Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, December 31. Happy New Year! Also, gotta love President Obama hitting his highest approval ratings in a long time, just as we head into 2015.
*Pope Francis splits with GOP (“Pope Francis is increasingly driving a wedge between conservatives and the Catholic Church.
” LOL)
*House Republicans move to contain fallout from Scalise, Grimm controversies (Yeah, if you define “contain fallout” as “backing someone who spoke to white supremacists!”)
*Grim AirAsia search for bodies hampered by storms
*At least 7.1M signed up for 2015 Obamacare plans so far (So much for Obamacare failing, dragging down the economy, or anything else Republicans predicted. Wrong as usual!)
*Republicans Try to Fix Damage Scalise’s 2002 Speech Could Do in 2016 (“The controversy erupted as Republicans were making a renewed effort to reach out to black voters. It threatened to cloud their agenda after capturing control of the Senate and adding to their House majority in last month’s election”)
*When New York City Police Walk Off the Job (“Data published by The New York Post suggest that police officers are taking their bitterness toward Mayor Bill de Blasio to a new level.”)
*Public hearings set on McAuliffe’s Va. budget proposals
*Jim Webb digging a deeper hole with defense of PAC spending (“What we’re being told here is that websites that cost $13,500 to build also somehow cost $90,000+ to manage. Taking a look at the sites, and their limited content, that’s a stretch”)
*The good, bad and ugly of 2014 (“From Bob McDonnell’s downfall to Pharrell Williams’ success, Virginia certainly saw highs and lows in 2014.”)
*Webb faces scrutiny over PAC payments to family membe
*Schapiro: All the McDonnells were in on the feed (“One of the more dramatic moments of the Bob and Maureen McDonnell corruption trial was the testimony of an FBI agent who was asked by a prosecutor to identify item-by-item the Rolex wristwatch, golf equipment, designer clothes, shoes and handbags that Jonnie Williams Sr. showered on the former first family.”)
*Brat appointed to House Budget Committee (“The only economist in Congress, Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, has been appointed to the U.S. House Budget Committee.” Not good.)
*Democrat Murphy leads fundraising in Va. delegate race (We’ll see if money makes the difference in this one.)
*2014 deadliest in years for Virginia’s unregulated day cares (Wait, don’t Republicans always tell us that regulation is bad and deregulation is good? Hmmm.)
*Virginia insurance enrollment nears 165,000
*Gov. McAuliffe expected to deliver ‘good news’ at Canon facility in Newport News
*Joe Morrissey starts campaign on stronger footing than opponents
*34th District candidates share their histories, policy positions (Parisot apparently has no policy positions which deviate from his party’s standard line. A cookie-cutter right winger, it would appear.)
*Cathcart: Free market will doom natural gas
*Bright, breezy and chilly to close out 2014 and ring in the New Year
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