Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Not sure how this is going to go this week...but...here it goes…
Chicago Tribune: Illinois, a blue island in a red sea: Data analysis by Kyle Bentle, Jonathon Berlin and Ryan Marx
On all borders, blue Illinois is surrounded by red — all five adjacent states were carried by Donald Trump, not an insignificant trend given how the presidential race unfolded on election night.
According to the latest results, the percentage of voters who selected Trump was nearly 10 points lower in Illinois than other in Midwestern states. Lining up the Land of Lincoln with its neighbors shows Illinois is more diverse, more urban and more educated than most of them. Economically, the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the Midwest and is in the bottom half in terms of families living below the poverty line.
Chicago Sun-Times: Vrdolyak indicted on income tax evasion, impeding IRS by Jon Seidel
The feds aren’t finished with “Fast Eddie.”
Five years after onetime powerhouse Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak walked out of prison, federal authorities have quietly unsealed a new indictment outlining Vrdolyak’s role in a scheme to pocket millions from Illinois’ nearly two-decade-old settlement with tobacco companies.
The fact that the former 10th Ward alderman received money from the settlement isn’t news — it was revealed during his original sentencing hearing in 2009. But the new 19-page indictment alleges Vrdolyak was promised $65 million from the settlement even though he “did no work on the Tobacco Lawsuit.”
The federal grand jury ultimately charged Vrodlyak, 78, with one count of impeding the IRS and one count of income tax evasion. He faces a maximum prison sentence of eight years for allegedly trying to help his co-defendant, attorney Daniel Soso of Alsip, dodge federal income taxes in connection with the tobacco settlement.
Soso was first indicted in May 2015 for allegedly evading nearly $800,000 in income taxes. He now faces the same counts as Vrodlyak, as well as three counts of willfully failing to file tax returns. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a maximum of 23 years in prison.
So much in the news has been grim the past week but the Vrdolyak news did put a smile on my face, to be honest.
Tablet: Trump’s Appointment of Stephen Bannon is a Call to Arms for American Jews and Muslims by Haroon Moghul
Last Sunday, President Obama warned us that Donald Trump couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. A week later, not only do we know that Trump will get those codes, but he’s shown us who he’d like to guide him in crises that might require their use. Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, has been tapped as the new president’s Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor.
Who is Stephen Bannon? He is the man who boasted about turning Breitbart into “the platform for the alt-right.” Now, “alt-right” is one of those words Westerners make up to pretend that they don’t suffer from the same flaws and faults as other, less civilized peoples. Were this a New York Times article about a faraway continent, for example, we’d be blunter. “Alt-right” is just another term for racist. White supremacist. Anti-Semitic. Hateful.
And now powerful.
This alarms me not just because I’m a Muslim contemplating the rise of an Islamophobe, which is terrifying enough, but because Bannon has also happily fomented hatred against Jews on his site. Indeed, Bannon’s appointment was predictably celebrated by David Duke and the leader of the American Nazi party. Let me explain what so bothers me about this, beyond the obvious.
Reuters: U.S. manufacturing groups urge Trump to think hard about trade threats by David Lawder
America's manufacturers are urging President-elect Donald Trump to back off from his most threatening trade rhetoric and pursue a more nuanced approach to trade with China and Mexico, avoiding unilateral tariff actions and focusing on negotiations.
Corporate lobbying groups, some chief executives and pro-trade lawmakers also say they eventually even hope to persuade Trump that free-trade agreements can help grow the U.S. economy and create jobs.
For now, these groups are bracing for higher trade tensions with China and potential changes to the 22-year-old North American Free Trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
Trump has said he would quit NAFTA unless it is renegotiated to his satisfaction and that he would declare China a currency manipulator to force negotiations for better trade terms. His suggestions that his administration could impose 45 percent across-the-board tariffs on goods from China have drawn threats of retaliation by Chinese state media against U.S. soybeans and companies such as Boeing Co (BA.N) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O).
