Wednesday News: Should Dems Be Demoralized? Energized? Other?; “On Trump, the media’s malpractice continues”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, June 21.

• Thoughts on the Disappointing Result Out of Georgia 6. (“First, there’s no question and there should be no denying that this is a very disappointing loss. It is a very Republican district…All this being said, this is a heavily Republican district and Republicans just barely held on to the seat. Yes, Democrats gave it everything they had, with small donors from around the country pouring money into the race. But Republican SuperPacs poured millions into the race too…If you take the average Democratic over-performance in these districts and apply it to the entire House, Democrats are quite likely to take the House next year. What I take from this is that Republicans are struggling under Trump and Democrats are energized. But Democrats need to keep refining both their message and improving their electoral infrastructure.”)
• Saudi King Ousts Crown Prince in Favor of His Son (“The removal of the crown prince is a stark upheaval in the leadership of the wealthy kingdom, a key ally of the United States and the Arab world’s largest economy.”)
• Needed: Senators With a Conscience (“Mitch McConnell is trying to keep the public in the dark about his plan to undo Obamacare.”)
• Video of Police Killing of Philando Castile Is Publicly Released (Why is this officer not in jail?)
• On Trump, the media’s malpractice continues (“The president and the GOP are advancing harmful, hugely unpopular policies without needed scrutiny.”)
• Jon Ossoff’s Georgia special election loss shows Democrats could use a substantive agenda (“To gain a majority, Democrats need to find a way to win races in districts like this one — traditional Republican bastions endangered by Donald Trump’s weakness with college graduates — but they don’t need to sweep them all by any means. Ossoff was the best recruit Democrats had available in the district, but a guy with no elective experience whose house lies just outside the district boundaries is hardly an ideal candidate.”)
• Uber C.E.O. Resigns After Shareholders Stage a Revolt (“Jon Ossoff’s defeat in Georgia will test the party’s spirit and its strategy.”)
• Democrats Demoralized
• Ossoff chose civility and it didn’t work. How do Democrats beat Trump?
• Trump’s silent surge in the Middle East — and the slippery slope to war
• John Kasich and John Hickenlooper: Another one-party health-care plan will be doomed to failure
• Have The Feds Really Flipped Michael Flynn?
• Policy? What Policy? (“Republican senators know when they’ll vote on their health care bill. They just don’t know what’s in it.”)
• Why Obama Voters Defected (“New findings explain how Trump won them over—and why he probably wouldn’t next time…This is a portrait of the most common Obama-to-Trump voter: a white American who wants government intervention in the economy but holds negative, even prejudiced, views toward racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.”)
• Karen Handel beats Jon Ossoff in Georgia: A major setback for Democrats? (“Despite huge influx of money and massive media attention, Jon Ossoff falls short in Georgia special election”)
• Trump spikes the ball after Georgia election win (“The GOP breathes a collective sigh of relief.”)
• How McConnell gets to 50 votes to repeal Obamacare
• McCain: No American has seen healthcare bill, but I’m sure Russia has
• “Devastating”, “Catastrophe”, and “Jon Ossoff VICTORY” and the impact of campaign emails on turnout (I’ve been saying this forever:
  “The goal of a campaign email ultimately should be to help the campaign win the election. If you raise a record amount of money, but still lose because your emails have negatively affected turnout, then your email program wasn’t successful.”
• Trumpcare Might Pass, But the Conservative Health-Care Agenda Is Dead (“Rather than design a health-care bill that pursued conservative priorities, they have kept the structure of Obamacare and simply drained its resources in order to finance a large, regressive tax cut. It turns out you can work pretty quickly if you don’t care about substance. Whether or not they dismantle Obamacare, the Republicans have already given the conservative health-care agenda a permanent burial.”)
• Republicans Win Georgia’s Special Election, Democrats Search for a Moral Victory
• Republicans Will Continue to Stick With Secrecy as Long as It Works (“The White House and the Republican leadership in Congress are doing their best to block disclosures—and it seems to be helping them enact their agenda.”)
• It’s Trump’s Party Now (“The Republican triumph in an affluent, educated Georgia congressional district showed GOP voters standing by their president.”)
• Newspapers buried reports on health care, while TV news missed the Senate’s back room dealmaking
• What Went Down In The Georgia And South Carolina Special Elections
• 3 ways Senate Republicans can pass Obamacare repeal (“And four ways they could fail”)
• Senator Mark Warner Asks DHS For More Info On Russia Hacking
• Kaine, others push for war debate, vote in Congress
• For Sen. Mark Warner, the Russia probe is all-consuming
• Editorial: Virginia Democrats express a unity Republicans lack
• Schapiro: Northam and the vision thing (“The Northam narrative has yet to fully emerge. His focus apparently will be on the economy, concentrating on regions overlooked or left behind as joblessness — measured statewide — which has steadily fallen over McAuliffe’s term. It is holding at 3.8 percent.”)
• ‘A very confused, inaccurate picture is being spread’: Why did Virginia DEQ wait seven weeks to correct inaccurate pipeline statement? (Incompetent and/or corrupt.)
• Muslims say N.Va. teen’s killing looks all too much like hate crime
• Editorial: Why does Trump hate Appalachia?
• Rep. Tom Garrett calls for North Korea to be relisted as sponsor of terrorism
• At U.Va. vigil, girlfriend and classmates remember Warmbier: ‘He always wanted to see others fly’
• Ex-convict sues state, Virginia Beach sheriff for keeping him jailed months longer than his sentence
• Charlottesville plans alternate events, urges residents to ignore Klan rally
• Summer starts seasonably warm; watching possible weekend influence from Tropical Storm Cindy