Monday News: “Trump Jr. Met Russian for Dirt on Clinton”; “Putin Meets His Progeny”; “The Uninhabitable Earth”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, July 10.

• Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer who promised ‘helpful’ intel for campaign (These people all need to be in jail.)
• Trump Jr. Met Russian for Dirt on Clinton (“The meeting was also attended by President Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.” Just imagine how Republicans would be reacting if Hillary Clinton had done this…)
• Blow: Putin Meets His Progeny (“Our ‘president’ is a pathological liar. He lies about everything, all the time. Lying is his resting condition. Therefore, absolutely nothing he or his team says is to be believed, ever…America is under sustained, possibly even accelerated, attack by a foreign power, the same one that attacked our election, and Trump not only wavers on the source of the attack, but also refuses to condemn the culprit and in fact has a penchant for praising him. This whole thing stinks to high heaven, and we must press on until we uncover the source of the rot.”)
• Republicans Take a Hatchet to Health Care
• Trump’s behavior is the biggest threat to U.S. national security (“A corporate CEO who acted this way would already have been replaced.”)
• Trump hails G-20 ‘success.’ Others see political chaos and American decline. (As usual, Trump is wrong and the others are correct.)
• Trump has done a big favor for small-d democrats left and right (“He has reminded us of the shared commitment to norms and pluralism.”)
• Hobby Lobby emboldens a black market that robs countries of their heritage — and lets the violent profit (These people are horrible.)
• Americans Don’t Want Senate’s Health Care Plan, But It’s Unclear What They Do Want
• President Trump’s enemies list (“The president remembers every political slight — and the politicians who abandoned him during the ‘Access Hollywood’ scandal.”)
• Senate GOP returns from break no closer to Obamacare deal (“McConnell faces the Republican Party’s toughest legislative task since taking the Senate majority in 2014.”)
• Ex-Bush ethics lawyer on Trump Jr: ‘This borders on treason’
• It’s About the Suburbs, Stupid (“Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello on how his party ignores voters who harbor the most economic and racial resentment.”)
• Conservatives claim to love “freedom” — but the historical record, and the evidence, suggest otherwise
• Sen. Lindsey Graham: Trump is empowering Putin (“He is literally the only person I know of that has any doubt about whether Russia attacked our election system in 2016.”)
• Three Legs Good, No Legs Bad (“…this seems like a good moment to review why Republicans can’t come up with a non-disastrous alternative to Obamacare. It’s not because they’re stupid (although they have become stunningly anti-intellectual). It’s because you can’t change any major element of the Affordable Care Act without destroying the whole thing…After all these years of denouncing Obamacare, then, Republicans have no idea how to do better. Or, actually, they have no ideas at all.”)
• Will Congress Hold Russia Accountable for the Behavior Trump Excuses? (“With the president letting Putin off the hook for meddling in elections, it’s up to the congressional GOP to defend the integrity of American democracy.” In other words, we’re screwed.)
• If There Was No Collusion, It Wasn’t for Lack of Trying (“Donald Trump Jr. made clear he was willing to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian in a June 2016 meeting.”)
• Donald Trump’s ‘Impenetrable Cybersecurity’ Is Pure Fantasy (As usual, Trump is laughable.)
• The Uninhabitable Earth (“Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.” Yep, humans are f’ing up the planet big time. Great job, humans.)
• Pence Drains Swamp by Inviting Donors to Vice-President’s Residence
• Attack, Attack, Attack (“Why does Trump double-down every time it seems like he should retreat? Because Steve Bannon is back in his boss’s good graces.”)
• Obama returns to political fray for a Democratic Party cause
• After Trump, groups helping Dems in Virginia House contests (“Shashikant Gupta, a technology executive who helped start Win Virginia, said Trump’s election made big Democratic givers rethink their approach to political spending. He said donors want to try to build a long-lasting Democratic majority, rather than just cut checks for candidates every election cycle.”)
• KKK rally over Confederate statue stirs deep-rooted tensions in Charlottesville (“As the liberal Virginia city attempts to ‘tell the truth about race in our history’, the Ku Klux Klan, counter-protesters and Confederate loyalists clash over what that means to them”)
• Editorial: Speak out against offshore drilling
• Activists: Charlottesville police’s use of tear gas was excessive after KKK rally
• Biking advocates worry I-66 expansion puts a bike trail too close to traffic (Putting a bike trail right next to car exhaust, etc. is stupid.)
• Metro faces internal probe over response to harassment allegations against top MetroAccess official
• Editorial: It’s time to change Virginia’s racist place-names
• It’ll become hot and more humid today, and sweltering by midweek