"I think it's easy to paint this is a trade war versus nothing," said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group representing steel and other basic industries that has argued in favor of tougher trade remedies to combat Chinese imports.
"I'm of the belief that there is a lot of space between our current policy and an all-out trade war," Paul said, adding that he would like to see Trump be more proactive on enforcing existing trade rules.
Even linking to the above story makes me feel as if I am normalizing here.
Mic.com: What a Trump presidency means for LGBTQ rights — and why many activists are alarmed by Anna Swartz
The election of former reality television star Donald Trump to the highest office in the land has many Americans concerned, and for lots of different reasons. Trump campaigned on a platform of deportation, anti-Muslim bigotry and an economic plan that hundreds of economists agreed could be "dangerous" and "destructive." But what about LGBTQ rights?
Trump's supporters and far right media outlets have claimed that he supports, even champions, rights for LGBTQ communities — but his Cabinet picks and choice of vice president tell a much different story.
Our new vice president-elect has a troubling history of attacks on LGBTQ rights in his home state of Indiana, where he served as Governor. In 2015, Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law in the state, paving the way for discrimination against LGBTQ people by permitting business owners to refuse service to anyone on the basis of religious belief.
While he later signed a revision that, according to the Huffington Post,"explicitly barred a business from denying services to someone on the basis of categories that include sexual orientation and gender identity," recent history has proven that so-called religious freedom laws are simply opportunities to legalize discrimination rather than "protect" religious freedoms that weren't even under threat to begin with.
This pretty much matches my personal read on the president-elect; I don’t think he gives a shit one way or the other about LGBT rights but his advisers and followers sure do. And not in a good way for people like me.
Mother Jones: Army Halts Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline—for Now by Wes Enzinna
On Monday, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not allow completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) until there has been additional research into its possible environmental risks. This marks a temporary victory for the activists who have been encamped near the site of pipeline construction next to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.
Of particular concern is the pipeline's proposed crossing under the Missouri River, which activists fear will threaten Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux's drinking water supply. In a statement, Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy said that "in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation's dispossessions of lands [and] the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe," the Standing Rock Sioux tribe will be consulted to help develop a timetable for future construction plans.
Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, denounced the Corps' decision "as unjust and a reinforcement of the [Obama] Administration's lack of interest in enforcing and abiding by the law."
AFP: New Zealand quake relief hits full steam as navy arrives
Rescue efforts after a devastating earthquake in New Zealand intensified on Wednesday as a fleet of international warships began arriving in the disaster zone.
New Zealand's HMNZS Canterbury was the first to anchor at the South Island seaside town of Kaikoura to evacuate tourists trapped by the powerful 7.8 tremor.
Vessels from the United States, Canada and Australia were also steaming toward the town, which bore the brunt of the seismic jolt that hit just after midnight on Monday.
The ships were due in Auckland this week for celebrations marking the New Zealand navy's 75th anniversary but instead diverted to the disaster zone.
Rescue efforts after a devastating earthquake in New Zealand intensified on Wednesday as a fleet of international warships began arriving in the disaster zone.
New Zealand's HMNZS Canterbury was the first to anchor at the South Island seaside town of Kaikoura to evacuate tourists trapped by the powerful 7.8 tremor.
Vessels from the United States, Canada and Australia were also steaming toward the town, which bore the brunt of the seismic jolt that hit just after midnight on Monday.
The ships were due in Auckland this week for celebrations marking the New Zealand navy's 75th anniversary but instead diverted to the disaster zone.
AlJazeera: Anarchists clash with Athens police over Obama visit by John Psaropoulous
Athens, Greece - Police battled with anarchists late into the night following two marches protesting against US President Barack Obama's visit.
Greek police estimated as many as 150 anarchists were involved in the clashes. They responded to rocks and Molotov cocktails with tear gas and stun grenades.
