chose mergers and acquisitions as the strategy to face the digital future. It stacked debt as advertising losses also mounted. But before and after the recession, investment firms and the private equity divisions of Wall Street banks created conditions that left newspaper chains hamstrung and in debt for billions of dollars after a wave of acquisitions and consolidations. Different private firms then profited off newspaper bankruptcies or debt financing.
What encouraged the private equity firms to acquire distressed newspaper chains? Why didn’t the equity crowd buy and strip newspapers before the mid-2000s financial crisis?
In the 1990s, newspaper stocks were the golden goose of any portfolio. Newspapers were steadily profitable earning margins of up to 30 percent. Why fix what isn’t broken? But that also hurt innovation, as those who could read the tea leaves wanted investment but were thwarted by those who wanted to stay sailing those calm seas. A former editor from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch told me that in 2003, he went to editors at a time they were earning 25 percent profit margins and said they would need to cut into that profit to dedicate a team to the digital transition. They refused.
This period is what UMass scholar Gerald Epstein calls “financialization,” alongside the rise of the hedge fund and private equity class. Consider between 2006 and 2016, investment in the hedge fund industry globally skyrocketed from $1 trillion to $5 trillion.
What’s blooming in your neighborhood? Are you in the part of the country being buried in snow, or the part of the country suffering through a crazy Leap Year heat wave? Tell us all about it in the comments!
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, 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