New Year’s Day 2017 News: “New Year’s wishes for Virginia politicos”; Levar Stoney Sworn in as Mayor of Richmond

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for January 1, 2017. Happy Resist Trump and Fight For Democracy in the New Year everyone! 🙂 Also, congratulations and good luck to new Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.

• Turkish authorities hunt for suspect in attack that killed 39
• Speaking truth to our ally Israel (“A dual state along 1967 borders would be good for Israel, Palestine and the United States.”)
• Democracy takes work, and that’s on all of us in this perilous new year (“Americans should remember their common humanity as we strive to preserve the Founding Fathers’ vision of democracy.”)
• Four Cabinet spots still open in the Trump administration
• Is a Trump-Putin Pact on the horizon? (“Will the Trump-Putin bromance, the mutual desire of both men for power, spheres of influence, and a grand presence on the world stage, take us where we shouldn’t go?”)
• Trump tweets Happy New Year to his ‘many enemies’ who ‘lost so badly’ (Trump is wayyy beyond pathetic.)
• Here Are The Most Racially Bigoted Right-Wing Media Segments Of 2016
• Federal Judge Halts Obamacare Transgender, Abortion-Related Protections Nationwide (Yep, appointed by Dubya.)
• Lessons From the Media’s Failures in Its Year With Trump (“‘Journalists were confronted with the spectacle of an issues-free campaign,” Tyndall told me. “They had to decide how to react: with complicity, since such tactics were easy to shoehorn into the ratings-pleasing entertainment structure of a reality TV show, or with defiance, by delving into what was at stake.’ They chose the former, he says, and ‘treated their viewers not as citizens, but as so many pairs of eyeballs.'”)
• Is Donald Trump the Friend Israel Needs? (“Mr. Trump has heated up the Jewish culture wars and, inadvertently or otherwise, advanced fanaticism. His incoming national security team is made up of people who purport to be realists, so here are the facts: Safeguard American interests and, as a byproduct, you strengthen Israeli democracy; Israeli advocates of Greater Israel, and their American allies, subvert both.”)
• Schapiro: New Year’s wishes for Virginia politicos (“McGuireWoods, legal and lobbying powerhouse: That government of the people and for the people, buys the people…Dominion Virginia Power: Nothing clarifies a complicated issue for legislators like a campaign check with lots of zeroes.”)
• Editorial: 17 questions for 2017
• The GOP race for lieutenant governor is getting ugly in Virginia (“Two state senators spar over an email alleging — with zero evidence — an adulterous affair” For anyone who thinks Democratic primaries are sooo horrible, I present Republican primaries!)
• Virginia policy would give parents a say in school literature (“The proposal to notify parents of ‘sexually explicit’ works worries some educators and free-speech advocates.”)
• Homicides remain steady in the Washington region
• Virginia prisons in solitary confinement reduction effort
• Levar Stoney, Richmond’s youngest elected mayor, takes oath of office: Here’s how he got there
• Levar Stoney column: New year, new mayor, fresh new vision
• Tennessee cougar sightings pose questions for Virginia
• Hampton Roads residents talk hopes, challenges for 2017 (Good stuff, would also like to see making Richmond a green city high on this list.)
• What you should do if you run across American black bears in the Great Dismal Swamp
• 2017 starts on a bright note, before turning damp tomorrow and colder late week