Friday News: “Wrath of the Conned;” GOP Loses Millennials; Boehner Confirms Everything We Thought About GOP

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, April 29. Also check out audio of John Boehner talking about Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Fun times.

• Krugman: Wrath of the Conned (“Maybe we need a new cliché: It ain’t over until Carly Fiorina sings. Anyway, it really is over — definitively on the Democratic side, with high probability on the Republican side. And the results couldn’t be more different.”)
• David Frum: How to Save the Republican Party (“Resistance now means something more—and more dangerous—than tapping out #NeverTrump on Twitter. It means working to defeat Trump even knowing that the almost certain beneficiary will be Hillary Clinton.”)
• GOP elites are now resigned to Trump as their nominee (That’s crazy; they should be planning a third party at this point.)
• The case for a Clinton-Warren ticket (“Warren could bolster Clinton’s progressive bona fides and draw Sanders supporters to her.”)
• The GOP’s lost generation of millennial voters (“Millennials are increasingly averse to Republican ideas.”)
• Working-Class Fraud (“Trump’s solution to the woes of working families is to slap a 45 percent tariff on goods coming from China. The Chinese would retaliate, of course, meaning American companies that sell aircraft, medical equipment and vehicles to China — part of the $116 billion in exports there last year — would have to cut jobs to make up for losses.”)
• Trump’s head-spinning and secret plans for foreign policy (“His Jacksonian rhetoric shows a lack of willingness to cooperate or compromise.”)
• Dear Congress: Burning wood is not the future of energy (Nope, utterly assinine.)
• Trump’s incoherent, inconsistent, incomprehensible foreign policy (“The Republican’s careless positions would put the world in great peril.” Just as his careless positions would put everything at home in great peril.)
• Former Speaker Boehner calls Cruz ‘Lucifer in the flesh’
• Ted Cruz’s Delegate Counter Cuccinelli Says They’re ‘Cleaning’ Trump’s ‘Clock’ (Uh, alrighty.)
• Paul Ryan’s health care fraud: The speaker previews the GOP’s lousy Obamacare replacement (“Paul Ryan wants to eliminate a popular Obamacare provision and replace it with an expensive, useless pipe dream”)
• John Boehner just confirmed everything liberals suspected about the Republican Party (“John Boehner was the Speaker of the House as recently as a single year ago. He is, himself, a conservative Republican. And he is saying, flatly, that the Republican Party has been captured by morons, goofballs, and ‘Lucifer.’ He is saying that the party has moved so far to the right that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t recognize it.” And – never thought I’d say this! – Boehner is 100% correct.)
• Climate Change Is Strangling Our Oceans
• Cruz to trounce Trump in Virginia delegate election
• Two Pipeline Expansion Projects in Appalachia Indicate a Rush Toward Overbuilding (“Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines Pose Risk to Ratepayers, Communities, and Investors”)
• McAuliffe gets poor marks from environmental coalition
• McAuliffe Close To ‘Flunking Out’ On Environmental Issues, Groups Say
• Trump, Cruz forces competing for Virginia delegates should GOP convention have no clear nominee
• Editorial: Will the Supreme Court save Bob McDonell? (“The history books will remember McDonnell for his scandal, not his accomplishments, even if his conviction ultimately is vacated.”)
• Kerry Dougherty: State senator should stick to Virginia policy, not foreign policy (Actually, Dick Black is a disaster and embarrassment on Virginia policy as well.)
• The Supreme Court may clear McDonnell. But Virginians won’t forget his sleaze.
• Virginia elections board adopts new voter registration form on party-line vote (“This year’s impending presidential election loomed large in a party-line vote by the State Board of Elections on Thursday to overhaul Virginia’s voter registration form to make it easier for Virginians to vote.”)
• I was sued because I don’t want military-grade weapons in my town (“In most states, a blatantly abusive lawsuit would be illegal. The irony is not lost that I can be sued for exercising my First Amendment rights while the owner of a gun store cannot be sued for negligence even if he knowingly sells a weapon to a mentally unstable customer who will later use it to murder innocents.”)
• Foxx, saying ‘no more excuses’ for Metro, replaces 3 board members
• What’s in a Name Change? Politics, Some at George Mason University Fear
• Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim endorses Kenny Alexander to replace him
• Portsmouth has been shredding public records without following state law
• Showers may dampen this morning; Weekend features more clouds and rain chances