Monday News: “Like, Really Smart”; Bannon Grovels; Oprah for President?; Is Northam Now Against ACP?

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, January 8.

• Blow: ‘Like, Really Smart’ (“This is the problem we face: We have a person occupying the presidency who is impetuous, fragile, hostile, irrational, intentionally uninformed, information-averse and semiliterate.”)
• World Sees Disorder in Trump’s Foreign Policy Tweets
• Exclusive: Bannon apologizes
• Why Would the President of the United States, Like, Tweet This Way?
• Donald Trump Goes Full Fredo (“But unlike the Godfather character, the president of the United States is backed by powerful people enabling him.”)
• Trump Gets Lots of “Executive Time” in the Mornings: First Meeting Is Usually at 11 a.m.
• Dem hopefuls flock to Iowa
• Is Trump Stuck With an Iran Deal He Loathes? (And he “loathes” it why exactly? Simply because it’s something Barack Obama did? Trump is a racist and a narcissistic maniac, as Gov.-elect Northam correctly called him over and over again in 2017.)
• Bannon finds his regrets aren’t good enough for Trump (“Bannon supporters wonder whether his populist wing of the Republican Party has already run out of time to maintain influence in this year’s midterm elections.”)
• Trump goes after another democratic norm (“The president threatens to undermine the integrity of the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys.”)
• The dam of denial has broken (“Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’ has paradoxical effects.”)
• I was on Trump’s voter fraud commission. Its demise was inevitable. (“The commission itself was fraudulent.” The entire concept that there’s some sort of wide spread, or even common, “voter fraud” in America is itself utterly fraudulent.)
• Why won’t Trump hold more news conferences? (“He knows he can reach a huge audience with his tweets. Why bother standing before reporters to face hard questioning?”)
• Fate of ‘dreamers’ set to dominate next round of budget talks
• Bannon tries to soften his scathing comments, but Trump’s fury persists
• ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘Three Billboards’ win big, but Oprah steals the show (“Carefully mixing humor and seriousness, the Golden Globes became a rally for equality.”)
• Oprah at the Golden Globes: Is she running for president? She should!
• The Highs and Lows of the 2018 Golden Globe Awards
• 2018 Golden Globes: 6 winners and 5 losers from the 75th annual awards (“Winners: Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri and Oprah. Losers: The Post and E!”)
• Watch Trump adviser Stephen Miller get thrown off the air after a disastrous interview (“Maybe this guy doesn’t belong on TV?” Or in the White House.)
• GOP leaders happily stand by Trump as he becomes increasingly unhinged (The GOP is terminally ill.)
• Bannon Tries To Make Nice With Don Jr.: Actually, I Was Criticizing Manafort!
• Oprah Winfrey takes on sexual predators in Golden Globes speech: ‘Their time is up’ (“As she accepted the Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award, Oprah gave a powerful speech about sexual harassment, racial injustice and press freedom”)
• Kaine discusses pipeline, Trump before packed room in Staunton (“The overflow crowd spilled out into hallways. Sunday’s visit to Staunton capped a three-day kickoff to the senator’s 2018 re-election campaign, and included visits to Southside and Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.” Wow, impressive!)
• More than 350 pack conference room for Tim Kaine visit (Nice – go Tim Kaine!)
• Virginia high court to weigh legality of displaying a noose
• Historic rescue for Metro? Both Virginia and Maryland legislatures will study funding bills. (Just do it already!)
• Virginia voters file appeal to block Republican from taking office in House race tainted by ballot mix-up
• With a closer divide in both chambers, General Assembly moves into action
• Editorial: Why can’t the General Assembly move around the state?
• Northam speaks of post-rally unity at W. Main church (“Gov.-elect Ralph Northam visited First Baptist Church on Charlottesville’s West Main Street on Sunday to deliver a message of unity to the congregation just days before his inauguration.”)
• Governor-elect Ralph Northam Attends Sunday Service in Charlottesville (“Northam says he supports a proposal from Senator Tim Kaine for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider its vote on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” Really? Is that true? Any video of this? Can Ralph Northam confirm – or deny – that this is now his stance on the ACP?)
• As this Va. town grew, so did tensions between newcomers and longtimers. Then came the political scandals. (“The wave of development that transformed Loudoun County exploded in Purcellville, Va. The growing pains eventually led to conflicts that would end careers and spur investigations. ‘What the heck is going on here?’ asked one former mayor.”)
• What a tie really means (“Del. Yancey now must represent a district where there’s no obvious majority on such critical issues as using Affordable Care Act funds to expand Medicaid, or about guns, or about abortion…On Election Day, roughly half his constituents voted for his opponent and her strong stand for expansion to cover the hundreds of thousands of people who make too little to qualify for Obamacare subsidies and too much for Medicaid.”)
• 3 below zero: Sunday brought Richmond’s coldest temperature since 1985
• Freezing rain likely during afternoon-evening rush, may cause slick travel