Thursday News: Trump Appealing to “Voters’ Primal Fears”; MSNBC Disgraces Itself; 2016 Campaigns Set to Rev Up in Virginia

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, February 18. Also check out the spot-on political cartoon by the always-superb Tom Toles.

• Donald Trump and the conservative psyche: What Republican operatives don’t understand about the Donald’s transcendent appeal (“Trump’s disjointed views and lack of substance are irrelevant; he’s winning by exploiting voters’ primal fears” Ugly, ugly, ugly.)
• Republicans’ Supreme Court contortions (“GOP determination to keep Antonin Scalia’s seat empty for now requires both logical leaps and political risk.”)
• The Potential for the Most Liberal Supreme Court in Decades
• Senate Republicans divided on how to battle court nominee
• Pope Francis urges governments to ‘open hearts’ to migrants
• Donald Trump Falls Behind Ted Cruz in National NBC/WSJ Poll (Probably an outlier, but we’ll see…)
• Graham: GOP will get ‘slaughtered’ if Trump nominee
• GOP Abortion Investigation May Endanger Researchers, Democrats Warn (“And women’s health providers as well.”)
• Start waving goodbye to Jeb: Whatever glimmer of hope Bush had post-New Hampshire seems gone (Yeah, he seems to be toast.)
• MSNBC’s Town Hall With Donald Trump Was Disgraceful (“The media’s coverage of Trump has been soft, insufficient, and without substance.” The media continues to be pathetic.)
• Apple vs. the FBI (“The company is taking an unlikely stand for consumers’ right to privacy. It may also be helping itself. “)
• Poll Fails To Support McConnell’s Motivations For Blocking Supreme Court Nominees
• Campaign ’16; Candidates set days to stump in Virginia
• Virginians donated $7.2 million to presidential campaigns in 2015 (“led by Democrat Hillary Clinton at nearly $2.9 million and Jeb Bush at nearly $1.3 million”)
• Faith leaders still pursuing Medicaid expansion
• Norment corrects $400,000 oversight (“… understating his stockholdings by at least $400,000, including more than $50,000 worth of stock in Dominion Resources Inc.”)
• Which bills passed and failed in the first half of the General Assembly session (Shorter version: pretty much, anything even mildly progressive or pro-environment failed; a lot of bad stuff passed.)
• Virginia is supposed to be Clinton country, but don’t tell that to Sanders
• $250K for McAuliffe’s party, despite gripe about meddling New Yorkers (“McAuliffe’s out-of-towner spin against Bloomberg group does not stem huge donations from another New Yorker.”)
• Virginia taxpayers pick up $2,435 food and beer bill for mystery guests in Redskins suite (Utterly unacceptable.)
• Va. House vote hints at a generational divide on gay rights (“Polls show the Republican Party line is out of step with public opinion on the issue.” And on many other issues, from guns to climate/clean energy.)
• D.C., Maryland and Virginia officials are headed to Cuba — together
• Central Virginia Groups Rally Against New Atlantic Coast Pipeline Route
• Bill on Virginia high school graduation requirements moves out of House committee
• Unnamed (for some strange reason) Virginian-Pilot Editorial (“The simple truth is this: The old way of doing things — the so-called ‘Virginia Way’ — is no longer sufficient and the commonwealth must change, now, to preserve the public trust.”)
• Virginia Beach has until April 30 to commit to light rail, Transportation Board says
• Virginia Beach woman to be tried for taking chained dog from home (Seriously?!?)
• Chilly sunshine today gives way to a springlike weekend