Lava flows on Mount Etna, ski championships in Italy, scenes from the Australian Open, ice skating in the Netherlands, an image from New York Fashion Week, freezing conditions in Texas, a monument to cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, snowy scenes in Greece, and much more.
Decades of inaction by corrupt politicians, groveling at the oily feet of the fossil fuel industry led to a natural disaster-turned epic disaster in Texas. A winter storm took advantage of an archaic fossil fuel-soaked energy grid. Then conservative officials, their party, and their media propaganda machines attempted to place blame for this failure on renewable energy—which makes up less than 20 percent of the grid.
Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.
Philip Eil at the Columbia Journalism Review writes—What the Trump administration meant for freedom of information requests:
THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP PROMISED AN EPIC TEST for the Freedom of Information Act. On one side, the powerful, yet deeply flawed, transparency law that turned 50 years old a few months before Trump’s 2016 election.
Student debt has become an extremely profitable industry over the past quarter century. It’s also devastated a generation-and-a-half due to predatory terms and practices that the government has created, allowed to persist, and failed to address. Republicans have successfully framed the crisis as one of lazy freeloaders—those who hold the nation’s $1.
I don’t know if this is just a quirk peculiar to me or what, but when the weather’s cold and sucky, I find myself taking a little extra time with my breakfast.
Whether it’s oatmeal or yogurt fancied up with fruit and granola or just plain cereal, winter weather somehow makes me want to actually sit down and enjoy breakfast with my coffee (as opposed to slurping it down hurriedly while I peruse morning headlines).
Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis continues his inability to properly address the COVID-19 pandemic with his unveiling of a “pop-up” vaccine clinic. Since the start of the pandemic, DeSantis has followed Donald Trump’s actions in downplaying the virus and its severity. He refused to not only issue a statewide mask mandate but to close beaches and businesses despite a rise in cases.
The “View” co-host also warned that heads would roll for the mess in Texas.
After leaving in disgrace following his impeachment for inciting a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, the former president wants to consolidate his hold on the GOP.
Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. All major indicators of COVID-19 transmission in the United States continue to fall rapidly. Weekly new cases have fallen from 1.7 million at the national peak in early January to fewer than 600,000 this week, and cases have declined in every state.
Poor countries and global health advocates have been pushing wealthy nations to share some of their supply, warning that the inequitable vaccine rollout could leave them playing catch-up for years.
First they hid behind obscure interpretations of the Constitution and false claims of voter fraud. Then, even after a violent mob came for them, they chose a pathological liar and would-be authoritarian over the rule of law.Now that Donald Trump’s second impeachment has ended in acquittal, we can look to the objections lodged by 147 Republicans against certifying the presidential-election results on January 6 as an omen.
Suzanne Kaye filmed herself drinking cinnamon Jack Daniels and citing her “Second Amendment right to shoot your f**king ass.
Conservatives are twisting themselves in knots trying to justify the Texas senator’s flight to Mexico as his constituents suffer amid a deadly cold snap.
Long, late hours in Boston with the rent past due.
Pete Hegseth called the article “sick” and Fox Nation’s Lara Logan said she was “a better person than that.
The state of Texas was hit hard, as was much of the central United States, when frigid Arctic air pushed southward and a winter storm blew through. Millions of Texas residents have been without electricity for days amid record-setting cold temperatures and widespread blackouts. The power situation is improving now, but officials warn there may be further rotating power outages as systems come back online.
Burnt buildings were still smoldering when Bill Clinton toured South Central Los Angeles, the historic center of the city’s Black community, in early May 1992. The presidential candidate had flown cross-country from the East Coast as the city was being consumed by waves of unrest following the acquittal of four police officers who had savagely beat Rodney King the year before.
As Democracy Now! prepares to mark 25 years on air, we celebrate Nermeen Shaikh’s 10th anniversary as a Democracy Now! co-host and feature a report she filed from protests at New York’s JFK Airport against the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, one of the many highlights from her time on the program.
Students, campaigners and top Democrats have been pushing President Joe Biden to use executive authority to cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt per person. Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at $1.7 trillion, with some 45 million people owing money. Filmmaker and organizer Astra Taylor, an author, documentary director and organizer with the Debt Collective, says Biden has clear legal authority to cancel student debt. “Not doing this is a choice,” she says.
While COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations appear to be waning, the United States has a long way to go before people can safely return to everyday life without masks. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, says it’s vital to stay vigilant even as vaccinations ramp up. “If we can get our transmission down as low as possible, that is actually going to make the vaccines more effective.
Millions of people in Texas were plunged into freezing cold and darkness as a major winter storm overwhelmed the state’s power grid. More than 12 million Texans face water disruptions and have been ordered to boil tap water for safe consumption, and some parts of the state have no running water at all. The state is also running out of food as the storms disrupt key supply chains.
“This is a huge decline,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC. “You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this.
I want to be supportive, but I’m hurt that he didn’t tell me sooner.
My daughter’s teacher already gave her a stern talking-to.
A once-in-a-century pandemic provides a once-in-a-lifetime chance to improve public health.
A new series from POLITICO and The Fifty surfacing the best ideas from around the country for speeding recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Which states are doing the best job of limiting Covid deaths and vaccinating their residents? A snapshot in two charts.
It turns out the pandemic may not have been the budget wrecker everyone feared.
Downtowns won’t recover from the pandemic anytime soon. Public transportation must look elsewhere.
Allies laud Brian Deese’s leadership on the stimulus negotiations, but he’s rubbed some the wrong way.