Voters in Illinois head to the polls today to choose nominees for this November's general elections, and we have a number of competitive primaries on tap. At the top of the list are nasty fights on both sides for the state's gubernatorial race, as well as progressive businesswoman Marie Newman's challenge to Blue Dog Rep. Dan Lipinski in the 3rd Congressional District. You can find a complete rundown of all the top contests here. Daily Kos Elections will be live-blogging the results starting at 8 PM ET (7 PM local time), so join us for all the action! |
Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Assault on reason:
• Offshore Dutch wind farm will be first built without a public subsidy:
The Dutch Government has awarded Vattenfall in a tender to develop the twin Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farms. The two 350MW wind farms, to be built by 2022, will be the world’s first to be built without public subsidy. The are expected to produce renewable electricity for up to 1.5 million homes.
The costs of offshore wind in Europe have been falling dramatically in recent years as manufacturers bring ever larger turbines to the market. Going zero-subsidy means the wind farms will sell their electricity on the wholesale power market instead of relying on a revenue stabilization scheme (e.g. a Contract for Difference) that locks in a fixed revenue.
The news follows the zero-subsidy offshore wind tender in Germany last year that was a landmark for the industry. The German offshore tender was the first to attract zero subsidy winning bids. But the projects will only be built in 2024-25 - after Hollandse Kust Zuid is commissioned.
• Parkland shooter’s brother arrested for trespassing at high school where massacre occurred:
The younger brother of school gunman Nikolas Cruz was arrested Monday on a trespassing charge on the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, police said.
Zachary Cruz, 18, said he wanted to "reflect on the school shooting and soak it in," according to an arrest report. It said the teen had no ties to Broward County and that he "surpassed all locked doors and gates and proceeded to ride his skateboard through school grounds." [...]
The school intends to prosecute him, the arrest report said, adding that Zachary Cruz had received "prior warnings by school officials to refrain from entering the school campus." The report did not elaborate on the warnings.
• Driverless car fatality spurs regulators to ponder further testing.
• Sudan, the last of the male northern white rhinos dies:
At the advanced age of 45, Sudan was being treated for age-related health issues and for a series of infections and unfortunately lost the battle. Sudan was the last male northern white rhino on the planet. His death leaves just two females; his daughter Najin and her daughter Fatu, who remain at Ol Pejeta. This is a human failure of epic proportions; thanks to our greed and irresponsibility, a species is one significant step closer to extinction.
Northern white rhinos used to roam East and Central Africa in vast numbers, but conflict, poaching and habitat loss eliminated them. Ol Pejeta’s northern whites came in 2009 from Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, where all breeding attempts had been futile. It was hoped that a more natural environment would stimulate more successful results, but sadly nothing changed.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Tomasky: This is going to be worse than Watergate:
The firing of Andrew McCabe. The statement by Trump lawyer John Dowd to The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff that Robert Mueller should end his probe soon. Donald Trump’s tweetstorm just after that, his first tweets mentioning Mueller by name along with promises by aides that more attacks are on the way. The amped-up speculation that Trump will fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with someone who hasn’t recused himself so that someone can fire Mueller. [...]
The temperature’s rising. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reportsthat this president feels he really knows how to do this job now, and from here on in we’re going to see Trump unchained. So the Trump we’ve been seeing has been chained? God help us.
• How Burlington and San Francisco are shaping America’s low-carbon future.
• War in Yemen is heightening, not weakening terror threat.
• Late-night TV Jokes from first year of Iraq war don’t age well:
Fifteen years after late night hosts and writers blended topical jokes about figures like Paris Hilton with recaps of the latest grisly events in Iraq, their attempts at finding humor in the conflict have become an odd time capsule.
Using a database of late-night jokes originally created for an academic study, HuffPost has compiled a list of Iraq War jokes to show how late night TV reacted to the war’s biggest milestones by pushing a format created for digs at celebrities and gentle political comedy into darker territory.
The vast majority of these jokes, intended for immediate consumption in 2003, don’t hold up in 2018. Many of them would also likely elicit waves of criticism if delivered today — another sign of how long it’s been since the U.S. invaded Iraq.
• Andrew Bacevich has six questions about U.S. wars for The New York Times:
In recent years, comprehensive coverage of issues touching on diversity, sexuality, and the status of women has become a Times hallmark. When it comes to Donald Trump, “comprehensive” can’t do justice to the attention he receives. At the Times (and more than a few other media outlets), he has induced a form of mania, with his daily effusion of taunts, insults, preposterous assertions, bogus claims, and decisions made, then immediately renounced, all reported in masochistic detail. Throw in salacious revelations from Trump’s colorful past and leaks from the ongoing Mueller investigation of his campaign and our 45th president has become for the Times something akin to a Great White Whale, albeit with a comb-over and a preference for baggy suits.
In the meantime, other issues of equal or even greater importance — I would put climate change in this category — receive no more than sporadic or irregular coverage. And, of course, some topics simply don’t make the cut at all, like just about anything short of a school shooting that happens in that vast expanse west of the Hudson that Saul Steinberg years ago so memorably depicted for the New Yorker.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: More catching up to do on Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, and this time the action is across the pond. Complete with a Panama City-style “standoff!” So, how DID the UK become a Russian target in parallel with the US? The answer, as usual, is money.
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