Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, June 25.
*Here’s How The Supreme Court Could Rule Today On Same-Sex Marriage
*Conservative decisions on Obamacare subsidies and gay marriage would cleave the nation in two.
*Ayatollah Khamenei’s Fateful Choice (And here’s “Plan B” if Khamenei makes the wrong choice.)
*A Dutch Court Just Did The Unthinkable On Carbon Emissions (“Environmental advocates lauded the decision, saying that more rulings could be expected in other countries.”)
*How America can free itself from guns (“What’s needed is a long-term national effort to change popular attitudes toward handgun ownership. And we need to insist on protecting the rights of Americans who do not want to be anywhere near guns.”)
*Obama burnishes his legacy with a major trade win (“The foreign policy victory represents a hard-won payoff for a president who bucked his party to land the legislation, which grants the executive branch additional powers for six years.”)
*Taking down the Confederate flag musn’t obscure the South’s vile history (“…once the flag is taken down, it will still be easy to avert our eyes, and moral sensibilities, from the grotesque reality that was the antebellum South and the Confederacy’s fight to preserve it.”)
*Bobby Jindal hits Jeb Bush, hard, as he announces White House run (“Jindal warned that Bush is putting the whole Republican Party in danger by appeasing the left and masking conservative views.” Weird — Bush still seems super conservative to progressives like me.)
*Legislation Introduced to Restore Voting Rights Act Protections (That should be passed immediately!)
*Tearing Down the Confederate Flag Is Just a Start (“So, sure, good riddance to Confederate flags across the country! And then let’s swivel to address the larger national disgrace: In 2015, so many children still don’t have an equal shot at life because of the color of their skin.”)
*The Righteous Logic of the Neo-Confederate Watershed (“…the ghost of the Confederacy and the almost countless public honors inscribed on the land are close to inoperable. They run so deep. They are so numerous and pervasive. Do we follow the righteous logic of recent days to its logical conclusion?”)
*Dem presidential hopeful Jim Webb hammered for defending Confederate flag in bizarre Facebook post
*Former senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) appears to defend Confederate flag
*Editorial: Confederate symbols sow division
*Opinion: Redistricting reform needed in Virginia to ensure a healthier democracy (Big time.)
*GOP wants to take 3rd District case back to SCOTUS (Instead, why not just allow fair, non-partisan districts in Virginia? Gee, I can’t imagine why the Republicans would oppose that – heh.)
*McAuliffe: Four months and Confederate plates will be gone (Good riddance.)
*McAuliffe creates commission to study bringing parole back to Virginia (“It was abolished two decades ago by former governor George Allen.” Huge mistake by Allen; glad to see McAuliffe looking to correct it!)
*More steps toward online school
*Arlington’s choices akin to post-9/11, board chair says (Bizarre. Also, regarding the streetcar’s cancellation, a huge amount of blame certainly falls on the folks who launched a campaign of demagoguery and lies, but County Board supporters failed on multiple levels as well.)
*Virginia Zoo may get rid of its two elephants, replace them with white rhinos
*Virginia wins College World Series
*D.C. area forecast: Mugginess muscles back in today, with late day storm threat
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