Eclipse Time: Let's Blot Out the Sun - The Monday AM Quickie 4/8/24
I'm writing a new book! -Jacob
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THE BIG NEWS
Total Solar Eclipse Captives Nation – And This Newsletter
The world is still full of horrors – read below to find out! – but today features a wonderful cosmic event that could, for a few minutes, offer a sense of awe and collective experience for a beleaguered public. A total solar eclipse, in which the moon blocks the sun and casts the earth in darkness, will be visible (so to speak) in cities like Dallas, Buffalo, and Cleveland. States outside the direct path will see a partial eclipse. For those in or near the path – like New York City – expect two to three hours of spooky vibes.
Schoolchildren across the country will use special glasses and little cardboard viewing boxes as they learn about this astral phenomena, which hasn't been experienced in the US since 2017. Office workers will slip out to viewing parties and picnics in public parks and hilltops. Maybe Donald Trump will stare at the sun again. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders already declared a state of emergency; so did parts of Canada, Ohio, and New York.
Cities across the direct path are reporting full hotel bookings. New York has a multi-agency eclipse task force headed by an unofficial "eclipse czar," whose job is mitigate the chaos of having so many people show up in rust belt towns to howl at the moon. The 2017 eclipse featured some lengthy traffic jams, and cities along the eclipse path are working to maximize tourism revenue while minimizing stress on their infrastructure.
So go out there, wear some glasses, have a beverage, mind the weather, and commune with the great lunar umbra (that's a shadow). You may not have another chance until 2079.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Congressional Leaders Unveil Data Privacy Bill
A bipartisan group of officials from both houses of Congress announced a a deal over a proposed data privacy bill. The legislation is supposed to give consumers the ability to opt out of online advertising, to limit tech company data collection, and to make personal consumer data both more portable and more easily deleted. It also shuffles around some regulatory responsibilities between different agencies, pre-empts state privacy laws, and gives consumers some rights to sue big tech companies.
It's not the first consumer privacy bill to wend its way through Congress, but it has the support of top members of both parties. The bill follows a number of other recent initiatives over data and consumer privacy, including the will-they-or-won't-they TikTok ban. It's possible that this new data privacy bill will be bundled with some related legislation, but given that there's a presidential election in November and this is the do-nothing US Congress, this may be as far as this notable effort to actually help consumers gets.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Trump Media Loses Money, But Insiders Make Millions Former President Donald Trump's media company lost about $58 million last year, but Trump-connected consultants, executives, and board members made millions. Some of them also received ample stock awards for the newly public company. via WaPo.
- Trump Has His Own Protest Voters To Worry About While not organized like the nascent "Uncommitted" movement, some Republican primary voters are still casting votes for someone other than Donald Trump. It's Trump's party now, but the disillusionment among party veterans may show up at the ballot box. via Axios.
- Big Tech Companies Have Too Much Money Five of the biggest publicly traded tech companies have a combined $570 billion in cash on hand, and they've struggled to figure out how to spend it, especially as antitrust regulators zero in. Here's a fix: tax it and spend it on the common good. via WSJ.
- House Intel Chair Says Colleagues Parrot Russian Propaganda On Sunday, Rep. Michael R. Turner said that some of his fellow Republicans in Congress are repeating Russian talking points "on the House floor." Turner, who supports more military aid for Ukraine, was echoing comments made recently by House Foreign Affairs chair Michael McCaul. via WaPo, Puck, and CNN.
21
That's how many Republicans have announced that they're retiring from the House of Representatives. Some will serve out their terms until next January; others have already moved toward the exit. Many have cited a fractious relationship between right-wing MAGA hardliners and the only slightly less insane mainstream wing of the party. Strange how that happens. With its slimmest House majority in decades, it's been difficult for the Republican Party to govern – not that they're typically interested in such formalities.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
4/8: Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with David Masciotra, author, lecturer and journalist based in Indiana, to discuss his recent book Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Maron and Seder Roast Air America – And Each Other
It's the 20th anniversary of the Majority Report, so Marc Maron and Sam Seder take a look back at the disastrous, occasionally hilarious run of the company where it all started: Air America.
Taking the Wrong Lessons From Iraq, Featuring a Blogging Legend
You may know him as Atrios, Eschaton blog, or Duncan Black. He's still one of the sharpest critics of Bush-era insanity and how it influences today's politics.
PARTING WORDS
"This new @WorldBank-#UN report shows that the estimates of the Gaza destruction used in my "Anatomy of a genocide" report were conservative. The report exposes a level of erasure of a society that is unprecedented in our time."
-- Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, writing about a new joint World Bank/UN report. "The cost of damage to critical infrastructure in Gaza is estimated at around $18.5 billion," says the report – almost equivalent to the Palestinian territories' annual pre-war GDP. The report offers other grim numbers about the damage inflicted by Israel's military campaign: Seventy-five percent of Gazans are displaced; all children are out of school; 92 percent of roads are destroyed. It could take years to clear all the debris.
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