🌞 Driving Fish – January 12 2022

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00 am ET. 

• Markets: European stocks ticked higher this morning and Treasury yields steadied after Jerome Powell's Senate testimony. Bitcoin traded above $42,500 after its roughest start to a year on record. 

The Global Risk Report

credit: nasa

Each year’s Global Risks Report is typically released before the gathering of world leaders and CEOs in Davos, Switzerland, but the meetup got Covid-canceled for the second year in a row. The report (and the risks) did not get canceled.

In case you didn’t already know, according to the report, the pandemic has created huge risks, hammering the economy, heightening tensions, and changing lives forever. Not only that, but the pandemic forced us to dive even deeper into digital technology, increasing the threat of malware, ransomware, and messages from a long-lost Grandma who needs your social security number to play the lotto.

Another risk on the list is–you guessed it–the climate crisis. Experts and leaders who participated in the survey pointed to extreme weather, failure to act, and loss of biodiversity as their top three worries in this area.

Biden's Voting Rights Battle

credit: ap

President Biden visited Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday to speak about voting rights, but voting rights groups wanted him to stay home. He didn’t, so they did.

Boycott

Black Voters Matter, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, GALEO Impact Fund, and New Georgia Project Action Fund were among the groups that boycotted the speech, arguing that Biden should stay in Washington, D.C., and get the job done.

"We don't need even more photo ops. We need action, and that action is in the form of the John Lewis Voting Rights (Advancement) Act as well as the Freedom to Vote Act, and we need that immediately," said Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

The Bills

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act aims to stop states from playing with voting laws willy-nilly, which has led to discriminatory voting procedures (voter ID laws, convenient redistricting) since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. 

The Freedom to Vote Act is focused on the electoral process, with provisions including streamlined (automatic!) voter registration, required early and mail-in voting, and an official Election Day holiday.

Barriers

The two bills are currently stalled because they don’t have the 60 votes they need to move forward. Why? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says citizens don’t need the attorney general “ruling over their states’ and their counties’ elections any more than they need congressional Democrats doing it themselves.”

So it would take some rule changes to get these bills moving. Specifically, an easing of the filibuster rule, which Biden pushed pretty hard in his speech Tuesday. 

Today, when a piece of legislation doesn’t have 60 votes in the Senate, that’s pretty much enough to filibuster (block) a bill. A lot of people want to change the rule so that only a simple majority is required to pass each bill. But others have suggested going back to the OG filibuster where Senators are required to hold the floor ala Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has set a deadline of January 17, Martin Luther King Day, to pass the legislation or flip off the filibuster, but Republicans are fighting back.

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This is No Djok

credit: bbc

Australia doesn’t want Novak Djokovic, but tennis sure does.

The facts:

• Australia requires all visitors to be vaccinated
• Unvaccinated Serbian tennis player Djokovic is #1 in the world
• The Australian Open is a tennis tournament that takes place in… well, you know

This has been a bit of a roller coaster. First, (unvaccinated) Djokovic made it to Australia on a medical exemption, and tennis fans everywhere were relieved. 

Not so fast! Australia revoked Djokovic’s Visa. 

Not so fast YOU! A judge overturned that and broke him out of detention. 

Now we wait for Australia’s Immigration Minister to boot Djokovic or not.

Will the tennis star make it to next week? Will he play? Will he spread Covid everywhere? Is tennis really that important? 

This one is a Covidified nail-biter.

Mother Nature Always Wins

lake powell credit: npr

Maybe the climate crisis isn’t all downside.

The Western U.S. has had a two-decade case of dry mouth–one of the driest in a thousand years–due in part to the climate crisis. Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, is showing that thirst, with water levels at record lows.

Creating Lake Powell

Powell is not just a reservoir, it’s an artificial reservoir, created by humans to supply water to the West. The lake did that for a while, trapping enough water to fill Kentucky with a foot of water across the state, but it also drowned the national park-like beauty of Glen Canyon.

Un-creating Lake Powell

Humans made the reservoir, and now they’re taking it away, creating climate conditions that suck the place dry. But that means the cliffs and grottoes of the canyon are back. And there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage.

Canyon advocates are pushing policymakers to fill Lake Mead first, a nearby lake that is also used to supply water, before (never) drowning the canyon again. Of course, Lake Powell is a very popular tourist destination, so we’ll see if money wins out. 

News By The Numbers

1 million x ???. That is the unknown number of tax refunds that could be delayed this year in the U.S. Blame Covid, but also budget cuts that led the IRS to decrease staff by 25%.

$308 million. That is the amount of fresh humanitarian aid the U.S. is sending to Afghanistan.

2. That is the number of patients’ livers a British surgeon tattooed with his initials. He is now suspended.

20 million. That is how many people in China are under lockdown due to Covid scares. 

What's Trending?

credit: wapost

Rand Paul and Fauci are trending because U.S. Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci blamed Senator Rand Paul for kindling “the crazies” to threaten Fauci and his family.

Pig heart transplants is trending because a pig heart was transplanted into a dying man and he is doing well three days later.

“Grocery stores empty shelves” is trending because customers are finding empty shelves in grocery stores. OMICRON!!!

Brooklyn Tech is trending because hundreds of students walked out of the largest high school in the U.S. Tuesday to protest in-person schooling during omicron.

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