"A march by PAME [the communist party labour union] ended peacefully. A second march pushed up against a police cordon and protesters threw two Molotov cocktails," an Athens police spokesman told Al Jazeera. "That's when the clashes began."
By late at night, police had confined the violence to the area of the Athens Polytechnic - a campus anarchists have used in the past as a safe haven from police, who aren't allowed onto university grounds without a request from the chancellor.
Police said there were no injuries or damage to private property.
Some 8,000 protesters walked through central avenues chanting slogans against the European Union, NATO, and the International Monetary Fund, a staple of left-wing marches.
Leftists normally hold an annual protest march outside the US embassy on November 17 to commemorate the crushing of a student uprising by a military dictatorship in 1973.
But Obama's arrival two days before kicked off demonstrations early this year.
BBC: Children see 'worrying' amount of hate speech online by Leo Kelion
One in three internet users between the ages of 12 and 15 say they saw "hate speech" online in the past year, according to Ofcom's latest survey of children's media habits.
It is the first time the UK regulator has posed a question about the topic in its annual study.
The NSPCC charity said the finding was "very worrying", adding such posts should not be tolerated.
The report also indicates children are spending more hours a week on the net.
And it suggests that many of the children are too trusting in Google.
More than a quarter of eight-to-15s who used a search engine said that if the US firm listed a link then they believed its contents could be relied on.
Ofcom said most of these children had mistakenly assumed that the results were chosen by some kind of authoritative figure who had hand selected accurate pages.
Deutsche Welle: German development minister apologizes for comments about African men
Germany's Development Minister Gerd Müller apologized on Tuesday for making offensive comments about African men. Speaking from a UN climate change conference in Morocco, Müller said "I'm sorry, my statement was not very nuanced."
In a speech to conservative politicians, which was picked up by Germany's satirical news program the "Heute Show," the minister accused African men of being lazy drug addicts.
"When an African woman earns 100 dollars…she brings 90 dollars home. When an African man earns 100 dollars…what does he bring home? 30 dollars. You can be sure of what he uses the rest for: alcohol, boozing, drugs, women of course," said the member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
Müller was excoriated on social media, not only for his racist statements, which he claimed were meant to empower women, but for the perceived absurdity of a development minister conflating all African countries with a single unit.
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Related: China umimpressed with German politician Oettinger's racial slur
Guardian: Aleppo airstrikes restart as Russia announces major Syria offensive by Emma Graham-Harrison
Pro-Assad forces have intensified attacks on Syrian rebels, launching a fierce aerial bombardment of besieged eastern Aleppo and missile strikes from a Russian aircraft carrier stationed off the coast, the day after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone.
The US president-elect and Russian president discussed “regulating the conflict in Syria” and the need to combat “international terrorism and extremism”, Putin’s office said in a statement.
The attacks on rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo came after weeks of relative calm in the city, with bombing raids instead focused on the surrounding rural areas. The raids killed at least three people within a few hours, rights groups said.
“Regime aircraft launched strikes and dropped barrel bombs on a number of neighbourhoods in the east of Aleppo for the first time since 18 October,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Residents of besieged neighbourhoods shared videos of bombs falling on the city. Three hospitals in the Aleppo countryside were targeted on Monday and attacks on surrounding areas began before jets and helicopters hit the city, they said.
Bana Alabed, seven, whose mother tweets daily updates of life in Aleppo, said she had counted at least 20 bombs landing on the city a couple of hours into the attack.
If you can make a donation to The Guardian, please do right here. I know that some have criticized The Guardian’s coverage of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn but...I trust their coverage of most other stories.
ESPN: College Football Playoff Rankings
1) Alabama
2) Ohio State
3) Michigan
4) Clemson
5) Louisville
6) Washington
7) Wisconsin
8) Penn State
9) Oklahoma
10) Colorado
Lots of upsets last week, so many that things didn’t change as much as you’d think.
Mr. Meteor Blades open thread for night owls is here.
Good night everyone!