by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, July 31.
- North Korea is working on new missiles, U.S. spy agencies say
- Zimbabwe’s president, opponent both confident of win after close vote
- Administration Mulls Unilateral Tax Cut for the Wealthy (“The move would face a near-certain court challenge and could reinforce a liberal critique of Republican tax policy.” Just what rich people need, ANOTHER tax cut. Also, this seems wildly unconstitutional to me.)
- Donald Trump Willing to Meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ‘Anytime They Want’ (That would go about as well as Trump’s disastrous meetings with our allies, with Putin, with Kim Jong-un, etc.)
- Rudy Giuliani on His Odd Cable News Blitz: I Was Trying to Kill a New York Times Story (“Come Again?”)
- Rudy Giuliani’s rambling new statements on Michael Cohen and the Trump Tower meeting, decoded (Giuliani appears to have completely lost his mind.)
- The Memo: Trump is a risk to GOP in midterms
- Trump’s Supreme Betrayal (“Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.”)
- Trump Is Putting Indelible Conservative Stamp on Judiciary (Liberals really don’t get the importance of the courts. It’s maddening.)
- Cohen may have the smoking gun (“Republicans are really starting to go off the deep end.”)
- MSNBC legal expert: Cohen flipping puts Trump ‘one witness away’ from catastrophe
- Trump smokescreen fogs up what is fact or fiction (It’s known as gaslighting.)
- Sinclair stations have now aired four “must-run” segments pushing for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation (Do not watch WJLA-TV7/Sinclair “news”)
- Watch Shepard Smith take down Rudy Giuliani’s “straw man argument” that collusion isn’t a crime(“While the U.S. criminal code does not criminalize collusion, per se, it is a crime to conspire with a foreign adversary to influence or undermine our election”)
- Koch-backed study finds ‘Medicare for All’ would save U.S. trillions (“An estimated cost of $32.6 trillion over 10 years is less than the US would spend over the next 10 years under the current system.”)
- Trump Loyalist Gets Surprise Fight From Democrat in Senate Race (“Democratic former governor runs as pragmatist in Tennessee. Republican Marsha Blackburn vows to be unwavering Trump ally”)
- The 2020 Dem Class Is Already Frantically Making Moves Behind the Scenes
- Trump Attacks ‘Globalist’ Koch Brothers, Saying He Doesn’t Need Their ‘Money Or Bad Ideas’ (“The GOP megadonors have started distancing themselves from Trump.”)
- In a new book, Bob Woodward plans to reveal the ‘harrowing life’ inside Donald Trump’s White House
- 10 states sue Trump administration to block 3D-printed guns (Surprised Virginia isn’t a part of this.)
- Worker wages remain stagnant as wealthy executives are rolling in cash (Wait, you mean a tax cut for rich people and big corporations isn’t “trickling down?” But Trump and other Republicans like Corey Stewart PROMISED it would! LOL)
- ‘It’s a significant shift in our thinking’: Business takes fresh look at Democrats (“If businesses shift significant support away from Republicans, it could deal a blow to GOP fundraising. But some Democrats are skeptical that the talk will translate into cash for their campaigns.”)
- Paul Manafort’s Trial: Everything You Need to Know (“Tuesday the first trial stemming from that investigation will kick off in Virginia. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is facing 18 charges of bank and tax fraud, mostly related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine prior to joining the campaign. The most explosive charges – money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent – will be addressed in a second trial set to start in September in Washington, D.C.”)
- Tom Steyer’s $110 million plan to redefine the Democrats (“Steyer is building out an operation that’s bigger than anyone other than the Koch Brothers — and the billionaire and his aides believe the reservoir of non-traditional voters he’s already activated could become the overriding factor in House and other races across the country…Between the two organizations, he’ll have close to 1,000 people on staff, in addition to over 2,000 volunteers. The Need to Impeach email list alone has already topped 5.5 million…’Our list is bigger than the NRA’s — and we’re going to make sure that it votes that way in 2018′”)
- FEMA’s top HR official allegedly hired women as sexual partners for male employees (“Corey Coleman is also accused of having sexual relations with female employees, allegations that date to 2015.” My god…)
- Trump is mad being president ‘isn’t as fun as it should be’ — and it’s why he’s ‘going bananas’ online
- What, Exactly, Makes This a ‘Fringe’ Position? (“False equivalence strikes again in the pages of The New York Times.” In no way/shape/form is Stacey Abrams “fringe”; the fact that the NY Times would equate her with extremist loon Brian Kemp is yet ANOTHER example of how the NY Times has lost its way.)
- Sen. Mark Warner proposes 20-point plan for cracking down on Big Tech (“But breaking companies like Facebook up isn’t one of them.”)
- Sen. Mark Warner floats major tech company regulations that don’t include breakups (I dunno, seems to me like Facebook in particular is inherently, deeply flawed.)
- Can Sexy Bigfoot Be Found in Virginia?
- Corey Stewart, Watergate and a stretch that strains credulity (“Poor Corey Stewart. The Republican U.S. Senate nominee, who promised a brutal, vicious, ruthless, and cutthroat campaign, says he’s being picked on by the media.” Corey is utterly pathetic.)
- Social media posts by consultant to Senate candidate Corey Stewart ridicule NAACP, black neighborhoods
- Adviser to GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart used expletive to describe majority-black cities
- Trump intervenes in FBI headquarters project
- Virginia requires campaign finance reform (“Some of the commonwealth’s largest industrial leaders — Altria, Dominion Energy, Virginia Bankers Association to name a few — donate tens of thousands of dollars each year to General Assembly members in a system that leaves itself open to the peddling influence for deep-pocketed donors who make sure their candidates of choice are elected.”)
- Leading scholars quit U-Va. center over hiring of former Trump official (“Leffler and Hitchcock wrote in their resignation letter that they would welcome Short to speak at the center. But granting him a senior fellowship position — one they learned of through a press release — runs ‘counter to the Center’s fundamental values of nonpartisanship, transparency, openness, a passion for truth and objectivity, and civility.'” UVA has disgraced itself by doing this.)
- L.F. Payne and Frank Atkinson column: UVa’s appointment of ex-Trump aide advances academic integrity (Uhhhhh…no.)
- Two Historians Resigned Over the Appointment of a Trump Flunky at UVA. They Were Right to Do So.
- Hampton candidate, mayor take stand in federal trial
- Northam picks longtime state employee to head HR agency
- No prison for grandson of ex-Virginia governor in rape case (How many types of privilege are involved here?)
- Hawley and Whyte column: State must take responsibility for problems related to gambling
- Horse racing group asks Virginia regulators to loosen proposed rules on new gambling machines
- Charlottesville teacher who took more than 100 ‘upskirt’ photos of his students and produced child porn gets 23 years
- Our cloudy, muggy, showery, stormy story continues
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